Archbishop Jensen’s address at the Sydney Parliamentary Prayer Lunch - 25/05/04

Archbishop Peter Jensen | 27 May 2004

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I’ve been reading all about bonding. How would you define ‘bonding’ and how would you achieve it? Apparently there is a theory which says that bonding occurs when you put a football team into a classy hotel, give each player a thousand dollars and allow them to get drunk together. According to the Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Richard Hinds, ‘a bonding session is where team members go out a week or so before a big game and drink themselves stupid. This is done, presumably, in the belief that the players will tackle and run harder for a bloke who has set up a dozen schooners a few nights earlier than he would for some teetotaller who wouldn’t know a Jack Daniels from Jack Nicklaus.’ (SMH, May 22, 2004). I suppose that this is especially the case when the bloke has not even used his own money to pay for the drinks.

I don’t for a moment doubt the value of bonding. The team in a hard and physical sport needs to bond. The reality of bonding is a highly desirable one for people about to undergo a stern test together. Men in particular bond best in the shared experiences of great exertion or even danger, when they have to learn to rely on each other by instinct. It is by doing something in co-operation that we learn to have faith in each other: building something, planning something, preparing for something, sailing something, growing something. The emphasis does not fall on us, but on the task at hand. Then, as faith grows, we bond.

I suppose in the old days, this was the essence of mateship. I’ve also been reading about mateship in Patrick Lindsay’s inspiring book, The Spirit of the Digger (Macmillan, 2003). He calls mateship ‘the essential binding force of the Digger’, and says that it extends far beyond comradeship: ‘It develops into a mutual respect and acquires an almost spiritual quality, which binds men for life. It enables them either to embrace or overlook their mates’ foibles and to draw on the seemingly limitless depth of commitment to each other. It helps to form teams with a combined strength far exceeding the sum of those of the members.’ (5-6).

Lindsay’s book takes us to the familiar old battle-fields to illustrate his thesis, from Gallipoli to Vietnam and beyond in both directions. The part that moved me most is his account of the fighting on the Kokoda Track, where a bunch of under- trained, poorly-armed, outnumbered very young men, came face to face with a potent enemy and withstood the blow.

What did mateship do for Corporal John Metson? He was part of a group of fifty men who became separated from the rest and had to embark on journey of several weeks through some of the most rugged jungle in the world, occupied by the enemy. There were several wounded men in the party, some of whom had to be carried by stretcher. This was a mammoth task. Metson had been shot in both ankles. But he, ‘knew how much energy was needed to carry stretchers through thick jungle, a task made even more onerous because [the] party had to avoid the Track and travel through the jungle for fear of running into the enemy. So John Metson wrapped a torn blanket around his knees and hands and he crawled. For three weeks he cheerfully crawled through the jungle, ignoring the growing pain in his shattered ankles and the damage to his hands, knees and legs as he kept up with his mates through the cloying mud and torrential rain.’

That’s bonding, that’s the real thing, that is so powerful. Notice the sort of words which Lindsay uses to describe it. It is a commitment to each other; mateship is an essential binding force; he even says that it acquires an almost spiritual quality. Of course there are different types of mateship, and not all of it is as attractive or positive as Lindsay’s description. But we know this, that the bonding which the footballers were supposed to form by their drunken activities was bogus from the start. Despite all rumours to the contrary, mateship that is worth anything does not grow out of a bottle. The alcohol was not even earned by them and the experience it gave them was counterfeit.

Why do people need to bond? I guess it is because we are prone to individualism, but individualism is a weak and empty philosophy of life. We are created for friendship. But true friendship, real teamwork, indeed mateship, rests on something which is as invisible as it is indispensable: faith. You have to trust the other person.

That is why a genuine bonding experience will have beneficial results; it will prove that the other person is trustworthy. The confidence generated will then see you through many hardships to many great moments. Faith is powerful because it binds us together, lets us work together in reliance on one another. I think that is why Lindsay describes mateship as having an almost spiritual quality.

Where does faith come from? You can’t just summon it up and declare that you are going to have it. It is not a stand alone. You always have faith in something or someone. Someone has to earn your faith. When he or she has earned it, then the two of you have a great power at your disposal. And your faith is only as good as the object of your faith. You can have absolute faith in your car, but it may still fail you; you may trust your children entirely, but they can still let you down. It’s not the strength of your faith so much as the strength of the person or thing in whom you have put your faith, which counts. Mind you, if you have chosen well, your absolute faith will be very effective indeed.

What happens if you put your faith in a liar? After being let down regularly, your faith turns into doubt and then into cynicism. Cynicism is an ugly and corrosive force in your life, but it is unavoidable if you have trusted a liar. Untruths destroy relationships. Unfortunately this is true in public life as well. Where the public senses, or even knows, that they have been told lies, or deceived in some way, trust turns to doubt and then into cynicism.

What a tragedy this is! Sometimes it is said that it is well for the public to by cynical about politicians and the media. Certainly we have become very cynical indeed about our leaders in all walks of life, including the media. But far from being a good thing, this is corrosive. We would be a far healthier and happier community if we could have confidence that we were being told the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable, unpleasant or embarrassing. Faith which is based on the truth is a power for good because it binds us together and makes us a community. Public leaders have an immense obligation to be truthful, transparent and honest.

It was exactly the point at issue in the days of the prophet Jeremiah. In his day, most of the alleged spokesmen for God were liars; instead of warning about the coming judgement and urging people to repent, they spun the story. They said that the mere presence of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem would protect the people. It was a sort of lucky charm, a sort of religious fall-out shelter. In scathing terms the true prophet denounced this teaching: ‘do not trust in deceptive words…you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless’ (7: 4,8).

We live in an age of deceptive words, and cynicism grows a where trust should flourish. Young men are told that if they go out boozing with other players they will somehow bond together and be better team. We live in an age of bad words, when young man can imagine that a foul-mouthed message left on answering machine is either funny or even seductive. We live in age of abusive words, of cheap words, of honeyed words, of blasphemous words. We live in age when young people are taught never to trust the surface meaning of words, but to look beneath the surface at the alleged motives of the speaker, because words do not mean what they say. We live in age of false prophets, of spin, of dubious words, of bad faith and the ineffable sadness of a heartfelt cynicism.

Take promises for example. Promises are wonderful and wholesome speeches; they supply good faith in refreshing torrents. That’s what you do with a promise; you believe it, you rely on it, you even trust it with your life. And it works marvels for you. But a promise is only as good as the person who made it; it is only as good as the last promise we made.

And what has the word ‘promise’ come to mean in our public speech? It has come to take on its opposite; a promise is something which can be broken, or ignored or explained away. This noble word has been pillaged and left to die by the side of the road. We must not blame our leaders. Have we kept our baptismal promises? Do we keep our marriage vows? The law of the land makes it easier for us to leave a marriage relationship than it is for an employer to terminate someone’s job. We will not stand by our promises. Where promises fail, faith also perishes by the wayside. With faith dies loving relationships, because we bond together through trust built on good words.

Where have all the good words gone? Perhaps no human words can be trusted. Perhaps cynicism should be as much part of the school curriculum as maths and English.

I do not accept this in the slightest. I am for faith, not cynicism; relationships, not individualism; bonding, not suspicion. But is this mere uncorroborated idealism? No, it is based on the fact that there are absolutely reliable, true words in this world, and I can trust them with my life.

Let me refer to a little moment in history when this whole matter was on trial. When Jesus Christ confronted Pontius Pilate, Christ said: ‘I am a king…and for this [reason] I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is on the side of the truth listens to me.’(Jn 18:37). And in the immortal words of a great cynic, Pilate answered ‘What is truth?’. Here the call for faith and the answer of cynicism collided. The fame of Pontius Pilate rests on the fact that he turned away from the truth when it stood in front of him.

When Jesus spoke like that to Pilate, his bonding exercise had proved a failure. He had spent three years with a group of young men, and they had all forsaken him so that he was on his own, Indeed, one of them was the traitor. Faith had failed; Pontius Pilate had won: ‘What is truth?’ It will not be found in this corrupt world. Believe nothing; trust nobody.

But in fact, truth stood in front of Pilate that day. True, it was truth in chains; true, it was truth rejected; true it was truth about to be murdered. But it was the truth of God, which cannot die. Jesus came into the world to speak the truth, to live the truth and to be the truth. He did not cower or desert his post; he trusted himself to God: if you like, he was bonded to God. As a result the passion of Christ redeemed the world; as a result he was resurrected from the dead; as a result his team re-assembled, and then proceeded, by the power of faith in Jesus to change the world for ever.

Is truth anywhere in this world? Well the words of Jesus are true and reliable. I bond to him through trusting them. Furthermore, because he spoke the truth, it shows that truth can be spoken, that words can work, that trust and faith are possible. By speaking the truth, Jesus has set before all of us the ideal of speaking the truth, of keeping our promises, of honesty in public and private life, of incorruptibility. Speaking the truth may lead to great inconvenience and worse, but it will also repair relationships, foster love, and maintain integrity. Great teams – in family life, in sport, in business, in education, in clubs, in public life – are built by men and women of great character.

The pain I feel over the sorry episode of bonding gone wrong includes sorrow over the men who have been sold such a pup. They have now been humiliated and disgraced. Who cares for them, for their evident lostness despite their prowess and their success? They are being called boofheads and worse. But have they behaved in ways that are so very different from what is being fostered in the community?

The good thing is that like the rest of us who have known failure, they can start again: and the place to start is with the truth. Jesus said, ‘ whoever hears these words of mine and does them will be like the wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundations on the rock’. (Mtt 7:24-25). I would say, start again; but this time start with the words of Jesus; bind on to him, and you will find that even if you do not join the others in foolishness, you will be a great team man, a man who can be trusted, a man who knows what true bonding is about.

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