Sermon 18, November 2024 – The Very Revd Dr Simon Jones

St Hugh of Lincoln, 18 November 2024

 ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church’.

(Matthew 16.18)

Last week Historic England published the 2024 edition of its ‘Heritage at Risk Register’.  Once again Lincoln Cathedral was listed.  Once again, we were not the only English Cathedral to appear; but, once again, we were the only English Cathedral which, in its entirety, is considered to be at risk.

If I were a betting man, I’d put money on none of us ever seeing the day when there isn’t scaffolding on some part of this ancient house of prayer.  The current works programme will certainly outlast my tenure as Dean: next February Chapter House Phase One will move into Chapter House Phase Two, and when that’s completed work will begin on the south nave pinnacles, and then there’s the east end.  And that’s just the stonework.  The restoration of the glass is a whole other story.

‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church’.

It encourages me that St Hugh also never saw this building without the 12th century equivalent of scaffolding.  We give thanks today for Hugh’s vision in rebuilding the cathedral after the earthquake of 1185.  But when Hugh died in 1200, that work was still ongoing, and the glorious space in which we meet to worship today was a building site.

In the past week, reflecting on this building as being in a constant state of construction, I have been reminded that the same is true of the Church as institution and as the community of the baptized, and that serious consequences can follow when we forget this.

In today’s Gospel Jesus responds to Simon’s confession of faith by calling him Peter.  This is no new name for this apostle.  When six chapters earlier St Matthew lists the twelve who have been newly-called, he refers to Simon as ‘also known as Peter’.  In Greek there is a play on the name Petros and the word petra, meaning rock.  For the apostle Simon, it’s likely that Petros was his nickname, something like Rocky, and it’s not unreasonable to speculate that this nickname was connected with his personality.

For this rock on which Jesus says the church will be built could himself be described as being on the ‘at risk register’ rather than a firm unshakeable foundation – at risk of missing the point, failing to understand, being stubborn, hot-headed, opening his mouth before thinking.

Just a few verses after the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus rebukes the rock for refusing to accept what Jesus says about having to go to Jerusalem to be killed.  Not so, says Rocky, this must never happen to you.  Get behind me, Satan, says Jesus.

Like Peter, like this great cathedral church, the church as institution and as community of the baptized is in a constant state of construction.  We miss the point, we fail to understand, we’re stubborn, hot-headed, we speak before listening.  In short, we’re human.  And on our risk register, our greatest risk comes from forgetting that or, even worse, pretending that it’s otherwise.

The recently published Makin Report into the heinous acts of abuse committed over decades by John Smyth will have provoked in many of us a complicated cocktail of powerful emotions, out of which I hope will come a renewed shared commitment to promoting a culture of safeguarding that takes us further along the road of doing all that we can to make the church a safer place in which the vulnerable are protected and all may flourish.

If we are to succeed in that task, then we need to reflect further on what it means to be members of a church that’s continually under construction.  For many of us, it’s all too easy to shut our eyes to the human dimension within the identity of the church, and thereby fall into an ecclesiological trap.  Misinterpreting Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, and turning a blind eye to the uneven life of discipleship lived by St Peter, it’s not hard to convince ourselves that the church’s foundation is rock rather than rocky.

I’m generally a fan of the writings of St John Henry Newman, but one of the verses in his hymn, Firmly I believe and truly, doesn’t help us to get the right perspective in this regard: ‘And I hold in veneration, for the love of him alone, holy church as his creation, and its teachings as his own’.

Yes, the church is Christ’s creation, it is his body, and we are its members; we can love the church (although that can be hard at times).  But we must never forget that as institution and as the community of the baptized, it’s foundation is rocky, not rock.

If we’re willing to take this seriously, then reputational risk should be deleted from our risk register.  For failure and sin are part of the identity of the church, and therefore not something to hide.  There will always be scaffolding somewhere.  Trying to cover it up or pretend it’s not there is futile.  And yet, of course, where there is scaffolding, there is also hope.  For in the economy of salvation, this same scaffolding, as well as pointing out where there is a problem, is also the arena for the work of restoration, if first we’re willing to acknowledge the need for it.

St Hugh knew this and, to my mind, his embodying of this truth enabled him to be Christlike in his humility – humble in his determination to rebuild this cathedral, which he would never see finished; humble in speaking truth to power; humble in protecting Lincoln’s Jews from persecution; humble in his compassion and care for other vulnerable members of society.

As Christ’s bishop and as Christ’s disciple, Hugh knew himself not to be the rock.  May his prayers and example inspire us as we seek to live and serve and worship as the church today, built on the rocky foundation of the one to whom Christ said:  ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church’.

The Very Revd Dr Simon Jones
Dean of Lincoln