2 Corinthians 4.3-6, Mark 9.2-9
The Sunday before Lent, 11 February 2018
West Camel, Corton Denham, Sutton Montis
(Congregation have this poem on handouts. First read it from the start to end).
Refugees
by Brian Bilston [1]
They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way
(Now read it backwards - and discuss). We can use exactly the same words to say very different things.
You are watching TV on Christmas Day 1971. Onscreen Eric Morecambe is making a mockery of the solemn art of the concert piano by mucking around with André Previn. “You’re playing the wrong notes,” says the exasperated distinguished pianist. Eric grabs him by his lapels, eyeballs him and says, “I’m playing all the right notes. But not necessarily in the right order.” [2]
We all get a bit like that at times, don’t we? With the way we communicate ourselves to others. We say the right things. But not necessarily in the right way. In our attempts to get ourselves across we end up being misunderstood. It’s certainly true in the church.
Think of all those misprints and bloopers from parish magazines which we love to read:
Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
Miss Charlotte Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation. [3]
These amuse us; but there’s a flip-side to communication. Preachers and teachers get frustrated when the thoughts we try so carefully to express are misunderstood; fundraisers and volunteers are dismayed when the events we try so hard to promote are unsupported; and believers are saddened when the faith which gives us so much comfort is misrepresented and mercilessly put-down, or even worse, ignored by those around us.
So we get anxious about how we should communicate ourselves, our church life, our faith. Our Deanery Mission Plan commits to engaging with each other and our local and wider communities by communicating clearly and well. [4] And so we should. But however certain our own faith when we communicate it, we mustn’t assume that those we’re addressing are equally unquestioning. However sure we are of the worth of our fundraising enterprise or charitable cause we cannot presume that it will be a priority to everyone else. There must be room, in our communication of the life and faith of the church, for exploring mystery, for opening up space for questions and for exploration of life and faith.
After all, Jesus told us to approach our faith like children. For children tend to assume that they do have the freedom to engage in open, critical exploration, so just get on with it. Like in that letter which one young boy wrote to God:
Dear God
Why is Sunday School on Sunday? I thought it was supposed to be our day of rest.
Or that letter to God from another young girl:
Dear God
Thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a Puppy. [5]
Now one thing which is certain to me is that Jesus doesn’t want us to communicate ourselves with fixed ideas, as if our faith is immovable; he wants us to be questioning, critical, open-hearted and open-minded disciples, people who (others can see) are on a journey with him, people who practice encouraging others to hop on board and join us on the way.
In Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell compares himself to Thomas More as he says,
What’s wrong with you? Or what’s wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world and then the next world too. [6]
If you relate less to Thomas More in his unbending certainty and more to Thomas Cromwell with his honest doubts, then you’re on a healthy road to discipleship, for the beginning of learning is self-awareness and questioning. And that will put you in a good position to communicate the faith with others.
It strikes me from the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels that he is far more welcoming to those who come to him with open questions than to those who come to him already knowing what they think and wanting him to conform to their worldview. There’s a world of difference between the Pharisees asking Jesus, “Why are your followers doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?” [7] and Peter asking Jesus, "Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?”[8]
As people who come to church with questions, doubts and fears it’s amusing at times, and heartening, to see how mixed up and clueless the disciples are in the gospels. They constantly misunderstand what Jesus is getting at in his teachings; they quibble over which of them will sit next to him in heaven whilst he tries to direct their thoughts to how they will serve him here on earth.
Now if we are comforted by certainty then we will be blessed by the understanding that religion is all about following unbreakable rules, accepting unshakeable truths. But if we are questioning people, people with doubts and fears, then it’s enlightening - if not challenging - to realise that in his life Jesus was the ultimate rule breaker, and that in his teachings Jesus used not doctrines but parables - so designed that those who had ‘ears to hear’, as he often put it, could decide for themselves the direction they should take in response to what he told them. Parables are not fixed certainties - they are conversation-starters, they introduce topics for discussion about the nature and outworking of the kingdom of God on earth. [9]
With the insight of an honest atheist the author H. P. Lovecraft once wrote,
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. [10]
So let us be very careful with the way we use our certainties lest we are tempted to stifle and condemn others less sure than ourselves. [11] Let us instead, be blessed to know that when Christ calls us to communicate our faith with others he wants us to be free from any anxiety about needing to have all the right answers; rather, he calls us to open ourselves to grappling with the questions that others are asking, and to be honest about the questions we are still working out ourselves.
I’d like to share a little recollection of my time as a teenager in a church youth group, and one evening when one of the elders of the church accepted our invitation to join us to answer our questions about his faith and his life. Les Williams was a man we all thought of as very godly and very ‘together’ in his life, long-established and certain in his faith. And sure enough, in the answers he gave us to various personal and ethical questions his integrity and certainty shone through.
But the one moment which moved me so deeply, the light-bulb moment which even today still illuminates my journey, was when someone asked him something about God - maybe the perennial question about why God allows suffering or why the Old Testament God is so vicious and vindictive. The question I don’t now remember. But the way he answered, I do. As was his way, this thoughtful man, Les didn’t answer immediately. He thought hard and then uttered three words which really did change my perception of Christianity forever, for good. He said, “I don’t know…”
That this great old man of the church admitted that he still had struggles over some things about God, meant to me as a youngster that my own struggles were acceptable too. His honesty taught me that church was for explorers, life-long learners; that God was open to those whose questions were open.
So in our communication about the life of the church, yes, let us be constant and clear and colourful, let us use all the many wonderful avenues which are open to us today to get the faith across. But more than anything else, let us make church a space for open dialogue and exploration.
Last weekend at Ripon Cathedral, Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley was installed as the new Area Bishop of Ripon, and in her sermon there she made this statement, with which I close:
“The worst thing we can do as the people of God is to become introspective; the best thing we can do is to offer a place where identity can be explored, debated, forged and ultimately transformed.” [12]
Notes
[1] Brian Bilston, Refugees.
[2] Mail Online: Playing all the wrong notes: THAT iconic Morecambe & Wise sketch.
[3] Diocese of Salisbury. Humour: Classic Misprints.
[4] [4] The Bruton and Cary Deanery Mission Plan is published on the Deanery website: Living and Telling The Story in Bruton and Cary Deanery. This talk is the final one of a series of five on the themes of the Deanery Mission Plan: Vocation, Evangelism, Community, Formation, Communication.
[5] Diocese of Salisbury. Humour: Children's Letters to God.
[6] Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, p.39.
[7] Mark 2.24.
[8] Matthew 18.21.
[9] See William R. Herzog, Parables As Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed.
[10] H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters, Volume 3.
[11] Adam Moore, “So I find that many of my conservative American Christian friends will not even consider Greg Boyd's point of view. I believe it is because they want God to be a warrior God. They want God to kill all the unbelievers and vindicate the Christians. To show we were right all along. I see this attitude often and it does not allow discourse. I bring up loving our enemies and they just look at me like I am naive. So is this attitude common in your circles?” Discussion of Greg Boyd, The Crucifixion of The Warrior God, in The Crucifixion of The Warrior God Facebook Group, 8 February 2018.
[12] Diocese of Leeds, Hundreds Pack Ripon Cathedral to Welcome The New Bishop of Ripon, 5 February 2018.
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