County Council Civic Service, 17th April 2008

Our Chairman of the County Council is a brave man!  He has also presented the preacher with quite a challenge.  However do we translate the teaching of Jesus – ‘this is my command that you love one another as I have loved you’ underlined by St Paul ‘let love be genuine…live in harmony with one another…’ – into the world of public and political life?

It is bad enough in the church where stopping Christians falling out with one another can sometimes seem a full time job for those of us who are Bishops!   The easy answer is to say this has got nothing to do with public life.  Many Christians have thought like that – the sphere of politics is one sort of realm, the church and the Gospel is another and we should not muddle them up.  The teaching of Jesus does not apply in the complex world of public affairs.

Tonight we have chosen the more courageous and more difficult way of hearing the word of the Gospel addressed to us in our role in public life.   We have got so used to the theme that religion is a private and personal matter.  Even politicians tell us – let alone the media – the church should keep out of politics. So it can come as a bit of a shock to find that the message of Jesus does address us in our public life.  It is not just about our personal behaviour – though it is always a help when people are decent and kind towards one another.  It is about what we stand for – our values, visions and even the shaping of our policies.  Our common life is called to respond to the message of the Gospel.

As the introduction given by our Chairman tonight bore witness, deep in the soil of the culture of this nation and of this society are the values and vision of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   The Christian faith has had a profound influence across the centuries in the emergence of a fundamental respect for the worth of all people, our duty to our neighbours especially in the face of need, the vital importance of education as a way of opening opportunity for people and the vision of a greater future in which the hurts and difficulties of the present are caught up that which is still to come.  These powerful themes have driven people of faith in the past in their contribution to the welfare of our society. To say that is on no way to take away from all that has been brought to our culture by those of other faiths and those of humanist convictions.  One of the happy characteristics of recent years is the good will that exists between different groups of believers and non-believers. But where did our schools come from, our hospitals, our care for the stranger and the refugee, our support of those in trouble with the law together with their families..?   So much arose from the Christian conviction of people who heard the message of Christ and felt called to act for the well-being of neighbours in need.  It is not just the historic charitable agencies that have their roots in the Gospel it is many public services as well.

When we are in church we come face to face with the most challenging questions – what do we believe, what is our vision for the future, what are our expectations and to what are we ready to commit ourselves?   Love one another as I have loved you – the words of Jesus ring with great power across the centuries to speak to us today.

This County of Essex has so much to offer because it has had to struggle as almost no other with the demand of these words.  Gathered in this church are the representatives of a hard road travelled.  The St John Payne School is a permanent reminder of the blood shed on our soil in the heart of religious and political controversy.   Whenever you rise up the stairs of Colchester Town Hall there you are greeted by the list of the Protestant martyrs.  We have both welcomed those fleeing persecution and we have seen them flee across the Atlantic to escape it.  We have had to travel the road from bitterness and division, through tolerance to equality and on to mutual love and affection.

This county has so much to teach us about how we are to live in mutual love and respect across the diversity of the cultures that make our life today.  When we consider the challenges today – how to respond to the needs of people who have come here who can hardly speak any English and are mystified by our laws and customs, what to do about these travellers and gypsies who insist on putting down their homes on places where they do not have the permission to be, what about control on our streets and the challenge of binge drinking and modern youth culture?  The challenge goes on.  We can bring to it our history and those deep roots of Christian faith that have made us struggle through in the past.

Love one another as I have loved you.  That is as pertinent today in Basildon as it is in Iraq, in Braintree as it is in Zimbabwe and Darfur.

This calls for a politics that is not just about justice – though justice is basic – but also about that compassion and forgiveness that crosses divisions and heal the wounds of the community.  The love that lifts guilt and opens the door to a new freedom to act for the welfare and common good of all is the love to which we are commanded by Jesus.

How easy it would be to allow the divisions and anxieties of our world and our own people gradually to pull us apart.  How easy it would be to allow the excellence of political debate to be reduced to partisan warfare and increasing social bitterness.

We are here today, I suspect not just because our Chairman is a very persuasive man, but because we have a desire to renew our commitment to the sort of public life and political activity that strengthens the bonds across the diversity of Essex today and seeks to build new partnerships and bonds of affection that enable people and communities to work together to find modern and relevant solutions to the issues we face today.

Let us dig into the soil of the culture and history of this county and find the life giving food of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who commanded his followers to love one another as he loved all of us.

May God in his mercy bless and encourage all who work for the welfare of this County of Essex.

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