Safeguarding Sunday!

Vicars are not safe.

It’s one of those oddities of language that there is a double meaning in something being “not safe” –

Not safe can equally mean “dangerous” or “in danger”, which are two quite different things.

But it’s both sides of this double-edged sword that safeguarding is directed at.

Because it’s equally important that we protect children and vulnerable adults, and anyone who volunteers or works here.

However, it’s one of those career drawbacks that vicars are, on a more or less daily basis, in positions of safeguarding risk.

It’s just not possible to avoid one-to-one situations with vulnerable people.

Especially in situations around dying and death, but a wide range of other situations, relating to people seeking help or counselling, push ministry into a realm of unknowns and vulnerability you’d sometimes rather avoid.

The Church’s first priority is the vulnerable – and this is the frontline of what is safe.

While I was in the army I spent the afternoon of New Year’s Eve with a soldier who detailed to me the years of abuse he had suffered at the hands of his wife.

We agreed that he would go home, pack a bag and I arranged for him to stay in a room in barracks for the time being.

While he was there he called me because his wife wanted to give her side of the story.

Despite it being 5pm on New Year’s Eve I felt I should go and while he packed and left, I listened to her and tried to be helpful, as she detailed and tried to defend the numerous ways she had abused her husband.

I got away eventually from one of the nastier human beings I’ve met, but within a few weeks then had to go through a ghastly 6 months as this person made up lies about me and the soldier in an official complaint, that happily through stressfully went nowhere.

It’s very difficult treading a line between compassionate sensitive ministry, and making yourself vulnerable to the fantastical whims of the distressed, the wicked, and the unwell.

It is impossible as a vicar to avoid risk.

A vicar is never safe.

What you learn, though, is how to mitigate against it.

Mitigation is really the art of safeguarding.

Life isn’t safe.

But we can take actions that protect people.

I’ve been struck this week that perhaps even the first response of our instinct to love, is the desire to protect.

How we protect one another is an indication of how we love one another.

Making our church, each other, safe, is a first-order Christian principle working out from the commandment to love one another.

[We have a rock of ages, cleft for us,

We must be that for one another.]

It sounds dull, but the mitigations of safeguarding are a proper response to the great commandment.

Now, St Margaret’s is a hive of activity.

The church is open most of the time, and there’s services, concerts, playgroups, lunches, meetings, rehearsals, so many things going on.

It was delightful yesterday to be helping with Jonathan’s team eating donuts, drinking coffee, and (when the cameras were out) helping with the decorating of the lower hall.

But what I loved was that Obie was in the upper hall at a reception birthday party;

Kids were kickboxing at the back of church.

Music lessons were underway by 9 in the crypt.

The place was a hive of activity.

It was exactly what we’d envisaged when we’d conceived of the Worth Project.

But that’s a lot of people in flow.

Until Sarah arrived the running of this church was done by 1.6 employed persons.

But alongside that, there is the great Team of St Margaret’s community, volunteering their time and skills.

But there are always vulnerabilities –

When people forget or just don’t up.

When a wave of bugs lays the community low.

At half term when people are away.

When you’re working alone, or you’re balancing a stepladder on a box to change a lightbulb.

Or there are just a lot of people passing through, being a community, and being children in a complicated environment.

There is always risk.

And I think here is one of most important rules of safeguarding.

Whatever your policies, your risk assessments, your carefulness,

There is always risk.

The Gospel, love, calls us to vigilance – which is, first of all, an acknowledgement that there is always risk.

[Lift thine eyes, O lift thine eyes – whence cometh help?]

keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. 

There is always vulnerability.

We are vulnerable creatures.

But what is more, we often instinctively choose the non-safe option.

We stay in a situation, when we should leave.

We don’t want to leave our home, when we probably should.

We don’t easily sacrifice our independence.

Children will climb.

In churches the boundaries,

around what is voluntary or paid,

where professional, friendship and pastoral meet,

where family and work coincide;

create overlaps which are wonderful and pragmatic and harmful.

What is safe plays against a whole array of human desires, and of course the risks that one individual is content to entertain have an effect on all the people who love and care for that person.

So risk is something both individual and shared –

and it’s not always up to us to choose the risks that are entertained.

It’s like all those great movies where we’re cheering on some Jack Nicholson character, who’s living his best life, while his desperate relatives – looking ridiculous – are trying to look after him.

It doesn’t always work like that.

Rhiannon’s grandma recently cancelled her cruise after a bad diagnosis.

Rhiannon was like “what’s the worst that could happen?”

“but what about the insurance?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

She didn’t make the cruise, but I think she appreciated Rhiannon’s argument.

There’s always risk, but how we mitigate risk is an indication of how we love one another.

And then risk can be flattering;

it can be exciting.

A parishioner once wrote me a letter in which she told me that I was the Messiah.

A child once confused me with God.

It’s better not to get carried away with such assertions.

Being caught up in the fantasies of others is an occupational hazard,

and you don’t always get the help or support you require.

Equally, pointing out danger can be isolating, alarming, stressful;

When you discover some sort of worry or threat, the temptation to pretend you don’t know, to disbelieve, to ignore, to leave to someone else, to give it time, is very strong.

Safeguarding very often is about honesty and openness.

When we hear of the most terrible incidents, very often there are a number of people who knew, quite often several who tried to intervene;

It can be very difficult; go against our natural inclination to privacy, to live and let live;

It can be costly, sometimes to everyone.

But as we know, good safeguarding saves lives.

The transfiguration which is always the Gospel the week before Lent is the Revelation of who Jesus really is – before we enter the desert.
The disciples suddenly see the truth about Jesus, the reality of who he is.

There are many transfigurations – revelations of realities that might otherwise remain hidden.

Abuse usually happens in secret, as the disciples are commanded to keep secret.

We are no longer commanded to keep secrets.

But we are commanded to bear witness to the truth.

Vicars may not be safe, but St Margaret’s is a safe church, and we work hard as a church to keep it safe.

There is always risk, which is why we must remain vigilant.

This vigilance, especially for our children and vulnerable adults, is a mark of how we love one another,

And of our obedience to the Gospel.

It’s also a function of how we follow him who came as Truth to bear witness to the Truth;

that people and communities can do terrible things, and allow terrible things,

when they don’t speak the truth and protect the vulnerable.

So let’s keep St Margaret’s safe for everyone, but without foregoing the risk of being close and sharing our vulnerability, and trying, as we are able, to love one another. Amen.