Safeguarding Sunday
Safeguarding Sunday
A sermon preached by Canon Chancellor Edward Probert
Isaiah 61.1-3; Matthew 8.1-11
Safeguarding Sunday is a relatively new thing in the C of E. At this annual reappearance, please note that this marks a striking change for the good during the near 40 years that I’ve been a professional minister. It’s not just us, of course: this is just one small dimension of the prominence which safeguarding has attained in society as a whole, in its countless institutions, and in the Church of England as one of them. I was put on the rota to preach at this service, with this subject, several months ago, and I chose these Biblical readings several weeks ago. I say this, because this focus has not arisen because of the present particular crisis at the top of our Church; I will say some things about the circumstances behind our Archbishop’s very recent resignation, but that’s not the reason why I’m talking about safeguarding. I’m talking about it because it’s a fundamentally important aspect of our common life. Within that focus, we can also draw some important lessons from the current travails.
It’s quite an unusual thing for me to choose readings from the Bible to be used in services here. Normally we simply use the readings in the lectionary, which are chosen years in advance and arranged to cover the whole year – actually a series of years. But thematic Sundays, such as Remembrance, Harvest, or safeguarding, are insertions into the year, and several such could in theory come on almost any Sunday in the year, so we have a free choice. And, while I’ve ranted many times over the years about how very few suitable readings there are in the scriptures for Harvest (actually, I reckon there aren’t any!), there’s no such problem finding passages which emphasise the centrality of protecting the vulnerable, of caring for the damaged. Look at the beatitudes, especially as recorded by Luke; look at the many passages in the Old Testament prophets which castigate the self-indulgence and exploitation of the poor by the powerful; look at Jesus attacking the religious obsessives who tithed herbs but neglected justice, mercy, faithfulness. The two passages I chose: from Isaiah (later quoted by Jesus himself) – good news to the oppressed, binding up of wounds, release to the captives, comfort to the afflicted – the stress on God’s love for the crushed and harmed; and the conversation in Matthew when his disciples ask Jesus who is the greatest, and he points to a child; we need to learn from children, he says. The most obvious thing about children isn’t some sentimental nonsense about innocence, so much as their smallness, weakness, and vulnerability. Jesus goes on to say that if something about us gets in the way of putting those weak people at the centre, we must cut that thing off. Cut off your hand, pluck out your eye – for our own good. ‘It is better for you’! he says. No equivocation: the imperative is to change, even if it’s shocking and painful.
I feel sorry for our archbishop, a man doing a frankly impossible job, subject to relentless pressure of work, plus a routine side salad of sniping and criticism. Almost anyone with such responsibilities might have found themselves exposed and humbled in a similar way; and what until fairly recently could be shrugged off, moved on from, can’t any more. Safeguarding is now too important to be glossed. Which is a good thing; a change for the good in our wider culture. In chapter 11 of John’s gospel the high priest Caiaphas said cynically: ‘You do not understand that it is better to have one man die for the people than to have whole nation destroyed.’ Caiaphas is no model for us to follow, but in this case I believe that it’s better that an archbishop become a scapegoat, than that a single child be victim of a sadistic abuser in the name of some distorted notion of the religion of Christ.
Caiaphas was aiming to protect the system of which he was the head; never mind if there was a victim in doing so. I hope all the leaders of our Church grasp that the public image of our organisation is less important than the safety of those who are least able to defend themselves. Cut it off; pull it out; it’s better for you. ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’. It’s a child.
The central image of the religion of Jesus is a man humiliated, abused, alone, dying horribly. A public relations disaster for his followers. But the truth of God publicly exposed.
Safeguarding Sunday, this recent innovation, is nothing to our comfort; the culture of our organisation needed to change, because what was hidden needed to be brought to the light; the uncomfortable and sometimes shameful truth needed to be faced. It is the truth which sets us free, and our focus should not be that of Caiaphas – the cynic’s care for the continuance and safety of the organisation – but on the people who have no power, no voice, the vulnerable, disregarded, unimportant; the victims. These are the greatest in the kingdom of God.