Cathedral Appeal Launch
Sunday 7th May, 10.30 a.m.
Readings: Is 49: 7-12/ Jn 12: 12-26
What makes a Cathedral special? The theoretical answer is that chair over there, where I sit when I’m here for services. My ‘cathedra’, my ‘seat’, is different from any other ones that I may sit in. This is not because it’s more comfortable than some of the others that I use when I go around the diocese (though that happens to be true!), but because it is the symbolic centre of the diocese of Portsmouth. Every organization needs a centre; and when the diocese was formed in 1927, after much local discussion, the decision was taken to make St Thomas’, near the dockyard, near the Isle of Wight ferry, the main Church.
So my chair is about more than where I sit. In any case, most of the time I’m elsewhere, as there are about 150 other Churches in the diocese. That chair is a sign of the many relationships that make up this place. And that list is formidably long: worship and music of all kinds, from the (now increasing) Carols services at Christmas, to the Confirmation services I hold here through the year on Saturday evenings. There are weddings, funerals, services of healing, and much else. Beneath it all, there is the day-by-day pattern of morning and evening prayer, echoing what I do in my Chapel at Bishopsgrove, in Fareham, or wherever I happen to be wherever that is in South-East Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Then we have the Cathedral’s outreach, through education, with school visits, links with the University, the Navy, to say nothing of the City Council. I’m supposed to know something of what goes on in here, but I find myself surprised every time I come, every time a member of the Cathedral staff gets into conversation about what it going on. Moreover, the avenues for further development seem unending: I can think of the business community, and the arts, to name only two.
What does all this amount to? It points to the overwhelmingly diverse character of the Christian mission. Cathedrals have long been places where people can gather and ‘be’, perhaps escaping the sometimes activist aspects of local parish life! But the trouble is, you can’t escape reality for long! God gives us visions as well as helps us sort out our own and the world’s problems. And that is why we are having this Appeal. It’s not like the last one, which I remember well, because I was up the A3 as Rector of Holy Trinity, in Guildford. I recall the excitement when the West End was completed, and the collective gasp that ran up and down the Cathedral when the Queen Mother almost fell over on her way out. This time round, however, what we are ‘appealing for’ is more basic, but nonetheless essential. Some of it, like new toilets, will help to make us, shall we say, a little bit more legal. Much of it, like the redevelopment of Cathedral House, will make the London rush-hour tube-like crush for space for meetings and other facilities (which is what we have at the moment) more up-to-date, more bearable, more accommodating, in every sense of the word. And then there’s the Visitors’ Centre, badly needed – if, that is, we really are in business of welcoming the ever-increasing number of people who are coming to Portsmouth, in particular to this part of Portsmouth, in the years ahead.
This morning’s two readings provide us with two very vivid points of context. The prophet Isaiah offers a vision of a ‘gathering-point’ for the peoples of the world, somewhere where they will not only be but feel welcomed. If you look at some of the designs of early Christian architecture, you will find that, in addition to having clearly defined areas where worship can be offered, with a place for the clergy and the musicians, there is very often a narthex, where those on the edge can come and have a point of access that meets their needs, and where they can gather in something like their own terms. That need is being rediscovered all over the Christian world today. It may take many different forms, such as how a parish uses the potential of its school. What jewels our Church Schools have been for nearly 200 years – we got into that business long before the State did! For a Cathedral, these points of access need to express something of a taste of what the building speaks and stands for: not so much a heritage spot as a collection of living stones in the Kingdom of God.
Then in the second reading, Jesus cleanses the temple, a powerful statement about divine frustration with the sometimes piffling priorities that Christians are apt to place at the top of our agendas, instead of the things that really matter. And what follows on immediately from this scene? Some Greeks, outsiders, who happen to be in Jerusalem, want to ‘see Jesus’, and they feel so ‘outside’ the Jesus game that they speak through intermediaries, Philip and Andrew. We need to get the buildings right, but we also need people to enable those questioning, enquiring, searching relationships on the fringe of faith, to nurture them and to bring them on. It’s easy to go for the first stage only, and cleanse the temple, without paying heed to the second stage, and become more approachable. Perhaps some Christians are so zealous to make our religion clean, by some criteria or another, that we fail to realize that we are ourselves the channels of communication, and we need to be seen and felt to be so by others.
The trouble with looking at one aspect of faith, like what Cathedrals are for, is that once you really think about them, you realize how much they link in to everything else. Even my chair, a simple piece of furniture, of the same date as this late seventeenth century part of the Cathedral, expresses in a small way the many relationships that make up the mission and ministry of the Church. But we’re now in the twenty-first century, a time of great plans, but also a time when religious faith is both fervently held and severely scrutinized in public debate. It would be tempting for Portsmouth to shrug its shoulders and say, well, we’ve got two Cathedrals, and we must be fair to both, so we won’t support either, especially not the Established Church, as that wouldn’t be politically correct! The answer to those kinds of observations is simple. Our ecumenical partnerships are very strong, and we work with other Christian bodies on an almost daily basis.
We do want this Appeal to succeed. It’s not for the sake of success itself. It’s because we want this place to be a gathering-point, a place of access, a focus of mission, in a world that is crying out for people who can articulate our deeply spiritual yearnings, a yearning Jesus felt when he cleansed the temple, and went on to enable outsiders genuinely to ‘see’ him.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
