Warden’s Address from Lucas Mix,
Warden of the Society
Society of Ordained Scientists, Gathering, Hinsley Hall, UK, 2025
Isaiah 42:5-12; Matthew 10:7-16

The world upsets me right now.
I wish the wars would stop.
I wish the US government could be part of the solution,
instead of always seeming to be part of the problem.
I wish the Episcopal Church, and the Church of England,
and the Anglican Communion could get over themselves
and do the work we are called to do.
I want these things to change,
But I know they are not mine to change,
nor are they entirely someone else’s.
That’s the challenge.
I am part of the world at war. I am part of the US. And I am part of the church.
What am I to do?
There’s something truly frustrating, if that word is strong enough,
something angering, disempowering, soul-crushing even,
about being in the middle space.

God grant me courage to change the things I can,
Serenity to change the things I cannot,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

What do we do with the middle space,
Where we cannot summon the energy to act
Nor the emotional distance to accept?
That, for me, is the Climate Crisis in a nutshell.

Then we get the passage in today’s Gospel:
“As you go, proclaim the good news,
‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
You received without payment; give without payment.”
And I must confess to a bit of petulance.
Give me a break, God. You ask for the impossible.
I cannot cure the sick, raise the dead, cure the lepers, or cast out demons.
Who am I, that God asks these things?
I am tired, I am old, I am weak.
(I think this is true even for those of us in their teens.
It’s the time we live in.)
Give me a show of hands. Does this feel like it applies to you as well?

I am grateful for the opportunity of a three Eucharist retreat.
It gives me the space to inhabit discomfort in a way
that I would never dare in a single sermon.
It lets me name the weakness and acedia that creeps up on us.

I went to a seminar recently with Dr. Caroline McCalman,
a social scientist at the University of Birmingham.
She shared her surprise that, upon interviewing Climate Activists –
people she had identified for their environmental work –
they uniformly denied that they were, quote, environmentalists.
They felt their work was not having a big enough impact,
that they had not sacrificed enough to identify that way.
Or, to use the language of religion,
they feared their sacrifice was not worthy
and, therefore, their sacrifice was not accepted,
and, therefore, they were not sanctified by the act.
They did not know how to make an acceptable offering.

I think this is what trips me up.
When I read Matthew 10, I hear
Go out and do these things – you are responsible for the consequences.
But that is not Good News in this time and place.
Perhaps it was for the original hearers of Genesis and Leviticus.
I do not know.
The Good News for the Psalmist was something different
“the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17)
And for Micah:
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
I could leave it there, and say something like this:
Go out and try to do good – God is responsible for the consequences.
There is truth to that as well, but it is still not Good News, I think.
It is duty without reward,
Noble and grand, but ultimately fruitless.
So, I turn to Mark 4 and First Corinthians 3
We water and plant, but God gives growth.

And God does give growth.
I was doing some research lately,
and just a very brief search turned up interesting results.
The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley was founded in 1981.
The Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford was founded in 1985.
The Faraday Institute at Cambridge was founded in 2006.
I found Science and Religion courses at
Edinburgh, London, Oxford, and Leeds
With modules at Cambridge, Durham, and countless others.
Looking more closely at ecotheology,
I found courses at 24 universities in North America,
alongside Edinburgh and Oxford, here in the UK.
There are also quite recent masters’ courses
at Sarum, Nazarene, and St Augustine’s, training people for ministry.
Not to mention modules in most mainline and liberal seminaries
across the ecumenical spectrum.
For a field of study and an area of ministry barely heard of 50 years ago,
that’s a remarkable change.
Theology is different than it was.
The church changed and the world changed.
Looking around this room –
and thinking about the Society of Ordained Scientists –
we played a major role in that.

I do not have power,
but we do.
And, connected to communities of science and faith, as we are,
we have more power than most.
It is not perhaps, as decisive or autonomous as we would wish,
but it is power.
There is authority and grace in that power,
when we look for it.
There is something of God.

And so, perhaps, we can read todays passage in a different way.
“As you go, proclaim the good news,
‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
You received without payment; give without payment.”
Perhaps, it looks more like this:
Go out and do these things – and witness what happens.
Perhaps it looks like an experiment.

What have you done that did have power?
With whom did you work?
With what lever did you change the world?
That is the question.
We are here because we, together have power.
It is not perhaps, as decisive or autonomous as we would wish,
but it is power.
There is authority and grace in that power,
when we look for it.
There is something of God.

I can’t tell you exactly where it lies,
how it works,
or what we are called to do with it.
That is the work of the coming year.

This, then, is the Good News,
and this is the invitation.
Let us go forth and experiment,
in prayer and in action.
Let us ask God, what we are called to do,
in expectation of an answer.
Let us act in the world,
in expectation of making a change
and watch closely for the results.
Let us come to the table,
in expectation of being fed,
of being strengthened,
of being healed,
and growing and changing and bearing fruit.