How shall we mark Brexit in Church?

I posted a tweet today. It was a question, addressed to the two national churches of our island, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. I also copied in Westminster Abbey because they know about these things too. My question is, will there be church services to mark Brexit Day? 

You may laugh. With the nation so hopelessly divided about Brexit, and the negotiations themselves mired in difficulties, how on earth can we contemplate marking the 29th March 2019 liturgically? Everyone agrees that it will be a momentous event in our history, but that’s about it. Remainers and Brexiters will want to tell entirely different stories about how we got to this threshold and what we believe, or hope, or fear, lies on the other side. One side will look for celebration, the other lament.

But let’s think a little more deeply. For one thing, it would seem very strange not to hold public services around Brexit Day when we are used to marking other big national events in this way. Liturgy is one of the ways we gather up and ritualise the events that are shaping our collective lives, whether it’s the centenary of the Great War, the end of the Falklands War, celebrating a royal jubilee or in the aftermath of terrorist attacks and natural disasters. By doing this in public, high-profile ways, we hold up a mirror to our common life and understand the place we occupy within the larger story of our peoples.

And of course, we offer our story to God. That’s primarily why people of faith have a strong instinct that we should gather together at times of transition. At every threshold, especially when we are at our most febrile, we need to pause to look back as well as look forward, try to discern where God is in the events we are passing through, ask ourselves what he is calling us to be and do in the future, and above all, offer our lives afresh to him in faith and hope. 

If ever we needed to do this, it is going to be next March as one chapter of our nation’s life comes to an end and a new one begins. Yes, this process has been and still is controversial, divisive and extraordinarily painful. But that’s precisely why we need to try to find words and ritual actions that will help carry us across this threshold as we pray for whatever awaits us beyond. 

And they need to be actions that we can perform, and words that we can say together. It will be far too soon in the spring to talk about the healing of memories. It could well be that things will become more bitter and fractious before they begin to mend. But if there is going to be healing, then the memory that we came together at a time of division and tried to reach out to one another could sow a seed of reconciliation that we can build on in the years ahead. And yes, a seed of forgiveness too, for many things have been said and done in this Brexit journey for which we shall need to say we’re sorry.

There could be two approaches to a Brexit liturgy. One would be to construe it as a vigil of prayer on the eve of crossing this threshold, offering what we are about to do - for better or worse - to God’s wise and loving providence. Many of us remember the vigils of prayer that were held across England before the General Synod vote in 1992 in relation to the ordination of women to the priesthood. People of utterly different convictions recognised in one another a common, God-given need to call upon God to help us at a time of deeply divided opinion. I could see us doing something like this as we contemplate a future none of us can yet foresee. Might a national day of prayer and fasting be appropriate?

The other approach would be to ritualise the transition we shall be negotiating. This would be harder to do in an inclusive way, but that shouldn’t stop the church from trying to interpret it in the light of what we as Christians believe about nationhood, about our place in the wider Europeans and worldwide family of peoples, about our commitment to the enduring values of peace, justice, inclusion, collaboration, honour, loyalty and truth. We need to articulate a vision of the kind of society we want to become, a vision for the kind of world we want to live in. It would include thankfulness for all that has been good in the past, penitence for what has fallen short, and the offering of our nation’s life in the future with as much confidence and hope that we can muster. The register will need to be humility not self-congratulation, reticence not assertiveness, acknowledging that there is so much that we cannot know about where this Brexit Road will lead us. But equally, in the spirit of St Paul in the midst of his ordeals, we must confidently affirm that we do not lose heart.

I’ve made no secret about how very disappointed I was that the Church of England ducked the challenge of holding a debate about Brexit before the Referendum, both in the General Synod and, I’m told, in the House of Bishops. The Synod debate, when it happened, took place after the Referendum - too little too late. It was such a lost opportunity: the national church in England ought to have contributed as an institution to a big conversation about what we believed at that time England’s place in Europe should be. It still should. But it seems afraid to. Sadly.

Now, once again, our national churches have the chance to help us as we reach a historical crossroads. Yes, of course the context will be continuing disagreement, opposing views that are passionately held. But this is precisely where our churches can make a real contribution - by naming our conflicts and divisions, the difficulty of the process we are in, and then by ritualising this painful collective journey in ways that signal what Justin Welby calls “good disagreement”. I’d say that it was not only desirable but necessary. And possible.

As readers of my blog know, I’m a heartfelt Remainer. I admit that I am deeply afraid of what is going to happen in six months’ time.  I am angry and frustrated about Brexit and I dread turning over the page in the 2019 calendar that will tell me that March 2019 has arrived when that fateful threshold must be crossed. I can’t see anything that may happen before then that will change my mind. For me this is not a good night and I don’t want to go gently into it. Raging? Well, yes.

But that’s precisely why I recognise that the church must try to speak into our confusions and help us see our hopes and fears in the larger context of God’s wisdom and care for humanity. Churches are at their best, not when they preach moral sermons but when they stand with our people so that they can weep or rejoice with them - or both. Especially is this true at the liminal places of life, when we are more than usually aware of our human fragility and our need of one another and of God. Churches are good at entering into the flow of public and personal history. It’s what’s needed now.

March 2019 will see us journeying towards Passiontide and Easter. The gospel of death and resurrection will furnish us with all the spiritual resources we need as we ask how best to mark our departure from the European Union. So I want to ask our church leaders: what will we do to help the people of our nation at this time of change? How could our cathedrals and greater churches play a role in regions and localities? How could local churches become places of prayer, resolve, hope, even healing? 

There’s an abundance of liturgical and spiritual imagination to draw on in every part of the church. Wouldn’t it be a terrible failure to be defeated by this challenge on the grounds that it’s just too difficult? I admit that it will be hard. But perhaps the nation is looking to us to respond, as it often does at times of uncertainty. I hope and believe that we will prove equal to the challenge. But we need to be thinking about it now. What are we doing to prepare? That’s my question.