Following the business meeting and lunch we listened to a stimulating address from one of our Spiritual Advisors, Bishop Saunders Davies, who has always been a great source of inspiration and encouragement. There follows a summary of what he had to say.
Bishop Saunders Talk a Report by Brian Newsom
Worship is the most important thing we can
do. It builds us up. We
need resources for building, and two important quarries are Scripture and Welsh
poetry. Something may be lost
in translation but it can still mean something to us.
Poetry is life distilled, as in the Scripture.
Where
are we as a nation? We are in a state of flux, no-one knows exactly where
we are, and there is confusion, muddle and chaos.
In Cardigan, Aldi bought the Quiksave site and tore it down to build new
premises. Aldi had to wait
for the foundations to be dug, and we are in a similar situation.
Life is bafflement - a society starting to
crack and creak and split at the seams. Even
in Ireland they don’t expect things to change very quickly.
A man asked a Spaniard, “What is mañana?”
Answer: “We have a day off today and do it tomorrow.”
In Ireland they are not in such a hurry.
But
now there is a vacuum in the cultural and religious situation.
Irish spirituality at the end of the millennium is like encountering the
Book of Kells, a complex entity. A
spiritual vacuum exists but past and present interweave. The shape of the new creation is not yet known but it
possesses its own glorious, transcendent radiance.
Like waiting in Newgrange, the megalithic passage
tomb, for the rising sun. It’s
like it was 5000 years ago, with people sitting in darkness and waiting for the
light. Yes, things are changing and
we are at the point of waiting.
There
is an emphasis of waiting in Scripture. For
example Jacob’s last words to his sons were:
I wait for your salvation, O
Lord. (Genesis 49:18)
And,
Psalm 37:7
Be still before the Lord and
wait patiently for him.
We
are encouraged to wait for the Lord.
It is a time of strength not weakness to stay in there.
Simeon waited for the consolation of Israel; waiting led to
contemplation, and whom did Simeon see?
The living Christ.
The
biblical word for contemplation is watching.
Remain and watch, said Jesus. Our
aim should be to wait and watch with Christ and, as our strapline says:
“Encouraging
People to Live in a Closer Relationship with God.”
This
involves waiting and watching.
We
must be alert to Jesus in a broken world, the suffering Christ can be seen
there, and to recognize the
suffering Christ is to be blesed. The
theologian, Frances Young, learned from looking after her disabled child,
Arthur. (Frances M. Young Brokenness
and Blessing: towards a biblical spirituality.
D.L.T. 2007. ISBN 0-232-52656-7).
Disability is a condition of blessing; we need to be aware that we
ourselves are broken vessels that need to be recreated.
We must watch, wait and pray.
If we in ARM (Wales) admit to this we will be changed and blessed.
But we will be blessed in God’s way not ours.
Our walk with Jesus does not end in Gethsemane.
“We have to pass through midnight before it turns to dawn” (Rowan
Williams, Tokens of Trust.
See Magazine Issue 47, August 2007).
We have to be broken and shaken before we are ready to receive what God
wants to give us. To be at prayer is to be opened up, receptive to
God’s Holy Spirit. As Jesus said:
“If
you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those that ask
him?” (Luke11:13)
Bishop
Saunders also referred to what Paul said in Romans:
“I
consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that
will be revealed in us. The
creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the
creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of
the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated
from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children
of God.
We
know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth
right up to the present time. Not
only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan
inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our
bodies. For in this
hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what
he already has? But
if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In
the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought
to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words
cannot express. And he who
searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes
for the saints in accordance with God’s will".
(Romans 8:18ff. NIV)
So,
we may not know how to pray, but the Holy Spirit comes to our aid, seeking out
our inner being and pleading for us, pleading for God’s own people God’s own
way. This is the Lord’s longing.
The
next layer is building; first turmoil then asking in faith.
Who will do this? We
are part of that faithful remnant, those who trust in the Lord, that Isaiah
spoke about nine hundred years ago.
See
also from Matthew 18:20:
“Where two or three come together in
my name, there am I with them”.
T.J.
Davies wrote about those who remain in contrast to the faithful remnant:
‘Y Gweddill a’r Gweddillion’. (We
print a translation by Cynthia Saunders Davies on page XX). We need to be the faithful remnant that waits on God.
We must be more and more opened up to the Holy Spirit, and our prayer
must be that the remains are transformed into that faithful remnant.
The
Holy Spirit is a restless Spirit who invites us to throw ourselves into his
‘surge’. This is not part of
the system, it is from the depths of the Divine; it is Christ who sustains,
while we are floundering, waiting, watching, praying.
It
is helpful to read some poetry pertinent to our age because Poets articulate
what we have known. They give
expression to deep spiritual experiences. For
example Gwyn
Thomas’s poem (University Wales) Now
is the time for Armageddon.
Armageddon
is in the heart of man, and unless there is some intervention of Goodness to
confuse the programme of doom, disaster awaits.
But there is a costly light called hope where God is at work.
Then
there is Take R.S.Thomas’s, The
Bright Field.
I
have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on
to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.*
The
field, a pearl of great price, that is what we mean by watching and waiting,
having eyes opened to the spiritual world.
This is where the treasure is, while we are contemplating, and waiting
for a divine light.
Faith,
hope and love are the layers that God is building.
We have met the Spirit of love in Jesus Christ.
Read the English translation of the Hallelujah hymn in the new book Caneuon Fydd, (See Sources of Inspiration p..) the most popular
Welsh hymnbook ever, which shows there is life still in spite of all the clouds
of gloom. How do these layers
relate to Christian, spiritual life in ARM (Wales)? They are elements of mission.
The sending out of the seventy-two in Luke 10:1ff starts:
“After
this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him
to every town and place where he was about to go.”
The
seventy-two waited to be called, it was not their idea, it was Jesus’ idea.
He said:
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
They
went out in pairs, a faithful remnant. Jesus
told them when they enter a house to say:
“Peace
be to this house”; and that “The kingdom of God is at hand.”
And
when they returned to tell Jesus how the demons had submitted to them in his
name he said: “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that
your names are written in the book. Just
so mission starts in bafflement and bewilderment but ends in joy and Eucharist.
There
is a range of spiritualities in the Anglican Church including Charismatic,
Evangelical, Sacramental, Celtic and Social Gospel, and we need them all.
But there is also hard resistance to faith in this country. As Leslie
Newbiggin said: “Western culture is the most resistant to the Christian faith
after Islam. It is as if we are
immunized against it when we are young.”
Brian
Newsom
Editor’s note: There was so much in the address, Bishop Saunder’s insight into the needs of the world and our possible role was encouraging. Since most of us at the meeting were not welsh speakers we particularly appreciated Cynthia’s translation of T.J.Davies, ‘Y Gweddill a’r Gweddillion’ and of W. Rhys Nicholas, ‘Adnabod’
They
are reprinted with grateful thanks.
The
Translation of the Welsh Hymn ‘Tydi
a wnaeth y wyrth, O Grist, Fab Duw’ by
W. Rhys Nicholas, is also to be found on the web page:
http://musicanet.org/robokopp/welsh/tydiawna.htm