This is the fifth in a series of posts: to read them all start at part 1

When Archbishop Sentamu arrived at the University Church on Thursday evening, he was wearing his usual bright smile, but pointed at his throat.  “Nothing left!” he whispered.  His throat was so sore and hoarse we wondered whether he would be able to deliver his lecture. It’s hard to persuade this fiery little man to sit down for long. There are always queues of people who want to meet him, and he hates to refuse any of them. He recognises many people he has met before, often remembering them by name. But we found him a warm corner to sit down and rest for a bit. 

“So tell me, Maggi,” he said, “How is your son?” (Archbishop Sentamu baptised my son nearly ten years back and always wants a progress report.) I gave him a little summary of what has been happening to us lately, and mentioned a couple of things that have been a fairly major setback for my son.  The Archbishop’s face was studied, and he said nothing for a bit.  Something was percolating.

But then the wheels began to turn again, and we were called to go to the platform. It was my task to introduce Archbishop Sentamu before he gave his public lecture entitled “A Broken Society?” and to moderate the question and answer session afterwards.

I kept my introduction warm, brief and to the point. People don’t want to listen to the MC, they want to hear the lecturer.  Archbishop Sentamu took the stage, and despite feeling unwell he warmed to his subject and his voice seemed to get stronger as he spoke with great passion about his vision for society.

He spoke of how people often speak negatively about society. The media tends to exaggerate the bad news and underreport the good. There’s something of a national epidemic of negativity, which brews fear and hostility. He urged us to start from a different vantage point offered to us by the gospel – to view our society as redeemed, and with every reason for hope, not as broken and sliding down a slippery slope.

The Archbishop took some tricky questions fearlessly and with humour, after which we headed over for Compline (a service of prayers and music for the end of the day) where the other Archbishop spoke with artful simplicity about the Lenten journey. I don’t know whether they planned it this way, or whether it was serendipitous, but the Archbishop of York called us in a public lecture to have a vision of hope and redemption that looked outward to the world, and at prayers the Archbishop of Canterbury turned the focus inward to find the same journey of hope and redemption within our own hearts.

I’ll continue the story in the next post…