It’s not easy when you feel pulled in two ways. We can often experience divided loyalties. Jesus recognises that fact when he says this to his disciples
‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.’ (Matthew 6.24)
Pulled both ways
The Church of England is often pulled in a variety of directions and we saw that yesterday in the afternoon Session of the General Synod. The issue was around what we mean by a spouse in relation to some legislation which related to cathedrals building on a disused burial ground (pretty obscure you are thinking). The ‘offending text’ came in the Report of the Steering Committee, those dry looking documents with unmemorable references, this one was GS 2104Z/2105Z, which are designed to help us understand the legislative paper to which they relate and the first instance of this new definition came here
Clause 6, page 6, line 26, at end insert—
“(3E) The reference in subsection (3D)(a) to a person’s spouse includes a reference
to a spouse of the same sex as that person.”
The CofE has all the benefits of being the Established Church, seats in the House of the Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury being one of the few to know who Archie’s godparents are, and looking after the people of this nation at all the life stages that we go through – hatch, match and dispatch as we say. That means burying people and that means people who are not paid up ‘members’ of the CofE. That is the joy of being in this church. But of course, for the first time in our history, we disagree with the nation about who a person can marry. We say that you can only marry someone of the opposite sex to you, the nation says you can marry any person who you love. So how do we square this circle, how do we live with this discrepancy in our understanding of marriage. How do we serve the two masters of the God we adore and the nation we are called to serve. And anyway, where is the God of love in all of this, with our rather restrictive views or with the inclusive view that the nation has so readily embraced?
For some of course this clause was the liberal ‘Thin Edge of the Wedge’, a Trojan Horse being wheeled into the Synod Chamber, like a bride adorned for his/her husband/wife. There were calls for ‘Next Business’, ‘Adjournment’, ‘Article 7’ (which may still come), all procedural devices. But in the end the amendment was approved. But the serious point, as was made by someone in the debate, is that we have to be prepared to deal with all these anomalies that will come along and we will be there in many obscure corners of our life, because it is about our pastoral response to the people of England which has been history long.
And, of course, it gave us an indication of what we are in for this afternoon as we join in a series of seminars about the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ project. The Bishop of Coventry in telling us what would be happening today said that this would be about a new way of learning. Really? Maybe? But what I do not understand is how more talking can get us anywhere. I was in three sets of Shared Conversations and they were meant to be the answer and I learnt a great deal by them and I thank God for the late and lovely Ruth Scott and the others who held us during that process. I am still meeting on a regular basis someone I got to know during those conversations – on the issue we disagree but on everything else we agree on so much and, I think, I hope, count each other as friends. But at some stage we have to make a decision and live with the consequences … but we are approaching Lambeth 2020 so nothing will happen before that.
Anyway, more importantly we need to debate Serious Youth Violence and that is this (Saturday) morning. Young people are dying in our streets and on our estates, in our parishes and we are, as ever, fiddling whilst Rome burns.
God,
may we serve you and serve our neighbour
with an undivided heart.
Amen.
Andrew Nunn's reflections from General Synod 
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