Bishop John's farewell sermon

+John at his leaving service WHAT I'VE DEPENDED ONThe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore, amen. Well, that was short! That's how we usually end things in the Church.

And yes, that's why I've chosen it.

As I come to the end of seven years here, that's what I've depended on - the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. At my installation service in 2007 I mentioned Archbishop Stuart Blanche coming to start his ministry at the great west door of his cathedral and just as he was about to knock boldly on the door with his pastoral staff he whispered to his chaplain 'Are you sure we've got the right place?' I certainly had my doubts seven years ago that Oxford had the right person.

I read not long ago that 70% of people in senior positions in any walk of life suffer from imposter syndrome. But eventually I came to have confidence that this was the right post, at the right time, for the right task.

This was confirmed for me last month by my six year old granddaughter Cora who, at the Grand Day Out, had been to the Mad Hatters Tea party.

She'd made a hat, meant to be a mitre, though I confess it looked like a witch's hat to me.

But there she was on the front row in the service in Christ Church Meadows, wearing her hat, which she'd decorated with the words, 'The Bishop of Oxford is my granddad'.

So I do believe it.

And it's been wonderful. And yet I've very much needed all that grace of Jesus, that love of God and that fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Let me tell you about it. The grace of our Lord Jesus ChristThis is a rough old world.

Globally this year has seen a level of naked barbarity and brutal terrorism unequalled for many years.

It's a world of rage and fear, and in its milder forms, of impatience, frustration and trigger-happy threats.

We've glimpsed again the uncontrolled, dark continents of the human heart.

And we long for something better.

We long for graceful lives, and graceful communities, and ways that make for peace. And for me that longing is focused on a desire to follow that Man of grace, Jesus Christ.

He has constantly been a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

As we read the Bible we see the story converging on Jesus, and then in three short years, less time than it takes to get a degree today, he set the agenda for the world's future.

Let me quote for the last time (because many will have heard me quote him before) the writer HG Wells.

He said: 'I am a historian.

I am not a believer.

But I have to admit, as a historian, that this penniless preacher from Galilee is irrevocably the centre of history. 'The problem is that we haven't properly read the agenda that Jesus gave us.

Mahatma Gandhi said: 'I like your Christ.

I do not like your Christians.

Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ' But some Christians are, and I've met them here in this diocese and been inspired.

Thank you.

Some people make you want to be a better person, to live a better life.

And these are often people of other faiths and of no faith too. A key question for all of us, I think, is: 'Who do I want to look like?' Enoch Powell once attended a country fete and was very amused to see an 'Enoch Powell lookalike competition'.

On the spur of the moment he entered, incognito.

He came third. Christians will always want to begin - just begin - to look like Jesus.

Of course Jesus is his own lookalike - he's unique; and the saints come second; but why shouldn't we all come third? Why shouldn't we all demonstrate the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?I love the 'life-full-ness' of Jesus, his energy and compassion, wrapped around a steel core.

A man at home with himself, revelling in the beauty of his Galilean countryside, and the pleasures of a good table and a good wine-list, relishing his friendships, but picking up the broken, loving deeply those who had fallen foul of the system.

As Desmond Tutu said: 'God has a soft spot for sinners; his standards are quite low. 'But that combination of grace and truth has always inspired and fascinated me, and it's kept me on the road through 42 years of ministry. The second thing I've depended on has been the love of God. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God.

That simple phrase, 'the love of God,' trips off the tongue so easily. But do we have a clue how radical, unconditional and extravagent that love is? You get a glimpse of it occasionally at both the macro and the micro level. When I contemplate deep space and think of the staggering immensity of our galaxy of at least 100 billion stars, and that galaxy being just one of more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe, I realise again that there's nothing small-minded or mean spirited about a God who creates and sustains all that, who makes a universe on that scale.

The love that thinks like that is staggering. And at the micro level I catch a glimpse of that divine love when I see, as I did in Taize this year, a girl standing in the main square of the community, smiling broadly, holding a placard which simply said 'Free hugs'.

I didn't think it would be seemly for this elderly bishop to ask for one, but the sheer generosity of that offer spoke vividly of a God of free hugs, as we see in the life of his own lookalike, Jesus. And what we have to do is to translate that love, like that girl did, from macro to micro, from staggering to everyday.

We have to be the transformers who knock the divine voltage down to manageable proportions.

And I've seen that so much in this diocese over these years - the food banks (80% of our churches are involved), the street pastors (the police are hugely complimentary), the work with young people (the church now provides most of the youth workers in the Thames Valley), the night shelters, the before-school and after-school clubs, the debt counselling, the dementia groups, the lunch clubs, the prison work and the care after release. It goes on and on.

Thank you for all of that, your terrific contribution to that often unglamorous work, reaching out practically with the love of God, and tapping into the massive energy that creates and sustains the world. And similarly, on behalf of the love of God, we've protested about inequality in the global economy, as well as in our own.

The 85 richest people in the world are worth as much combined as the poorest 3. 5 billion people in the world ie half the world's population.

It can't be acceptable.

Nor can we let the world consume itself to extinction, and change the climate catastrophically.

We in the Church continue to declare determinedly that appetites must be replaced by values.

Justice and survival demand it.

God loves his world infinitely, but it has to be saved in details. So the love of God isn't a fuzzy, candy-floss niceness, but love with mud on its shoes.

Love that ricochets around society and brings it to life and gives it hope. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is embodied, given shape, in the Church.

And that fellowship spreads across all the Churches; church leaders and faith leaders get on excellently in our three counties. Three clergy were once on pilgrimage in Galilee, an Anglican, a Roman Catholic and a Methodist.

As they looked out over the Sea of Galilee they agreed they needed more faith.

So, to grow his faith, the Anglican priest set off, walking over the water.

He returned breathless but exhilarated.

The Roman Catholic priest went next, and the same thing happened.

He walked off bravely and came back rejoicing.

So the Methodist minister set off, not to be outdone, but he sank immediately and came up spluttering.

The Roman Catholic turned to the Anglican and said, 'Shouldn't we have told him about the stepping stones?' To which the Anglican replied, 'What stepping stones?'Sorry - that's the spirit of the past! We all get on famously.

But we know the Church sometimes gets things wrong.

A friend of mine once said to me: 'There's nothing wrong with the Church of England that the Second Coming can't sort out!' But we never claim to be better than anyone else; we simply claim to be trying hard - in the grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God.

Rowan Williams described the Church beautifully as 'the community of those who have been immersed in Jesus' life, overwhelmed by it,…. .

who have been soaked in the life of Jesus, and who have been invited to eat with him and pray to the Father with him. 'This fellowship that we call the Church may get some things wrong but it gets much more right.

And personally the Church has saved me time and again, saved me from isolation, from being silly, saved me from my addiction to myself.

And in the worship, the friendships, the deep mutual care, the service, the longing to live well in this world - in this fellowship have been the seeds of the new communities that the world so needs - communities of justice and joy, rooted in deep contemplative practice, committed both to the world as it is and to the new creation as it will be, when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

I know we're not perfect, but I've been deeply impressed by, and profoundly grateful to, the churches of this lovely diocese of Oxford. For me, these church communities, in this diocese as elsewhere, stand out as beacons of hope in society, steadily, faithfully, living and sharing the love of God.

They dare to say to any who'll listen: 'This is our manifesto: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.

And your neighbour as yourself.

And while you're about it, love your enemies too.

That's the deal.

Any questions?'So what I've experienced here, what I've depended on, I offer you - the refreshing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the immense love of God, and the joyful fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

May they be with you, in all you do, through all your days.

Amen.

Preached at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford 30 October 2014