Sermon Preached
by the Bishop of Chichester
the Right Reverend John Hind
at the Sacred Synod of Priests

The Feast of St Ignatius of Antioch

For reasons far too complicated and personal to divulge, I am delighted to be preaching on the feast of St Ignatius of Antioch. I can however tell you that overlooking my desk is one of the most treasured gifts I have ever received: an icon of Christ as the apostle of God and bishop of God's Church. He is flanked by two of his great second century under-shepherds, Ignatius and Irenaeus, favourite and tantalising heroes of mine since I first began to discover the Fathers.

Ignatius and Irenaeus represent different emphases on the apostolic ministry, but were united not only in a common faith and in the fact that they both died a martyr's death, but also by the figure of another remarkable second century martyr bishop, Polycarp, to whom Ignatius had written and whom Irenaeus had heard preach.

The conjunction of the apostolic ministry, the common faith and martyrdom is close to the heart of many of the difficult matters that trouble us today and I shall be returning to some of them this afternoon. For the moment however I am going to talk about the third of these issues, martyrdom, not least because it is all to easy to forget it in the midst of our very real and proper concern for the apostolicity of our church in ministry and faith.

So, at last, I come to my text. It comes not from either of the readings at this liturgy but from the letter of St Ignatius of Antioch to the Romans. In this letter he tries to dissuade the Church of Rome from preventing his coming martyrdom. In a memorable phrase, he implores them, "Allow me to imitate the passion of my God." (Ign. Rom. VI.3)

Although somewhat concealed by the version of Scripture used, this morning's epistle has already introduced us to the theme of imitation. "My brothers," wrote St Paul, "be united in following my rule of life. Take as your models everybody who is already doing this and study them as you need to study me."

To understand why Paul and those he commends should be taken as models, we turn to something else he wrote - this time to the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." (I Cor. 11.1)

When we then remember what Paul believed about the conformity to Christ's death and resurrection which happens in baptism, which marks the ethics of the Christian life and which is shown forth in the eucharist, we can easily see that imitation means far more than "following an example."

That could, after all, be a very external kind of thing, a formal reproduction of the details of someone else's way of life. Paul, however, could write, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2.20)

If that is, or should be, try of every Christian, it must apply in a particular and forceful way to those called to serve and represent Christ in the sacred ministry.

For Ignatius, as for Paul, the imitation of Christ was above all a question of imitating the humility of Christ, or more correctly the humility of God in Christ, culminating in the Cross. Following the famous "Song of Christ's humility" in Philippians 2, Paul linked our obedience to Christ's humble obedience to his Father even to the point of death. It is not so much obeying like Jesus as allowing Jesus' own obedience to be lived out in us. This is what gives the Christian life its characteristic shape and makes martyrdom comprehensible. Indeed it is the reason why the Greek words for witness and martyr are the same. To die for Christ is only a particular form of living for Christ, or better of allowing Christ to live in us.

Ignatius' desire for death was not pathological, but an expression of the theology that permeates his letters. The reality of the flesh of Christ to whom to be united is to live and with whom to die is a gift for the life of others. Martyrdom, for Ignatius, was the natural conclusion of a life lived in self-emptying imitation of Christ. We should also recognise the particular link between his view of his own death and his view of his ministry as a bishop.

For Ignatius, this was theologically important. Unlike Paul, whose struggles were with those who either wanted to turn grace back into law or to mistake grace for licence, Ignatius' main battle was with the docetists, those who thought the flesh of Christ was a phantasm. The reality of Christ's body, living, dying and raised again, was central to his understanding both of Jesus but of our salvation. Ignatius would certainly have recognised the theological point lying at the heart of Ave verum corpus. As Jesus really shared our nature, so we can share his. Our imitation of Christ is not external, so to speak, but a real participation in the salvation he won for us.

A somewhat similar robust, although perhaps less mystical, incarnational theology also motivated generations of Catholic clergy and laity in the Church of England in years gone by. I am not nostalgic for those glory days, because God is always faithful and can always be relied upon to do his work in his own way and his own time, and to breath his Spirit into our efforts at his own good pleasure. But I do long for a recovery of that confident theology and for the spirit of martyrdom, faithful witness in life and even unto death, first of all in myself and then in you, faithfulness to Christ for the renewing of his church.

Let Ignatius himself have the last word:

"I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ." (Ign. Rom. IV.1)