Video for May 7th, 2026
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
Sussex, where I ministered for many years was very different to Hereford. I have only been back a few times and when I do, I am reminded firstly of how crowded it is and secondly or how wealthy. It is the Southeast of England, so the terrible arctic winters of course explain the need for so many Range Rovers. The Churches largely reflect the communities they serve. However, in wealthy communities being poor is much more difficult. That poverty may be economic, social or educational. Some parishes had small patches of social housing surrounded by large private dwellings. The excellent pastoral ministry offered by the clergy would occasionally draw people to church, say after a funeral or a baptism. But frequently I would notice those people on the edge in the social time after Sunday services. It wasn’t that the usual congregation were unfriendly or unwelcoming, but it was hard for those from a different social group to break in. I think it was something about general confidence in life. They felt at the bottom of the pile most of the time. Coming to church, surrounded by people who seemed, on the surface at least, to have life under control was simply intimidating. Attempts at inclusion felt patronising, despite people’s best intentions. It was hard to make the sorts of connections on which friendship could be built. Going to an Oxford College from a direct grant school in West London in the early 80s felt similar to me.
The New Testament’s vision of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic church where rich and poor both feel at home and have a stake is very difficult to achieve. Its was difficult to manage in Corinth in the first century. That’s why Paul had to write to them. I genuinely believe the Church has moved on from the 1950s. New arrivals on the Windrush frequently found an overtly racist reception with suggestions that they should go down the road to one of the newly forming black majority churches. Imagine the blessing the church could have received if those early Caribbean immigrants could have brought their cultural strengths and insights to a place of dialogue and mutual learning. The cultural imperialism hung over from the age of empire deprived us of much.
The West Midlands Racial Justice project has funded Anira Khokhar to work with us on these issues. She came to a recent Diocesan Synod. She has done extensive research into the lived experience of black and brown people in our churches. As I read her report, I was reminded of my Sussex experiences. Mercifully, she found very little racism but some of the same issues about truly being incorporated into the family as experienced by non-middleclass people. In some ways its more difficult in our diocese because we are quite monochrome. Its hard to break into a community if you feel you are the only non-white person and don’t recognise ‘people like you’ in leadership or up-front service. The same is true for young people. If they encounter a community where there is no-one their own age, they’re likely to go elsewhere.
Understanding difference and being a supportive, inclusive community has never been more important. In the aftermath of appalling antisemitic violence and a growing tide of antisemitism can we do more than just be a place of refuge and hospitality to those who are targeted for their race and religion? Could we model a different way of being a community that is a prophetic voice for justice and calls out attitudes and actions that undermine community cohesion? Could we convene people of good will in our parishes to discuss these issues in a non-judgemental environment? Being sensitive to the impact of our own actions and words on others is a good place to start. Viewing our political choices through the lens of empathy and asking how our actions are received by those who feel on the edge? We can’t do that work without real attentive listening to voices that we often don’t hear. I can’t imagine what it must be like for our Jewish friends living in fear; having to conceal their identity in public and avoiding parts of their hometowns for fear of attack. Walking for a while in someone else’s shoes is likely to change the way we do things.
Jews and Christians have hospitality as a foundational value. For example, Deuteronomy 10: 19 exhorts the Israelites to, “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. Paul tells the Roman Church to, “contribute to the needs of the saints; extending hospitality to strangers”. In his letter to the Ephesians, he reminds them that as gentiles they had been grafted in, “consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household”. The vision of the Kingdom of God at its consummation in Revelation is of harmony: every tribe and language and tongue gathered around God in worship, the harmonious voices speaking more powerfully of the glory of God than any one race or culture could alone. We pray we might work for that in the here and now rather than having to wait.
+Richard