Dean’s Farewell Sermon

06 July 2025

Farewell Evensong

The Dean

Micah 4. 1-5; Ephesians 2.13-end

It is a truth, if not universally acknowledged, then certainly widely known amongst most clergy and many laity of this great diocese that a conversation with the Bishop of Leeds will invariably benefit from a casual mention of the city of Liverpool. Bonus points may well be had through knowing Liverpool Football Club’s latest result. However, it’s not Bishop Nick’s presence that has prompted me to start this sermon in Liverpool rather than Wakefield, it’s the final verse of this afternoon’s reading from the Letter to the Ephesians: In (Christ Jesus) the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Not long after I was ordained, I heard Bishop David Sheppard, then Bishop of Liverpool, preach on that same verse. He commented that in the early years of the twentieth century the architect of Liverpool Cathedral, Giles Gilbert Scott, had specified that every stone that made up the cathedral’s internal walls should be a different size. This specification, Bishop Sheppard told us, was to convey in architectural form the sheer uniqueness of every human being. The new cathedral was to be a building in which God’s unfailing love for every human being, and the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirt in every human being, was to be celebrated. Well, that story may be the Edwardian equivalent of an urban myth – after all, a casual glance around indicates that every stone in this wonderful building is a different size as well. But like all myths, the one about the stones in Liverpool Cathedral reveals an underlying truth – a truth that the writer of Ephesians articulates so beautifully in the verse I quoted just now:  you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

We find several striking images for the Church in the New Testament: it’s described as a body, a royal priesthood, a flock of sheep; as the branches of a vine, as a bride – and as a building. It’s this image, as we’ve heard, that the writer uses in our second reading. On the face of it, this image of a church as a building might seem to be an outlier: it’s the only image that is not in any sense alive. But in the reading this image is skilfully deployed and developed so that the building is understood as something that is alive; and not only alive but also constantly developing, increasing: growing into a holy temple in the Lord as the writer puts it. The cornerstone of this building, in relation to which all the other stones are laid, is Jesus Christ. He sets the pattern for the whole structure, for the holy temple which is to be a dwelling place for God.

Many of our actual church buildings pose huge practical challenges for hard-working clergy and laity, and there are many of you here this afternoon who have first-hand knowledge of that. But alongside the challenges, church buildings can also be helpful in reminding us of that image of the Church as a spiritual building; buildings can be a prompt to thinking of the Church, of ourselves, as a dwelling place for God – growing, developing, increasing. Around the walls of this cathedral, and on some of the stones that make up its floor, are the names of those who have worshipped here over the centuries, our ancestors in their generations we might say. These names give substance to our understanding of the Church as being not only a particular and visible community of Christians in time, but a communion of Christians across time. And, whether named or not, we rightly give thanks in this place and in our own time for all those who once worshipped here. For all those who aspired to live, however imperfectly, in a manner that both sought and found God’s intimate presence in their lives and in the  lives of others; we give thanks for those who sought to be faithful to Christ in a way that contributed to the spiritual building up of this community as a dwelling place for God; and we give thanks for the stream of worship and witness that has flowed, and which continues to flow, from this building and out into our city, region and diocese; a stream whose source is the life-giving and eternal presence of Jesus Christ.

But that image of a stream flowing outwards is a reminder that the Church – whether understood as a physical structure or a spiritual one – does not exist for itself. To quote the proverb, it must never become so heavenly-minded that it is of no earthly use. Over the years my colleagues have become used to me speaking of an aspiration to turn this building inside out, in other words to orientate it, and indeed all who work here, towards the world which we are called to serve. To use another phrase from our second reading, there are no strangers or aliens in Wakefield Cathedral: it is a holy place, but a holy place that is open to all, common ground for all, and where all are unconditionally welcome: the primary school children playing ukeleles in the summer Big Strum; the students from Wakefield College gathering for their graduation ceremony; our Councillors attending civic ceremonies throughout the year; someone, recently bereaved, slipping in unobtrusively in the early morning and silently lighting a candle. A cathedral without frontiers.

In the final book of the Bible, the Revelation to John, we are told that there is no physical temple, no building set aside for worship in the heavenly city because its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb, Jesus Christ. But until all things are gathered up in Christ, until human time is absorbed into God’s eternity, it is my prayer as I step out of this ministry that you who will continue to worship in this place, or in any place in this diocese and beyond, will also continue to be built up spiritually here on earth into a dwelling place for God. That you will be inspired by the beauty and holiness of your buildings, and by the lives of those who have gone before you; but that you will never cease to turn yourselves, and your buildings, out towards the world beyond their walls, sharing the world’s joys and sorrows as agents of the Good News of the Kingly reign of God; to whom be glory now and to the ages of ages. Amen.