Weekly Reflection – (Too) Great Expectations

As the Precentor wrote last week, a shadow has been cast over the Church of England by our very public safeguarding failures and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to resign.  There is much work to do, especially at the national level, to ensure our processes for reporting and dealing with allegations are more effective and safer.  As attention turns to who the next Archbishop might be, potential successors to Archbishop Justin will be, rightly, scrutinised both for what skills they might bring to this part of their work and also whether they themselves have handled safeguarding concerns properly.

However, if we think the next Archbishop is going to solve all our problems – whether about our safeguarding failures or our divisions about sexuality or the struggles with buildings and money and numbers – we are on a hiding to nothing.  No human could have all the skills, experiences, insights, and characteristics needed.  Any leader, whether in the church or politics or any other organisation, who claims to have all the answers, who offers quick fixes and easy solutions is either deluded or is taking their hearers for a ride.

The feast of Christ the King, which the church keeps this weekend, reminds us that all human leaders have weaknesses and shortcomings; all will make mistakes and fail.  Only the Lord of heaven and earth is without fault or flaw, caring with equal tenderness for all God’s children.

So we must hope and pray for leaders in both church and state who will be humble and realistic, who will accept the limits of what they can do, and who will do the painstaking, often slow and seemingly unrewarding, work of making our church and our country more safe, more just, and more equal.

With prayers and best wishes,
Philip