The only passport that matters

Last week at this time, we were facing the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury had resigned from his post as the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.  He had been urged to do so after a recent report revealed his tragically inadequate response when, a dozen or so years ago, he learned of the prolific abuse of boys perpetuated by a church lay leader in England and later South Africa.

This week, I watched Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office on Masterpiece Theatre, a dramatization of the sadly true scandal of the British post office accusing hundreds of sub postmasters throughout England of stealing thousands of pounds from their tills. Despite these corner-shop sub-postmasters insisting they were innocent and that the problems seemed linked to the new software that had been installed across the system, the post office Powers That Be wouldn’t listen. Instead,  the accused were hounded, forced to make up the difference out of their own pocket, fired, and some were jailed. People had to sell their homes. At least one person took their own life before a staggering miscarriage of justice and institutional failure was, years later, finally uncovered. The unbalanced books had, indeed, been the fault of the software system.

We can, I’m sure, find other stories of systemic corruption and waywardness in the media, close to home or abroad. People and institutions in whom confidence has been placed sometimes betray that confidence in a ways that range from dismaying to heartbreaking.

When it happens, there is good reason for anger. There is good reason for disappointment. But there is not, I hope, call for utter despair.

 As I have said to some of you before, anything built out of human beings is at times going to fail – sometimes in small ways, sometimes spectacularly. This is and always will be true, whether it is at the level of the household, a church, a sports league, or a government. We don’t always know what’s going to go wrong, but we can put good money on it that something will.

By saying this, I am not advocating that when that time comes - when trust is betrayed, or people are hurt — we all shrug our shoulders and say “Well, whaddya expect? We’re only human." Far from it. But I am proposing that when an individual falters or a system fails, it is not cause for panic, but for passion.

Passion for shining a light on what went wrong, and why.  Passion for learning how bad conduct managed to outweigh organizational or personal values, and how to build better guardrails for the future.  And a passion for seeing the job through, because societies need its institutions, from the smallest family unit to the largest organizational entity, and we need them to be worthy of our trust.

When trust is shaken, the first reaction might be to flee. But people should not, of course, abandon democracy when an election outcome gives them grief; they should study what can be learned for next time. We don’t get rid of science when harms are caused by an incorrect study or finding; we strengthen evidence-based protocols and procedures. We don’t stop our kids from joining sports leagues because we’ve read newspaper articles about an abusive coach; we put policies in place to guard against such terrible abuses being able to take root again. Walking away from the institutions, organizations, or people who have let us down is, for some, a necessary and, I hope, a healing act. But for the rest of us, our job is to buckle down and make things better for people now and into the future.

Today is the last Sunday in the church lectionary year. On this Sunday we celebrate the Reign of Christ, our belief that all of human and natural history is held in the hand of the Divine; that it is Christ and no earthly power to whom we are subject. This feast day was proclaimed in 1925 as Pope Pius XI’s response to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s claims of supreme power. Just as we did in1925, we need to remind ourselves now that we are not ultimately owned or defined by any dominion on earth. As Jesus said in today’s gospel,  our "kingdom is not of this world.”

 Jesus points us to a kingdom that is deep within us and yet not fully here. A kingdom that we may at times be able to sense, but never to grasp. A kingdom in which God’s rule of loving mercy will triumph, not ours.It is a passport to this Kingdom that we should be carrying in our metaphorical vest pocket. Sure, we may collect some stamps in that passport while we walk the earth – we may get a stamp if we visit the country of parenthood, for example, or the land of industry, or the valley of volunteering, or the country of churchgoers, but these are just stamps on a page, and our citizenship is really in Christ’s own kingdom.

Sometimes we forget that, I think. We so identify ourselves with one of the stamps in our passport – with our church, for example – that if a scandal threatens to erupt, it can feel like our very world  - the world we love so much, the world that does so much good for so many - is threatened. When that’s the case, I can understand the impulse to minimize the damage and perhaps even go into denial mode. To close our eyes and hope things solve themselves. In other words, to cover up the wrong and keep the light focused on what is good about this institution that is so important to us and to others past and present.

Feeling an instinctual urge to defend our institution - or our political party, or our country, or our sports team - when it has done wrong may be natural. But it is also a sign that we have made of it a false idol. Today, Reign of Christ Sunday reminds us that our true allegiance must be to God’s kingdom. A kingdom that cannot be felled by human failures, institutional scandals, or Church wrongdoing.  Its survival doesn’t depend on the number of likes it gets on social media, or the health of the economy, or because it has billionaire friends.

Quite the opposite, in fact - this Kingdom depends on the humble efforts of those who can see through the false promises of worldly powers and make the love of God and neighbour their north star.  And this kingdom teaches us to take what it broken and make of it something far better.  The holy scriptures are full of stories in which God calls all of us - including outcasts, adulterers, even murderers, who are turned around and given a role to play in advancing God’s work in the world.

Advent begins next week, a time when we prepare ourselves for the birth of Christ. As the days shorten and the rain drums down, many people rush to chase away the night with early Christmas lights or, in my neighbour’s case, a 20-foot, glowing inflatable snowman AND a similarly giant-sized inflatable Santa, which have been up since the day after Halloween.

But Advent challenges us to reckon with the dark. In it, we come face to face with the anxieties of the world and the losses circling in our own hearts. In the "close and holy darkness," as Dylan Thomas called it, we can find the calm and the courage to accept our sadnesses or failures. We can allow ourselves to acknowledge the deep well within us that can’t be filled by shiny wrappings, jingling bells, or coloured lights, the part of us that longs for the eternal divine.

And when that Divine Love comes, it comes wrapped up like a baby. A baby that - even though it is the Son of God - needs humans to feed it, to comfort it, to keep it safe. To help it grow. Human hands and hearts are still needed to shine the light of Christ’s kingdom in the world and help it grow.

These few words from JRR Tolkien’s legendary wizard Gandalf jumped out at me this week. The wise wizard says:

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.

Next Sunday we begin a new journey through the church year. So let this be our new year’s resolution -  to commit small acts of kindness and love. Or, as Mother Theresa put it, to do small things with great love. Amen.