04.10.2010
Archbishop speaks of the importance of law in the drafting of an Anglican Covenant
Archbishop speaks of the importance of law in the drafting of an Anglican Covenant while preaching at Opening of Michaelmas Law Term Service, St. Michan’s Church
Sermon by The Most Revd Dr John R W Neill:
“Love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return...be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” Luke 6:35-36
These words of Jesus may seem more appropriate for bankers than for lawyers – “lend, expecting nothing in return”, but yet they go deeper than that, as they provide a somewhat startling blueprint for an attitude of generosity and reconciliation that is required at the heart of a just society. There is something starkly radical and disturbing in the challenge of Jesus to the society of his day, which remains equally uncomfortable for any modern society.
Over the last year or two, I have spent some considerable time in the company of both civil and canon lawyers, participating in and latterly chairing an international group set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury to address the deep divisions that have emerged in the Anglican Communion over the acceptance or otherwise of same-sex relationships. We were tasked with drafting a document – an Anglican Covenant – an instrument to hold together those who were drifting apart. A real fault line had developed between the liberal Western world as represented by the church in the United States, and those in the Global South as represented among others by the churches in Uganda and Nigeria. In a startling manner, it emerged that there was perhaps a lack of a common vision of where we wanted to be – whether we wished to be a group of churches with one mind on the all the most contentious issues, or whether we wanted to be a group of churches holding together in spite of a wide range of opinions on some issues. Whether in the end we succeeded in any significant manner remains to be seen, but it is what clearly emerged about the role of law in our discussions that probably is most relevant to the whole of society.
On the one hand, we were challenged by some to produce a legal or canonical framework that would exclude and place sanctions on those who did not conform to a fairly rigid ethical framework, whilst on the other, we were being asked to produce a framework that would preserve relationships, give space for diversity and encourage dialogue, but within an orderly pattern. This latter hardly seems far from the challenges facing the European Union – or indeed any society – whether we live in a tightly controlled environment, or whether we allow room for rights and responsibilities to flourish.
This burden placed on lawmakers and legal practitioners, and those who are entrusted with the reform of legal structures so sharply realised in the recent task of which I have been speaking is surely one that most of you in this church this morning will have encountered. No framework or legal structure, call it what you wish, can possibly satisfy those who do not share a common vision.
Much of the Christian ethical framework underlies the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as promulgated by the United Nations in 1948. This has been built upon by various international conventions, including of course the European Convention on Human Rights and its protocols. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights provides a great deal of material for a common vision, and it is certainly one that needs every possible encouragement in those parts of the world where such rights are virtually non-existent. But there is more to a common vision if it is to be really challenging than articulating rights – it is closely connected to rights, but it is also a corrective to some aspects of the establishment of rights. What must be stressed alongside rights are responsibilities. Of course much legislation in every country, including Ireland, has to do with responsibilities – duties of care, proper provision for employees, health and safety legislation and so the list could go on. But somehow as modern societies, we have not always grasped this fact that rights by themselves are not a sufficient basis for a just society – what is required is a balancing of rights and responsibilities. This same issue was of course experienced in the working of the Anglican Communion to which I have already referred – the right of a church in the West to do what it wishes has to be tempered by its responsibility towards a church living in a totally different environment in the Global south.
There is of course the reality that change is slow in every institution – be that church or state – and the legal profession is not by definition an instrument of change, but yet it has often proved in significant ways to be precisely that. A legal system is surely there to reflect a society at its best and at its most ordered, and yet in doing so, it becomes creative of that very society.
However it would be a sad thing if any of us in positions of trust and responsibility in church or state, in any profession of public service, saw ourselves as mere pawns in a game, powerless and without influence.
The words of Jesus with which I commenced this morning: “Love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return...be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” speak not of a legal framework, but of an attitude of mind – a mind that is drawn to a vision that is always trying to escape the confines of the limits set by our systems, our protocols, our assumptions. The words of Jesus will be written off by many as merely an ideal that can never be achieved, a bit of wishful thinking that cannot be realised. How much better if we could see these and words like them remaining not as a mere ideal, but as a constant challenge, a catalyst for change, a creative force for renewed attitudes and renewed standards. So much of where we are as a society is about maintaining our rights, protecting ourselves, and so comparatively little about reaching out to others, exercising responsibilities and creating a new atmosphere.
As this morning, you seek God’s blessing on your work, may I urge upon you a restlessness with things that we are told can never change, and a determination, however patient you have to be, to keep a vision before you – a vision of what could be – “Love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return...be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”