Parting Words to Rosemary Carter - and Continuing Words to the Congregation

We all make mistakes. My mistake was to accept the role of Chair of Church Council ...

Rosemary's mistake was ... well, more of that later.

Some years ago I was asked to give a graduation address. What does one say to a bunch of excited, enthusiastic graduates, about to embark upon their professional careers? I decide to remind them of their human condition. "Errare humanum est" I said. "To err is human". But what takes us beyond our humanity is how we respond to those mistakes. "The man who has never made a mistake has never made anything", as Robert Fleming reminded me yesterday. We learn from our mistakes, and for graduates who have spent their recent years learning heaps of stuff, I thought it important to remind them that they will continue to learn throughout their professional lives. Yes, qualifications are important, but the "school of hard knocks" has as good a reputation as any learned academe.

I took as my theme how the world of railways had improved, because in Britain, during the early development of railways, many mistakes were made. Railway Companies then were so unlike the companies of today! They were driven by greed, and anything that ate into their profits (such as safety requirements) was anathema. But the fact that rail travel is today so safe is largely due to the British Board of Trade, who investigated every accident upon the railways, and recommended changes of legislation to force railway companies to improve their safe-working procedures. Similar remarks can be made about the world of air travel.

They learnt from their mistakes, as we too must learn from ours. How often have you heard people say after some protracted legal case "well, at least he did not die in vain". That is an acknowledgement that often the price of progress is pain.

I believe that the pain we are suffering as a church right now is a crisis. My dictionary says of the word crisis "the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death". Whether or not or church recovers or dies is a question about what we learn from the mistakes we have made. Did we make a mistake in appointing Rosemary? Did Rosemary make a mistake in accepting our call? If you believe in our discernment processes, you have to say "no" to both of those questions. But if you do say "yes", then what do you take away from the situation?

When you learn to write, you made mistakes, and the teacher corrected you. If you misspelt a word, some of us had to write the word out many times as a "corrective punishment". If you blotted your copybook, you had to do it all again. But now we have word processing systems. You can type in your text, read it through. and correct the mistakes. You can even show the progress you make if you turn on "track changes". When the document looks hopelessly confused, you can "accept changes", and hey presto! The document looks as good as new, as though there never were any mistakes.

Forgiveness is like that. But we do not get forgiveness unless we click the "accept changes". This church must now use its accept changes" button, and see the future as a brand new document. Just as you don't get to know about the "track changes" and accept changes" features unless someone shows you, we have the Holy Spirit to show us how to us our accept changes" button. But it does need us to affirm that the past is wrong, and we that we feel the need to move forward. To quote Seneca the Younger more fully, "errare humanum est, perserverare diabolicum" - "to err is human, (but) to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical".

Did anyone notice that I used the words "accept" and "affirm" in that last paragraph? I have said, and will continue to say, that our church needs to be "accepting and affirming". We must acknowledge our mistakes, and move on. We cannot continue in our mistakes and not pay the price. None of us are perfect - but we can still aspire to perfection.

Which brings me back to my opening gambit. I'm not perfect, Rosemary's not perfect, our Ministry Team is not perfect, this congregation is not perfect. Rosemary's big mistake was not in accepting the call to Glen Waverley, it was in giving her love, her dedication, her whole spirit to her call. That has burnt her, and we are ever so sorry for that. Rosemary, you do not leave us in vain. We thank you for the cost you have paid in loving us, and our biggest mistake as a congregation will be to turn our backs on the lessons you have taught us.

ChurchRosemaryFarewellJohnHurst (last edited 2013-02-17 21:38:23 by JohnHurst)