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Organ music from Holy Trinity Cathedral,
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Commonwealth Sunday 2007
11 March 2007
The Rt Rev’d Richard Randerson, Dean
Service held in the presence of Their Excellencies the Governor-General of New Zealand,
the Honourable Anand Satyanand and Mrs Susan Satyanand
In her message to the Commonwealth for this Sunday Her Majesty the Queen reminded us that the Commonwealth today is made up of 53 nations with two billion people of multiple cultures, races and creeds. Her Majesty said the Commonwealth was held together by shared values, and by the pooling of our individual resources and skills so as to help each other flourish, and to achieve peace and security. She said that we should respect and understand each other so that in the celebration of diversity we might find the strength of unity.
And in your address to the National Inter-Faith Forum in Hamilton last month, Your Excellency, you noted that in this country we are fortunate to have the freedom to celebrate many faiths. You also commented that religion is not the cause of conflict, but that conflict arises from a lack of understanding. To quote your words: “It is well known that what we do not understand, we fear” and that therefore the promotion of understanding is something we should take up.
Today accelerating globalisation is pushing once separate cultures into close encounters with peoples of difference. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, in The Dignity of Difference asks: “Can I, a Jew, recognise God’s image in one who is not in my image – in a Hindu or Sikh or Christian or Muslim? Can I do so and feel not diminished but enlarged?” The National Diversity Statement proposed for New Zealand raises the same questions : is my faith in God as revealed in Jesus Christ diminished because I recognise the existence of other faiths alongside of mine?
There are some who answer Yes to that question, claiming that it should be officially stated that we are a Christian nation, or even that Christianity is this country’s state religion. Such claims may even seem to reflect a stronger faith commitment than that of those who take a different approach. I disagree. I am one of those who take a different approach, the approach which is reflected in the National Diversity Statement. The Statement acknowledges the special role that Christianity has played historically and morally in the shaping of this nation, but does not accord it thereby any special ongoing status. I have total confidence that the truth and appeal of Christianity stands on its own merits, and does not require official status to bolster it up.
The Queen’s message also refers to shared values. Our scripture readings today suggest what some of those values might be. John the Baptist exhorts the crowds who flock to him that those who have two coats, or surplus food, must share with those who have none. Soldiers and tax-collectors are warned against extortion and the abuse of power. There is no doubt that when our lives, our corporate and national institutions are shaped by concern for the well-being of others, and not for self-aggrandisement, we are well on the way to achieving our common wealth.
In the first reading Isaiah calls us to seek the Lord whose ways are higher than our ways, and whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Good values stem from our walk with God, finding in God both their source and their nourishment. If in our diverse nation and commonwealth we can also find something of God in each other, our unity is further strengthened. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks asks : “Can we find in each human ‘thou’ something of the Divine ‘Thou’? There are times when God meets us in the face of a stranger. That should not be a threat to our identity, but a call to a moral and spiritual generosity more demanding than we might have supposed”.
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