Safeguarding has at its heart a longing for all people to be safe, protected, welcomed and cared for within our churches and in wider society. It is an integral part of the ministry and mission of our churches and a core part of how we are church. But more than this, safeguarding is about love in truth and action. As we seek to love and serve our neighbours in our communities, we are called to be places and spaces where there is a healthy culture of interactions and relationships. We need to take our call to love one another seriously. We also need to take our call to live truthfully seriously.
Over the past few years, the Church of England has been called to account for its Safeguarding failures. As an institution, we are on a journey: there is always more work to be done and more lessons to learn and there is a constant need for us to lament and repent of our failings. As a Church, we need to acknowledge our failings, learn from the past, and listen and respond to victims and survivors with humility. We need to love in truth and action.
As Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, has said, “There is much for us to open our eyes to. For years, the merest sniff of a question or the first hint of an allegation sent church leaders hurrying to circle the wagons and defend the institution and its staff. Far too often we have reacted with – at best – ostrich-like complacency to those of our own who have posed grave threats to others.” “Terrible things have happened in the churches, as in all our best-loved institutions; we share a responsibility for ensuring that they cannot happen again.”
Those terrible things meant that the Church of England, as with other denominations, has been guilty of the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus criticises in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 23.27-32). Like those who presented as whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of all kinds of uncleanness, so the Church of England has tried to present itself as being whiter than white, while the reality has been very different, both in terms of those who abused others and those who failed to support the victims of abuse.
As a result, many people in our communities and in our churches live daily with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual scars of abuse. If this sermon prompts any safeguarding concerns or raises any safeguarding issues you would like to discuss, please contact our Parish Safeguarding Officer or get in touch with our Diocesan Safeguarding Team. You can find their contact details on the Diocesan website: www.chelmsford.anglican.org under the safeguarding tab.
As Nicholas Papadopulos has also said, “We cannot live out the great commandment to love God and love neighbour if those who would harm their neighbour find a secure hiding-place in our common life … the great commandment … [is] right there … when we do whatever we can to ensure that the vulnerable are kept safe, remembering that any of us can be vulnerable. That, surely, is the bare minimum that loving one another requires of us.”
Through Jesus, God relates to us in love and friendship. And this is how Jesus wants us to relate to others. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Jesus’ primary action is to love: not to judge, condemn, criticise, belittle or dismiss. He loves. A love that goes beyond boundaries and that is without agenda. A love that is about equality and mutual respect. A love that refuses power and abuse; that washes tired, dirty feet. A love that lets everyone sit down to eat.
Faithful discipleship is known by love. Jesus calls upon his disciples to mirror the love that God has for him and the love that he has for the Father and for his disciples. To lay down one’s life is to put the needs of others before our own, to live for the good of others, to make time for them, to be present for them in times of trouble and crisis, to listen to them, to witness to their hurts. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Following Jesus means taking love seriously. As the first letter of John stresses: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us… love one another just as he commanded us… all who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them.”
We are also compelled to live truthfully. This means going beyond addressing issues of harm and abuse and protecting against them. It means being willing to face hard truths, to stand with victims of injustice and - if required – to speak up and out with them and for them. We know that abuse devastates lives, that it has and does take place in the church and that its consequences are profound and long-lasting. The task of Safeguarding is to acknowledge this hard truth and to do everything possible to ensure that abuse no longer happens, now or in the future. In all that we do, particularly in balancing our responsibilities, we must continually seek to place survivors and victims at the heart of our concern.
We long to be a refuge for the hurting and vulnerable, and to do this we must listen to those who feel voiceless and empower everyone in our communities to remain safe, within their families, places of work and of worship. “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Jesus’ command to love as he loves is an invitation into relationships of profound mutuality and interdependence.
These kinds of relationships contribute to healthy communities, modelled on the example of Christ’s own humility and sacrifice. This is a way of being that says, who I am is caught up in who you are. We are members together of the same body of people. Whatever affects one of us affects all of us. We are all God’s children; Jesus calls us all friends; we are all brothers and sisters. So, if I am your sister, your brother, I have a responsibility for how I behave towards you and that has implications for the choices I make about how I live and love in the world. This is the kind of integrity that is the reverse of the hypocrisy criticised by Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.
As we reflect, we remember that the kingdom of God is not for the strong but the weak; it is not for the rich but for the poor; it is not for the powerful but for the powerless; it is not for the proud but for the meek. The Church is where the least, the lost and the broken – all God’s children - should be able to find the safest of places in a loving community that lives out its faith in truth and action. May that be true for us, here in Wickford and Runwell. Amen.
(Based on 'love in truth and action' by Venerable Ruth Patten, Archdeacon of Colchester)
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Howard Hewett - The Journey (Think About It).
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