So, since my title this evening is Walking Together as Friends, can I begin by greeting you, my dear friends? I’ve long believed that at the heart of all interfaith dialogue and relationships is the deep and beautiful concept of friendship, and that until we can really get to know one another as friends, we will achieve very little else. So it is for me a very great honour to be with you this evening, and I've looked forward to being here. And as many of you have already said to me, as we've chatted beforehand, my diary has been rather busy of late, and I spent some time with His Majesty the King and the Pope as a warm up act for coming to speak to you this evening. And I want to give my particular thanks to the Lord Mayor for hosting us and the Committee of the Council of Christians and Jews, Leeds branch, especially to Tim their Chair, for making this evening happen. And I do want to pay tribute to Tim for the many, many years of faithful services given to this Council. Because, as you know, he will be stepping down later this year.
I'm also very conscious that I stand in a succession of distinguished speakers at this annual public lecture, including Lord Dyson, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Lord Mann of Holbeck Moor and Lord Howard of Lympne. My dear friends, such a beginning may sound to you like a bit of a formality, but I think, more than anything else, I want you to know, especially at a time like this, that I am so glad to be here and I am inspired by the work that the Leeds branch does. I've had some connections in the last few years with the Jewish community in Leeds, and I know that the work that you do sets the bar high, and I long for that to be the case right up and down the country and across our world. So I esteem you for the particular work that you are doing and the example you set, knowing there are some York people here, I also want to say relations in York are so good and such a blessing.
As has already been said, the Council for Christians and Jews was founded in 1942 in the very darkest days of the Second World War. As Nazi domination gripped Europe and the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust unfolded, it was in that unimaginably terrible setting that Christians and Jews of this country came together to talk, to stand together and affirm the light of friendship in the midst of terrible darkness. So I do appreciate the honour of being invited to be among you as a sign of my commitment and our commitment and that of so many colleagues, to strengthen that friendship and dialogue, particularly at such a time of challenge. And as your committed friend, I want to share my deep sadness and mourning, as we have recently marked the second anniversary of October 7th, the greatest killing of Jews since those dark days of the 1940s. I have no words to express the grief that I and so many of my colleagues feel, and I simply want to say to the Jews who are here this evening, we stand alongside you in your sorrowing. We also know from the news this evening that the cease fire in Gaza is very, very fragile, possibly breaking. In the last few days, we have seen glimmers of hope as Israeli hostages have been released, and the bodies of those killed in those awful days and thereafter are being returned. But we must continue to pray that this terrible time will come to a close. At the same time, and in the spirit of dialogue and friendship, we cannot overlook the fact that following October 7th, the military action by the State of Israel has itself caused great turmoil and suffering. Whilst we must acknowledge that our Jewish friends, neighbours and colleagues cannot and should not be held responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, we do have to recognise the effect these actions have had on relationships between Christians and Jews, and Christians and Jews and other faiths here in our country. Our collective grief, anger and discomfort have, in turn, been instrumentalised to try and set us and other communities in this country against each other, and to build walls of suspicion and fear among us. Friends, we must resist this. We must do better. We must both hold on to and build on the friendship we have.
I also join with you in mourning the death of those who were killed at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester on 3rd October. I stand alongside my colleague, the Bishop of Manchester, in expressing our solidarity with the Jewish community right across the north of England. And I hope very much in the next few weeks to be visiting Heaton Park with the Chief Rabbi. We know each other well, we're in discussion with each other, and we hope to make a visit to Manchester alongside one another. I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident, and in its level of violence, I pray that it may be so, but I am painfully aware of the manifold rise in antisemitic speech, physical assaults and social media posts over the last two years, and of the fear and sense of rejection that these engender. As Archbishop of York, I cannot forget that this violence has a long and ignoble history, most notably horribly of the murders of Jews at Clifford's tower in my own city in 1190. So maybe the first thing I want to say to you on behalf of the Church of England, my fellow bishops and myself, is that we value and honour the Jewish community in our country. We treasure you, your friendship. We stand alongside you. We want you to be part of who we are, and together express our deep belief in God and in the beauty and sanctity of every human life. I also want to underline the importance, the vital imperative to dialogue as a way of expressing how we value both our common heritage and our differences.
And looking forward, I'd like to highlight a few areas in which I think we can work more closely together.
First - this may not come as a surprise, I am, after all, a religious Minister - first in our theological understanding. As you probably know, every day, the clergy of the Church of England are required, and lay people are encouraged to pray what we call The Daily Office, and each service of Morning and Evening Prayer has two readings, one from what we call the Old Testament and one from the New. In the last month, you might be interested to know the first reading at Morning Prayer has been from the first book of Maccabees, and I have been struck as never before how resonant this must be for many who feel under threat in the State of Israel. Can we read the Scriptures together, to learn from each other, how the accounts of the Lord Almighty, how the Lord Almighty dealt with his people, choosing and preserving them to help make sense to us in our own time and in our own setting. Alongside that, I recognise that some readings of Christian theology have allowed and even shamefully promoted antisemitism. We will work, we Christians, to purge that destructive interpretation, but we may need you to help us. Indeed, speaking personally, one of the ways I have been actively seeking to live this out in my own preaching and teaching in the last few years, has been to use the extremely helpful and insightful Jewish Annotated New Testament. I don't know whether Christians here know about this book. It's an astonishing book which was introduced to me on a study day between Christians and Jews a couple of years ago. Published in 2011 it is, I think, the first scholarly appreciation and examination of the New Testament from the perspective of Judaism and written entirely by Jewish scholars. In the preface, the editors express their hope that their reading will help counter some of the more supersessionist interpretations of the New Testament. That is that the promises made to Abraham now belong to Christians exclusively, and the hope that Christians will gain a deeper appreciation that significant sections of the New Testament derive straight from the heart of Judaism. Now I think Christians have always believed this, but it has not always been evident in our preaching and teaching. But the editors also say that they hope the book will help Jewish readers become better acquainted with the tradition of their neighbours. This, I'd like to suggest, is a beautiful and Godly aspiration. It is one I share deeply, and it is one that both of our faiths need to actively promote.
Secondly, in the working out of our shared understanding, one of the slightly odd aspects of my job, and one it appears I share with previous guests who have given this Lecture, is that I sit in the House of Lords. We are giving considerable time and care at the moment to considering end of life issues, particularly as they are presented in the Assisted Dying bill. My sister and brother bishops in Parliament, we are known by the slightly medieval title of Lords Spiritual, hugely value the wisdom and insight of Jewish peers and MPs as we share so much understanding of what it is to be a human person, with unique dignity made in the image of God, and also what it is to be a person in community with our sense of mutual responsibility and solidarity. And I’ve also gained much from my meetings with the Chief Rabbi. We have met and spoken on several occasions and with other senior Jewish leaders on this and other topics, where, as people of faith, we find ourselves standing together.
Next, engaging with recent history. Looking at the events of the last two years, I would like to ask that we can somehow arrive at a point where we can engage in honest dialogue about what has happened and where we go from here. I recognise the profound connection between so many Jewish people all around the world and the State of Israel. And of course, there must be hope and security for the people of Israel, but there must also be hope and security for the Palestinian people. I have been in regular contact with my friend and colleague, Archbishop Hosam, Archbishop in Jerusalem, and he spoke to the Church of England's General Synod in July, and I hope to be visiting him in the next few weeks. He has spoken with great care and deep sadness about what has been happening to the people in his schools, parishes and hospitals, speaking with sadness, not with bitterness. You will probably be aware that the Anglican Church provides schools and hospitals in that region, not for Anglicans or only for Christians, but for all who are in need. The most well known of these at present is the Al Ahli Hospital, now in ruins. I have every confidence that we will build a new hospital as soon as we can to serve the needs of all the residents of the Gaza strip.
We, Christians and Jews together need to look at the International repercussions of what has happened. You will know that a commission of the International Court of Justice has reminded the State of Israel about its obligation to prevent genocide, and the United Nations independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory has given its judgement that, firstly, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and other grave violations of international law on 7th October 2023 but secondly, Israeli security forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. More recently, that commission has concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and were continuing to commit four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
I am very conscious of how terrible that conclusion sounds, particularly to those in the room this evening who experienced the grief of the Holocaust and to those who lost loved ones and friends on October 7th. But I raise it because we are friends, and we're never going to find ways forward unless we can speak about these things with each other. We must keep doing, here in Leeds, here in York, here, up and down the country, we must keep doing the hard work of dialogue, talking about these difficulties and these differences, even when they cut deep, even as we hold the mourning and fear of loved ones in Israel, even as we hold the precariousness and fear of Palestinian Christians in Gaza, let us do the brave work of dialogue which can only be sustained by friendship, and be inspired by the CCJ for the sake of heaven, as is described in the Jewish tradition.
I want the Jewish community to know that I can only speak for the Church of England, but I think I speak, I believe, for all the Christian denominations, we stand with you unconditionally, because we know that we belong together. Although this feels, indeed is, a time of great darkness, there are some glimmers of light breaking through. For the prophet Isaiah proclaimed that the people walking in darkness would not see just a glimmer, but a great light. And as Christians and Jews together, we share this hope and faith in the living presence of God to guide us, even in shadowy and uncertain terrain, towards compassion and truth by the ways of courage, companionship, hope and friendship. We share the tradition of praying the Psalms, and in the Psalms, we find the language of lament as well as joy, and the language of lament, which usually resolves itself in faith and hope. In fact, I think what I what I love about the Psalms, well, Thomas Merton, a great Christian mystic and scholar, said that people think they love the Psalms because they're so old, you know, the song book, and the hymn book of the people of God from whenever. He said, no, that's not the reason we love the Psalms. The reason we love the Psalms is because they're so young. He said, they are the songbook of the people of God in their first calling, and that's why they're so full of lament, so full of sadness, so full of rage, so full of joy, which also means that for us, as we read the Psalms, I always kind of think to myself, you can never outdo the Psalms - if you're feeling sad, there's a psalm that's sadder than you. If you're feeling joyful, there's a psalm that's more joyful than you. If you're feeling completely downcast, there's a psalm. If you think you don't believe in God anymore, there's a psalm that doesn't believe in God more than you.
And I think it is in a deep reading of those Scriptures that we share, that we can begin to find the spiritual resources, both to hold on to our friendship, even in difficult times, and then to dare to believe we can walk forward together. We stand together, holding on to shared pain, shared frustration, shared hope before God and we must not let others divide us. My prayer is that our shared hope, the light in the darkness, will bring justice and peace as a blessing, not only for Jews and Christians, but for all who dwell in this great city of Leeds, in our country and across the whole earth, which is the home that God has given us.
So may we together pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for the peace of the Holy Land, and for the peace of this nation. May God bless us, and may God bless the work of friendship that continues to bring light into dark places.
That is actually the end of my text. But I just wanted to tell a story.
When I eventually hang up my mitre and look back over my time as Archbishop of York, there will be many highlights. There aren't many people who can say they've helped bury a queen, or helped crown a king, and then last week, led worship with the Pope in the Sistine Chapel. These are astonishing things that I've had the huge privilege of being part of. But actually, one of the most, if not the most moving thing I've done as Archbishop of York was, I think, two years ago, when the Jewish community in York invited me to share in their Hanukkah celebrations, and asked whether I would come and light the first of the Hanukkah candle. I was greatly honoured to be asked, and of course, went along. This in itself, you may not think is a particularly unusual thing. Christian Jews are friends, and it's not unusual for people from other faith traditions to be invited to share in the celebrations of Hanukkah. However, this Hanukkah celebration in York took place in Clifford's Tower, and the symbolism of a Christian kindling a flame in Clifford's tower was a remarkable and profoundly moving thing. And in so doing, I believe, redeeming our history, or at least saying we cannot, and do not need to be defined by our history, that Christians have done terrible things to Jews, and we live in a precarious place at the moment. But it need not be this way. And I felt somehow that me, a Christian, lighting that candle in that place on that holy day, was not only a sign of what I believe we in our world so urgently needs at the moment, but I do think actually, probably just about the most beautiful thing I've done as your Archbishop. That really is the end. Thank you.
