In a recent sermon I described an evening I had just spent in a Roman Catholic school in Euston alongside people from synagogues, mosques, churches, schools and community groups all over North London. The average age of those present seemed to be somewhat under thirty and the place was buzzing with enthusiasm. We were all there because we were looking for a way to engage more directly with the areas in which we live and work. We were united in a concern for what makes life difficult and frustrating for us and for our neighbours; we were seeking a way of working together for the common good; we were beginning to explore what it means to be a citizen. We were seeking to form a North London branch of London Citizens.
London Citizens is an alliance of 160 member institutions representing faith communities, universities and schools, trade unions and community groups. It is made up of The East London Communities Organisation, South London Citizens and West London Citizens. North London Citizens will launch on March 30th this year.
The PCC recently agreed to our becoming one of the founder members at least for the first year. We will be the most northerly organization coming from the borough of Camden. London Citizens was founded as a registered charity in 1994. It trains community leaders, and sets up listening teams to determine what people would most like to change in their area and city, what puts pressure on families and makes life difficult for them, and who gets a raw deal in the community. After such a listening campaign all the groups in a particular borough meet to explore the common themes in the issues that have emerged. We then work out how these themes may be turned into a specific, politically strategic, winnable campaign at local or national level. The listening groups receive training from professional members of the organization who have a lot of experience in this work. We are hoping to bring together a ‘listening group’ of 15-20 members of the congregation over the next few weeks in time for the launch of North London Citizens on March 30th. If you are interested please contact myself or Rosemary Loyd as soon as possible.
Examples of campaigns organized by Citizens UK include work for a living wage, improvement of immigration centres, the provision of local training academies, the creation of safe haven centres for young people, and training for young people in financial literacy. Three days before the last general election they organized a meeting in Westminster Hall for over 2,000 community leaders from all over London to listen to and question the leaders of all three main political parties. Now more than ever, as our economic problems impact on already pressurized urban communities we need people who will represent the needs of their local communities and seek ways of alleviating their problems. This is a non-party-political organization in that its achievements so far were made under a previous government, yet the present government is also going to invest in Citizens’ activities! David Cameron sees it as having an important part to play in the evolution of his idea of ‘The Big Society.’
Why should this church become involved? In its initial stages this project would, as I have shown, involve us in an exercise in listening to members of the church and of the wider community about what makes life in any way difficult for them and what their major concerns are about the society in which they live. The benefit to us will be that such an exercise will enable some new and important conversations to happen within the church and build bridges between us and people who don’t come to church, showing them that we are interested in their concerns – it emphasises the idea of the servant church – servants are there to listen before they act. Such external conversations might be held with local residents associations, with the Community centre, at Henderson Court, in students’ hostels and with parents from local schools.
Overall, if our involvement were to develop well it could give the whole congregation a sense of the church being less on the margin of the current debate about faith involvement in some of the major social and civil issues of our time. It would seem that people are looking for guidance about the nature of the good life, and about the values which make a good citizen. At the same time they are also feeling increasingly anxious about the fragmentation and polarisation of society and the seeming dominance of the market place. The Church should be involved in this debate.
One early account of citizenship, which might have inspired everyone at that meeting in the school in Euston, comes from fifth century Athens:
‘We use our wealth, we do not boast about it, and poverty itself is no disgrace, only the failure to fight against it. Our politicians manage their own affairs as well as the city’s, our ordinary working man is a shrewd judge in public matters; we are the only people who call the man who stands aloof from politics not just unambitious but useless.’ (Perikles)
But it is not Athenian democracy but the Sermon on the Mount which challenges us to think about what it might mean for us to be good citizens who work together for the common good. It is the words of Jesus not Perikles, which challenge us to find an enthusiasm for a greater involvement in our local community. In that sermon Jesus says we are to be perfect or holy as God is holy. How are we to respond to the invitation to be human with the fullness of God’s intention for humanity – to be as perfectly human as God is perfectly God? To be told that you can be stronger more generous more loving than you guiltily think you – to be told you have more and better in you than you think can pull us up short. Could it be that we have more good in us than we think? Could it be that we could forget ourselves in listening to and working with and for others as though they were all our neighbours? That is what Jesus is asking us. That is what we were all being asking in that School hall in Euston on Wednesday evening. To be holy as God is holy is not to frequent church or synagogue or mosque more than all our neighbours; to be holy is to be engaged with the world as God is engaged. If we are citizens of an abiding city we have to learn how to be citizens here; to be political is to be a member of a polis – a city in Greek; to be a citizen is to be a member of a civitas – a city in Latin. To seek to be unpolitical is to remain aloof from our neighbours and that is as useless to Jesus as it was to Perikles.
The Vicar Writes
Stephen Tucker