The Rev Canon Prof Michael Hull delivered the Principal’s Charge on Monday 26 August 2024 at St Mary’s Monastery, Kinnoull, Perth, whilst the initial ministerial education students in phase 1 (IME1) were gathered for their Orientation Week. The 2024–25 cohort is currently 16 candidates (14 ordinands for the Scottish Episcopal Church and two ordinands for the United Reformed Church). The Principal’s Charge is delivered at the start of the formational year toward a theme for the year. The Charge is as follows:–
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
My Charge to you today is based neither on a profound quote from Holy Scripture nor a weighty doctrine nor a clever theologian. No, my Charge is based on a tagline.
‘Forming people for ministry’ has been the Scottish Episcopal Institute’s tagline since 2015. I began to minister with the Institute just as the tagline was coming into vogue. It’s the sort of phrase in fashion, then and now, in theological education for ministry. After nine years, first as Director of Studies and now as Principal, I’ve become more and more uncomfortable with it insofar as it is applied to the SEI staff, my colleagues and me, rather than to you, the SEI students, particularly those in IME1. My discomfort sits principally around the perception of agency.
‘Forming people for ministry’, if applied to my colleagues and me, rather than to you, students preparing for authorised ministry, suggests an agency on the part of the Institute where staff are the potters, and you are the clay. It’s not the image of potter and clay that discomforts me. The Prophets Isaiah (29.16; 45.9; 64.8) and Jeremiah (18.1, 6) use it as does St Paul (Rom. 9.19–24). I’m comforted when Holy Scripture speaks of God as the Potter and us as the clay. Such divine agency works for me! But I don’t see the SEI staff as formers, potters, because such a vision seems to me to usurp God’s agency and yours in pursuing the upward call of God in your vocations (Phil. 3.12–16). I prefer to think of the Institute, that is, the staff, as supporting you as God and you form yourselves for service to God’s people and world.
My point of departure for thinking in this way is the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. The disciples, confused and afraid, are bickering in Luke’s account. Jesus says: ‘For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines? But I am among you as one who serves’ (Lk. 22.27; cf. Mk 10.45; Mt. 20.28; Jn 13.1–17). The Institute’s primary purpose, as I see it, is to support your formation for ministry, formation in your hands and God’s hands.
What I want to say is that the primary former, or agent, in your vocations is the Holy Trinity: Father Son and Holy Ghost. God did the calling that brought you to an initial ministerial education. God is the prime mover in all of this. You did the listening and the responding. The Church (either the Scottish Episcopal Church or the United Reformed Church) and the Institute have hopefully helped you listen a bit more clearly in your discernment process. The rest is up to you and God. Please don’t let the Institute get in the way.
Where does that leave my colleagues and me? Am I talking the SEI and the Scottish College staffs out of our jobs? No, to say that God is the primary agent—God calls!—and you are secondary agents—you answer!—leaves the Institute in third place. I’m happy with the bronze. We’re the tertiary agents, and without getting into a lot of human-resources lingo, we’re the support staff. God and you are doing the forming. I like to think that if God’s the Potter and you’re the clay, maybe the Institute is the pottery wheel. God gives us little manual power, and the Institute does its job by spinning on God’s power and making itself useful only insofar as it supports the clay.
This brings me to the substance of my Charge: I charge you to take charge of your formation.
I charge you to be the ones doing what it says on the SEI tin: ‘Forming people for ministry’.
I charge you to listen ever more attentively to the God who calls you. I charge you to take responsibility for your vocation and your formation.
SEI and its staff are here to support you as best we can. But we ain’t God! And we didn’t call you! We’re a bunch of folk going round in circles like a pottery wheel, holding you up to God, a bunch of folk who are trying to hold you up so that you and God can do your thing!
Jesus Christ has set you free! You are free to respond to God and to the Institute as you see it. Freedom, however, is an awesome responsibility. Recall what St Paul says to the Galatians: ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery’ (5.1; cf. John 8). God wants you—all of us—to resist slavery of any sort. The Institute is here to support your resistance to sin, slavery and shame.
Resistance and responsibility exist in relation to others’ resistances and responsibilities under God. We are free in our Christian lives for a life of communion with God and one another. For you and me, engaged in formation for authorised ministry in the Church, that means we don’t sit back as passive recipients. We’re all going around in circles whilst the Father reaches down from heaven, the Son stretches his arms in cruciform and the Spirit stirs our hearts.
God doesn’t want drones! At Creation, He formed us from clay with his own breath. He gave us such freedom to defy him. And so, we did. Yet God didn’t give up on us. Christ didn’t die on the Cross in his humanity and obedience to have slaves. When the wind of the Spirit blows, it is not a dampening but an enlivening. On Pentecost Day the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and ran out as possessed men to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ (Acts 2) They were on fire!
How does the Institute fit into that today, two millennia later, not in a pre-Christian world but a post-Christian world? By my lights, the Institute fits into it by offering theological education with a staff dedicated to running in circles to support you. I don’t presume to tell you about the Potter. Only God knows what you need as he embraces you with his gentle hands and you surrender to his divine touch.
To put it another way, I would see all SEI’s placements, mentoring, apprenticeship, and tutorials under the broad umbrella of your agency. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not uncomfortable with our SEI tagline if read rightly, that is, with the onus on you doing the forming, the staff doing the supporting and God doing everything else.
I can’t guarantee my colleagues and I won’t get a wee bit dizzy as we spin. I can’t guarantee we’ll spin steadily. But I can guarantee, only because it comes from God himself, that your formation is in his hands, and his call is yours to answer, not mine. With that I am most comfortable, and I hope you are too. Your formation is not in the Institute’s hands: it is God’s hands and your hands! So again, I charge you to own your agency and to take charge of your formation with God’s help. I beg you pray God not to let the Institute get in the way.
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Photo courtesy of Margaret Acton
