The annual Maundy Thursday Chrism Service has taken place at Rochester Cathedral today, Thursday 17 April.
This service invites those who hold a role in the Diocese - clergy, lay ministers, children and youth workers and diocesan staff - to come together to renew their commitment to their particular ministry in the presence of God and one another.
Oils for use in parishes and chaplaincies are also distributed on the day.
In his sermon, Bishop Jonathan considered the challenges that are being faced by people personally and in the world today, and he suggested ways in which those called to ministry roles within the Diocese are called to rise to those challenges.
Read his sermon in full below.
Chrism Eucharist – Rochester Cathedral
I don’t know what you think, but the world around us seems to me to be in a state of chaos. Events on the world stage are unfolding at such a pace and with such unpredictable consequences. Technology is advancing so fast that we cannot keep up.
Wars are breaking out in more and more places, with most likely more to come, even on our doorstep right here in Europe. And the old order of ever-expanding global trade seems to have been overturned by the policy decisions of one man.
Of course, many things still carry on as normal, but there is surely an increasing sense of fragility and uncertainty in today’s world.
It is in this context that we are called to minister.
And this Chrism Eucharist is a great opportunity for us to reflect on the nature of our calling and on how we are called to respond to the situation we are facing in today’s world. And it is that wider situation that I would like us to consider first.
We need to understand the cultural context in which we find ourselves. The dominant paradigm of today – the assumed narrative by which many people live, especially in the western world – is that science and human ingenuity have all the answers, whereas religion is believed to be outdated and outmoded.
Religion is supposedly the product of ignorance and holds us back from making rational decisions about the way we should live and order our corporate life.
The problem is, however, that human beings in our culture have confused knowledge with wisdom. We know so much – vastly more than our forebears even just a few years ago – but we have so little understanding of what we are doing to ourselves and the world we all inhabit.
And we seemingly have even less ability to change course and to find a better way!
We tend also to operate with an optimistic view of human nature and assume (with no real evidence) that in the end things just tend to get better. On this view, as we become more enlightened, so some of the abuses of the past will begin to fade away and societies will become more tolerant and harmonious.
But if you look at things on the ground, plainly there is still a very long way to go, and in fact in some ways racism, xenophobia and misogyny have reasserted themselves in recent years, as we saw from last summer’s riots and the rise of influencers like Andrew Tate and their impact on the attitudes and behaviour of young men.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of the world. And of course we as Christians know what this is about.
It is to do with that little old-fashioned word, “sin” and the old adage still applies: “the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”
It is exactly this reality that Jesus came to address by his life, his teaching, his death and his resurrection from the dead. And it is our job as followers of Jesus, both ordained and lay, to fulfil the commission that he gave us, and to play our part in what God is doing to bring about the salvation of the world.
So what exactly does that mean for us gathered here in this Cathedral today? What does it mean for clergy and lay people alike to join in with God’s mission to the world? And here I want to pick out three themes from our Bible readings and to encourage you to reflect on what these mean for you and for the context in which God has placed you, whether that is in a parish church or a chaplaincy, in the place where you work or the community in which you live.
This is for all of us. To give you an idea of where I am going, those three themes are: proclaiming salvation; praying for healing; and promoting justice.
The first part of our calling, and of the ministry which Jesus has entrusted to us, is to proclaim salvation. Now most obviously of course that means telling people about what Jesus has done for us upon the Cross and inviting them to respond. But for people to respond to what they have heard, then what we are saying needs in some sense to be an answer to questions they are asking. And at first, people may not realise that there are even questions to be asked!
This is where the prophetic voice of the Church needs to be heard. We need to speak into the confusion and fear that pervades so much of our society. We need to identify and call out what is happening in the culture of which we are all part.
It is a culture that exalts autonomy and so-called freedom, but which fails to recognise that in such a world it is always the strong who prevail and the weakest who go to the wall. This is why the debate about so-called “assisted dying” is so insidious. It is supposedly an affirmation of freedom of choice, but for every strong-minded celebrity who champions the cause, there are countless frail, especially elderly people who will be vulnerable to the shadow side of such a culture.
At the same time of course, the Church needs to proclaim a positive alternative to the dominant ideologies of our day. The problem with unconstrained freedom of choice is that it inevitably sets people up in conflict with one another – not least in the pursuit of scarce resources – at both the personal and the international level.
The alternative that the Christian gospel offers is of a freedom to choose that is shaped by compassion and that is directed towards service rather than competition and domination.
The Christian life conceived in that kind of way is a radical alternative to the egocentric dynamic of autonomy. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” declares Saint Paul, but that freedom is to be used for good and not for ill.
I believe such a radical alternative way of living can be deeply attractive especially to a generation of young people who are looking for purpose and meaning for their lives, having seen the bankruptcy of consumerism, both for individuals and for the fragile planet that we share. We need to proclaim salvation boldly, inviting people to join in with a different way of living, one that is rooted in the gracious self-giving of God in Christ and which calls us in turn to follow in the self-giving way of the Cross.
The second theme arising out of our Bible readings is that we are called to pray for healing. That is the exhortation that James gives in his letter and of course it follows the example of Jesus himself, for whom the healing of the sick in both mind and body was an integral part of his messianic calling.
Healing needs to be at the heart of the ministry of the Church, in our worship week by week, in our reaching out to the sick and the frail. Such a ministry will not always – maybe even not often – result in significant improvement in someone’s physical condition – but it will always bring blessing in body, soul and spirit to those with whom and for whom we pray – and for that reason it should always be at the heart of the worshipping and praying life of the Church.
And the healing for which we must pray is not just for individuals. It is also for relationships and for communities and indeed for nations and societies. As we see from the vision of Isaiah, echoed and amplified in Jesus’ words in the synagogue at Nazareth, the messianic vision of healing is for the whole of humanity and the whole of creation.
That is why we must pray too for an end to wars and the healing of nations. The hospital in Gaza run by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem is an example of the Church’s commitment to bringing healing in the midst of war, making its destruction on Palm Sunday all the more tragic and appalling. Here in this cathedral, where Archbishop Hosam is an honorary canon, we must pray especially for the restoration of that hospital and for the healing of all lives so scarred by war, on whichever side they may be.
That leads to the third and final theme from our readings, namely that the Church is called to promote justice in the world, as part of our commitment to God’s reign of righteousness and peace. Now it can be tempting to distinguish between those Christians who emphasise that the gospel is about people being called into personal relationship with God and those who emphasise that Christian discipleship is about challenging the unjust structures of society.
But of course these two are not at all incompatible, and they are in fact simply different aspects of what it means to respond to the call of God in Jesus Christ – the Jesus who stood up and preached in the synagogue at Nazareth and whose manifesto so clearly echoed the words of Isaiah.
This brings me back to the theme I was exploring earlier, of the need for Christians to challenge the culture of which we are part and to ask questions about the kind of world we are making for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren. A world which rides roughshod over issues of justice is both abhorrent to God and on a path to self-destruction.
Therefore as well as challenging the folly of egocentric materialism, we need also to be asking questions about the kind of society and world we are creating, both in our own nation and across the world. This too is part of our calling as followers of Christ.
This has implications for so many issues, in regard to social policy, the education and training of children and young people, and in regard to defence and the challenges of an increasingly volatile world order.
Our contribution as Christians must be to speak up on behalf of the demands of justice, not just for its own sake but because in the end the pursuit of justice promotes a more sustainable way of life where everyone has a better chance to thrive – or at least to survive!
Sisters and brothers, I am conscious that I have not focused today as much as I might normally on the ministry of the local church and on our role as lay and ordained ministers in that context. I have tried instead to focus on the bigger picture of the challenges we and our world are facing, and to suggest ways in which we are called to rise to those challenges, because I believe that is what God is calling us to do.
We are called first and foremost to proclaim salvation boldly – pointing out the flaws in our culture, telling people what God has done in Christ, inviting them to be reconciled to God and to share in the life of his kingdom.
We are called also to pray for healing for the people of the world. Because healing of bodies, minds, hearts and souls is part of God’s intention for human beings made in his image. We are to be God’s repair shop for broken humanity, motivated by the compassion of Christ.
And we are called to promote justice in our local communities, in our nation and in our world. Because the powers of evil are seeking to destroy people and nations and to prevent people from experiencing the righteousness, peace and fulness of life, which is God’s will for all of his creation.
So, thank you for all you are doing to proclaim the good news of Christ, to serve the people of your communities and to be a voice for the voiceless and vulnerable here in this Diocese and across the world.
May God bless you richly as you continue to serve him faithfully in the coming season of Easter and in the years to come.
Amen.
The Rt Rev Dr Jonathan Gibbs
Bishop of Rochester
17 April 2025