Article
- Date:
- Sunday 27th October 2024
Year B, The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity - Place:
- St Peter's, Woodmancote
- Service:
- Matins
- Readings:
- Jeremiah 31.7-9
Mark 10.46-52
There are, I think, three major reasons for the decline of Christianity in the rich part of the world: first, and this is by no means trivial, there are many other interesting ways of spending leisure time. There wasn't much to do in a Medieval English village except work and go to church. Secondly, the rational revolution of the 18th Century and the scientific revolution of the 19th Century took a great deal of fear out of life as we learned how storms came about and how we could handle many formerly fatal illnesses. And, finally, and related to the second cause, we have come to control much of our earthly existence. We might, in recent severe instances of climate chaos, have reached a critical tipping point such that we are losing control, but we are, as a species, planners.
In these three phenomena you can see why the God who has limitless power is belittled. Bartimeus, after all, went to Jesus to have his blindness cured, not to the eye hospital; and in our reading from Jeremiah the Lord, not the Government, promises relief from a crisis.
For all these reasons, the pews are emptying and the Church is in a state of panic, desperately managing decline, prepared to ditch liturgical and doctrinal richness in favour of simple messages and shallow liturgy to potential consumers. We are rapidly losing our Sacramentality in favour of Biblical monopoly; we are losing the Trinity in favour of a sentimental personal relationship with a simplified Jesus; and we are increasingly seeing our Christian commitment as personal, not social.
Personally, I think these three responses to what we see as decline are profoundly erroneous: if we are not a Church of Word and Sacrament, if we are not Trinitarian and if we are not a collective entity, then we are nothing.
Having painted a bleak picture of where we are, let me explain where I think we should be.
First, I am relieved that we do not love God because we are frightened, or even uncertain of our earthly fortunes. Secondly, I would feel even better if people stopped behaving well under the false impression that this will somehow improve their chances of salvation; being good for fear of hell isn't being good at all. And, thirdly, I would feel more comfortable if there was less certainty in our teaching and a greater sense of mystery. In secular life we are wont to say that the more we know, the more we know what we don't know; that goes for the religious life as well.
We seem to have lost the invaluable sense of the wonder and thanksgiving described in our passage from Jeremiah. This god in whom we believe is not one of us, is not a jolly good chap who will see us right. He is not a middle class advocate of bourgeois virtue. He wants our churches to be full of the poor, the disabled, the morally incoherent, the domestically disorganised, the liturgically ignorant and the socially awkward. He wants us to embrace difference, heal the impaired, feed the hungry, free the prisoner and tolerate the embarrassing.
Now I recognise that all of this is easier said than done but surely that is the right starting place; we ought to admit, as we make a start, that we are not doing well and that the journey will be difficult. We ought to suffer from bewilderment and disappointment. That way, we will come to God not because we are ignorant or frightened but because we know all too well what is wrong and because we feel challenged. We need to earn our relief, just as we feel a very special sense of joy and achievement after doing something difficult, like going on a long walk.
My sense of where we need to be is that we must be fiercely counter cultural and operate as leaven in an increasingly haunted society. It is not difficult to understand that feverish consumerism and febrile social media are displacement activities, expressions of self-contempt, a vain search for meaning. It is precisely the wrong reaction to reduce our richness and embodiment in mystery to offer some flat, consumer friendly Christian fast food. We have to be careful cultivators, harvesters, food preparers, cooks and presenters; from field to plate we have to be painstaking and committed to excellence; and we have to know and proclaim that what we achieve is a genuine but imperfect tribute to our Father Creator, an acknowledgment of the teaching and example of Jesus our Redeemer; and the result of our attentiveness to the Holy Spirit.
Most religious revivals look back to a golden age that never was, but i look for a revival that celebrates future possibilities: of doctrine based on celebration, not fear; of worship which grows out of diverse influences and thrives in a warm climate; and solidarity which recognises all people as our sisters and brothers in Christ, that says that we, too, are in need of others.
Finally, we must never forget, indeed we should live by the precept, that the difference between God and us is incommensurate and that we each have our way of being; that while we do our best, there is always a better way, that we should thank god for what we can do and pray that, with His Grace, we may do better.