Ruth Greenaway-Robbins

Here are some reflections adapted from my sermon this week.

This is the week we find ourselves in our liturgical year standing in two places at once.

On the one hand, we are deep in Kingdom Season – those final Sundays before Advent when we lift our eyes and ask: What does it look like when Christ reigns? Where is the Kingdom taking root among us?

At the same time, we mark Safeguarding Sunday, when churches across the UK hold themselves to the light, speak honestly about what has gone wrong, and recommit to what must be made right.

These two things are not an awkward pairing.
They belong together.

Because the Kingdom Christ speaks of is not vague or sentimental. It has shape and substance:

“The Kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

They’re beautiful words, and bold ones and we’ve been singing them in our church each week of Kingdom Season. Because we believe that if we dare to proclaim justice, peace, and joy, then we must also be honest about where they are painfully absent.

And the truth is this: for too many, especially survivors of abuse, the Church has not felt like the Kingdom of God.
It has not felt like justice,
or peace,
or joy.

And Safeguarding Sunday asks us not to look away.
It asks us to choose truth, because the Kingdom has no fear of truth.

Jesus and Power

Our gospel reading in the lectionary this week from St. Luke’s gospel chapter 21, reminds us that Jesus does not protect institutions.
Instead, Jesus speaks truth to power.

And whenever power is present; in a structure, in a person, in a community – the Gospel invites us to examine it carefully.

This week I was at some training with the Centre for Theology and Community with one of my parishioners, and we were talking about Power. And it was interesting how some of us found Power and our own Power a really difficult conversation. And it reminded me about the five questions the late Tony Benn, would ask of any person or institution holding power. Here is what he asked:

What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
And how can we get rid of you?

They may sound like political questions, but I believe they are deeply theological too.
They are Kingdom questions.

They echo the questions Jesus asks of the Temple.
They echo the questions survivors ask of the Church.
And they are questions we must have the courage to ask of ourselves.

The institutional Church holds real power. So, the only Christ-shaped way to use it is this:

Not to control,
not to silence,
not to protect reputation,
but to serve, to liberate, to heal, and to choose accountability.

Those questions are not a threat to the Church.
Avoiding them is.

Jesus and the Temple

In St. Luke’s account in chapter 21, people marvel at the beauty of the Temple – the stones, the structure, the authority it represented. And Jesus says:

“Not one stone will be left upon another.”

Not because God despises holy places, but because when a holy place stops revealing the life of God, God will not defend it.

For generations, the Church has said:

“We are a place of holiness.
We are a place of safety.”

And Jesus asks us as individuals and as a Church, as he asked them:

Are you?
Do you protect the vulnerable or yourselves?
Are you truth or silence?

It is not criticism that threatens the Church.
It is the refusal to listen.

Naming Failure

It is no secret that the wider Church has failed survivors of abuse.
We know painfully well that the Church has doubted them, delayed justice, protected abusers, and prioritised image over truth.

Even today, survivors are retraumatised by the way safeguarding can be handled:
process instead of compassion,
silence instead of support.

This is not the Kingdom of God.

Beyond the Church: A National Failure to Act

It is also important to remember that it is now three years since the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) released its final report and gave its recommendations to the government. Three years have passed and not one of those national recommendations has yet been implemented. These reforms were designed to protect children, adults, and communities across the whole of society; schools, local authorities, social care, sports clubs, charities, and yes, churches too. 

The failure to act is a failure of political will. It is a failure of collective responsibility. If taken seriously, these recommendations would make the UK a safer place for all. Safeguarding is not only an internal matter for Christian communities; it is a call to hold our wider society, including our government, to account.

Holy Accountability

Far too often, the voices of survivors are still overshadowed by institutional reputation and procedures that almost inevitably favour the perpetrator over the wounded. Reporting abuse is one of the hardest things any person will ever do, and yet the systems we have can make that experience almost as retraumatising as the original harm.

We see senior people in institutions often deeply kind, dedicated people – asked to deliberate on situations they are woefully under-trained and under-supported to handle. They end up caught between pastoral responsibility and institutional expectation. The outcome is almost always messy, painful, and unjust, particularly for survivors.

This does not reflect the Kingdom of God.
And it is why deeper change is still so necessary.

Signs of Grace – and Work Still to Do

And yet there is real grace.

At the parish level, I see week in week out people working faithfully and quietly to make the church safer – safeguarding officers throughout the land, clergy, PCC members, volunteers, diocesan staff. Their work is unseen and often heavy, and I am grateful for it.

Things are better than they once were.
Thanks be to God.

But we are not finished.

We still need transparency, independence, survivor-centred systems, real support, and a culture of safeguarding – not merely policies.

Policies do not heal people.
Culture does.
Courage does.
Truth does.
Compassion does.

Holy Determination

Saint Paul writes, “Do not grow weary in doing what is right.”

That little line carries so much of what safeguarding really is.
It is training, boundaries, noticing, speaking up.
It is refusing to look away.
It is choosing the harder path because it is the right one.

This is love – practical, rolled-up-sleeves love.

And Jesus’ promise, “By your endurance you will gain your souls,” reminds us that endurance is not passive suffering.
It is holy determination – the refusal to accept harm as inevitable, and the choice to keep building something better.

A Word to Survivors

To survivors: You should never have had to endure what you did.
Your courage and truth matter profoundly, and you are held in the heart of God.

A Word to Those Working in Safeguarding

To those who carry safeguarding responsibilities:
Your endurance is holy.
Every time you insist on safe practice, every time you carry burdens faithfully, you are doing Kingdom work.

Why Safeguarding Matters to Faith

So why talk about safeguarding?
Because Tony Benn’s question still presses us:

What power do I have?

All of us hold some kind of power.

Much of mine is formal as a priest.
But most power in the Church should be shared and is everyday:

Noticing when something feels off.
Trusting intuition.
Reporting concerns.
Holding one another – including leaders – to holy account.
Praying for survivors, truth, justice, and fairness.

If every person bears the image of God, then safeguarding is not an optional extra.
It is discipleship.
It is worship.

Safeguarding is tending the image of God.
Believing survivors is worship.
Truth is worship.
Accountability is worship.
This is Gospel work.

Where We Go From Here

We are not here to protect an institution.
We are here to protect people.

We are not here to avoid discomfort.
We are here to move toward truth.

We are not here to say, “We tried.”
We are here to say, “Harm was done, and it must not happen again.”

We are here to build a Church where justice, peace, and joy are not slogans but lived reality.

Because if the Church is not safe,
it is not the Church.

“The Kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”
for every child, every adult, every survivor, every neighbour.

May we have courage.
May we have humility.
May we have endurance.
And may the Holy Spirit make us more like Christ –
who stands with the vulnerable, brings truth into the open,
and heals what has been harmed.

A Liturgical Response – Lament and Hope

After naming so much truth; the failures, the harm, the courage, the endurance, the call to change – I find myself needing to turn to prayer.

Safeguarding isn’t only procedural work; it is spiritual work, emotional work, communal work. And whenever the Church faces its deepest wounds, we need space to lament, to speak honestly to God, and to ask for courage and healing.

So, I offer this litany – written by me for Safeguarding Sunday – as a way for anyone who wants to pray what we must face together.
A way to bring before God the grief, the failures, the survivors, the work, and the hope for something better.

A Litany for Safeguarding Sunday – A Prayer of Lament and Hope

O Christ, who entered the world as a helpless child,
who knew what it was to be held and to be hurt,
and to be betrayed:
Have mercy upon us.

O Holy Spirit, who broods over the waters of chaos,
who breathes life into what is broken,
who comforts the silenced and the afraid:
Have mercy upon us.

O God, whose image is found in every person,
whose light no darkness can extinguish:
Have mercy upon us.

From silence that hides the truth,
from fear that keeps us from hearing,
from the hardness of heart that cannot bear to see:
Deliver us, O God.

From words that wound and systems that crush,
from misuse of power and the blindness of privilege,
from the sins of the Church and the indifference of your people:
Deliver us, O God.

From easy words of apology without repentance,
from the temptation to turn away,
from the weariness that gives up on change:
Deliver us, O God.

For all who carry pain in body or spirit,
for all who still wake in fear,
for all whose stories have been doubted or denied:
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

For those who have spoken truth at great cost,
and for those who long to speak but cannot:
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

For those who have failed to protect,
and those who seek to do better;
for all who bear the heavy work of safeguarding:
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Christ of the wounds,
you took upon yourself the violence of the world;
you carried its shame and its betrayal;
you rose still bearing your scars.
Teach us never to look away.
Christ, have mercy.

Spirit of truth,
breathe courage into our weakness,
steadiness into our outrage,
and tenderness into our care.
Christ, have mercy.

God of justice and mercy,
we long for your Church to be a place of safety and belonging,
where all may find rest,
and none need hide their pain.
Christ, have mercy.

Gather us into your healing, O God:
those who have been harmed,
those who have harmed,
and those who have stood by in silence.
Make us one people, redeemed and remade by love.
Kyrie eleison.

Let truth be spoken,
let power be humbled,
let compassion be our law.
Christe eleison.

Let the stones cry out until justice is done,
and your kingdom comes among us
a kingdom of safety, honesty, and peace.
Kyrie eleison.

God of light and shadow,
you hold the stories too painful to tell,
the memories too heavy to bear.
Hold us in your mercy.
Teach us to listen with reverence,
to act with courage,
and to live as people who make your love real.
Through Jesus Christ,
wounded and risen,
our healer and our hope.
Amen.