Introduction: The Archbishop prefaced his remarks by wishing the organisation a “Happy Birthday.” “Congratulations” and “Many Happy Returns” might not be right in this context because Broken Rites exists because of painful truths about the Church and the clergy. The Archbishop also wished to thank us for twenty-five years of ministry – to one another, and to and for the Church.  The existence of Broken Rites has changed a culture, obliging the Church to think and feel new things about the essence of ministry in the Christian Church. Authentic Christian ministry is always a truth-telling exercise which is not always welcome where people are comfortable and inattentive. This is essential for the Church, which proclaims that it lives by and with the truth.

The existence of groups like Broken Rites challenges two precious self-images:

First, it challenges an individual self-image in which vocation is understood as something that opens doors to the kind of life which is a reward for sacrifices you have made. However, such a calling does not exempt one from failures whilst becoming the person God made you to be.  99+% of fulfilling a calling will involve pain, rupture and failure. This is so for every Christian and not just the clergy. Moreover, to be a clergy spouse is also a calling, so marital breakdown is a blow as much to the spouse as to the cleric. An illustration of this challenge can be found in God’s promise to Abraham that it was Isaac who would be the fulfilment of the covenant, not Ishmael. This was a new gift that Abraham had not expected.  Part of the following upheaval was Abraham’s difficult realisation that something else was intended: a calling to uproot the gift he already had. The Christian life is not smooth or simple. The very existence of Broken Rites is therefore an uncomfortable truth-telling, involving breaking and remaking. This does not imply that God wills such (inevitably painful) breakdown and remaking.  But the fact that Broken Rites exists is the face of real pain – it testifies to the unwelcome but necessary discomfort of truth-telling.  Vocation is not a simple quick answer to, or for, a guilty human experience. 

Secondly, it challenges a corporate self-image in which the Church believes itself to be ‘nice.’ This is often at the expense of honesty that the Church, as an institution, is reluctant to be professional in some areas because it wants to go on being nice – instead of being responsible or accountable. What Broken Rites says to the Church is that such niceness has not met a real need. The Church is often nervous, self-serving and unwilling. It doesn’t serve those who do not make a noise.  As an institution it often fails to make a difference to the lives of real people. The Church is godly but it cannot escape human weakness. The parade of our niceness is often our way of coping with that. However, the existence of groups such as Broken Rites makes this challenge inescapable for the Church.

To illustrate this second distorted self-image: the default response of institutions, faced with a crisis, is to push difficult persons and situations to the margins of the institution. That is not a gospel way of response. Faced with the realisation that their behaviour was placing unbearable strain on their parish priest, his family and his marriage, the parishioners expressed themselves shocked because they had thought they (the parishioners) were ‘nice’. That the corporate self-image had dissolved with the realization had not prevented the parishioners from under-mining the ministry and personal life of those who were ministering in their midst. We can become very entrenched thinking we are collectively nice, and use it as an alibi from confronting certain, unwelcome things.

 The importance of truth and honesty:

Exposing unwelcome truths and unmasking an unfeeling Church all sounds rather bleak.  But telling the Truth is inseparable from liberation.  ‘The truth shall make you free’ (John 8:32) is the motto that is worked into the Compass Rose, the logo of the Anglican Communion.  Truth-telling is not destructive.  On the contrary, what ministry has to say about vocation is so important that it must not be trivialised in the direction of there always being a happy ending.  This is similarly so with marriage. The Church needs to be freed to be credible in human terms.  It needs to talk more, so that it is seen to be honest about what human beings are really like.  Referring back to the Abraham illustration, the Archbishop suggested that the Church has to share the message that it is the breakages that make for true growth.  When things are broken this does not mean it is the end, spoiled:  it means that something must change. 

Broken Rites says something about brokenness to the Church. 

 Referring to the remarks of Isobel in the Annual Report—‘even though our marriages failed, we pray that through our efforts others will not come asunder’—the Archbishop suggested that we might understand this as part of growth and make a gift to others.  The members are in this enterprise because they have to do it: finding comfort for each other can also become nourishment and comfort for others in Christ’s Body more widely.

This ought not to be rocket science to a community dedicated to the cross and resurrection.  It should not be strange that the Church has to cope with loss and breakage.  That Christ is risen implies that wherever you go there is always the cross and the resurrection, not that it is over:  Good Friday and Easter have ‘expanded’ to take in broken human life and remake it.  That is why we relive it in liturgical celebration every year.  It’s never over:  we are always growing into it. 

Whilst valuing unity very highly the Archbishop asked at what point should one stop being afraid of breakages?  Recalling Archbishop Michael Ramsey’s comment, ‘it may be the will of God that our Church should have its heart broken’ [See note], the Archbishop noted how the Church often invests in un-brokenness and finds it very hard to think of breakage as the way to growth;  and that it needs to show that brokenness can, with the endless resource of the grace of God, lead to life, forgiveness and truth. Breakages (like those experienced by Broken Rites members) are unplanned things.  No one goes into marriage expecting it to break.  These things are out of our control and humiliate us because we feel so out of control.  

It is often said, ‘It seems as if 25-30 years were being wiped out’, ‘Only now have I become myself’, ‘So where have I been?’  This is the point at which brokenness can only be sustained by the conviction that there is one reality that remains unbroken:  that is, the commitment of God. God’s call to us is God saying, ‘I will be there,’ which is both absolute assurance and absolute insecurity.  So those members of Christ’s body who have lived through the experience of broken-ness are saying to the rest of the Church remember, for God’s sake, that what does not disappear is God’s commitment, which through the reality of the cross and resurrection cannot fail.

 Conclusion: 

 In spite of the ways in which this can be uncomfortable, the Archbishop did not want this to put a negative flavour on the afternoon because this network is one which in itself comes to realise the constant commitment of God through the commitment which the members exhibit to one another even in dark times, and he thanked the organization once again for the Easter message that it offers the Church and wished the members many years of that kind of ministry which also includes the joy which is part of Christ’s Church.

Following his address the Archbishop took comments and questions related to:

Personal faith:

Ø      The experience of the end of a marriage can feel like rejection by God and the Church too.

Ø      The experience seems to be always Gethsemane and never Easter.

Ø      How can Broken Rites give emphasis to the new creation.

Archbishop:

He reminded us of the notion of calling as the commitment of God: ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.’ (Romans 8)  St Paul knew the experience of rejection by those he grew up with.   This is not a unique experience. It is not just clergy spouses who feel this rejection by God.  It is the same for former religious and those who resign or are expelled from orders.  Human rejection never corresponds to divine rejection — God remains, his commitment is unaffected.  But, experience suggests the opposite, which is why a group like Broken Rites may keep the door open to understanding that human rejection does not carry God’s rejection with it.  Human failure, dishonesty, corruption, breakage is not about the fallibility of the grace of God if even 1 person realises something of what Jesus makes possible for us.   

Worship-Where is God at the time of divorce? What apart from self-help can the Church offer? You lose your church family.

Archbishop: Attending Church worship can be traumatic.  The worship of the Church is where we are all hypocrites in that we are all in the shoes of Christ in the presence of the Father when we have no right to be. Can God be recognised in divorce?  In the USA forms of prayer are available – but who owns them?  For both partners involved to own the breakage of their relationship in the same way is pretty unusual, thus the Archbishop would be very wary of such an approach.  The perceptions of both parties would be so different. 

The value clergy place on their marriages Marriage is a central relationship which needs as much work and dedication as the rest of a person’s vocation.

Archbishop: Before a failing relationship becomes lethal, people need to understand how they cope with extreme stress, which may lead to seeking consolation outside the home.  A challenge needs to be made to the workaholic tendencies of some clergy that are part of our contemporary Western culture. 

Collusion and ‘niceness’

Ø      The experience of accepting someone else’s version of reality. 

Ø      Forgiveness – a slippery word.  Isn’t it time to let go?

Archbishop: God loves who we are, not an illusion of us.  Kindness and love needs to avoid collusion. Forgiveness is labour and it takes as long as it takes.  Only the injured can realise forgiveness for themselves.  It is like climbing a rock face.  You go up bit by bit, and it is a long climb.  Christians know we have got to do it but we know that it will take time.  Jesus himself asked “which is easier: to say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or ‘get up and walk?’ 

Clergy children The effects of clergy marriage breakdown on clergy children.

Archbishop:-

The reality is so various and so painful.  Often the damage remains unknown for some time.

Gay clergy

Archbishop: In response to the observation that the breakdown of a same-sex partnership is no less traumatic than the break up of a marriage, the Archbishop commented that though the Church does not sanction such relationships it is nevertheless its responsibility to care for the emotional well-being of those who may be involved.  There remains an agenda of care.   

Practical appeals It is difficult for clergy to admit that they need help.  What is the voice we have in the wider Church especially in terms of those preparing for ordained ministry?  How can the Church acknowledge publicly where clergy have sinned and caused hurt?

Archbishop: Public acknowledgement is a real and necessary challenge in some pastoral settings.  There are always two sides in clergy marriage breakdown as in any other, and parishes need to be reminded of this sometimes.  A balance is needed between such openness and prurience – sheer half-malicious curiosity.  Sometimes a congregation can see the vicar as the ‘goody’. 

Broken Rites is often seen as a group of awkward women.

Archbishop: There is a place for awkward women in the Church: look at the gospels!  The Church has to see Broken Rites as a ministry. 

Co-operation between the churches to plan for unplanned breakages

Archbishop: The aspect of ‘niceness’ means avoidance of sheer material needs of those involved in such circumstances. 

What do you do when you are hurt?

Archbishop: I remind myself about the commitment of God; I ask myself, ‘how is this my fault?’  But fundamentally, as is true of all of us, I am answerable first to God, so I try to pray for those who have hurt me - remembering that it is like climbing a rock face.  And I look for affirmations which remind me that I am loved. 

Note:  In the last chapters of his Christian Priest Today, Archbishop Michael Ramsey uttered these words:  It may be the will of God that our Church should have its heart broken; and if that were to happen it wouldn’t mean that we were heading for the world’s misery but quite likely pointing the way to the deepest joy.’  CPT, p.99