Article
- Date:
- Sunday 13th August 2023
Year A, The Tenth Sunday after Trinity - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint
- Service:
- Parish Eucharist
- Readings:
- 1 Kings 19.9-18
Matthew 14.22-33
We know from the Transfiguration that the two most revered figures in the Jewish tradition at the time of Jesus were Moses and Elijah. But no matter how great a man Moses was, appearing before Pharaoh in Egypt and before YHWH in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai, he saw but never reached the Promised Land whereas Elijah, after a turbulent and often dangerous political career, was taken up to heaven which accounts for his association with the coming of the Messiah.
It is Elijah who is mentioned when Jesus asks who people think he is; he is just under the surface when Jesus talk of the mismanagement of the vineyard which leads to his arrest, and bystanders think that Jesus is calling for Elijah at the point of death.
Holy though Elijah was, he was involved in the rough and tumble of politics, threatening and killing and then interceding and reconciling.
In our reading we find him in the wilderness in fear for his life under the supervision of YHWH and his angels in an interlude before he is pitched again into politics, being directed to anoint two new kings and his pugnacious successor Elisha.
It is, I think, not insignificant that the two greatest figures in the Old Testament fulfil critical political roles; and they are not alone. The three great Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were all deeply involved in politics even though it was a very dangerous business when absolute monarchs possessed the power of summary execution.
The conjunction of religion and politics, far from being an Old Testament phenomenon, persisted far into the Christian era as we know in our own country from the murder of Thomas a Becket, the turbulence of the Reformation and its culmination in the execution of King Charles I and the Civil War. And in less drastic times, ecclesiological issues frequently dominated politics in the high Victorian period of Disraeli and Gladstone.
So where did we get the idea that religion and politics do not mix, that the Church, including us, should stick to its theological knitting as if it has nothing to say on the critical issues of today? The answer is, I think, that secular society wants to make religion personal and private and is particularly irked when clerics make moral pronouncements on ethical issues; keeping religion out of politics really means keeping religious condemnation out of politics; the Church is just fine when it provides picturesque support for the Government but otherwise it should shut up. The radical message of Jesus in support of the poor and oppressed must be tamed to accord with church as a comforting component of the status quo.
There is also a tendency in some quarters to perpetuate the pietistic, unbiblical image of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” but whereas Jesus was meek in the face of his own suffering, he was forthright in the face of earthly powers.
All the more creditable, then, when Archbishop Welby led an assault on the Government's latest immigration bill not, I have to say, supported as well as he might have been by his flock at large.
Which brings me back to Elijah who, using modern parlance, at the risk of his life, spoke truth to power. This is a much over-used phrase today by people with grandiose pretensions as if saying it, with all its rhetorical charm, is quite enough.
There is, of course, the perfectly legitimate point that getting involved in politics, from Elijah to the present day, gets people into hot water, but since when was following Jesus
supposed to be safe and without sacrifice. Meanwhile, the earth is burning and people are running away, not just from holiday beaches, but also from their homes and countries. This is only the most acute of our crises and no matter how fervently we mean it, praying for somebody else to fix our problems is just not good enough. We were given free will and moral judgment for a purpose; we were created to love one another, not just individually but collectively, not just comfortably but sacrificially. Politics is just a means for loving our neighbour.
So here is Elijah taking a break from the rough and tumble of politics, being treated to a supernatural spectacular; but at the end of it comes what we grew up to think of as the still small voice of God. And here we are in our wilderness viewing a spectacular manifestation of our own selfishness, of fire and flood, so let us turn aside just for a moment to listen to what that small voice of God is saying to us. I don't know what it will say to you but it is not telling me to sit back and do nothing in the name of religious tranquillity.
There are those who say that challenging language is counter-productive, that the best way to change minds is to be charmingly diplomatic, but so far this approach does not seem to have worked. Telling truth to power means telling the truth.