By Rev Nicholas Sykes

Frequently there are discussions and debates in any society over whether the authorities are right or wrong in what they do, and the Cayman Islands are no exception in this.

For years there has been debate over Immigration laws and regulations and whether the practices of the Immigration authorities are fair or justified, or in part very wrong. For years too there has been debate over development practices, whether for example the laws through which the planning authorities can regulate development are sufficient, whether in some instances they are too restrictive, or whether they are sufficient to protect the environment.

For both these sorts of things the Government has reputedly been coming up with laws that will help to solve the problems. Recently, there have been arguments and opposing viewpoints on various aspects of the Cayman Islands constitution. In this case some important decisions were reached, but the discussions will doubtless continue.

Many leaders get nervous about coming down on one side or another when it comes to matters of rightness or wrongness or good or evil. This seems particularly perilous for church leaders, who are called to be shepherds of the flock. Politicians often get their identity and justification from a mixed bag of considerations, and even if they are found doing something questionable, like, say, making political appointments to statutory boards, that’s not always going to destroy their credibility as politicians.

For church leaders, if we are shown to be telling lies and propagating heresy or causing scandal the consequences should be more immediate and serious, because the reasons for our existence as priests and pastors will have been seriously compromised. It is an equally serious matter when through lack of courage or integrity we fail to express the truth on anything.

However, this burden is carried not only by those ordained or appointed to office in the church: it is shared by all the baptised, because all who are baptised share a holy priesthood, that is called and privileged and obligated to be a people of the truth. In Ephesians 1: 9 we read that God “made known to us the mystery of his will.”

If we are so purposefully called to be a people who have that knowledge, we are called also to express it, albeit in a wise, winsome and loving way. St. Paul understood that calling not only as a personal calling, but as a calling that was shared. Such knowledge cannot be for us primarily a matter of popular support or insufficient popular support for any position. We are called to be the people of the plumb-line.

The plumb-line is the most simple of the builder’s tools, but it is his essential reference to what is truly vertical. The shape of the building itself may produce an illusion in that what looks vertical to an observer may not actually be so. But he can be sure that like the spirit level, a plumb-line will not lie. When using it, he can rely on what it tells him about verticality even if his own eyes tell him something different.

The prophet Amos’ vision (see Amos chap 7 verse 7) taught him the defects of Israel were being noticed and dealt with by the Lord, and as one called to warn Israel, Amos was not to be deflected from his task by those with a vested interest in things the way they were. But Amos was well aware that to be of the plumb-line was to engage in a costly ministry. He found himself up against the chief religious authority of the country. But his ministry was measured not by influential or popular support, but by the plumb-line of the purpose of God.

A “plumb-line ministry” may bear a heavy cost. St. John the Baptist had suffered imprisonment and death by beheading because of being a man of the plumb-line. He had called on the local administrator Herod Antipas to set a good example and he let him know very clearly that his marital arrangements were wrong.

So Herodias the unlawful wife engineered first John’s imprisonment and then his death. Being a people of the plumb-line does not win immediate favours. Still, it has been John the Baptist that has been held up, and even by the Lord himself, as an example to subsequent generations, and never Herod Antipas. It seems he had a bad conscience over John’s death, as well he should. When he heard of the talk of his day about Jesus’ healings, he assumed at first that this must be the prophet he beheaded come back to life (Mark 6: 16).

The plumb-line of the purpose of God hangs over us all today, just as Amos saw it in his own time hanging over Israel. We as the church are a holy priesthood in the Lord because we are called to what is good and true as declared by God’s word and revelation, supported by the reason He has graced us with, rather than to what is demanded or tolerated by influential figures.

We are called to declare that as the people of God we live by the grace of God Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ, and not just by the words of anyone claiming to be or followed as an authority. We are called to Christian standards with respect to marriage and money, the nature of man, the governance of the Church and everything else. Let us never play games or trifle with the truth to which in Christ and by His grace we are committed, and which in the end will prevail.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org