This article originally appeared in the Easter 2009 issue of Launde Leaves, the magazine of the Friends of Launde.
The year 2009 will be a year of change for us as I am due to retire in the summer. That will inevitably mean a change of role and responsibility. I will remain a bishop, but will no longer be Bishop of Peterborough. In due course someone else will take on that particular responsibility. It will mean a change of context, as we move from Peterborough back to Co Durham and out of the Palace into a comparatively small cottage! And a change of lifestyle providing opportunities for different aspects of ministry in the future.
Because of my illness — I was diagnosed as suffering from mesothelioma (a cancer of the lung cavity) eighteen months ago — we have already had to face considerable change over the last year. Undergoing two courses of chemotherapy treatment has meant a change of routine, of pace and of the expectations that people inevitably place upon a bishop!
My colleagues have graciously risen to the challenge of taking burdens off my shoulders and I have had to focus on the things that only a diocesan bishop can do. I have also had to discover what the role of a bishop should be, when the need to avoid the possibility of infection means that I have to avoid situations where I might pick up diseases as routine as a common cold!
It would be easy to resent all these changes — some forced upon me by circumstances outside my control, others flowing from decisions I have made about my future. But change is not only a part of life; it opens up new possibilities and often results in growth and transformation. I therefore look forward with hope and anticipation.
For Christians the celebration of Easter is an annual reminder of the value of change in renewing our lives and transforming our situations. The pattern of death and resurrection not only transformed the disciples’ lives so that they became known as the people ‘who had turned the world upside down’; it also enshrines a principle which we all experience in a variety of ways. As Jesus reminded his disciples, the grain of wheat which we plant in the earth ‘dies’ and as a result produces new growth and bears fruit producing more grain for the farmer.
For the first disciples the resurrection not only changed the disciples’ mood, expectations and responsibility, it gave them a new mission as they sought to share Jesus’ teaching and to proclaim the Christian Gospel throughout the then known world. The comment that these were the people who had ‘turned the world upside down’ was literally true. Their presence and their message transformed people and situations. They presented a way of living which in due course would deeply affect the life and governance of the Roman Empire. The same principle has characterised the life of the Christian church in society ever since. We do not seek change for change sake, but change to facilitate mission, change to live out the Kingdom of God in our personal and social lives.
Some changes are forced upon us — like the present financial situation or the onset of a terminal illness; others we initiate out of the conviction that we can use our resources more effectively and do things differently in order to promote God’s mission in his world. Not all change is good, but too often we link ‘change’ and ‘decay’ and like the author of the hymn ‘Abide with me’ feel that ‘change and decay in all around I see’.
Nothing could be further from the Easter message and even in the changes that are forced upon us there are opportunities for new thinking and new ways of living. If our present circumstances force us to think once again about the meaning and purpose of money as a means of exchange and not an end in itself then it will have served a good purpose and we may be able to address the vast inequalities of our world where some people earn millions while many in the third world simply starve.
I have welcomed the changes in the life and work of Launde Abbey which have flowed from the partnership between the Dioceses of Leicester and Peterborough. I am sure that as the work of Launde develops and grows other changes will come. I hope we can embrace them as opportunities for growth, for doing new things and for fulfilling the mission of God while maintaining the Abbey’s central purpose as a place of retreat, reflection, and of new life.
If we embrace change in that spirit then we will truly be living out the Easter message and the life of the one who died and rose again that we might truly live.
Bishop Ian
The Rt Revd Ian Cundy, Bishop of Peterborough