Steven Croft

Breaking the fourth wall – A Christmas sermon

Bishop Steven leads Communion at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

Bishop Steven delivered a sermon on Christmas morning at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Watch on YouTube or read below.

Breaking the fourth wall

A very happy Christmas to you and to your families.

The angel’s words to the shepherds: “…to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord”

There is a convention in theatre, film and television called breaking the fourth wall. In the middle of the drama, one of the characters turns aside and speaks directly to the audience.

The fourth wall takes its name from the theatre. A stage is normally surrounded by three physical walls at the back and sides. There is an imaginary fourth wall across the front of the stage which separates the audience from the drama.

Occasionally, a character will break this convention and offer a commentary or a joke. In pantomime this happens all the time (and this is where you call out together: Oh no it doesn’t). Miranda breaks the fourth wall in her sitcom often with just a raised eyebrow or a look to camera. So does David Brent in The Office. Steve Martin in Father of the Bride. See how many you can think of over Christmas lunch.

But I think there is a moment like this in our gospel reading. One of the characters breaks the fourth wall and speaks from the page of the gospel directly to all of us as we gather in worship this morning. The character I have in mind is the angel of the Lord.

A different message

This is the third time the angel appears in Luke’s story bringing messages from God. The first time is to Zecheriah to announce the birth of John the Baptist. The second is to Mary, to announce the birth of Jesus. Each time we listen to the angel’s words about the child who is to come.

But the angel’s message to the shepherds on the hillside is different.

“Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people”. And then, I think, the angel breaks the fourth wall and speaks not only to the shepherds but through the shepherds to all of us and each of us:

“…to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord”

And then message becomes one mainly for the shepherds again. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger”.

But just for a moment the angel is speaking to all of us and each of us. ‘To you is born this day’. The fourth wall is broken. Then the angel’s message is underscored by the multitude of the heavenly host:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours”.

A universal truth

This child is born to you, the angel says. It’s striking language. The angel does not say: the child is born to Mary. The angel does not say: the child is born to God’s people, Israel. The angel does not say: the child is born to all who will believe. The shepherds stand in the story for the poor, the night shift workers, the ordinary, the representatives of all the earth, of every generation. They stand in our place in the nativity story. That is why the angel says: this child is born to you.

This is an extraordinary, universal message: glad tidings of great joy for all the people – not only all the people of Israel but to all the people of the earth; all the generations who will follow. Everywhere and for all time. This is the child who will bring peace, well-being, healing and wholeness to all the earth.

Messiah

This is the child who will be the Saviour. The name Jesus given by the same angel means Saviour. He will be the Messiah or Christ. The promised king who would come though born in a stable and announced to shepherds. He is and will be the Lord not of an earthly empire but of all creation for all time and all eternity.

Luke begins his story of the nativity with the Emperor Augustus, the greatest Emperor the world had ever seen. Augustus controlled more territory; more armies; more wealth; more power than anyone in history to date. Augustus is already known throughout the Empire as Saviour of his people; as the anointed king; even as Lord and God.

Yet the angel claims each of these remarkable titles for Mary’s son, born into poverty, a refugee and stranger. And the same angel turns aside, as it were and speaks across the generations. This child is born to you: entrusted to you; for your blessing; for your healing and salvation; for your peace. To reveal the very nature of God. In the words of Titus, in Jesus the goodness and loving kindness of God has appeared. For you.

What will you do with this most wonderful gift, this most precious gift in history, this Christmas Day? To you is born this day…

Rekindle faith, hope and love

This gift is given to rekindle in each of us today the gifts of faith and hope and love. These three great Christian virtues are set in the pavement of the sanctuary of this Cathedral; they are commemorated in the Edward Burns window at the rear of the south aisle. You might want to make a little pilgrimage to both at the end of the service. I like to think they also form part of the original crest of the Diocese of Oxford as three crowned women – but this may be St Frideswide and her patron saints.

Allow this gift – this child born to you – to rekindle faith. Faith that God is, and that God is kind and merciful and wills the best for this beautiful world. Faith that God saves and rescues us in mercy and love through the water of rebirth. Faith not in the Church – for the Church is fallible and fallen and sinful, as we have seen in recent weeks. But faith and trust in God’s own Son, Jesus, who comes to us gently and as a gift.

Allow this gift to rekindle hope. Each year we see the darkness in the world more clearly: wars and atrocities on every side; poverty and inequality; the degradation of the earth; the threat of technology; the cruelty and pain we inflict on one another; the reality of death and our mortality. All of us who see this darkness need to hear these words afresh. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. A Saviour who brings healing; and justice; and a kingdom of peace; and the defeat of death and life eternal.

And above all allow this gift to rekindle love. To you is born this day this Christ child who calls us back to love of God and love of neighbour as the purpose for our living. Who calls us back to forgiveness as a way of life, for we have been forgiven and lives and families and churches and nations will not work without forgiveness. Who calls us back to love as the very centre of our living and through that love to bring light to this dark world.

Receive this gift

There is no fourth wall in this Eucharist. This Christ Mass is not a performance but an act of worship by the whole congregation. We all sing. We all pray. We all listen to the scriptures. We all are invited to receive bread and wine or a prayer of blessing. We all remember Jesus words: this is my body which is given for you. This is my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

We all receive this gift today, promised by the angel, and leading us again to set faith and hope and love in the very centre of our lives; in the very centre of our world.

To you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

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Steven Croft

AI and our spiritual and cultural lives

Bishop Steven preaches at a church service

Bishop Steven was one of five speakers at the AI All-Party Parliamentary Group which discussed AI and our spiritual and cultural lives, on 2 December.

It’s an honour to give evidence in this forum and on this question. I’m seeking in this evidence to address the spiritual dimensions of the question. I take as a given that AI is a broad and non-specific collective term for the revolution in technology we are living through globally and embraces social media; narrow AI; generative AI and the more speculative general AI which might be said to imitate human intelligence

As Bishop of Oxford, it’s my role to oversee the Church of England across the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. We are a community of over 800 parish churches; around 300 schools and over 120 chaplaincies to every sector of society. I try and lead for the Bishops in the Lords on technology, AI and online safety. I am also co-chair of the Anglican Communion’s science commission which aims to help the Anglican church across the world engage more confidently with science.

On 14 June this year Pope Francis addressed the G7 in Puglia in Italy. The theme of his address is the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of humanity. It’s interesting that the Pope chose this topic above all other topics for an address to the most powerful politicians in the world.

The burden of what I want to say this afternoon is captured by a combination of the text of the address and the video of the Pope’s arrival at the G7. The address is balanced. The address highlights the benefits of AI and stresses that AI is itself a product of human ingenuity and God given talents. AI is a powerful tool with huge potential benefits but also significant risks and dangers.

But what Pope Francis said needs to be understood in the light of what Pope Francis did. He came in person to Puglia despite ill health. He enters the conference room and moves in turn around the G7 leaders. He greets each one in turn with love and respect and affection. He embraces several. There is deep humanity and understanding in each encounter, deep compassion and appreciation of the burdens carried by those in leadership. The G7 leaders are not encountering an algorithm nor a set of ideas nor just some useful advice. The G7 are meeting a person – and a model of how faith communities can engage well with questions of technology.

The Church like all faith communities needs to engage with an everchanging world of technology. The Church needs humility and help to navigate this change well. But there is no doubt in my own mind about character of our engagement. In our engagement with technology when faced with a choice the Church needs always to turn towards human interaction, personal encounter and face to face community.

Christianity is a deeply personal and humane faith. Yesterday was Advent Sunday. We are approaching the great festival of Christmas. At the centre of Christmas is the believe that Almighty God, make of heaven and earth, became a child, born to raise the sons of earth in the words of the carol. There is no greater sign of the worth of the individual person in all of human culture.

The Christian faith is and must be deeply personal, mediated through personal interaction not through technology. Technology for the church can be an excellent servant but a poor master to communicate love and care for all the world. We need to be present with each other.  Digital encounters are better than no encounters but there is no substitute for human contact.

Technology has driven significant spiritual change in past centuries. The invention of the printing press in the 16th Century changed the way the population interacted with texts and especially the texts of scripture and the liturgy. This led to a more literate population, a more democratised, less hierarchical spirituality, more willing to challenge authority. According to Tom Holland in Dominion, this shift at the Reformation provides a central driver for the evolution of Western culture.

Technology and AI are currently providing an even greater shift in the way the population access information which brings both opportunities and pitfalls. The Churches and Christians will need time to navigate this well. This could be the work of several generations involving improvisation and experiment and change. During the pandemic we saw a rapid rise in online services. By and large these have fallen away in favour of the local and the personal. Reflections on personal and family responses to AI – digital fasts and sabbaths are slowly beginning to emerge.

The Church needs to navigate technology in terms of its own life and offering guidance to Christians but also has a wider public role.

Faith communities are a vital dialogue partner with civil society in the larger conversation about AI and society. At present this is largely a two way conversation symbolised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s conversation with Elon Musk. But that two way conversation needs to widen to include the interests of citizens, of people. Faith has a key role to play in that widening conversation about what kind of society we need for human flourishing. The Church can be a convenor and contributor to that conversation.  The Rome Call on AI Ethics signed in 2020 is one fruit of that dialogue.

The Church and other world faiths bring a global, international perspective and especially a global south perspective to debates on technology. I was present two weeks ago at a global gathering of lead science bishops from 22 Provinces of the Anglican Communion – the majority from the global South. The Church brings a passionate concern for justice – for the fruits of new technologies to be shared and accountable. The Church brings a concern for human purpose and the role of work in human flourishing not simply as a means to earn money. The Church brings an honest appraisal of human weakness, error and tendency to wickedness to inform the work of regulators and developers which contrasts with the naïve libertarianism of some technology companies. The Church can help create and sustain communities of resistance in terms of critical use of technology.

All of the faith communities have wisdom and insight to share on what makes for a good life and death, on confronting suffering, on a good society and on the role of technology. My request to government and Parliament is to give due regard to these insights, be aware of where our society’s values have come from and engage fruitfully with this vital area for human flourishing and for society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Steven Croft

‘The time is fulfilled’ – Presidential Address

Hands hold a small candle

Bishop Steven’s Diocesan Synod address reflects on how we strengthen our commitments to keep safeguarding at the heart of Church culture.

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Emma Thompson

How to pray for the General Election

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With the UK General Election on the horizon, Bishop Steven urged Diocesan Synod to pray for the nation.

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Steven Croft

Presidential address March 2024: Amplifying children and young people’s voices

I hope this finds you well and this letter comes with thanksgiving and appreciation for your ministry especially during this season of Lent and Passiontide.

Our Diocesan Synod last Saturday spent time addressing our mission and ministry with children and young people. Can I encourage you to take time to listen to or read the transcript of my Presidential Address which details why this is so important at this time.

Following widespread consultation, I have taken the unusual step of asking every parish and deanery to give greater priority to this ministry, to pray and plan next steps between now and September. At the conclusion of the afternoon’s debate, the need for urgency was recognised by our Synod and I am hugely encouraged by their unanimous support and endorsement of the following motion:

“That this Synod endorses the need to significantly increase our engagement with children, young people, families and schools, building on Disciples Together and to share the good news of Jesus Christ, and calls on every deanery and benefice in 2024 to develop plans and partnerships for growth.”

I’ve been a bishop long enough now to know that bishops need to be sparing in directives and appeals of this kind. All too easily they can produce guilt and weariness rather than fresh energy and initiative. However, it does seem to me that this is a moment to make an exception. Over the last year, the Discipleship Enablers have spent a lot of time listening to children and young people and those who work with them; to parishes and to deaneries. We know there is energy around this agenda. We know there is consensus to make this a priority. We know that churches are already committing resources. We are confident that people understand that this will mean many different things in many different places.

Over half a million children and young people live in the Diocese of Oxford – between a fifth and a quarter of our population of 2.4 million people are under 20. We are all aware that the post-lockdown regathering and restoring of our work with children and young people has been much slower than for adults. We need to face the reality that although we are engaging with tens of thousands of children and families through our schools, our engagement with children and young people through our parish churches is no longer as confident and strong.

This reality should not lead us to despair, but it should be a spur to reset our youth and children’s work with urgency as a vital part of our service to our communities and of sharing in God’s mission to God’s world.

The process for developing deanery plans will be led by your Area Teams working through their Area Deans, Lay Chairs and relevant local deanery structures. The process of developing parish plans is the responsibility of every PCC. I would be grateful if you could pass this letter and the appropriate links onto the PCC and create space on an agenda in the near future for a full discussion to follow.

Parishes and deaneries will be supported by the team of Discipleship Enablers who are producing resources, parish mapping templates and supportive statistical data available through your deanery. Listening to the voice of children and young people themselves will be vital to our planning. Can I commend to you our exciting new resource ‘Amplify: from a whisper to a waves‘ which will provide the ideas and approaches you need. The focus is not on grand plans but on discerning the ‘one next step’ which can make a difference in your context.

These plans are not for the sake of the church but for the sake of God’s Kingdom and for the sake of the tens of thousands of children and young people and families we will serve through this vision: children who need a foundation; who need purpose; who need love and support; families who need community and practical help and guidance; young people who need investment and friendship and confidence; young adults who need models for living.

We want children and young people to come to know Jesus and love Jesus and follow Jesus. We want to make disciples. We want to bless families and young adults and see them access the immense treasure of the gospel.

With thanks in anticipation for all you are able to do to raise the profile of this ministry.

Watch Bishop Steven’s presidential address or download the transcript.

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Steven Croft

A New Year’s Day message

Welcome to another new year. I hope it’s a good one for you and for your family and for our all our communities across Oxfordshire and beyond.

This is the time of year when we package our hopes into new year resolutions. If I may, I want to suggest a couple to you to think about in the next few days and to build into your own life.

Lots of people will be wondering about taking more exercise or joining a gym. Personal trainers talk about doing exercise to strengthen your core: the centre of the body which can help and support everything we do. That’s great but we are not just physical bodies: we have a different inner core – a spiritual heart – which needs to be mended and strengthened.

So here are two resolutions to strengthen your inner core.

The first is a resolution to go deeper in prayer and worship. The last few years for many people have been challenging and difficult. We need to draw more deeply on God’s strength. The best way to do that is to take time at the beginning of each week, Sunday by Sunday to worship God and draw on God’s strength and grace. Reconnect with your local church. Get back into the habit of worship. You’ll find a warm welcome, friendship and a time for rest and renewal.  Try to take some time each day to pray. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Pray for your loved ones. Pray for the world. Build up that inner core. It may feel a bit daunting to cross the threshold – but for many people it’s more than worth it for the strength and hope and joy you’ll find in Jesus and in Christian faith.

The second is to reset your priorities once again at the beginning of the year. Remember what’s important. One of the stories I will be reflecting on this year is when someone came to Jesus and asked him which is the most important commandment. Jesus replied like this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Remember in this year that you are deeply loved by God and God calls you to this way of love.

Lent begins this year on Valentine’s Day, 14 January. All across the Diocese of Oxford we will be reflecting on this way of love, the two greatest commandments. I’m praying that many people from the wider community will join us this year as we explore this way of love. You can find details on our website, Come and See.

My God bless you and our city and our county in this brand new year and take us deeper in that way of love.

 

Almighty God

We thank you that you have made the world in love

And that you call us into love for you and for our neighbour

We dedicate this new year to you whatever it may bring

Strengthen us in our inner being to know your love more fully

To know you better and to live this way of love

Through Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen

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Steven Croft

A Christmas Day message

A very happy Christmas to you and to your families and to all who will listen to this sermon.
The joy of this day is vital medicine for the ills of the world.

I wonder if you can source these words:

The juice of a carrot the smile of parrot
A little drop of claret anything that rocks

They come from a song with the title Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 by Ian Drury and the Blockheads, released in 1979. Ian Drury was one of the best poets of punk. The song basically is a long list of reasons to get out of bed in the morning. Not all the lines can be repeated in church but here’s another that can:

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it,
You’re welcome we can spare it, yellow socks.

If you don’t know Reasons to be Cheerful you may want to think instead of My Favourite Things from the Sound of Music: Rainbows on roses and whiskers on kittens; bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens. More schmaltzy but the same message.

Christmas offers all of us after a hard and difficult year a long list of reasons not to be cheerful but even better to be joyful. Most of us will not need reminding this morning of the darkness in the world. We witness the indescribable suffering in Yemen and Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel and other forgotten conflicts. We see the growing inequalities in our own country and across the world. We hear the groaning of creation, as the earth continues year by year to grow warmer with disastrous consequences for nature, for our present and our future. The lives of colleagues and family, friends and neighbours are blighted by illness to a much greater degree than a few years ago.

But amid all of this, this Christmas story we are telling is an invitation to joy. These are the angels words spoken into the darkness:

Do not be afraid; for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.

The multitude of the heavenly host sing the words which were sung to us a few moments ago and which we will sing again again in Hark the Herald:

Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours

According to Luke’s gospel, when Jesus is born, everyone bursts into song: first Zecheriah, then Mary then the angels, then Simeon. There is a note of irrepressible joy which runs through the nativity story. The light and joy break in in spite of the pain and the darkness. There is a harsh Roman occupation. Faith burns low in Israel. Joseph and Mary face a long hard journey. The child is born in a stable and laid in a manger. There is poverty and distress in Bethlehem as in our world today. But the message of joy cuts deeper even than the pain and distress of occupation and conflict and poverty.

Ian Drury sings of reasons to be cheerful. But joy is very different from cheerfulness. To be cheerful is to grin and bear it, to smile though your heart is aching, to whistle into the wind. That sometimes helps on difficult days if we can do it. But cheerfulness lives on the surface of our lives not in the realities of our grieving. Cheerfulness and pain find it hard to live together in the same heart for very long. One drives out or suppresses the other.

But joy is different. Joy has a way of acknowledging all of the pain and sorrow we carry and yet going deeper, connecting us to the source of our life. Joy can take up residence alongside all manner of loss and difficulty and suffering because joy represents a deeper truth and a deeper reality and a deeper story at work.

Joy flows from the wonder of God’s gift in Jesus Christ, from the truth that God comes to be with us; from the reality that God is present in our world in every place of darkness and suffering; from the understanding that Jesus Christ has come to save the world from every fear and darkness and sorrow, to win our salvation and to build Christ’s kingdom of justice and peace for ever.

Our joy today is like coals on a fire which has burned very low. As we listen again to the story of Jesus birth and as we ponder and reflect in these 12 days of Christmas, it is these flames of joy which need to burst into life again within us and set us alight for God once more.

So ponder the story and find the joy in your faith once again. Joy in the good news that sins are forgiven. Joy in the presence of the Saviour. Joy in the humility of God. Joy in the faithfulness and obedience and vision of Mary. Joy in the shepherds racing to the stable. Joy in the slow journey of the magi. Joy in music of this season and in the worship of the church. Joy in the invitation to gather around his table. Joy in being called back into life and service. Joy in offering our very selves.

In this joy find the renewal for which your heart is so very thirsty. Drink and be refreshed and be strengthened then for service. We have a king to serve. We have a faith to share. We have a church which needs to be renewed. We have a world to change. We have a kingdom to build in the power and strength and joy which Jesus gives.

Let me finish with some lines in the style of Ian Drury. Reasons to be Joyful Parts 1, 2 and 3:

Angels in glory, a wonderful story
Choirs adulatory, life changing news

From darkness comes light, a gift in the night
The Saviour is born, the King of the Jews

A journey in danger, a child in a manger
The infant world changer God’s gift to the earth

Shepherds run to his stable as swift as they’re able
Come now to his table and feast at his birth

Mary ponders the myst’ry, this pivot of history
Through pain will come victory the Saviour of all

Sing joy at this birth, bring gifts for his worth
Rejoice in his coming and wait for his call.

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Steven Croft

A Christmas Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer

Christmas can be a busy and demanding time. Find a moment each day to be quiet and still. Sit comfortably and still your mind and heart. If you can, have a picture of the nativity or a crib scene in your hand. Pray the Lord’s Prayer slowly and carefully reflecting on each line:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name

Jesus, the Son of God, invites us to call God our Father. Jesus is our brother. Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth has become a child to live among us.

Draw near to me Lord in your love this day.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven

The child in the manger is God’s chosen and anointed king, the Christ.
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom of justice and peace. His reign has begun but is not yet fulfilled. Christ will return to make all things new.

Bring peace and justice to this world, Lord we pray

Give us this day our daily bread

Jesus is the bread of life. In him all of our hungers are satisfied.
In this season we take time to thank God for the good gifts we have been given each day. We set our hearts against greed.

We pray Lord for all those who lack food, shelter and warmth this Christmas and those who help them, here and across the world.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us

Mary’s son will grow to live a life without sin. Jesus will offer his life on the cross so that we might be forgiven and reconciled to God and to others. God will raise him from death.

Help us, Lord, to seek and to offer forgiveness in every part of our lives

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

From his birth to his passion and death, Jesus knew sorrow, hardship and trials of every kind and is able to strengthen us in whatever we are facing.

Lord send your grace and help this day to all those passing through testing, temptation or hardship.

For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory
For ever and ever. Amen.

Here in the Christ child is a glory and a power greater than any ever seen on earth: the power of love and humility and holiness combine.

May we live this day, Lord, to your glory. Amen.

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Steven Croft

Make Christ known in our lives and through our words

This is the text of the Presidential Address given by Bishop Steven to Oxford Diocesan Synod on Saturday 18 November 2023.

I am going to begin with a familiar verse from Matthew’s gospel.

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Matthew 2.14)

I’ve selected the image above for my official Christmas card this year. It’s a photograph of a mosaic at the entrance to what is called the Hanging Church in the heart of old Cairo, the most famous and one of the oldest Coptic Christian churches in Egypt. It’s called the Hanging Church because it’s built on top of two much older pillars which were part of a Roman fortress. Parts of the Church date from the third or fourth century, which makes it one of the oldest purpose-built church buildings in the world and the majority of the Church from the 7th century. There is a cave underneath the Church reputed to be where the Joseph and Mary and the infant Jesus sheltered from those who were searching for them. This modern mosaic, made from pieces of coloured stone, shows the holy family on their journey from Bethlehem through southern Israel/Palestine. They would no doubt have taken the coast road through Gaza and across Sinai to what is now Cairo, fleeing for their lives before Herod’s massacre of the innocent. There is a rich Coptic tradition which charts their journey within Egypt to many different places and of course, in due time, back to Nazareth.

My wife and I visited the Hanging Church a few weeks ago on 25 October on our first visit to Egypt to visit our son and daughter in law and our granddaughter, who are living in Cairo this year and will have a permanent home there. Our visit came just a few weeks after the devastating Hamas attacks on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,400 Israeli’s, including children and the elderly, and the taking of over 200 hostages. And in the weeks that have followed we have also seen the deaths of more than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere including again many children in the most dreadful conflict the Middle East has seen for a generation and which continues today.

Our hearts break, I wept again last night as we saw on BBC News a little girl, the same age as our granddaughter, who had lost both her legs in the bombing in Gaza. Those conflicts have affected communities in our own country – including across the Thames Valley. We have seen a rise in antisemitism, in Islamophobia and a raising of the potential for serious conflict and division.

It was very striking on 25 October to see the conflict from Egypt, rather than from Oxford. We were taken to visit many different sites: the pyramids; the mummies; the ancient mosques, churches and synagogues but this one image of Jesus and Joseph and Mary has stayed with me as I’ve reflected on this deepening tragedy.

The story of salvation is here, worked out in a particular time and place. The journey of this Joseph echoes the journey of another Joseph, thousands of years earlier, who was taken as a slave to Egypt, betrayed by his own brothers. The journey of this family down to Egypt and then back again echoes the formational journey of the people of Israel, their deliverance from their own slavery as the quotation from Hosea 11.1 makes clear: ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son. Matthew, this most Jewish of the gospel writers, shows us clearly that the mission of God in Christ is to all the nations and not simply to God’s chosen people’.

There is a profound vulnerability in this picture of the Holy Family which Matthew offers us. They have no security, no family support and few resources. Mary most probably is in her teens. She has recently given birth. They are travelling by dangerous roads to a foreign land to seek safety, to places where they have never been and where perhaps the language and customs are unfamiliar. Behind them is cruelty and slaughter. Ahead is uncertainty. They are confident in God’s provision. And they bring with them the hope of the entire world, Jesus.

So we wonder at this Holy Family but wonder more at the grace of God in the incarnation pictured here in this mosaic. Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, Lord of the universe, takes flesh and dwells among us not in safety and security but on the road, in dirt and danger, unguarded and alone except for Mary and Joseph. And this is the way God’s salvation is offered to the whole world. This is the nature of God’s grace: free, undefended, weaving a silent path through the suffering of the earth, finding the paths of hope and peace in the midst of deep conflict, making present the rich patterns of love written into the fabric of the universe. Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down and treading the road through Gaza to Egypt.

The picture helps us to find a perspective on the present conflict: to weep and lament but not to be paralysed into inaction or inured to suffering. It is our call first and foremost to prayer. It is our call to give generously for the relief of distress. It is the call for the flow of aid to begin in Gaza and to expand and continue; for the protection of non combatants; for the release of the hostages; for the revitalisation of the peace process; for the rekindling of hope of a just and lasting two state settlement.

And the picture is a call also to reach out within our own communities to both friends and strangers. And I know that this is happening in different places across the diocese. I was in Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes on 15 October, to pray a blessing on the new city. It was moving to share in the lighting of candles of peace at the end of the service by Jewish, Christian and Muslim representatives. The faith leaders across Oxfordshire have now met together with civic leaders on three occasions since the 7 October. On 5 November we held an Oxfordshire vigil for peace in Broad Street attended by 500 people, who stood in silence as we remembered and as we prayed and held hands across our communities lest conflict in distant places cause divisions here. This building of community needs to continue in all of our villages and towns and cities. This is a season to reach out and love the stranger, to build bonds of friendship, to welcome the refugees because our Lord from the beginning of his life knew suffering and distress and identified with those who had no home.

The picture and these verses from Scripture also give a framing context for our ongoing reflections in the life of our own diocese on every subject on our agenda but particularly our debates on human sexuality. There will be many who feel a range of difficult emotions following the General Synod debates this week. We will need to continue to be sensitive to one another and gentle with each other during the coming months; to listen well; to be with each other. We have allowed additional time for reflection on General Synod this morning and I will offer my own perspective and of course, be willing to answer questions. I’m very sorry we are not together in person for that conversation on this occasion. But we remember the Christ child is in the midst even in our most difficult and sensitive conversations.

God inspired Joseph the son of Jacob in dreams with wisdom to solve impossible problems and to save and lead his people: a new wisdom greater even than all the scribes of Egypt. And God inspired Joseph, husband of Mary, in dreams when he did not know where to turn in his responsibilities as a husband and a father to play his part in the story of salvation as we must play ours. God will continue to give wisdom to his whole church as we listen together to the Spirit. I used the image of a mosaic in my own speech to General Synod this week, with this picture in my mind. We are seeking to build a greater and deeper Christian inclusion one step at a time, laying as it were new mosaic, respectful of each other’s deeply held views and consciences. None of us yet see the whole picture. We are building of course with cracked pieces of pottery, our own imperfect selves and our incomplete visions of the whole to make something yet more beautiful, like the practitioners of the Japanese art form kintsugi: the mending of cracked pots with seams of lacquer and gold. My prayer is that in due course, as painful though the process can be, we will yet see the face of Christ in this mosaic we are building: a face of gentle contemplation, of deep compassion, of world changing courage.

Which brings me to the final part of this address. The world needs to know and hear about this Christ child, who lives among us and travels into danger and exile for the sake of the whole world. This is the child who grows to show to all of us the way of love; who summarises the whole law of God into two commandments: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.

Events in the world and events in the church reveal to us all that the world urgently needs to understand this way of love. I want therefore to invite all members of this Synod and all churches across the diocese to prepare well for Come and See in Lent next year. We will be focussing on this way of love in Jesus summary of the law and in the commandments. The diocese will be sending out invitations to sign up for Come and See and to access materials in the next few days. We want to offer a big warm open invitation to the communities of our diocese to come and meet this Jesus, to Come and See, to walk with us through Lent and to explore baptism and confirmation and to get to know this Jesus for themselves.

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Matthew 2.14)

May we all do our best to follow in the way of Christ, in gentleness and love, to be a more Christ-like Church in this time of great peril for our world, and to make Christ known in our lives and through our words.

Amen.

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Steven Croft

The fifth horseman

A Let it Grow sign in a patch of tall grass

The Book of Revelation tells of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The first rider clothed in white comes out to conquer. The second in red represents civil war and slaughter. The third in black is famine. The fourth rider is on a pale green horse:

“Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine and pestilence and by the wild animals of the earth.”

As Christians in the 21st century, we know and understand these four terrible riders and all they symbolise. We see the war of intended conquest in Ukraine and witness the suffering which flows from that. We see civil war in South Sudan and Yemen and the terrible toll on entire populations. We understand famine and want and the rising numbers of the world’s population who live below subsistence level. And we know that Death and Hades have come closer to home through a global pandemic which has claimed so many lives.

But in the 21st century there are two new riders, and they are the subject of much of our Synod meeting this March.

The fifth horseman is invisible. This rider represents the unseen blanket of greenhouse gas which silently envelopes the earth, year by year trapping more of the sun’s energy inside the atmosphere and raising global temperatures to critical levels. This horseman has the power to disrupt weather, to extend deserts, to set fire to the forests, to cause floods and storms, to melt the ice caps and raise sea levels to disastrous levels.

This rider can be stopped. The world has a small window in which to act. But only if every nation, every institution, every faith, every family act together to reach net zero and do so without delay.

The sixth rider is astride a grey horse, made of gunmetal; a machine, not a living creature, spewing an invisible poison from its mouth. This rider is hard to see against the landscape. Its work is gradual, not sudden, a silent undermining of the vital web of life.

Earth is the only planet, the only corner of this vast universe, where we are certain there is abundant life. Yet the once rich tapestry of life on earth is now being degraded year by year because of the expansion and greed of a single species, ourselves.

The sixth rider represents the systemic destruction of nature, the second great environmental challenge of our time. This rider works destruction by stealth and in secret. The birds fall silent. The insects disappear. The soil is less rich in micro-organisms. The fish die in the rivers. Humanity is putting at risk the very eco system on which our life depends.

There are signs that the world is waking up to the environmental disaster we face. Wildlife populations worldwide declined by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018. Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a 94% drop in the wildlife population. Wild animals now account for just 4% of mammal biomass globally: humans and our livestock account for the other 96%. 60% of the UK’s flying insects have vanished in the last 20 years. They are vital for pollination and for the food chain. Britain is currently one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. Over 1 million species are currently threatened with extinction.

These two new horsemen of the apocalypse work closely together in a spiral of destruction. Biodiversity loss is one of the accelerators of climate change. Global heating leads to more diversity loss. Both need to be addressed together. Both need to be addressed locally as well as globally.

Why should Christians care?

This is a critical moment. In December the world agreed a new set of global targets for restoring nature at the COP15 conference in Montreal. The principal goal of the Kinming-Montreal agreement is to protect 30% of the earth’s land, oceans, coastal areas and inland waters by 2030.

Just six days ago, the news led with agreement of the UN High Seas Treaty setting 30% of the world’s oceans into protected areas. 30% is not a random number. It represents the scientific consensus on the minimum protected area which will allow the regeneration of the whole. Tomorrow, David Attenborough begins a major new television series, Wild Isles, focussing on the decline in biodiversity in Britain and Ireland and how that can be addressed.

But why should Christians care? Why should the diocese or the local church invest resources in restoring nature alongside working towards net zero? Why do we need to work at the ecological conversion of every disciple, in the words of Pope Francis? Why should we be giving our time today to this aspect of God’s mission?

There are a million reasons why. The most immediate is, of course, the whole future of life on earth; the love we bear our neighbours, our children and grandchildren and those who will come after us. Our life is inextricably linked to and dependent on the biodiversity of the earth. Yet scientists have named these decades as the Age of Extinction.

If we sleepwalk through the next ten years, the tragedy will be indescribable and irreversible for the whole future of life on earth.

From Genesis to Revelation

The Bible teaches us from Genesis to Revelation that humanity is part of God’s creation with a particular relationship with the natural world. If you doubt that you might want to explore Psalm 104 or the final chapters of Job or Proverbs 8 or the Sermon on the Mount or Colossians 1. Read each text through the lens of these two terrible Riders.

But for today let me take you to just a handful of verses in the Book of Genesis. Genesis 1, as you will know, describes the creation of the heavens and the earth with humankind created on the sixth day. There God gives to humanity responsibility for the earth:

“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth”.

Those words fill and subdue and ‘have dominion’ are sometimes misunderstood as giving authority to exploit creation and misuse nature. But properly interpreted they give dignity and agency and responsibility – a sacred trust – to every human person, male and female. This is the stewardship of a good shepherd with responsibility to care for the flock, not the authority to plunder or destroy.

That responsibility is made very clear in the second creation story in Genesis 2. Here we read:

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”

The word translated ’till’ here is found again in Genesis 3.23:

“… the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken”. We have the command to till before and after the fall.

To serve and steward

So what is the core meaning of that word ’till’? The Hebrew word is not the normal word for ploughing or gardening. The Hebrew word is ‘ebed. The root meaning of the word is ‘to serve’. ‘Ebed can also mean to worship and to work. It is the word used of the service of God and of the servant of the Lord in other Old Testament texts. It is a key word for Jesus understanding of his ministry and our understanding of who Jesus is. The word keep means to watch over, to guard.

Humanity is here given a sacred responsibility to serve and steward and watch over the earth: the land and the water and all that lives in them. Hebrew scholars note that ‘ebed can also be translated as observe, preserve and conserve, all variations of the English verb to serve. Tilling and keeping the earth are foundational to the exploration of human identity and vocation.

Pope Francis’ great encyclical, Laudato’ Si explores these texts in Genesis. They “suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbour and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin.”

Restoring our relationship with the earth is therefore core to our own salvation, won by Christ on the cross. In Romans 8, Paul explores the relationship between our own salvation as women and men and the salvation and healing of the earth:

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope, that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God, We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now;” (Romans 8.19-22).

Conservation is not enough

So what are the ways in which we can, with others, repair and restore creation in the places where we live? Conservation is not enough. We have a tremendous opportunity as a diocese to shape and influence the ecology of the Thames Valley in the coming years.

We are able as we know to help and support the pathway to net zero through the actions we take in schools and churches and vicarages across the three counties. Every single place has a church and congregation who are able to work together with their community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work to restore and rebuild the natural world. We have green spaces and churchyards. Individually we own farms and gardens.

Churches across the diocese are rewilding their churchyards to encourage biodiversity and provide a rich habitat for flora and fauna to flourish within the framework of EcoChurch. St Mary’s Church in Wargrave introduced a Let it Grow zone in part of their churchyard by halting regular mowing and strimming of the grass. This has promoted wildflower growth and provides habitat for animals and invertebrate species helping to increase the biodiversity of the churchyard. The church has also installed bat boxes and bird boxes and created a large compost area that provides shelter for hedgehogs. Imagine if Wargrave’s story was repeated over 800 times in every churchyard in the diocese?

As Christians we can work in partnership with others. I’m delighted that the diocese has an active partnership with the Berks, Bucks and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust. The trust will be running two training courses in our churchyards in April and May – one about managing green spaces and the other on doing a basic site survey (species identification, vegetation types etc). There is an inspiring webpage called Wilder Churches, which features examples of churches in the Diocese of Oxford taking action and steps others can take.

Engaging with green issues

Local Christians and churches can stimulate wider initiatives for nature. Hungerford has a great story about tree planting – 6,440 trees supplied by ⁦the Woodland Trust to date! Churches in Greenham and Wendover and elsewhere are also planting trees, though not at such scale. Engaging with gardening and green issues and biodiversity is becoming a normal part of church life across the diocese.

There will be a particular opportunity in the next few years for local government to play a key role – and therefore for Christians to be involved in shaping nature recovery. Last year the UK government launched the Nature Recovery Network through Natural England, which draws together partners across the community. A key part of the Nature Recovery Network will be for every county and local authority to draw up its own Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LRNS). These will be a key building block for the recovery of nature nationally. They are a key outcome of the Environment Act 2021.

The government is taking further initiatives on local planning, on land use, sustainable farming, care of the soil and rivers which all offer opportunities for partnership and for the voices of local people to be heard. We must not be silent for the sake of the earth. As many will know, I’m part of the House of Lords Environment and Climate Select Committee. We have just begun our third major enquiry on protected areas to scrutinise the government’s plans to protect 30% of our land and coastal areas by 2030.

The earth needs humankind to till it and keep it. Humanity needs the earth for our survival, for our health, for human flourishing. We need clean air, clean water, abundant biodiversity. We need not just to conserve but to restore the natural world carefully and intentionally in the coming decade.

The Church of England is not able to do this by ourselves but we can and we should offer leadership wherever we can for the sake of the Earth.

The two new Horsemen of the Apocalypse are truly terrifying. We have time, just, to respond to the challenges they bring. May God give us grace and strength to work together in this generation for the renewal of the earth.

Watch Bishop Steven’s address to Diocesan Synod

The once rich tapestry of life on earth is now being degraded year by year because of the expansion and greed of a single species: our selves. Our life is inextricably linked to and dependent on the biodiversity of the Earth. While there are signs that the world is waking up to the environmental disaster we face, Britain is currently one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

Watch a recording of the Presidential Address to Oxford Diocesan Synod, given by the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, Bishop of Oxford, on 11 March 2023.

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