Vision: Easter 6
I suspect many of us will be familiar with the radio game ‘Just a Minute.’ The rules of the game are as follows: the participants, I think there are usually four, are presented with a word or phrase and they have a minute to talk about it. Someone starts but as soon as they are successfully challenged on the grounds of hesitation, irrelevance, or repetition the participant who made the successful challenge then continues and so on. The winner is the participant who is speaking when the whistle blows.
This week I am make no apologies for repetition: I am going to talk once more – just like last week – about vision, imagination, creativity, and flexibility. They are amongst my post Easter buzzwords, so you better start looking forward to Trinity (which is my favourite season!).
I am going to talk about vision, imagination, creativity, and flexibility once again for the simple reason, that they are the very stuff of today’s reading from Acts and Revelation:
‘During the night Paul had a vision,’ (Acts16, 9)
And
‘In the Spirit the angel carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the Holy City of Jerusalem,’ (Rev 21, 10).
So over the course of the last two weeks, we have heard about Peter having a vision, Paul having a vision, and John, the writer of Revelation, having a vision. Surely, we must therefore conclude that being visionary, or at the very least imaginative, creative, and flexible in our thinking, is normative to those who dare to say that they believe in ‘one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,’ and the ‘Communion of Saints.’ In fact, I would go far further and say that if these two phrases, which you will be affirming in just a few minutes, are to have any currency whatsoever we too must be visionary, imaginative, flexible, and creative in our thinking, for the alternative is to be well, just plain boring. O and irrelevant too. Who would want to join a boring and irrelevant church? Not many people, but who would want to engage with a visionary and imaginative church? Quite a lot of people I would suggest. To be apostolic is (in part) to be visionary.
If we want to be relevant, we need to allow imaginations to be inspired so that we like these three biggies of the New Testament, Peter, Paul, and John become visionaries.
Like John in the Book of Revelation we need, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to allow ourselves to be guided into seeing a new vision for this city – Newport- and what it means to be a ‘healing’ presence in and for this city (and indeed diocese). If we are open to the work of the Holy Spirit amongst us, in and through our prayers, we will be granted a new, fresh, and exciting vision.
This week Dean Ian and I attended the National Cathedrals Conference in Newcastle. The big theme of the conference was justice, and we spent a long time listening to some wonderful speakers talking about social justice (in particular as it relates to younger – where the statistics and the stories should fill us with righteous anger), climate justice, and racial justice. We also spent a great deal of time thinking about hope, what it means to be a hopeful community, alongside what it means to be a place of sanctuary, and the importance of the prophetic voice. I am sure that you will hear more about these themes in the weeks and months ahead.
We were challenged, as we build our vision, to be ‘prophets for a future not of our own,’ and to be ‘bold in our action and outspoken in our concerns,’ (Sir John Major), we were told that we could, and should expect, to be criticised for speaking out for and spending our time and resources with those who society excludes. And with all of this I wholeheartedly agree.
But in many ways the most interesting presentation was from the staff at Newcastle Cathedral, who over a great many years, covering three deans, developed a vision for what it means to be cathedral in and for their city and diocese. Their presentation was called ‘Learning to speak Geordie.’
What this meant was allowing themselves to be ‘carried away to a great high mountain and showed the city,’ not of Jerusalem but of Newcastle. I love the play on the phrase ‘carried away.’ Can we allow ourselves to be ‘carried away,’ so that we get a fresh and heavenly view of Newport – learn to speak Newport- so that we become all that Newport needs us to be? Can we then allow ourselves to be enthused, inspired, in-spirited, carried away, by the vision?
At Newcastle they got so carried away that their building was restored, the liturgy tweaked, the Newcastle Beatitudes were written and laid out as a path leading into the cathedral. The cultural, civic, industrial, musical, and sporting traditions of Newcastle and the surrounding area are all celebrated in the cathedral. The cathedral also acts as a place of sanctuary for the young, the old, and all-ages in between. It is a place of sanctuary for the homeless and the addicted, the lonely, those who need to be alone, and so many more. We were reminded of the importance of home and the fact that to say that buildings, homes, don’t matter is to speak from a place of enormous security and privilege.
So, what is our vision for this cathedral and what would it mean for us to speak Newport are the two questions I would like to leave you with.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want you to answer, or even to begin to answer that question just yet. The reason is that building a good and Godly vision takes time. Building a godly vision – allowing imaginations to be quickened – so that we become imaginative, creative, and flexible, must be the fruit of payer, the sort of prayer where we allow ourselves to be ‘carried away to a great high mountain and shown the holy city of Newport.’
‘Come Lord and carry us away, that we may see, gloriously see, your vision for this cathedral in and for this city, Amen.’
Acts 19,9-15 & Revelation 21,10,22-22,5
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