Reflecting back and looking ahead

Today is the tenth anniversary of my best friend’s wedding. I remember the occasion well because he struggled to find someone to give the speech. First, he asked his most intelligent friend, and they said No. Then he asked his wittiest friend, and they said No. Then he asked his best looking friend, and they said No. Then he asked me, and I thought, ‘Well, I can’t turn him down a fourth time!’

Talking of anniversaries, we have been celebrating a few at Wycliffe this year. May 7th was the 200th anniversary of the first performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and we devoted a Principal’s Hour to it. (The Principal’s Hour is a weekly slot when I invite someone from the university to come and talk about their area of expertise, whatever that may be. It’s based on the belief that, if God is the creator, then we ought to be interested in creation – in every aspect of it. The aim is to equip our students to be able to engage interestedly, interestingly and intelligently with anything put in front of them.) Schiller’s words, set to music in the Ninth, are fundamentally about equality – arguably the main preoccupation of the age. Interestingly, Schiller and Beethoven realised that, for there to be equality, ‘there must live a loving Father’. It is a truth that our age, with its right concern with equality and diversity, would do well to ponder, too.

Talking of equality and diversity, this is of course the 30th anniversary of the ordination of women, which we celebrated here at Wycliffe with a service at which our Chaplain, Jane Chaffey – one of the first women to be ordained in the Church of England – preached. This was followed by a reception, with a recorded message from Bishop Rachel Treweek - the first woman to be consecrated as a Diocesan bishop, who trained at Wycliffe, and who watched the debate in Synod that led to women being allowed to be ordained on a large screen in the Lower Common Room – and with celebratory refreshments from our wonderful caterers! I am deeply proud of and grateful for the female ordinands who have come through Wycliffe during my time here. Their graciousness, warmth, emotional intelligence, and commitment to the college community and to the flourishing of all in that community, give me deep hope for the future of the Church. 

This is also the 100th anniversary of the death of Franz Kafka, and the University has put on an exhibition and given every student a free copy of his Metamorphosis. Writers and other creative people help us to understand the world we are called to serve, and Jonathan Brant, Director of our New Renaissance project, led a reading group on this remarkable and influential text, as part of the commemorative events surrounding this anniversary.

We don’t know the exact date when John Wycliffe was born, but it was in the 1320s, so we are currently celebrating the 700th anniversary of his birth. In addition to being a highly significant theologian and ‘the morning star of the Reformation’, he was also, of course, one of the great Bible translators of history, making the Scriptures available ‘in the language of the people’. We are currently in the middle of our annual Summer School, on the theme of proclaiming the gospel Afresh in Each Generation.

In three years’ time, we shall be celebrating another anniversary – the 150th anniversary of the founding of Wycliffe Hall. Wycliffe was set up precisely to equip people to proclaim the gospel afresh in each generation. For that, they need to know the Scriptures so well that they can give people the depth for which they are crying out. They also need to know the language and culture of the society into which they have to translate the gospel.

Next month will be the 40th anniversary of the day on which I was ordained to proclaim the gospel afresh in my generation. I am even more confident in that gospel today than I was then – more sure of its truth and relevance and ability to meet the deepest needs of our contemporaries.