News
2009 unity week
Bishop of Clogher's Sermons for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Focus on
Opportunities for Change in Uncertain Times
The Rt Revd Dr Michael Jackson is to preach at services in two cathedrals
to
mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: at St Patrick's Church of Ireland
Cathedral, Armagh tonight (21st January) at 7.30pm and tomorrow (22nd January)
at St Peter's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Belfast at 8.00pm. Drawing on Ezekiel
ch.37 v.9, Bishop Jackson will say that the contemporary
ecumenical movement needs urgently to make a number of paradigm shifts. He
will say that in Northern Ireland we need to become more community focused; must
demand more creativity from our politicians; and use the current secular
climate to examine and represent the strengths of the Christian
faith.
Bishop Jackson is to say, 'Empowered by the refinements of theological argument
and given voice by virtually every Christian leader of substance, lived out
by millions of faithful and hopeful believers world-wide' people of faith
across denominations need 'to move from apathy to activity, from mind to matter
and from faith to inter-faith.'
On the theme of moving from apathy to activity, he will say, 'Like Ezekiel, but
from the bones of a different battlefield, that of contemporary consumerism,
a philosophy lying now in ruins, we need to return to active
life in a way which is going to be in many ways simpler, but which will, Ihope, be more direct and more community-based.'
Expanding on 'mind to matter', he will comment, 'We expect too little of our politicians
in terms of matter over mind. Northern Ireland requires
creative, collaborative political life, urgently: in education, in
healthcare provision, in infrastructure and in the rehabilitation and reintegration
with one another of those who locally have been and remain divided.'
Finally, on faith to inter-faith, Bishop Jackson will express the need for 'understanding
of and respect for one's own tradition as a building block of sharing that
tradition with those who do not live by it'. He will say, 'Respect is grounded
in the confidence which comes from knowing one's own tradition, blemishes
and all, and listening to, and then acting with, those
of another faith tradition. A golden rule of such engagement is that you do
not look for the worst in the other while presenting the best of yourself.'
He is to conclude, 'Eleven years into The Peace, Northern Ireland is a physical,
human body which hurts and it hurts particularly because - rather peculiarly
in contemporary Europe, I suggest - we are religiously sensitive. Of course,
secularism is alive and well in our society every bit as much as it is elsewhere
and many of us are beneficiaries of it. Too easily have we accustomed ourselves
to a negative reading and understanding of the secular. But the secular also
lets the daylight in on our practice of religion. And in this daylight we
need to let ourselves be opened to the rush of the Spirit of God. Restoration
is such that as Ezekiel moves from despair to hope, he sees the potential
glistening within those dry bones - and they become living people. From defeat
to potential to activity: this is the progression through which the Lord leads
the prophet.And it can be ours too.'
* The full transcript of Bishop Jackson's sermons are available on www.ireland.anglican.ireland.org
Date: 21 Jan 09