Welcoming the Mother’s Union of Bangor Diocese into the Community of the Cross community

On Sunday 9th August, we were delighted to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Mother’s Union of Bangor Diocese at Bangor Cathedral as we officially welcomed them as new partners in the Community of the Cross community, the network of churches, charities, chaplaincies and schools committed to peacebuilding and reconciliation founded at Coventry Cathedral.

In this sermon by Acting Dean Kate Massey, we invite you to follow the story of the remarkable woman Mary Sumner from Hampshire, who formed the Mother’s Union group to support mothers from all backgrounds in their parish. A movement which has grown exponentially to support one another, amplify the voices of women and wider societal issues, and now having over 4 million members in 80 countries. Globally, the Mother’s Union is a force to be reckoned, and we are delighted for them to become CCN Partners.

Read the full sermon below:

May I speak in the Name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

Bore da, Mae'n fendith bod gyda chi heddiw. Dwi'n dod â chroeso oddi wrth bawb yn Eglwys Gadeiriol Coventry.

I am afraid that is a good as my Welsh gets. But it is truly a delight to be with you today and to bring warmest greetings from our community in Coventry Cathedral. And it is a particular delight to be here today, presenting a Cross of Nails to the Mother’s Union of Bangor Diocese and to officially welcome them as partners in the Community of the Cross of Nails. It is wonderful to do this on Mary Sumner Day in this 150th Anniversary Year of the remarkable movement that Mary Sumner started.

At first sight the Mother’s Union and the Community of the Cross of Nails might not be the most obvious of partners. I am sure many of you will know the remarkable story of Mother’s Union: how in 1876, Mary Sumner, the wife of a clergyman in Hampshire, formed a group to support mothers from all backgrounds in their parish in bringing up their children. When she started out, she was not a confident leader or public speaker, but her faith strengthened her and compelled her to act. Inspired by Mary Sumner’s passion for the role of women in bringing about a better society, other parishes formed Mothers Unions, working to support one another, amplify the voices of women and wider societal issues. Over time this movement grew exponentially. Mother’s Union now has over 4 million members in 80 countries. In this country, they do many remarkable things, including speaking out on issues affecting children and families, supporting parents with life-changing parenting courses, providing Away from It All holidays for families in desperate need of a break and supporting children and families when a parent in prison. All of this is undergirded by the faithful and persistent prayer of their many members. Globally, the Mother’s Union is a force to be reckoned with. My dear colleague in Coventry, the Rev’d Canon Nitano Muller, grew up in False Bay South Africa, and only recently I heard how his local Mother’s Union changed his life – nurturing his faith, welcoming him in church, enabling his education, making further study possible for him and later when he was ordained, ministering alongside him. His story is just one of many lives transformed by the faith, determination and generosity of Mother’s Union members.

In comparison, the Community of the Cross of Nails is much younger and much smaller. Our story begins in Coventry, a small midlands city, on the 14th November 1940. That night, the city experienced a Blitz which in its intensity was unlike any bombing campaign experienced by any city in war so far. Almost 600 people died and a further thousand were injured. About 40% of the housing of the city was damaged and their medieval cathedral church was reduced to ruins. The devastation – both physical and emotional – of that event is hard for us to imagine. The leader of the Cathedral community, Provost Dick Howard, after spending the early hours of the raid fighting to save his building was forced to watch it burn. He said that as he did so, he felt like he was participating in the crucifixion of Christ. The next morning as his walked into the smouldering rubble, he was filled with the conviction however that if the cathedral had experienced a death like Christ, it could also experience resurrection. From that moment on, he was certain that the Cathedral would be rebuilt. However, he was concerned not only with rebuilding a physical space: he also wanted to rebuild the relationships with those who were then his enemies. Six weeks later, on Christmas Day, he broadcast from the ruins to the BBC World Service and laid out his vision of building a kinder and more Christ-child-like world when the war was over. By 1946, he had started reaching out to German cities which had also been devastated by bombing. A network of relations began between former enemies which in time became the Community of the Cross of Nails. We now have about 300 partner organisations – churches, cathedrals, schools, retreat centres and charities – all around the globe. To be part of the CCN, partners commit to prayer, and many regularly pray the Coventry Litany which we will pray later in this service. They also commit to the values of the CCN: to heal the wounds of history, to live well with difference and celebrate our diversity and to build a culture of justice and peace.

With that explanation, I hope you can begin to see why Mother’s Union are actually quite natural CCN partners, and why we are so delighted that they are choosing to share with us in this work. The work you do to heal and care for wounded families, to celebrate and support families whatever shape they take and to speak up for children and their needs and their futures – all rooted in your faith and undergirded in prayers - this is peace building work. Building peace does not start with governments and nations and armies. We learn our first lessons in peace and conflict in our families and in our communities – and that’s where the Mothers Union are at work.

And it is challenging work! Praying and advocating for peace in Ukraine or the Middle East is one thing, and something we do almost every day in Coventry. But making peace in your family or community, with the relative who has said something hurtful or the neighbour with whom you disagree, can be a lot harder. Building cultures of peace in families, churches and communities where it means that we will actually have to compromise or change our behaviour, well I think we all know that that can be tough!

When we find ourselves negotiating conflict or handling difference in our closest and everyday relationships, we can find it gets very complicated. Our psalm for this morning, is a psalm of peace, but in it we find that the complexity of peace is acknowledged. Different translations of the psalm put it slightly differently. Today we heard the choir sing that: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Some versions say that love and truth will meet, justice and peace will kiss. Love, truth, justice and peace – four ingredients in any reconciliation story. Four ingredients that must be balanced well, or we run the risk of cooking something that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

In conflict, people will tell the story of the problem differently – what is the truth? There will be different understandings of what is fair – what is justice? The desire to make peace and just get past the problem can cause us to take shortcuts that later cause problems of their own - what is peace? We know we need to care about one another, but sheesh, we don’t always like each other – what is love?

So I am going to play with this idea of ingredients for a moment. After all, the Mothers Union are famed for their baking. Now, you can – and some people do – learn how to bake from reading a book, but it isn’t easy. Nowadays, there are probably YouTube tutorials which make things a bit easier, but still a bit of a challenge. The most natural way to learn to bake is from someone else, and for many of us that will have started in a kitchen with an older family member or friend. Working alongside my mum in our kitchen, I learned when pastry needed just a bit more water or a bit more flour. When to keep whipping cream and when it was overdone. When a cake is cooked and needs taking out of the heat before it dries out. All these things vary slightly from day to day depending on your ingredients, the temperature or the room and the temperament of your oven. You cannot say for certain what will work – you have to build your baking instincts by doing it, sometimes making mistakes and having to start over, but always learning.

Peace-building is the same. You can go on a course or read a book, but the best way to learn is from others and that starts in our homes and communities. Because the only way to build our instincts and know how to balance those ingredients of truth, justice, love and peace is to actually do it. In some recipes for reconciliation we will need more of one ingredient than another. No journey of reconciliation will ever be the same. Sometimes our efforts will end in disaster – all the more reason that these first efforts should be in the homes and communities where we are loved and allowed to learn. The peace builders of the future are building their skills now – in your homes, in your toddler groups and youth groups and schools… The Mothers Union, with their ministry in families and communities, are so well placed to support and nurture a generation who can heal the wounds of history, live well with difference and celebrate diversity and build a culture of justice and peace.

But practical peace-making is far from easy. And so before I finish, let’s look briefly at our Gospel for today. There is so much in this rich reading which is relevant to reconciliation. The disciples are caught in stormy seas, exhausting their energy fighting the wind and are getting nowhere – how often can conflict feel like that for us. They are scared and not sure what they are seeing - in conflict things can become confused and disorientating: what can we trust? But Jesus calls Peter out of the boat and he goes. Brave, brave Peter. Reconciliation calls us out of the familiar safety of the boat into the unknown – we step out of our safe groups, out of our safe opinions and out of our safe grievances trusting that reconciliation will be worth it. But sometimes we regret that brave decision. Like Peter the reality of the storm of conflict we have entered is overwhelming and we sink. We cannot do it. We cannot do this. In such moments, the answer is always to look to Jesus, to reach for him and hold him tight.

At Coventry, there are a couple of verses from 2nd Corinthians which are very special to us:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

In the end, we believe that the work of reconciliation – that which brings the fullness of peace between God and humanity and all creation is God’s work. It was what Jesus was doing on the cross. It is the task of the Kingdom to bring this to fulfilment. We are simply called to share in this task. Like the child learning to bake at their grandparent’s side, God is the one doing the real baking, sometimes we are just licking the spoons. There will be mistakes and failures and frustrations as we learn. But what joy to share in this task with the God who loves us, and how sweet the taste of peace when we get there.

This is why prayer must be the bedrock of all we do as people who work for peace. With the guidance of the creative and surprising Holy Spirit, we learn how to blend well those ingredients of truth, justice, peace and love in each unique situation. We gradually become more Christlike as we daily follow the Prince of peace. We learn the skills of reconciliation at our Heavenly Father’s side. And as Jesus himself said, blessed are the peacemakers – they will be, we will be, called children of God.

Amen.