A Farewell Sermon

 Matthew 10:40–42         

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

It may seem odd for a farewell sermon to focus on a text that within the span of three verses refers to ‘welcome’ six times. But as I step down as your parish priest the idea of welcoming and offering hospitality to God’s servants remains critically important for all of us.

Monken Hadley Church is a welcoming church. Gabi noticed that on her first, incognito, visit. Being truly welcoming to visitors can be one of the strengths of smaller churches. But being welcoming on Sundays is not the same as welcoming people into our lives. In relation to this we have perhaps a more mixed record.

We have strengthened a welcoming and hospital atmosphere over the last decade with the installation of our glass doors, with Open Church music, and with community breakfasts. The last did not survive Covid but will hopefully be revived once the new Church House is up and running, alongside perhaps a Wellbeing Café.

I said a few times before that hospitality is an important Christian value and is not the same as entertaining. We, the middle class in the southern part of England, are arguably better at entertaining than we are at offering hospitality. The latter is opening up our homes for people to drop in, sharing meals spontaneously without much if any additional preparation. In other words, sharing our lives rather than organising an entertaining evening.

What does Jesus mean when he speaks about welcome in this passage? Let us first note how closely Christ identifies with those who belong to him. Last week we saw some of the challenges involved in being a disciple of Jesus:

(1)    they cannot expect to be better treated than Jesus himself (vv 24–25) which is rather worrying given that Jesus was crucified in the end;

(2)    they must be prepared for hostility even from within their own households which is sadly a regular occurrence in many societies today;

(3)    they must make their relationship with Jesus the top priority, above even love for their parents or their children.

But with that set of challenges comes this amazing statement about welcome. Jesus addresses his first disciples, the apostles:

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Those who offer hospitality to Christ’s apostles, those who make space for them, actually welcome Christ, and those who welcome Christ welcome God. The very disciples of Jesus who so often messed it up, especially before Christ’s death and resurrection: Jesus recognises them here as his representatives and so God himself is welcomed when the apostles are welcomed.

I think this means that we can test the health of our relationship with God by the welcome we give to the apostles. Are we on good terms with God? We can find out by exploring whether we make room in our lives for the apostles, Jesus’ first disciples and ambassadors.

But how so? The apostles have died. We cannot welcome them in person today. How do we offer hospitality to the apostles today? We have the teaching they left as a deposit of their apostolic ministry. And so the first take-home lesson for us today is that if we accept the teaching of the apostles, we let God himself into our lives. You don’t need me to welcome God into your life, to have authentic fellowship with Him. But you do need the apostles. You do need Holy Scripture.

Jesus expands on this with a more general saying that uses two familiar OT designations:

Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous;

Now Jesus no longer addresses his first disciples specifically; he speaks more generally about welcoming someone in their capacity as a prophet or because they are a righteous person. We can receive a reward appropriate to the importance of the person we welcome. And we are not looking for their title, their status in the world, their wealth. We make space and extend hospitality to those who are authentic spokespersons of God and those whose lives reflect God’s righteousness.

During the interregnum you will meet more ministers than usual. Hopefully, they will be preaching God’s word faithfully and will be people of integrity that reflect God’s righteous­ness. (Some of them will be ordained clergy but not all; some will come from other churches around us but there will be prophets and righteous people from within the Monken Hadley community as well.) Offer a warm welcome to God’s servants. Honour them, most of all by listening attentively to the word of God they preach and by imitating what is good and right about their way of life.

Try not to let visiting preachers leave with a simple ‘I enjoyed that sermon’ – they have not come to entertain you. Tell them what specifically struck you, what you have learned for the first time or seen afresh, or what puzzles you, or ask them how what they said related to this or that part of God’s word. These would be ways of welcoming them in their capacity as prophets, God’s spokes­persons. In this way you can reap a reward for yourselves. In other words, it will do you good.

Do the same with righteous people. In the Bible righteous people are those who are in faithful relationships with God and neighbours, who care for the needy and marginalised, who do not pursue their own advantage but seek the welfare of others. Look out for such people, make them welcome, appreciating and imitating them. It will do you good.

So (1) make sure that you accept the apostles as Christ’s representatives because this is how you welcome God in your lives. (2) Offer hospitality to those who faithfully teach and live as God’s representatives today because Christ promises a reward for those who recognise and make space for prophets and righteous people.

But then note how Jesus proceeds:

and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

In a sense, giving a cup of cold water is really nothing special. In the culture into which Jesus speaks this would have been basic decency. Yet Jesus is talking about people doing this because someone is a disciple of Jesus. There are places in the world in which showing basic kindness to a Christian is dangerous because you might be identified with them. Not so in Monken Hadley – thank God!

What are our opportunities to show a bit of kindness to a Christian because he or she is a Christian? What does creating a space of hospitality for someone because they are a Christian look like? I’m not entirely sure. And in a sense, we perhaps need not worry too much about that. As those who belong to Christ we are called to love one another as Christ has loved us – that is a clear enough challenge, I think. (If we ask whether helping out on the coffee rota is the equivalent of giving a drink of cold water, we have rather missed the point.)

But this text also reminds us that ‘the way the gospel is known is by one person being for another person the story of Christ.’ (Stanley Hauerwas) By God’s grace, some people do come to faith simply by reading the New Testament. But most people need to see what this means in the lives of flesh and blood people. Jesus summons us throughout this chapter to a life that is so shaped and infused by Him that we too become His credible representatives, his ambassadors.

He tells us that being a Christian cannot be something incidental or even something that is a significant element part of our lives, something alongside things like being British, being a pianist, or whatever…If we are people that are known to be Christians first of all, then acts of kindness extended towards us have a fair chance of being done ‘in the name of a disciple’, which is to say because we bear the name of Christ. At its most beautiful, people want to be close to us, want to make space for us in their lives and extend kindness to us because there is an aroma of Christ about us that intrigues them and to which they are attracted. In meeting and welcoming us people should be able to encounter Christ. If they do, they can show love and honour to Christ by meeting and welcoming us.

Does this sound like something that applies to big saints only? Well, I think Jesus uses the designation ‘little ones’ deliberately. He’s not talking about people with big shoes to fill and big achievements to their name. Just like children can get all excited (for a while) about dinosaurs, fairies, dolls, football or whatever, so each one of us can become saturated with Christ by spending time with Him, thinking about Him, following Him. If our hearts and minds keep returning to Christ, it will become more obvious to others that we are His disciples, Christ-people, Christians. And this gives others the chance to get themselves a little reward by doing us good just because we are Christ’s disciples.

If there is some good in even just giving a cup of water to one of the little ones, how much more rewarding must it be to do good to a whole community of Christ’s disciples! Alas, I cannot claim that I have consistently served you in Monken Hadley because you are Christ’s. I trust that many of you will have seen something of Christ in me but you will have seen also some shortcomings and weaknesses – and there are many more that (thank God) you have not seen!

If at any point I have not taught the apostolic message faithfully, I beg your forgiveness. In welcoming the apostles, in letting the apostolic teaching shape your lives, you make space for God in your life. Few things could give me more joy than knowing that my preaching has helped you welcome apostolic truth. Where instead my preaching has been a hindrance I am truly sorry.

William Perkins in his 1592 work The Art of Prophesying notes well: ‘There are two parts to prophecy: preaching the Word and public prayer.’ I have made both a priority in my own ministry and I know that some of you are grateful that the daily office was said in church morning and evening every day of the week. But here too I must admit to shortcomings. I wish I had aided and assisted you better by praying more consistently for everyone on the Electoral Roll by name. And I regret not having kept up for longer the discipline of praying for the different streets in the parish. I am not putting myself down. I am just saying. I did some things well but not as well as they could have been done and I ask your forgiveness for that. I could have handed out more cups of cold water by way of naming you individually in my prayers.

I hope I have never impeded your labours for Christ in other ways but I know I could have done more to cheer you on. Most of you will know that I find it easier to spot the things that need setting straight than to look out for the things that ought to be commended and applauded. It’s not good enough to blame my temperament or personality. I apologise that I have not fought my natural tendencies harder. Again, I am not putting myself down. By God’s grace I leave Monken Hadley a better place than it was when I arrived but I know that I have not perfectly sought God’s kingdom and His righteousness.

I pray that my successor will do better than I and I like to think that I would be very happy if that were to happen. But in fact I hope this is the ambition of every one of you

• to welcome God by welcoming apostolic teaching
• to find a reward in recognising prophets and righteous persons for who they are
• to be such people that others see and honour Christ in us
• to leave Monken Hadley a better place than it was when we arrived. Amen.

 

Luckock on Communion in Both Kinds

Clearing out books, I read a few pages of Herbert Mortimer Luckock's The Divine Liturgy: Being the Order for Holy Communion Historically, Doctrinally, and Devotionally set forth in Fifty Portion (London: Rivingtons, 1889). Given his Catholic stance, he seemed worth noting his comments on the doctrine of concomitance (pages 340-341, footnotes removed) to add to earlier posts Against Withholding the Cup and A History of Withholding the Cup:

It has been sought to justify Communion in one kind by the doctrine of concomitance, which implies that "whole Christ is present after consecration under either species of bread or wine." The Eastern Church, though opposed entirely to the denial of the Cup to the laity, has sanctioned the principle of concomitance by its administration of Wine alone in infant Communion.

Without entering upon a subject, which has been largely debated, it must suffice to plead the example of Christ; what He gave could not but have a virtue of its own. Through the refusal of the Cup therefore, the laity are deprived of their rights, and even the doctors of the Council of Trent indirectly admitted it; for they dared not to deny that those who received in one kind only were deprived of any grace, but they limited the loss to any grace that was necessary for salvation.

While then it is our bounden duty to take every precaution against any accident which may lead to even the least irreverence, nothing can justify our withholding that which Christ Himself gave at the institution of the Feast, or which He designated as of such vital import when he said, "Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him."

Giving a Child to Christ

What is the greatest gift we have been given? Our life, our breath and body, is an obvious candidate. Next the life of another in friendship and love and perhaps marriage. Furthermore the gift of new life in the form of a child, even if this gift is a loan really, as we need to let go off our children as they grow mature. Having been given a child for a season, why would you want to give them away so soon, as in effect you do in baptism? In a Christening a child is given to Christ who claims the child as His own – it is no longer yours. Why give your child to Christ? Because there the child is in good hands.

In John 17:1-11 we read four times of God the Father having given people to Jesus and these verses can also help us see why it is a good thing to give a child to Jesus. First, using the NCV,

You gave the Son power over all people so that the Son could give eternal life to all those you gave him.

Even if we have in some way been involved in giving life to a child, Jesus can give the child something we cannot give: eternal life. If life is about relationships, life ends when our relationships come to an end. We have not the power to maintain relationships forever but God has:

And this is eternal life: that people know you, the only true God, and that they know Jesus Christ, the One you sent

This relates closely to a second reason for giving a child to Christ. Jesus says in His prayer

I showed what you are like to those you gave me from the world.

In Jesus we see exactly what God is like. Others can tell us about God but no one else can show us God. We give a child to Christ because we long for the child to see what God is like. Why would we need to know what God is like? Because in any case we belong to God:

They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your teaching.

As creatures we all belong to the Creator but we long for our child to belong to God in a more intimate way, responding with obedience rather than rebellion to the teaching of their Creator. Baptism signals a homecoming, belonging again to the One to whom we really belonged from the beginning and from whom we have been snatched away.

Jesus cares for all people but those given to Him are His first priority:

I am praying for them. I am not praying for people in the world but for those you gave me, because they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And my glory is shown through them.

Christians are Christ’s first priority because through them His glory is shown to others. A Christening is always also a commissioning: we are claimed by Christ also for the sake of others. By showing off the beauty, goodness, grace and truth of Christ to others we can become the means by which others come to know Jesus Christ and the only true God and so find eternal life. It is a glorious task even if it is not undertaken in a safe space which is why Jesus prays

Holy Father, keep them safe by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they will be one, just as you and I are one.

With Jesus we pray for children (and adults) that are Christened that they will be kept safe, not by the power of a mighty hand that eliminates all obstacles and evil, not by the power of a superior intelligence that easily navigates the deceitfulness and treacheries of this world, but by the power of God’s name, which is to say God’s character, being made like Christ who by innocent suffering defeats evil.

For that the baptised needs the community and unity of the church, as we each receive with gladness and obedience the name and teaching of God.

Accepting Put-Downs

The final instalment in the series of Easter season reflections from 1 Peter.

Being marginalised or maligned for the sake of Christ should not come as a surprise to Christians. First of all, it is not at all strange that a world that is in rebellion against its Creator should show hostility towards those who have pledged allegiance to Christ, in whom and for whom the world was made. Secondly, those trials are not without purpose – they test and reveal the genuineness of our faith and that we have made Christ, not being at ease, our true joy.

A proper perspective on suffering for the sake of Christ enables us to endure rather than succumb to external pressures and so leads to the greater (and noisier) joy when Christ is revealed to all for who He is. It is not a case of suffering now for the sake of joy later; we are called to rejoice now. We find joy not in the suffering as such but in the fact that suffering for the name of Christ makes us partners with Him. We rejoice in our association with Christ.

This of course presumes that we do not have brought suffering upon ourselves for good reason. If we suffer as a Christian, there is nothing shameful about it for us and we are to accept this suffering by entrusting ourselves to our faithful Creator, ‘while continuing to do good’ (1 Peter 4:19), refusing to repay evil with evil. Our non-retaliation bears witness to our trust in God. Undeserved suffering will be vindicated, this is why 1 Peter 4:14 speaks of those who are reviled for the name of Christ as blessed, echoing the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:10-12). If the Beatitudes suggest that ‘you are with the king, therefore you will inherit the kingdom,’ 1 Peter 4:14 perhaps means to say that ‘you have the Spirit of God resting on you, therefore glory will be yours, the Spirit of God being the spirit of glory’ but the syntax here is difficult.

Having stressed the importance of putting on ‘the apron of humility’ (TEV of 1 Peter 5:5), the letter comes back to the encouragement to humble ourselves, or perhaps (interpreting the passive form as a genuine passive) to accept being made low, knowing that the hand of God which is mighty in bringing judgement (beginning with the household of God, 1 Peter 4:17) is also mighty in bringing deliverance.  How do we accept humiliation? By casting all our anxiety on God. We can do so because we know that He cares for us.  The call to alertness in 1 Peter 5:8 indicates that we are not talking about passivity here but active resistance to the one ultimately responsible for the evil in the world. The devil wants to devour us, enticing us to give in to the desires of the flesh (2:11; 4:2-4) or to respond inappropriately to suffering. By not taking matters into our own hands we remain steadfast in faith. Remembering that if we are being harassed or ostracised for the sake of Christ, this is not unique to us – brothers and sisters all over the world are ‘undergoing’ (better: enduring, completing) the same kind of suffering (1 Peter 5:9).

The critical thing is our calling in Christ whose resurrection has born us into a living hope (cf. 1 Peter 1:3). We know that the short while of suffering will have to give way to eternal glory. Our God is a God of all grace and He will make everything right beyond our wildest dreams. He will take charge of this Himself (1 Peter 5:10). ‘To him is the power forever and ever’ (1 Peter 5:11; cf. 4:11).

The Blessing of Unjust Suffering

 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? (1 Peter 3:13).

The rhetorical question expresses an ideal. This is how it should be:

• people who do good are applauded and rewarded, and
• people who do harm are reprimanded and punished.

But the world doesn’t work like that. Being eager to do what is good is no guarantee for people wishing you well. Treasuring the truth, seeking the good, doing what is right can even get you into trouble.

But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed (1 Peter 3:13) — how so?

How can this be true? How can unjust suffering be a blessing?

(1) This is a question of what we fear and what we hope for [what we think lies ahead of us].

Do we fear being uncomfortable now? Do we fear being side-lined? Put differently: Do we hope to be respected by those around us and to have a comfortable life? Such hopes and fears will lower our pain threshold.

Or do we, e.g., fear being a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution in relation to climate change? Are we truly afraid of benefitting from the exploitation of others? Such fears would increase our threshold for pain. We would be more ready to make sacrifices or to pay more for the products we buy to ensure fair compensation of workers and minimising our negative impact on the environment.

Examples could be multiplied. Our hopes and fears profoundly shape what kind of suffering we are prepared to tolerate or desperately seek to avoid.

Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated…Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:14-15)

It would be good to examine our hopes and fears and, if need be, seek to correct them. Do we hope to hear the ‘well done, good and faithful servant’ (Matthew 25) from the lips of Jesus on the last day? And so we are talking about

(2) A question of authority [who or what holds sway over us].

Are we governed by our hopes and fears? Or are we submitting our hopes and fears and everything else to Christ our Lord? But in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord (1 Peter 3:15).

Are we ready to follow his example, trusting that all powers are subject to him?

Conflict challenges us to take sides. Sometimes such a challenge to take sides should not be taken up. But when it is a matter of truth or falsehood, good or bad, right or wrong, we proclaim our trust in Christ by choosing what is true, good, and right even if this seems to get us nowhere, nowhere pleasant anyway.

And so this is also

(3) A question of conscience [what we listen to within us]

Do we believe that there is good and evil, right and wrong, true and false? That life is not simply about powers and preferences? Keep your conscience clear (1 Peter 3:16). God wills that we do what is right…even if and when this results in suffering.

Christ has forged ahead and shown us suffering as a path to glory. And so this is also

(4) A question of our belonging/calling [what carries us underneath]

A righteous one has led us unrighteous people to God through his death and resurrection (1 Peter 3:17). Christ was put to death in the flesh, in the weakness of human nature, but made alive in the spirit, in the power of the life to come (1 Peter 3:18). He has moved from a mortal existence into the realm of undying resurrection life.

Christ has suffered even unto death but has overcome death and reigns victorious over the forces of evil. He thereby demonstrates that the way of suffering for doing good leads to glory and vindication from God. Are we Christians? Then we can and should be confident following on this path that he has trod before.

Back in 1 Peter 3:9 we have a basic principle expressed:

• don’t give as good as you get (responding to abuse with abuse)
• but give what you expect to get (repay abuse with a blessing).

The natural human response to hostility (in the flesh) is retaliation. But giving as good as you get perpetuates the cycle of violence and death. Our giving what we expect to get (in the spirit) breaks through the cycle of violence and death and is evidence of resurrection life.

Now what about the second half of our text?

1 Peter 2:19-22 counts as one of the most difficult texts in the NT. But there are big clues to the correct understanding if we first of all bear in mind that this is still about Jesus showing the power of suffering for doing good.

Suffering for doing good was vindicated when Jesus was made alive in the spirit. He then went to the underworld to make a proclamation to ‘the spirits in prison’. Who are they? In Jewish tradition they are the supernatural beings whose intercourse with human beings was a key factor in God bringing the flood (Genesis 6).

Their imprisonment in the underworld is the punishment for their disobedience. They are suffering for having done evil and this holds them imprisoned. But Jesus entered death having done no evil, therefore death has no hold over him. When he enters the underworld he says in effect ‘hello – and goodbye’, thereby announcing his victory over death.

In other words, Christ announced his triumph over evil – bad news for the imprisoned spirits but good news, comfort and encouragement for the few who suffer now for their righteousness. Like Noah for whom the destructive waters of the flood were also a means of salvation, as they carried the ark.

‘The water of the flood washed away sin and wickedness and brought a new world with a fresh start before God. The water of baptism does the same thing, providing a passage from the old to the new.’ (David Guzik)

This is because the death of Christ washed away sin and wickedness and the resurrection of Christ brought a new world into being.

Baptism saves us (1 Peter 3:21) in the sense that it unites us with Christ who has made all powers subject to him. Not automatically but ‘as an appeal to God for a good conscience’ (NRSV) or perhaps better ‘a pledge of a good conscience towards God’ (NIV, cf. NRSV footnote).

Such a pledge is made possible through the resurrection of Jesus. He has forged ahead and shown us suffering as a path to glory, His perfect righteousness bringing victory over death.

If we give as good as we get, we reveal our fear that if we don’t defend ourselves, forcefully if need be, no one will. (We thereby reveal that we do not really trust that God’s eyes and ears are open towards us, verse 12.)

If we respond to abuse with blessing, we give expression to the hope of our calling and wonderful inheritance (shortly I will come into so much blessing that I can afford to be generous now). This expression of hope is a blessing.

If we are prepared to suffer for doing good, we proclaim that Jesus is Lord and that we trust in his victory. This proclamation and expression of trust is a blessing.

If we seek the good even in the face of criticism, insult and worse, we keep a clear conscience, as pledged in our baptism. A clear conscience is a blessing.

If we follow Christ on the path of suffering to glory, we reveal to whom we belong. The greatest blessing is belonging to Christ.

 

What does it mean to be a Christian?

What does it mean to be a Christian? One way of answering the question, looking at 1 Peter, is to say that Christians have experienced that the Lord is ‘good’ or ‘kind’ (1 Peter 2:3; the Greek word sounds very much like "Christ" which is surely deliberate) and so they nurture a taste for uncontaminated truth by which they grow into salvation (1 Peter 2:2).

Another way of answering the question is to say that Christians are those who have come to Jesus, the living cornerstone, and so are being built into a spiritual house to be a royal priesthood.

Being a Christian is all about Christ Jesus. Re-using ‘chosen race’ and ‘holy nation’ (1 Peter 2:9) paradoxically underlines the point because the church is formed as a people from all tribes and languages. Ethnic identity is not a factor in true Christianity (unlike Judaism, Hinduism). It is the new birth which is all decisive and which creates a unity from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Being Christian is about the person of Christ. While the teachings of Christ are of supreme importance to us -- indeed, our longing for the Scriptures shows our (spiritual) health -- Christianity is not primarily about the teachings of Christ (not like Buddhism is primarily about the teachings of the Buddha, "the enlightened one").

Being Christian is about belonging to Christ. This does of course mean that allegiance and submission to Christ are pretty important but Christianity is not primarily about submission (unlike Islam as traditionally understood). Being Christian is about being incorporated into Christ which does involve submission to Christ, listening to Christ (“the sheep know his voice”) but is more than that: being made one with Christ.

The experience of being marginalised and rejected by others while being God’s chosen was Christ’s before it was that of Christians then and now. As one commentator put it, ‘Peter reads the situation of his Christian audience from the perspective of the career of Jesus Christ, and the career of Jesus Christ from the perspective of the Scriptures.’

The image of the cornerstone (1 Peter 2:4-8) also implies as much: everything centres on Christ, the decisive stone which sets the direction of the walls and so the orientation and alignment for the whole house. His experience (living stone) becomes ours (living stones who belong to Him):

• He is rejected by society, so those who belong to him get rejected too.
• Christ is chosen by God, so those who belong to him are too.
• He is holy, so those who belong to him are holy too.

The house being built is a ‘spiritual house’ – the place where the Holy Spirit is to be found; the building is a temple. Hence the language of a holy priesthood which is to offer spiritual sacrifices.

The resurrection of Christ makes it possible for us to offer our lives to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Such lives dedicated to God include bearing witness to the mighty acts of God in Christ. Why? Because of the inescapability of Christ. He is not only the be-all and end-all of the church; Christ affects the fate of every person, depending on the reaction to Him, whether positive or negative.

‘We must either build on Him, or be dashed against Him.’ (Calvin)

The second half of 1 Peter 2:8 can be understood in one of two ways. Either: ‘Yes, they stumble at the Word of God for in their hearts they are unwilling to obey it—which makes stumbling a foregone conclusion.’ (JB Phillips). Or: God is in control of all things, He establishes the evil as well as the good.

In any case this does not exclude responsibility of those who reject Christ, who are said to ‘disobey’ him. Our responsibility towards those who reject Christ is to be a holy nation, proclaiming with our words ‘the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Peter 2:9) and showing forth in our lives the truth of this proclamation.

Let this joy of ours be made known:

Once you were not a people,
    but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
    but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:10)

APCM Address 2023

Change is natural in any organism; it is a sign of life. There is good change and bad change, planned change and unplanned change. Some get excited about change, some anxious – we need to recognise that. The church was created as a movement – a body that always grows, or dies. A maintenance mentality and church do not go together. But we are not always good at managing change.

From the world of philanthropy and development: “theory of change” to articulate more explicitly

(a) what outcome the organization wants to achieve in the world,

(b) what strategy it is going to use to accomplish that outcome, and

(c) what assumptions are made that lead it thinking that strategy X will result in outcome Y.

What outcome might we want to achieve? What is it we really want as a church?

[NB the use of the first person. If we ask what it is we want from the church, we talk about the church in the third person, in the language of outsiders.]

E.g., do we want for the resurrection of Christ to have a greater impact on us and on our society in the form of  more new births,  more growth towards conforming to the life of Christ?

The parish profile to be written in connection with the search for a new incumbent must be not only about what we want to preserve but about the change we desire.

The strategy depends on the outcome and the assumptions we make. E.g., if we want new births and accept that we are ‘born anew through the living and enduring word of God’ (1 Peter 1:23), the strategy must be for the living and enduring word of God to be released. This is why preaching has been a priority for me although I know of course that God’s word is not dependent on excellent preaching!

My assumption is that truly spiritual work is done by the Spirit of God, through us (God willing) but not by us – we need the means of grace. Prayer is the key part of the strategy: ‘You do not have because you do not ask (or ask with wrong motives)’ (James 4:2-3).

In short, if we want God’s transformation, we need to ask how God works to transform us.

What do you see as the most important part of your Christian life from week to week? What do you look for on Sunday, and what sort of ministry have you found most consistently helpful?

Different clergy have different theories of change. In the early church Pelagius thought that God worked in Christians through two means: Firstly, he had created them with a powerful will. Second, God had given them a blueprint for the flourishing human life in the Bible. His theory of change, then, was to read the Bible and then try very hard to do what it said.

Augustine found this view both naïve and at odds with what Scripture says about human nature. Drawing, e.g., on Paul’s statements about how the divine law which calls for righteousness is unable to produce it, Augustine argued that the core engine of human nature is not the will but the heart and its desires. And he pointed out that it is extremely hard to change hearts—so hard in fact, that only God can do it, through the Holy Spirit.

The way you change a person is by getting through not to their head or their will but to their heart. Which is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit: to fill us with new desires for the things of God, and to make us hate and flee from our bad, self-destructive desires.

Even the best clergy cannot do that. But it is useful to have an incumbent who knows that human beings are driven not by knowledge or will but by desire; who knows that we are creatures of the heart, creatures of love – and who will love you and seek to help you towards an emotional encounter with the God revealed in Jesus rather than just seek to convey accurate knowledge about God and will therefore, e.g., value the place of music.

It is useful to have an incumbent who knows that the human heart strongly resists direct efforts to change it and who will therefore rely on God’s Holy Spirit. (Have you ever tried to change someone’s mind about politics through rational argument? Have you ever tried to talk someone out of loving the person they have fallen in love with?)

It is useful to have an incumbent who knows that human beings are wired in such a way that judgment kills love. When we feel judged, we hide our love away, we put up our walls, we resist. A minister who knows this will not pivot on telling people what is wrong with them and leave them with a moral exhortation or a set of behavioural guidelines.

I make it sound as if the most important thing on the agenda for the coming year is to find a strong incumbent. But if, as I believe, Augustine has seen correctly that human beings are above all else creatures of love, then human relationships and human community are really important and this should not and cannot depend on an incumbent.

Remember also: the more diverse our congregation is the more the glory of God is manifest as the spectrum of his grace is revealed. And the more there is genuine, mutual love across that diversity – not just birds of a feather flocking together – the more evident will be the presence of Christ.

There will be fundraising to be done in the coming year, there will be the search for a new incumbent but the focus must be on remaining and strengthen us as a community centred on Christ.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

(Ephesians 3:20)

The Cruciform Employee

On the basis that 1 Peter presents the the cross as a paradigm of Christian existence with special reference to slaves, Howard Marshall offered guidelines for Christian employees to help them live a cruciform (cross-shaped) life. They are summarised in Scot McKnight's NIVAC volume on 1 Peter as follows:

1. All of our social relationships should find a behaviour that is driven by a desire to do God’s will.
2. Our conduct ought to be consistent with the obligations we assume in our relationship to that person and job.
3. Our conduct ought to be determined by that relationship, not by what we think of the personal traits of the employer.
4. When we disregard our relational contract with its obligations, we do disservice to the gospel.
5. If we suffer as a result of our obligations, such suffering is both commendable and Christian; it is not unchristian to suffer! 

McKnight adds: “In a world driven by litigation (which is itself driven by the desire to sustain personal rights), it is hard for us today to see that sometimes it is best not to assert our rights but to endure some kind of social pressure. That is, it might be best for a Christian man to endure the shame of not being promoted or getting a raise, or of a Christian woman of not asserting her equality or fighting for equal pay, because of the gospel!” (175)

• In the business world, Christians should not be known for their assertiveness as much as for their industriousness, their work ethic, their kindness, their loyalty, their fairness, and their honesty…
• In our personal lives we need to suppress the desire to be noticed…
• Another area of life where we need to let the pattern of the cross infiltrate is that of personal finances…A cruciform lifestyle with respect to possessions is found in persons who do not find their greatest pleasure in shopping, who are not motivated to buy more things when they get their paycheck, and who are not using the credit cards well beyond their limits. (177)

He observes: “It may not work – in the short run. But the way of suffering is the divinely intended manner of bringing the greatest victory of God into the world. What really works is what works with God, and what works with God is the cross!” (178)

Fear-Shaped Love

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of the exile.

! Peter 1:17

Belief in the final judgement often gets a bad press. Does the belief that God will reward the righteous and punish the evil dull our senses to the pain and injustice of the world, helping the oppressed to put up with things with which they should not put up? Karl Marx arguably had more respect for the religious sentiments of the oppressed than some of his successors and perhaps did not use "opium of the people" in an entirely negative sense but he made the notion popular that belief in a God who will sort out everything in the end is harmful to the fight for justice. No doubt religion has sometimes functioned in this way. But distraction by entertainment has perhaps always been the greater threat, cf. "bread and circuses" in ancient Rome.

1 Peter speaks of a new birth through the resurrection of Christ which allows us to address God as Father. It is a new existence which breaks with the inherited ways of life and sets us on a path that takes the long view. No longer focused on short-term benefits which could be gained by silver and gold which are so often acquired at the expense of the life of others (ancient mines were notorious as places of agonising death) but becoming part of a story that begun before the foundation of the world with the predestination of Christ's self-offering as the source of life (his blameless purity embodying the maxim he taught that "it is more blessed to give than to receive," Acts 20:35). This does indeed put value on enduring pain while suffering unjustly but Christ becomes instrumental in defining for us the God in whom we put our trust, our faith and hope and it is not as a God who above all demands submission but "the one who raised Christ from the death and gave him glory." Christ's vindication encourages us to seek God's kingdom and his righteousness,  trusting that goodness, beauty and justice will have the last word. 

Yes, Christians do not believe that all depends on us and may be less in a hurry to bring revolutionary change than those who have not been born into a living hope but addressing as Father "the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds" should not lead to complacency. This is why 1 Peter 1:17 speaks of "reverent fear" for God - being in awe at the majesty, goodness and power of God not in the way of being "too heavenly-minded to be of earthly use" but with trembling that shapes the way we live in this corrupt world in which we are not quite at home.

We tremble before the one who loves the world so much that He will not allow His good purposes and the beautiful order he put in place to be disregarded without consequences. And it is such trembling, such reverent fear which enables true love. How so?

1 Peter 1:22 spells it out. We purify our souls by bringing them in line with divine truth and this purification makes unfeigned, mutual love possible because such love cannot exist with lying and hypocrisy. There is a world of difference between mere niceness and mutual love. You do not have to be born anew to be nice, friendly, smiley but the genuine mutual love to which we are called is only possible through the new birth. We need to have become purified by obedience to the truth for which the living and enduring word of God is essential (1 Peter 1:23).

Niceness will cease, friendliness will pass away, smileyness disappears - love born out of faith and hope in God remains, a love that dares to speak the truth rather than hides in the superficial comfort of niceness, and a truth-telling that is not judgemental (the final judgement belongs to God) but has the other's best interests in mind because this is how God loves.

When you look at the cross, do you see the precious blood of Christ shed for you? (If so, how can we not encounter others in humility and forgive them as we have been forgiven?)

When you contemplate the empty tomb, do you submit to the truth that Christ is risen? (if so, how can we not rejoice in a living hope even in suffering for doing good?)

Let these truths sink in ever deeper and so let genuine love arise deeply from the heart.

A Living Hope

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Peter 1:3

In 1 Peter faith is spoken of as hope, a living hope – not dead, futile, empty hope without reality and validity, a hope that makes alive. Let’s talk about hope (indebted to R. Feldmeier, 65-70).

“We are full of hope throughout our whole life,” says Plato. Having hope is one of the defining characteristics of being human. Human beings anticipate their future. They are ahead of their time.

On the one hand, hope is our strength. Our ability not to go from stimulus to immediate response makes for human development and culture. We can imagine different scenarios of the future and make long-term plans.

On the other hand, as the Latin proverb has it, Hope often deceives (Spes saepe fallit). There is therefore an ambivalence to hope which seems to be expressed in narrative form in the myth involving Pandora’s box (jug). Hesiod (ca. 700 B.C.) related that opening the container released misery and evil upon humanity. When Pandora hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind. What is left when everything goes wrong is…‘hope’. But is it this a comfort that alleviates some of the suffering or, in the form of  “deceptive expectation” one more evil?

The hope of believers in the Bible is very different. It is not portrayed as ambivalent. It is ‘a hope [that] is not founded upon the unstable foundation of human expectation and fears but on the certainty of the trustworthiness of God; it bases itself not on something that one wishes to obtain or avoid but on God, the basis and content of hope. Right in the prayers of the Old Testament, the Psalms, one continually comes across confessions such as “the Lord is my hope” or something similar…’ Hope is not anticipating what we desire but a synonym for the relationship with God of trusting faith.

The NT builds on this: ‘The Christian hope is … based upon God’s act in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, through which he has defined himself as creator out of nothing and thereby as the death-conquering life force, who thus through the cross has saved from sin, death, and decay. The future is already decided in Christ and, with reference to the gospel, believers are then also certain of their future’

Having or not having such hope is the characteristic difference between Christians and non-Christians (cf. 1 Thess 4:13; Eph 2:12). We have an anchor laid in the future (E. Schweizer). There is a renewed reality (a new heaven and a new earth) which we get hold of by our trust in God. This trusting anticipation of the future is ‘virtually the life principle of the regenerate Christian humanity.’

Do you know the new birth? Are you born again?

The question is not or should not one about American culture politics. The question is: Do you accept that Jesus rose from the dead, that in the resurrection of Christ God has shown himself to be the God who makes alive? If you are alive with this hope, you have been born again.

To find out whether you have been born, you don’t try to dig out a birth certificate. You live, therefore you must have been sired.

But to find out whether you are a child of God, you don’t even directly examine your heart to see whether there is a sufficient level of joy and confidence. No, you look to the cross and you look to the empty tomb.

If at the cross you see blood that was shed to cleanse you from your sins and if you accept that the tomb is empty because God raised Christ from the dead, then you have been given the new birth. You are a child of God. You have a fabulous inheritance waiting for you. You have a living hope.

May God grant us to love Jesus Christ whom we have not seen, to believe in him whom we do not see now, and so to receive the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls, when Jesus Christ is finally revealed. Amen.

 

A New Birth

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Peter 1:3

The Easter season helps us to let the significance of the resurrection of Christ sink in. Each year readings from Acts trace some of the impact, the positive ripple effect, the negative repercussions, the shock waves emanating from Christ’s resurrection, tracing the story from Jerusalem to Rome, from east to west. Every third year readings from 1 Peter supplement this. This letter is written to Christian communities in Asia Minor (Turkey) and generally thought to have been sent from Rome. So we have a west to east movement.

Together these readings give us a glimpse of the re-ordering of many lives and relationships, the turmoil in the immediate aftermath of the resurrection. Are we still aware today just what big a revolution was started “on the third day”? It is of course to be expected that over time the new norms and revolutionarily outlook gets normalised and established. And it is not an altogether bad thing for cultures and societies being shaped by what happened “on the third day” in such a way that it no longer seems unusual. But institutionalisation often means that the message gets neutralised, accommodated and made safe. Are we failing to get hold of the (full) reality? The Easter season is an invitation to take a fresh look.

The Gospel shows us the immediate response which was not very encouraging: suspicion (‘they have taken the body’), confusion (why is the linen left in the tomb?), fear (of the authorities), resistance to belief (on the side of Thomas who does not really have a good reason to refuse to believe). It is like people going around asking “what just happened?!” 

By the time 1 Peter was written the followers of Jesus are no longer disorientated but the revolution is still in full swing. The letter is addressed to “the exiles of the Dispersion” which is to say people who have become outsiders in connection with being chosen by God – a theme that runs through the letter.

The author points as to an appropriate response, namely thanksgiving. ‘Blessed be God’ is a typical Hebraic/Jewish way of acknowledging God’s goodness. The author does not ask us to be grateful, he leads by example: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

What just happened? We have been given a new birth. It is hard to imagine a more sweeping concept. What does this language about a new birth mean? Let’s tease it out. First, it points to  God’s initiative. No-one is responsible or contributes anything to their being sired. And just like our natural birth ideally was the fruit of an act of love, so our new birth is attributed to God’s great, abundant mercy. His decision, His love.

Secondly, a new birth speaks of new relationships and identity. Our natural birth relates to ethnic identity, citizenship, socioeconomic class, innate potential and much more. Language of a new birth suggests a new identity, new citizenship, new innate potential. We are taken into the Father-Son relationship, being made children of God. We are given a new home, paradoxically one that makes us in a sense homeless  in this world (as D. Sölle once pointed out), because Christians ‘no longer fit in well with the society in which they were once at home; their Christian faith brings them into conflict with the values and priorities of the society in which they live.’ (K. Jobes). But having God as our Father more than makes up for it. And of course it means that every Christian of whatever class or ethnic identity is our brother or sister.

Thirdly, this new birth brings new prospects: the children of God are heirs to ‘an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.’ It won’t rot away, won’t be spoiled, it won’t fade. It is kept safe for us in heaven while we are kept safe by God’s power. Through the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ the rescue is all ready, our  salvation is secured. We are just waiting for it to be revealed.

Everything happened within three days. ‘It is through the resurrection that God has conquered the world’s separation from himself, a world that is subjected to transience and thereby sin and death, and has made a new beginning possible.’ (R. Feldmeier)

Christian existence is first all about what God has already done:

• He took the initiative.
• He reconciled us to Himself and to one another.
• He keeps our salvation secure.

Christian existence is secondly responding to what God has done:

• thanksgiving (which is the overall context here)
• living hope: a key concept in 1 Peter
•  joy: the risen Christ is not a figure of the past

This response is often summed up as ‘faith’ which is of course more than merely holding something to be true. Faith is accepting ‘the message of salvation, by means of which the human is at once placed into a new relationship to God, into an attitude of trust that embraces and determines his or her whole existence, of commitment, of hope (cf. 1:21).’ (R. Feldmeier) But 1 Peter talks about faith as hope, thus giving us a particular perspective on what it means to have faith in God.

Cur Deus Homo?

Cur Deus Homo? (Why did God became man?) is one of the most famous works on the atonement.

Why did Jesus come into the world? In John 18 we hear Jesus’ own answer: to testify to the truth (John 18:37). He says so in answer to a question about whether he was a king, clearly implying that he is indeed a king. Jesus is king by way of testifying to the truth, by gathering people around him who listen to his voice. He is not a king over people who live in a particular land or over people who are under his military thumb but he is king over those who submit to the truth, who belong to the truth. He thereby implies that a true king is someone to whom people listen, whom they follow.

As autonomous adults, mindful of many bad historical experiences, we, by and large, don’t like to listen to someone just because they are in a position of authority. Jesus earned the right to be listened to by speaking the truth reliably. We do not trust Him because He is the guy in charge. We acknowledge Him as being in charge because He is trustworthy.

Alas, many post-moderns like their own self-determination so much that they deny the very existence of objective truth. Pilate was a precursor for such an outlook in his lack of concern for truth – or justice, for that matter (ultimately it is hard to maintain a concern for justice without a concern for truth). For him, as for many today, it’s all power play.

In fact we find the same lack of concern for truth being spoken in the Sanhedrin – and Jesus puts his finger on it: ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’ (John 18:23)

But it isn’t just the drive for self-determination, the exercise of power that leads people to turn away from the truth, it is also the fear of power, of what might be done to them if they were to speak truth. So we find Peter denying Jesus three times –­ out of fear.

It turns out that turning away from the truth is not a modern phenomenon after all but has a long history. It is because we so readily turn away from the truth that Jesus came into the world. Why did God become man? To testify to the truth.

 

But why does this get highlighted in the Passion story? Why not in connection with the teaching of Jesus? The parables of Jesus speak of God’s kingdom. The Sermon of the Mount offers kingdom ethics. But it is here that the question is raised and answered: What sort of king is Jesus? One who came to testify to the truth. Presumably this is because it is his passion that profoundly testifies to the truth.

How so? E.g., by bearing witness to the fact that our lives belong to God who cares for us which is why it would be wrong, a denial of the truth, to seek our own comfort at the expense of doing God’s will.

The passion of Christ also testifies to the truth by showing up how readily we turn away from the truth, if it does not suit us. Christ’s suffering embodies our rejection of God, of God’s rule, our rejection of truth .It shows us that such rejection leads to death.

Best of all Jesus testifies to the truth of who God is and that He is worthy of our trust even when it leads to suffering and death because suffering and death will not have the last word.

Peter’s attempt at self-preservation at the expense of truth leaves him wretched. Jesus, by contrast, having sanctified himself in the truth of God’s word, as he had prayed for his disciples (John 17:17–18), is vindicated in his resurrection from the dead.

Jesus earned the right to be listened to by speaking the truth reliably and by committing his life to the truth, rejecting the use of power to enforce his rule.

 

Can we independently verify the claim of Jesus to testify to the truth? No, not really. But Jesus did not fall from heaven. He was born to a Jewish mother as the culmination of a long history of God revealing Himself to humanity. Jesus fulfilled a pattern laid down in what we call the OT Scriptures. As Ian McGilchrist says about the “argument” he presents in The Truth of the Matter (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021)

And yet it is also not an argument, in the conventional sense, at all. If we want others to understand the beauty of a landscape with which they may be unfamiliar, an argument is pointless: instead we must take them there and explore it with them, walking on the hills and mountains, pausing as new vantage points continually open around us, allowing our companions to experience it for themselves.

Come and see! Come and taste! The truth will set you free and the new life vindicates the truth.

Living with Disagreement

Disagreement about the teaching of marriage and sexual intimacy is arguably more serious than, e.g., the disagreements between Presbyterians and Anglicans. It is therefore not one more disagreement which we can add to the list of secondary matters on which we "agree to disagree" and move on. If a revised understanding of what it means to be chaste is embedded in pastoral guidance and/or official prayers, it cannot but do substantial harm to our unity. 

The Bishop of London believes that God is calling us to live with our current disagreements. The reasoning she offered to General Synod in February for having reached this conclusion seemed specious to me but here I want to make the point that believing that God calls us to live with our disagreements does not yet resolve the question how we are to live with these disagreements. There are perhaps three options for the moment, none of whom especially attractive:

(1) continuing as before, namely tolerating the revisionist teaching and (unofficial) practice of blessing same-sex couples without changing our doctrine or the prayers we commend or the moral requirements we put on clergy and others,

(2) creating structural space for "two integrities" with different approaches to Scripture and different understandings of sin and repentance, the Gospel and the Christian life,

(3) welcoming revisionist views as consonant with Anglican teaching and making liturgical space for these new understandings of living out our sexuality while keeping, for now, the marriage canon in place in the hope that the relevant parties are prepared to make the required sacrifices (revisionists foregoing "marriage equality" for now, traditionalists accepting that revisionism is properly Anglican too).

Sarah Mullally favours the last option but this is deeply problematic because very many who hold to the traditional view of marriage feel unable to bring the sacrifice asked of them. My preference is for the second option in the form of creating a separate legal space for those who want to promote a changed understanding of marriage and sexuality. This would be challenging because numerous legal issues would need to be resolved but it has the advantage of preserving integrity. It is not a refusal to live with our current disagreements but rather a (better) way to live with them. Alas, the discussion seems to be cut short by the insinuation that being called to live with our disagreements necessarily means to walk in the way the Bishops lead us, abandoning the normativity of previous teaching.

LLF and London Synod

The London Diocesan Synod on Wednesday 22 March 2023, with a dedicated session on Living in Love and Faith (LLF). The report is sobering. It perpetuates the mischaracterisation of those who are compelled to resist the new teaching as purists who cannot bear disagreement:

There are those who believe that our unity as Christians depends on our agreement on certain doctrinal issues, including those around sex and sexuality. Then there are those who believe that unity is possible and desirable even if we disagree.

But surely ALL of us believe that our unity as Christians depends on our agreement on certain doctrinal issues. The question is whether these doctrinal issues include teaching around marriage and sexual intimacy. And surely ALL of us believe that unity is possible and desirable even if we disagree. The question is whether our disagreements around marriage and sexual intimacy fall in the category of disagreements which we can accommodate or in the category of disagreements that cannot be reconciled within the same structures.  

The Church of England does not ordain Presbyterians or Baptists, even if we do not deny that they are fellow members of the body of Christ. We thereby acknowledge that there are disagreements which lead to structural differentiation. The mischaracterisation of the situation is very discouraging because it reveals a failure to listen and to ask the right questions.

Other statements made suggest serious deficiencies in understanding church history. Every heresy within the church has been argued from scripture. The statement that “both of these approaches can be argued from scripture” is therefore vacuous.

The claim that “the Church of England has always been an intentionally and uniquely broad church” sits uneasily with the fact that close to 2,500 clergy were expelled from the Church of England following the 1662 Act of Uniformity. It is only in modern times that we begun to abandon the principle that what we believe and how we worship must conform to a canonical standard and even then nonconformity is tolerated in some areas but not in others.

The observation that clergy will be free to choose whether or not to use the prayers is not at all reassuring because this freedom of conscience treats the question what it means to be chaste as one of indifference when it comes to being a loyal Anglican. It is not only a further step towards the privatisation of religion but a rejection of the belief that the revisionist teaching about marriage and sexual intimacy is not in agreement with Scripture and not consonant with Anglican teaching and tradition. 

Jesus and the Law

Rodney A. Whitacre reflects on the story of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus (now mostly at John 7:53–8:11):

‘We see Jesus upholding the law’s teaching that adultery is sin while also setting aside the specific regulations concerning the community’s enforcement of that law. The implication is that the law contains revelation of right and wrong, which is true throughout history, as well as commandments for embodying that revelation in the community of God’s people, which are not true for all times and places. To understand this distinction we must understand that the law as revelation of right and wrong is not an arbitrary set of rules that God made up to test our obedience. Rather, the law is the transposition into human society of patterns of relationship that reflect God’s won character. Adultery is wrong because it violates relationships of faithfulness, and such violation is wrong, ultimately, because God himself is characterized by faithfulness. The morality of Scripture is a pattern of life that reflects God’s won life. This aspect of the law is unchanging, but the law’s prescription for how the community is to embody and enforce the revealed vision of relationships may vary.’

What happened?

The Church of England press release proclaimed Prayers for God’s blessing for same-sex couples take step forward after Synod debate.

The Church of England’s General Synod has welcomed proposals which would enable same-sex couples to come to church after a civil marriage or civil partnership to give thanks, dedicate their relationship to God and receive God’s blessing.

The Anglican Communion News Service reported the event under the headline Church of England Synod endorses bishop’s decision not to change doctrine of marriage. The article points out

During the Synod debate, only one of the tabled amendments to the bishops’ proposal was passed: that the synod endorsed “the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage, and their intention that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England”.

It also points out that the two amendments urging the Synod to move towards acceptance of same-sex marriage had both been rejected in all three houses.

All true as far as it goes, but perhaps neither is telling the true story. I was hoping for generous orthodoxy to prevail and it might still do but things are not looking hopeful. It would require greater transparency and integrity from the House of Bishops than has been on display thus far.

The Church of England appears to be split three ways. There are those who urge a change to our doctrine of sex and marriage on the grounds that the received teaching is unloving and harmful. There are those who feel compelled to resist such a move towards (what they perceive to be) heterodoxy. And there are those who are torn in between and just wish for the whole debate to go away.

And then there are those who wield power, who hope they can hold everyone together by offering prayers that can (a) be said not to be indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine of marriage, and (b) nevertheless be used to bless same-sex couples in sexually active relationships and without regard for whether the couple is in a civil partnership, in a civil marriage, or in a covenanted friendship.

Those who feel compelled to resist such a change are told that they do not have to use these prayers. They only have to accept that those who do use them are faithful, orthodox Christians too.

The first group above is not altogether happy because it is clear that the Church of England is still a long way from endorsing same-sex marriage.

The second group could be happy if it could be convinced that what is on offer is not indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine. Alas, most in this group think it is and that saying otherwise is merely adding insult to injury or lack of integrity to lack of faithfulness. What is asked of them is nothing short of a redefinition of what constitutes orthodoxy. This is why it’s a big deal.

The third group has no reason to be happy. The one thing that seems certain in all the confusion is that this debate will not go away and that the divisions within the Church of England will deepen and solidify.

The Archbishops urge that it is our Christian duty to stick together and show the world that disagreements do not need to lead to walking apart. But you cannot walk together in different directions. There are disagreements with which one can live and others which must divide us. Tolerating injustice is not loving, neither is tolerating heterodoxy. For as long as the Bishops do not succeed in convincing the one group that refusing same-sex marriage is not unjust and the other that the prayers of blessing on offer are not heterodox, the appeal to unity is just so much whitewash. Painting over harmless hairline cracks in the wall is one thing, covering up structural damage with a bit of paint is another.

For Ian Paul's take on what happened see What exactly happened at Synod on the Prayers for Love and Faith? This also includes links to comments on the legality of what the Bishops offered by Philip Jones and by a group of lawyers who are mostly members of General Synod.

UPDATE: Christopher Cocksworth, who led the LLF process, offers his reflections here.

Development of Doctrine

How does one distinguish between a faithful development of doctrine and a change that is corruption? John Henry Newman suggests “seven Notes of varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay.” These serve as his litmus tests that may be applied to any doctrine.

In a genuine development of doctrine we find

• preservation of one and the same type
• continuity of the same principles
• power of assimilation into the same organization
• logical consequence of an earlier sequence
• anticipation of subsequent phases in its beginnings
• preservation of that which came before
• vigour to endure

John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Doctrine (1845, 1878) 

Generous Orthodoxy

I do not know the origins of the phrase “generous orthodoxy” but it seems to fit the Church of England as it was designed rather well. The Roman Catholic Church was not broad enough in the sixteenth century to include those who held Reformed views. But among Reformed Catholics there was also disagreement which by and large could not be lived with (“good disagreement”) so that Lutherans ended up forming one denomination, while those who followed Calvin and Zwingli formed separate churches. Perhaps only in England did the Reformed Catholic consensus hold so that both those holding Lutheran views and those looking to Geneva (or Scotland) were held together in the one established church. Roman Catholics were of course excluded, as were Baptists, and in the end even Presbyterians (the Great Ejection). So there were clear limits not only to orthodoxy but perhaps also to generosity. The Thirty-Nine Articles circumscribed the parameters, while the Homilies filled it with more content and clearer definition.

The Tractarian movement pushed the boundaries, declaring the Church of England a via media not between Wittenberg and Geneva but between Rome and the Reformation. The English Church moved from seeking and finding doctrinal agreement among the disagreements on details to accommodating strikingly different readings of the same words. But it is arguably liberal revisionism since the 20th century that is killing off generous orthodoxy, making people forget that “generous orthodoxy” requires both generosity and orthodoxy, tolerance and discipline.

The proposed Prayers of Love and Faith were presumably meant and agreed upon as an expression of “generous orthodoxy.” The Christian doctrine of marriage and the Christian ethics around sexual intimacy were left intact, or so it is alleged, and a new freedom was found within this consensus which would allow some to celebrate the good and healthy aspects of same-sex relationships with couples who form a household, and others to refrain from endorsing patterns of relationships that might invite sexual temptation.

Alas, even before the proposals were presented to the public it became clear that this “generous orthodox” line could not hold. A number of bishops argued that the doctrine should in fact change and the claim made by campaigners that the doctrine of the Church of England discriminates against LGBTI+ people remained largely unaddressed.

An analogy may help to explain what might have happened: Imagine the Bishops, in view of concerns about the gendered language of the traditional formula, had allowed for “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” to be regularly replaced by “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer.” Imagine that some Bishops were very uncomfortable with this because the triune God is then no longer spoken of as who He is in Himself from before the creation of the world (the gendered “He” seems unavoidable, even if God is of course not male) but defined in relation to us. But, being generous, they allowed for this provision on the understanding that it does not as such mark a departure from orthodoxy.

Now imagine further that there are people complaining about the discrimination against Unitarians and Jehovah’s Witness and others in the selection process for ordination in the Church of England and there being no official explanation forthcoming why such “discrimination” is in the nature of the thing. Add to this Bishops who argue that the insights of modern philosophy lead us away from a Trinitarian understanding of God. Even without them also adding that “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer” could be used by those who believe that God is one person who has revealed himself in three modes, it is clear that this is not about being more generous within the existing  orthodoxy  but about re-defining what constitutes orthodoxy, given that we all take the Scriptures seriously. Whatever the Bishops think, for those who hold to the received understanding of orthodoxy and have seen no reason to change this, Unitarians and Jehovah’s Witnesses are without question outside the bounds, even if it may be granted that subjectively they hold a high view of Scripture and “merely” read it differently and even if one affirms gladly that they have all the civil rights of other people.

The question whether we can be more generous within our received orthodoxy is one and it relates to attitudes and behaviour and pastoral practice; the question whether in order to be truly “generous” we need to redefine what constitutes orthodoxy is another. Let us distinguish between the two.

A Letter to my Bishops

I have now let the House of Bishops’ proposals for ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ and the legal advice sink in and reflected on them. This has refined but not fundamentally altered my initial response which was one of deep dismay.

Since Cranmer our patrimony includes a beautiful use of the English language and an ability to find words on which people of somewhat different persuasions can agree. This has perhaps on occasion degenerated into a studied ambiguity which made us settle on words which people of different convictions are able to use because they read them differently rather than because they have found a consensus. Now we are at risk of playing with words instead of seeking genuine accord.

I delight in the generous orthodoxy of our Reformed Catholicism but it grieves me that the Church of England also includes clergy who scoff at parts of the Scriptures, even declaring them toxic, or who might laud Paul and the writers of the Gospels as people who made magnificent attempts in their time while urging us to move on from their failures, as we discern a gospel beyond the Gospels.

My comfort has been that clergy who care little for the Thirty-nine Articles or the Book of Common Prayer are usurpers and that the Church of England does not truly belong to them. I feel that this comfort is in the process of being taken away from me.

The ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ may have been carefully crafted not to fall foul of the Church’s doctrine in the eyes of canon lawyers but they were not presented with a sufficiently clear, transparent and honest explanation of how they apply the Church’s teaching to various pastoral situations. No theological rationale was offered for continuing to uphold Church teaching. The morality of extra-marital sex appears to have been moved to the adiaphora. Several bishops, while welcoming the new resources, expressed their desire for a change to our doctrine and ethics. Phrases like ‘at the present time’ in the accompanying document clearly suggest that far from drawing our various listening exercises to a conclusion the debates are set to continue. And given that pronouncements like the booklet published by Steve Croft show little awareness of the discussions and research of the last few decades, we must assume that the debates will continue without making progress. Unlike our Archbishop I find no joy in this kind of diversity.

Doctrinal differences of the kind that relate to our formularies should be a source of grief for us. We must continue to make every effort to re-establish sufficient common doctrinal ground rather than make ourselves believe that we can still walk together, as if these differences did not directly impact on how we exercise Christian discipleship and pastoral care and how we proclaim afresh the good news of Christ in our generation. We cannot walk together if we seek the deeper unity for which Christ prayed in different directions. In words from the Book of Common Prayer we must long for ‘the spirit of truth, unity and concord’ and therefore petition God to ‘grant that all they that do confess thy holy Name, may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity and godly love.’

I want to put it to you that while there are these divisions among you, you can be certain that you are not led by the Holy Spirit. Compromise is not a dirty word. But true Christian unity is not found in the attempt to appease different factions while sidestepping proper theological reasoning. We are at grave risk of becoming an ecclesial community whose participation, as a body, in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church is suspect. I urge you to reconsider the wisdom of the current proposals and to strive for greater clarity and integrity.

Yours in Christ,

Thomas