Wrestling with God

Reform Magazine Editor David Lawrence speaks to the incoming Moderator of General Assembly

There will be no knitting needles visible on the plat­form at Assembly this year, to the regret of the many who have watched, fascinated, as Sheila Maxey has played a full part in complex meetings while polishing off yet another fashion accessory for a member of her family. But being a Moderator of Assembly is a serious business.

a difficult year

The year of anticipation endured by incoming Assembly Moderators has not been an easy one for Sheila. It was always going to be strange. A combination of retirement year and preparation for Moderator, she was looking for­ward to some sorting out around house and garden, com­bined with attending Assembly committees to build up a picture of what is happening in the Church. Then, around Christmas, her husband Kees fell ill will heart disease, driv­ing both retirement and Moderator out of her mind. An angioplasty later she admits the experience shook her: ‘It puts everything in perspective. You learn to live for the day’.

an ecumenical desert?

Having spent the last 10 years representing the URC in the complex world of ecumenical relations, I put it to her that there is a certain irony in the fact that she takes over as Moderator at a time when the URC seems to be sitting on the sidelines while others make the pace in terms of unity. With typical hopefulness, she sees it differently.

The ecumenical movement, in her view, has moved on to a different place. Many no longer care about the denom­inational labels; they are forming new kinds of churches, meeting at different times. There is an impatience with ‘structural ecumenism’ and a desire to just get on with being Christian. But all this, she concludes, is not a failure of ecumenism, quite the opposite. If Christians are work­ing together in new ways it is because over the years of the ecumenical movement they have learned to trust each other and not look first at denominational labels. It is not something to worry about.

Not worrying seems to be a fairly central part of the Maxey creed and one to which she readily admits. ‘I’m hopeful because of God. If we are faithful God will hon­our that. There may be great pain in letting go of the ways in which we have been church or have understood disci­pleship - but in personal terms that happens to people all the time... As people wrestle with the Bible God will lead them into answers, one step at a time.’

a long line

Trust in God is built into the genes of Sheila Maxey. She comes from a long line of Church of Scotland ministers - she is the 9th generation to enter the ministry and her daughter Ruth the 10th. Sheila’s mother was German and her father had been a missionary to India. Whatever the reason, growing up in Scotland - something you would not detect from her accent - there was always a sense that the family were citizens of the world. As a result she has always felt slightly out of place, wherever she has lived.

Citizen of the world or not, Sheila stayed at home while her sisters travelled the world. She married an Englishman she met at university through the Student Christian Move­ment. After graduation she taught English literature in a local comprehensive school in Brentwood. Then followed a family and, when the children went back to school, so did Sheila.

The call to ministry came to Sheila in her 40s. Look­ing back she recalls leading a Junior Church service after which theologian Colin Gunton, a fellow member, asked her whether she had ever considered ministry. She trained at Mansfield College in Oxford and, in a flattering but unusual move, was called to be the minister of the Brent­wood church of which she had been a member for years, together with a nearby village church at Ingatestone.

changing roles

She enjoyed the experience of having two churches, not least because ‘then the local church can’t possess you and you are constantly reminded that there is no ‘one size fits all’ way of being the church.’ Today she thinks it no bad thing that ministers increasingly are called to more than one church. The role of minister she sees as that of an enabler, the person who equips others for the work. ‘The trouble is ministers have as their role model others who have been at the centre of everything, the father of the church. I think it’s strange that we who make so much about the priesthood of all believers have in some ways been more minister-dominated than many churches which have priests. It is all, she thinks, part of the ‘shaking’ that needs to take place to release the gifts of the people of God. ‘There’s a lot of sacrifice for ministers in that new role because you don’t belong, and we have that tradition that ministers belong and it’s much loved and very nice. Maybe it’s part of the sacrifice that ministers make when they offer themselves - no longer being the top person but rather equipping others to do the role.

In 1993 Sheila was appointed to the post of Secretary for Ecumenical Affairs. It was a time of transition in the understanding of the post - indeed the word ‘ecumenical’ had only just been introduced to the job title, which had previously been largely concerned with co-ordinating and caring for personnel from partner churches overseas who were ministering alongside the URC.

It was job she loved and her ability to understand the ethos of different traditions and to act as a bridge between them has been widely admired. There have been frustra­tions, like the failure of the ambitious unity scheme in Scotland, with its aptly-named ‘maxi-parishes’ but there was always a sense that the URC’s interests were in safe hands. But despite the increasing importance of national ecumenical affairs in her work, she was never more happy than when meeting and supporting partners from over­seas. The demands were often intensive but the reward was meeting and getting to know such wonderful people.

a new voice

A year ago, when Sheila thanked Assembly for electing her as Moderator she pointedly thanked them for giving her back her voice after 10 years in which, as a civil servant’ of the church she has been expected not to take part in public debate. It was a reminder to those who may never have worked closely with her that the nice grey-haired lady sit­ting in the corner of the room knitting through the meeting has passionate opinions on the future of the church. The knitting - which can be disconcerting at first - she adopted precisely because she found it difficult to cope with being deprived of her voice in Mission Council, of which she had been a member from the first. Knitting also served to chan­nel the frustration of having to sit through people saying ‘stupid things’ or debates going in what she considered the wrong direction.

Whatever the merits of the system, the church will dis­cover what it has been missing over the coming year.

Outside of her work in the church, Sheila Maxey rejoices in her role as part of a large extended family. She has three children (and cared for the children of a sister who died) and six - going on seven - grandchildren Her parents lived next door until their deaths - her father lived to be 100. Outside of the family both she and husband Kees are active members of the Labour party. They ‘like to do ener­getic things’ including walking, climbing mountains or cycling (especially if it includes a pub lunch). Boats feature large, both canal boats and a small mirror dinghy which they recently capsized for the first time in 15 years - ‘I got quite cold and very bruised... Sailing a dinghy is exhilarat­ing but terrifying - but at least when I’m terrified I can’t think about other things:

looking forward

In the year ahead Sheila Maxey is genuinely eager to see the churches and learn about their life. The enthusiasm is tempered by a certain awareness of the need to pace herself over the year, aware that when she speaks she puts all of herself into it and is drained afterwards. And then again ‘when does one clean the house?’

As she travels she will take with her into local fellow­ships the conviction that there is an urgent need for us to engage with scripture. ‘We’ve got to find God and find Jesus otherwise we can’t be the church. For that we’ve got to wrestle with the Bible and wait on God in prayer. I think we might be quite weak there but I’m looking forward to being proved wrong.’

First published in Reform, July 2004

  

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