The Gifting of Responsibility: Learning how to Persist with the Ecclesial Task in the World

Abstract

IntroductionOn June 17, 2014, Canon Nicholas Sagovsky hosted an Open Anglicanism Study Day at Roehampton University. The aim was to interrogate and reflect on work of theologian Daniel W. Hardy from perspective of those seeking to practice what Hardy called the dynamic truth of Anglicanism.* 1To engage with Hardys work in this way is to continue a conversation that was in one sense disrupted by Hardys death in November 2007, but in another sense is being deepened as former students and colleagues revisit his words and enter into discussion with others. We are living out his legacy, which is a tremendous gift and also a responsibility. The of responsibility is a phrase Hardy used in Wording a Radiance, as he considered how we participate in divine light without having to possess it.This article explores nature of this gifting in relation to church's task in world. By weaving together Hardy's narrative of pilgrimage with images evoked in lines from Micheal O'Siadhail's poem What If?, key theological concerns in his work are illuminated: his attention to God and his deep engagement with world; his commitment to dialogue; and his vision for church.2 The challenge for us in this of responsibility is something that we face theologically and pragmatically in our own contexts. We cannot do that through our own self-sufficiency, but rather in power of Spirit, which reflects Hardys pneumatological emphasis.A Narrator and PoetThe record of Hardys pilgrimage to Holy Land in 2007 re- veals, in his daughter s words, that something big happened to him, something that he was able to share in glimpses and fragments with others.3 Wording a Radiance powerfully reflects imaginative liberation and theological distillation of his ecclesiology of pilgrimage. This Spirit-led theology is a gift in itself, but also a of respon- sibility. We are challenged to think through and live out that vision for sake of God's kingdom. Stephen Pickard's Seeking Church and collaborative project resulting in Generous Ecclesiology are attempts to do just that, always mindful, in a Hardyesque fashion, of complexity of that task.4 Nevertheless, in words of O'Siadhail, what is often no more than a glimpse captures something/u// and glorious in ourfinitude, as God draws all things to himself.Hardys narrative is full of light and darkness; human relation- ships and divine purpose; transformation and energy. He writes of waters bubbling up and encircling; of being and engaged; of power and embrace; of struggle and regeneration. His account is deeply attentive to place and people and utterly theoeentric. At headwaters of Jordan, pilgrims entered into drama, being incorporated into something beyond. The way Hardy saw things was that the light going really deep into people and transforming them from within; in a characteristically intense turn of phrase, light was irradiating them.5This way of seeing captured a moment of relationship, of com- munion between God and other people. It was a moment of renewal when pilgrimage really began.6 There is a radiance, an aura. Hopes and memories tell some unique story your life is trying to shape / This journey to whatever end will be our own. For Hardy play of light facilitated a new way of relating within group; open- ness and engagement followed from this renewal of vows.In Jericho and Jerusalem, in places of struggle, Hardy poses challenging question of what it is to be measured for Gods purposes. He wonders if creation of light brings darkness, perhaps holiness creates envy-or greed-a claim to a right of possession and a need to possess God, to be God. In contrast, divine measurement is relational, fluid, and dynamic. We need to enter into this dynamic which would be a shift in emphasis and understanding.7The contrast between a human economy of equivalence and exchange is contrasted to divine economy of abundance and ex- cess. …