Abiding in Love

Abiding in Love

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” 1 John 4.16

I’m spoilt for choice today in what to preach upon. I have scanned through the new Harry Potter and can exclusively reveal that it is about the struggle between good and evil. But you already know I am against evil.

Or following the other big media story I could preach upon the demise of the Church of England as she shatters into a thousand pieces and sinks without trace. After 500 years of wrangling over deep theology, politics and the nature of reality, she is, apparently, to flounder over what a bishop used to do in his bedroom.

But you already know I believe in an inclusive view of the Church. Remember the little verse from Edwin Markham that I quoted when I preached on the future of Christianity back in February?

They drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took them in

Love is the powerful theme of today’s epistle and at this Corpus Christi tide, we do well to remind ourselves of this axis of good which is, despite appearances sometimes, the true axis of our world.

John takes the two great apostolic foundations of the Christian faith - the incarnation and the atoning death of Christ - and clothes them in love. He uproots them from the realm of pure doctrinal necessity and plants them in the fertile soil of God’s great love for us.

Listen to his words: “In this is love - not that we loved God - but that he loved us - and sent his Son - to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (v10)

And then he draws the blindingly obvious conclusion from this: “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” (v11)

Now we might have expected him to conclude “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love him.”

But no! Since God is love, both in essence and attitude - both in who he is and in what he does - then the fact that he is in us, through the mystical union of his Holy Spirit; this finds expression in our love for one another.

This is God’s ultimate purpose, the perfection of love as John calls it. He wants to reproduce his love in us so that we can pour out our love to others and so bring them into the circle of God’s embracing kindness.

People are often concerned that they don’t believe the right things. And it’s good to study and to expand our understanding of the faith. But John brings it all down to earth.

He presents a simple test. Is what you believe about God enabling you to love others, with kindness and good deeds? Is it leading you to a place of personal freedom?

Or is what you believe leading you deeper into self-absorption; an inability to give yourself in love to others; an underlying fear of life?

Of course it’s never quite that simple. There will always be our daily failures and inadequacy.
There will always be room for improvement. There will always be adverse circumstances and impossible people. But if our belief in, and love for God results in a practical love for others, then we will not fear God or man.

I’m sure that I’ve told you before that I have always remembered this verse in 1 John 4.17. ‘Perfect love casts out fear’. At a wedding where I was best man a pious absentee sent simply that reference in a telegram. But without checking, I quickly turned to John 4.17 and read out: “Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’"

John urges us to believe in the evidence we see with our own eyes: our love for one another. He urges us to believe that we need have no fear. God is at work in us.

On the other hand he gives stark warning to those who would ignore the Christian’s primary mandate to love God and love others. There is no peace for the loveless heart. It is doomed to the turmoil of fear and distrust.

This first epistle of John is an open letter to the church, calling for Christian loyalty, love and understanding as they try to work out their faith. The gnostic deviations of the first century had led to various groups who seceded from the apostolic band. They often claimed that they loved God more than those they had left behind.

Although John admits debate on certain issues, he makes it clear that in one area, and one area alone, there is no room for compromise. There is nothing to debate. And this area was certainly not the authority of Scripture.

For the first 300 years the church had no canon of Scripture as we understand it today. That was to emerge from the heated discussions of the fourth century. And of course Roman Catholics and Protestants still disagree today about what is in the canon.

John makes it clear that there is only one area not for debate. He writes: “Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (vv 20f)

Here is one commentator on this passage

to the man out of fellowship with his brethren; to the man who nurses revenge, or spite, or contempt, or simple indifference, towards other Christians; to the man whose assumption of intellectual superiority makes him careless of others’ needs, opinions, feelings and faith, John offers no encouragement. (REO White, An Open Letter to Evangelicals, p119)

It is the merciful who will know that God will be merciful to them. It is those who forgive who know that they are indeed forgiven. But there is no peace for the loveless heart.

George Bernard Shaw gave a series of lectures on the English Language in the early days of radio. He happened to mention that there were only two words in English which begin with the sound ‘sh’ although they are only spelt with a single ‘s’.

An indignant listener wrote him a letter saying there was only one word - ‘sugar’.
The listener received a simple postcard by return which said: “Madame, are you sure?”

Being too sure of too much is a dangerous thing. We must always remember that the opposite of faith is certainty, not doubt.

But being too sure of too little is also a disorienting position.

In following Christ we were never promised by our Master an easy life, or a successful life. But we were promised a life full of inner peace and unspeakable joy. And in those rare moments when this is clearest to us, we are overwhelmed by the love of God. By the assurance that we are loved and accepted, and that all will be well.

And in those multitude of more ordinary moments of everyday living with all its messiness and uncertainty, still there is a quiet music in our soul that reminds us that we are loved by the creator of the universe. He came among us in Christ; died for us; rose for us and left us this bread and wine, tangible earnests of his love.

And it is enough.

That God is for us, in all circumstances, against all enemies, in face of all needs, in answer to all accusations and despondency, is sufficient for courage, for hope, and for great endurance. (White p115)

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” 1 John 4.16

Review - Liquid Church

Liquid Church

Pete Ward
Paternoster Press, 2002, £9.99
1-84227-161-X

Sometimes a book doesn’t live up to a good title, but Ward’s stimulating and occasionally annoying material swirls about in Liquid Church to produce a provocative and generally encouraging analysis. It was one of postmodernity’s great commentators, Zygmunt Bauman, who came up with Liquid Modernity (Polity Press, 2000) and this provided the metaphor to examine the postchurch realities of a Britain where 72% describe themselves as Christian, although only 5% regularly sit in the pews.

Ward recognises what others have called the McDonaldization of the church. It has become a spiritual commodity in the postmodern marketplace and some church growth ‘methods’ have capitalized on that. Many Christians not only shop for the style of church they like, but they also choose the time, place and degree of involvement that suits their fluid lifestyle. So some of these “72%” are part of a network of relationships rather than a gathered assembly on a Sunday morning. The commodification of spiritual resources becomes the means of sustaining the life of this decentred and unstructured Christian network. Liquid church ‘will need to develop commodities that can circulate through networks’ asserts Ward. (p.47)

Solid Church (some will be glad to hear) doesn’t disappear in Liquid Modernity, for there are still islands of Solid Modernity floating in the postmodern sea. Ward suggests that this solid church mutates into three different expressions of traditional congregational church: heritage site, refuge (and sometimes holiday resort), and nostalgic community. Most of us will recognise ourselves in these descriptions.

If all this is completely new to you, then the last chapter of ‘Dreams’ about Liquid Church is a fascinating insight into postmodern and premodern ways of being church and of worshipping God, with lots of actual examples.

The challenge is how we adapt church structures to service and in some ways guide this growing manifestation of ‘being church’, if indeed we accept it as genuinely ‘church’. A moot point, which although the book is not heavily theological, Ward does spend a couple of chapters discussing in the light of traditional ecclesiology.

Not all will agree with Ward that as part of the continual reformation of the church, there needs to be a conscious shift from solid church to liquid church. But we will all find food for thought and action and perhaps a melting of our too solid views.

Church Times

Inclusion, exclusion, creed

Inclusion & Exclusion

“Whoever is not against you is for you.” Luke 9.50

So the man rushes to stop this forlorn figure from throwing himself off Chelsea Bridge.

‘Why are you killing yourself?’
‘I’ve nothing to live for!’
‘Don’t you believe in God?’
‘Yes I do.’
‘What a coincidence - so do I! Are you a Jew or a Christian?’
‘A Christian.’
‘What a coincidence - so am I! Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?’
‘A Protestant.’
‘What a coincidence - so am I! Anglican or Baptist?’
‘Baptist.’
‘What a coincidence - so am I! Strict & Particular or General?’
‘Strict & Particular.’
‘What a coincidence - so am I! Premillennial or Amillennial?’
‘Premillennial.’
‘What a coincidence - so am I! Partial Rapture or full Rapture?’
‘Partial Rapture.’
‘Die heretic!’

Christians disagree and fall out about nearly anything and everything. Although to be fair, this could be said about any group of people who hold strong religious, political or philosophical views.

It is part of the process by which fallible human beings come to hold some common group identity. A key part of this process is the way in which we handle the differences, and the degree to which we demand conformity. Like cliffs, the real dangers come at the edges.

The history of Christianity over 2000 years, running parallel to the development of the modern democracy, has demonstrated a growing degree of inclusiveness in handling differences, and a lessening concentration on exclusiveness.

Fundamentalists regard this as the rottenness at the heart of liberal Christianity. They think that General Synod will soon be including the Devil in the Holy Trinity so as not to make the Satanists feel excluded.

Thoroughgoing liberals interpret any demand for conformity as an affront to the great god of individual freedom.

In today’s Gospel, Our Lord unwittingly set a controversy going within Christendom that flared into major schism in the 11th century and is still rumbling on today.

In John 15.26 Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as ‘the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father’. In a few minutes, we shall sing in the Nicene Creed of the Holy Ghost ‘who proceedeth from the Father and the Son’ - now where did that ‘and the Son’ come from?

The Latin word ‘filioque’ (‘and the Son’) was not in the Nicene Creed formulated at Nicaea in 325, nor in the expanded version of Constantinople in 381 - more or less what we sing today.

But in Spain in the 6th century there was a particular heresy which accepted that the Holy Spirit was fully God, but denied the full deity of Christ. In order to counter this heresy, the Spanish church started using what is called the Double Procession in the creed - ‘proceedeth from the Father and the Son’.

It was probably the Synod of Toledo in 589 which promulgated this and it soon spread to Gaul and then the rest of the Western church.

Time does not permit on a humid summer Sunday to trace the politics of the ‘filioque’ clause over the next two centuries: the battles, and intrigue the plotting and murder.

Here is Charles Williams summing up the final terrible stages in his book The Descent of the Dove; a history of the Holy Spirit in the Church. (The irony of the ‘dove’!)

An uneasy peace settled down for two centuries; then suddenly Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, provoked the storm. He accused the West of heresy; he closed the churches of the Latin rite. The Popes asserted the orthodoxy of the West and the primacy of Rome; they maintained open in Italy the churches of the Byzantine rite. The Patriarch removed the name of the Pope from the prayers. The Papal legates, entering the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Byzantium, just before the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, ascended through the crowd to the altar, and laid on it the solemn excommunication of the Patriarch and all his followers from the co-inherence of their Christendom. The frontier of a thousand years was drawn on 16th July, 1054.

Of course, there were other issues underlying the Great Schism, but in reality, from the ninth century, the Eastern and Western Churches have gone along different paths.

The appellations which they appropriated for themselves speak of the aims they pursued: the Eastern Church began to call herself Orthodox, underscoring by this that her main aim is to preserve the Christian faith unharmed. The Western Church began to call herself Catholic (universal), underscoring by this that her main aim is the unification of the whole Christian world under the authority of the Roman pope.

The present Pope would like to be the first Pope ever to visit Russia, but the Russian Orthodox Church has so far prevented any such symbolic gesture, and I imagine he will be seeing St Peter before he sees St Petersburg.

This is all a long way from the prayer of Jesus ‘that they may be one’. Our Lord himself points the way forward in all our disagreements.

In the teaching of Jesus there seems to be a breadth of inclusion for all imperfect disciples (and we all are) who nonetheless do good. So in Luke 9.46-50: An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and made him stand beside him. Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest." "Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us." "Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

On the other hand, there is a renunciation of all who do evil however doctrinally correct they see themselves. Luke 11.23 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.”

When we see exclusion in Our Lord’s teaching, it is based on ethical issues. Thus in the sermon on the mount, Our Lord is looking for Kingdom living among his followers, for "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' (Matthew 7.21-23)

Even then, the ethical issues are broadly-based, and come under Our Lord’s summary of all ethics: ‘Love God and love your neighbour.’

For you and me this means that in our relationships with other Christians, other political persuasions, other religions, and so on; we should be generous and inclusive wherever possible. At St Barnabas School, where the majority of children are from Muslim homes, I teach and pray the Gospel in a way that will make as many as possible feel included. But as a priest of a Christian School I also want to make sure that at appropriate times they hear the unique message of the Christian Gospel.

It is a scandal that the church becomes preoccupied with, and hostile towards other Christians because of, the filioque clause, or styles of English prose, or gay relationships, or women bishops.

The world has every right to become bored with us for acting like petulant children.

The Old Testament and the teaching of Jesus urges us to be preoccupied with poverty, oppression, injustice, abuse; and to exclude from society those who foster these scourges.

The General Synod took the inclusive way forward when it authorised the new Common Worship. The creed still has the filioque clause, but there is in the appendix, an alternative Nicene Creed, for use ‘on suitable ecumenical occasions’, which omits the filioque.

Sadly, there are not usually such simple solutions to complex issues. But in all our debating, and airing of opinions and differences, there must be a desire to include rather than to exclude; to welcome with the generosity of Our Lord, rather than to turn away with self-righteous bigotry; indeed, to remember the words of Jesus that:

“Whoever is not against you is for you.” Luke 9.50