War against Terror

The War against Terror

“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9

This is one of those Sundays when the readings are fairly straightforward and can be summed up, more or less, in two sentences. ’Let’s not fool ourselves and think that we were clever enough or good enough to have found God. He finds us, and he has a party in heaven when we finally realise he has!’

So that clears the way for me to spend the remaining 10 minutes talking about the War on Terror.

I was at a dinner on Thursday with Shami Chakrabarti, the Director of Liberty, the civil liberties organisation. She was answering questions on a broad range of subjects, and as you might expect, was fairly provocative.

She spoke particularly about the dangers of putting western society in a permanent state of emergency – a permanent war footing. During the Second World War, (this weekend marks the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Britain) there were emergency powers and the restriction of some civil liberties, but when the war was over, the powers were removed and freedoms restored.

‘But when will this War end’, she asked, ‘and what might be done in its name and so become virtually permanent emergency powers?’

I don’t wish to get involved in the political issues here, but I want us for a few moments to look at part of the Biblical analysis of our predicament.

Back to our text from Genesis: “But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"”

It reminds me of a week I spent with other trainee chaplains in a large psychiatric hospital when they still existed in the mid 70s. The Chaplain was explaining to us the dangers of asking rhetorical questions in sermons. He said he had once started a sermon in the hospital chapel by posing the question ‘why are we all here?’ – a man at the back shouted ‘because we’re not all there!’

God’s question must be rhetorical, or otherwise the incident paints a strange picture: the almighty, the omnipotent, the omniscient Creator of all things, playing hide-and-seek in the Garden.

“Where are you Adam?”

“Coming ready or not!”

And Adam is not ready. He is naked, and ashamed, and confused, and angry with Eve and with himself. And he has become afraid of the God who is Love. He has believed the Lie

“Where are you Adam?”

This is not a question about location. It is a metaphysical question.

Adam is lost. And so the war against terror begins.

“Where are you Adam?”

I am plotting mayhem and revenge; the slaying of Abel; the atrocities of humanity before the flood; the wickedness of the cities before the scattering from Babel;

I am plotting nationalism and weapons of destruction; infanticide and torture; oppression and racism; inquisitions and discrimination; religious hatred and world wars; holocausts and ethnic cleansing; acts of terror and global injustice.

The third chapter of Genesis is an ancient aetiology of human evil: an attempt to explain why the world is as it is.

Since the dawn of civilisation, humans have wrestled with the terror that is within, and how it expresses itself without.

Humans have experienced great goodness - the simple pleasures of walking with the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day.

And they have witnessed great evil - the exercise of godlike powers to humiliate and destroy those who are ‘other’.

I think the Archbishop was right this week to point out the insidiousness of reality TV which promulgates a culture of humiliation and mockery.

And so in this war against terror we are sometimes in danger of assuming that ‘the other’ against whom we fight, is somehow inherently different from us.

But we are all earthlings and tainted with Adam’s sin. We are all children of Eve and under our mother’s curse.

Solzhenitsyn, who certainly had his share of suffering at the hands of evil men and women, was wise enough to write:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Quoted in Mayne, Learning to Dance, DLT 2001, p166)

War can only ever be enjoined with a sense of humility, and with a recognition that those whom we attack are not all evil and we are not all good.

The little boy is standing up in the back seat of the car and his father keeps telling him to sit down.

At last the father stops the car and forcibly sits the boy down. As they continue the journey, the sulking boy in the back shouts: “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”

From childhood we experience the ‘divided self’, that in this story of Adam and Eve, is the result of their disobedience.

For Adam and Eve in the garden, the duality within immediately skewed three dominant areas of their life, and all our lives: sexuality, spirituality and society.

They were ashamed of their nakedness, and sexual companionship becomes an arena for struggle and not for pleasure and deepening intimacy; spiritually, they become afraid of God who only wishes the best for them; and as society, they turn on each other in blame and recrimination.

Genesis only hints at an answer to this war within. From Eve there is to come one who will strike the serpent’s heel. (Gen 3.15)

But the NT interprets the work of Jesus, the son of Eve, as the unifying factor in our lives, that may not end the war here and now, but that is able to give us sustained conquest over our dark side, and ultimate victory.

Our patron, Paul, further develops the solution to this civil war within us - the backcloth of so much human history, literature and art; the backcloth of our own experience of the messiness of life.

He points to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who helps us to be what we are in Christ; to grow into Christian maturity; to have that attitude towards others that was in Christ Jesus, as he tells the Philippians.

Paul lists the fruit of this Spirit of Christ in his letter to the Galatians. It is the ‘God side’ of our inner duality, the original image of God still present in every human.

These characteristics relate to God, Others and Self.

God - love, joy, peace - these should be the characteristics of our Christian life.

Others - patience, kindness, generosity - these are to be the marks of our Christian society.

Self - faithfulness, gentleness, self-control these are the way to tame the unruly heart.

To be led by the Spirit is to follow our desire for holiness: to pursue the good and the beautiful – but not just for its own sake. The Christian distinctive is in our motivation for the pursuit of beauty. Is it to worship the creature - or to worship the Creator, who is blessed forever?

And lest this should all sound like some long mediaeval struggle for impossible purity, our Lord uses a more vibrant and life-affirming metaphor – the Spirit as the breath in our lungs, the wind in our sails: it is like sailing - finding the wind - and the exhilaration of running before it.

All human beings are capable of this, and we must never forget that whatever else we justify in the war against terror, redemption is always possible, and there is rejoicing in heaven when the lost are found, not destroyed.

God’s challenge to us, as it was in the garden, is to live with him, following Christ and the way to life; or, to hide with Adam and rebel and follow the destructive inner path to death.

“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9

The Temptations of Christ, Lent 1

The Temptations of Christ

Deuteronomy 26.1-11; Psalm 91; Romans 10.8-13; Luke 4.1-13

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15

It was that great 20th century commentator on the human condition, Mae West who remarked that “I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.”

In fact a popular theological conundrum for students (from the 5th century onwards when this Gospel was adopted for the first Sunday in Lent) was usually expressed in this form:

Was Christ: able not to sin?
OR : not able to sin?

The answer of course is ‘Yes’. If he had sinned, he would not have been the sinless God. But if he had not been able to sin, then he would not have been fully human. (I know that’s a bit hard for many of you, already weakened by much fasting and abstinence...)

So does this mean that the temptations were in some way a sham - not real temptations?

No! In fact the opposite is true. Only the sinless can know the full intensity of the temptation to sin. The holier the life, the more severe the testing.

One of my happy memories of my engineering course - apart from the week-long experiment Richard, my lab partner and I carried out on measuring the speed of ballbearings rolling down an inclined plane completely immersed in 20 gallons of golden syrup - cleaning up afterwards was such fun… one of my other happy memories, was designing and building a model bridge out of aluminium and testing it to destruction - the Omega point. The better constructed the bridge, the greater the pressure that needed to be applied before the Omega point was reached.

The life of our Lord was so coherent, so integrated, so well-constructed, that the pressure applied to break him was more than most of us can possibly understand.

We break far too easily, for our interior life is often ill-constructed. Oscar Wild’s dictum is the familiar pattern: “I can resist anything except temptation.”

And these temptations of Christ, recorded in the synoptic gospels, represent the continuous process of testing at every stage of the Son of God’s life, right up to the end. So in the garden, before the cross, he resists the allurement to let the cup of suffering pass from him, and sweats great drops of blood in his anguish and fight against temptation.

The film ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ for all its weaknesses, takes seriously the manhood of Christ, tempted in all points as we are.

Although this is a real account of the trials of our Lord, it is also stylized and symbolic in the way that Luke presents it. (Matthew gives a different order and slightly different detail; Mark gives only a summary.)

Jewish readers would have picked up the parallels between Jesus and Adam, Moses and Israel. Here is a recapitulation of history which Paul recounts in Romans and the OT lesson rehearses. Adam failed and followed the sensual in preference to the spiritual, laying down the foundation for idolatry which we all follow. Jesus succeeded where Adam failed and followed the path of obedience to his Father.

Moses spends forty days on the mountain, in preparation for receiving the Law. Later he is taken up a high mountain to survey the Promised Land of God. Jesus is set on a high mountain to survey the promised land of Satan. Moses never reaches the Promised Land - but Jesus, the new Joshua - Saviour - succeeds and carries his people with him.

Israel puts God to the proof at Meribah and Massah during their forty years of testing in the wilderness. They demand signs: water from the rock; bread in the desert. Jesus, as the faithful Israel, demands no proof from God but is trusting and obedient. Satan has quoted Ps 91 (today's gradual & tract) “He shall give his angels charge over thee” but Jesus has construed its meaning aright: in quiet trust and confidence he submits to the will of the Father. He is the living water, the Bread of Life.

Notice how Christ, in his weakened state, falls back on familiar Scriptures. In fact the three quotations are from the early chapters of Deuteronomy which recount the wilderness experiences of the people of Israel. Christ would have been educated as a Jewish boy, by learning Hebrew scriptures by heart. They were deeply embedded in his mind.

There is great value in having fixed in our memory, familiar scriptures, familiar prayers and hymns of the people of God. When we are physically and spiritually weak, they can be of great assistance to us. It’s a good Lenten discipline to try and learn some passage or prayer by heart.

The temptations themselves can be looked at in different ways. At one level, they were an appeal for Christ to misuse his divine powers to obtain the common human goals of Sustenance, Protection and Security. At another level, they are the common snares of Christian leaders to be selfish, to sensationalise and to compromise.

What of the temptations we face? They are many and different according to our personality and the setting of our lives. We are not tempted to turn stones into bread, but we may turn bread into stones for others by our selfish indulgence and the demand for immediate gratification.

We are not likely to feel the urge to prove God’s physical care to sceptical friends – perhaps by standing at the front of the queue for a Harrod’s Sale. But we may be tempted to care for ourselves and our own needs at the expense of others.

We are all likely to be offered much in order to gain very little.

The big temptations are not too difficult. They are obvious and we either sin boldly, or flee from the situation, like Joseph, leaving our garment in the hands of Potiphar’s wife - often with a mind to go back for it later - for when we flee temptation, we usually leave a forwarding address.

No, it is the thousand subtle temptations that sneak in every day and like the gentle acid rain falling on the great cathedral, wear away our defences and ruin us.

The temptations to live as though God did not matter; to live as if “I” am the centre of the universe; to love things and use people, rather than use things and love people; to neglect responsibility; to wound others; to lack compassion.

Lent is a time to take stock and make repairs; to remember that we have a flawed human nature. As Luther put it: “I’m more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals.”

And Lent is a time to strengthen our defences, by selfless giving, by disciplining our demanding bodies, by fortifying our minds with the truths of our faith, by reminding ourselves through our devotions that we are greatly loved by one who gave himself for us and longs for us to live full lives by following his example. And in case we think this is an impossible dream, then we are urged to remember that

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15

Forgiveness, lent 3

Forgiveness

Readings: 1 Cor 1.18-25, John 2.13-22

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” 2 Cor 3.6

Religion has always been the enemy of Christianity. Sometimes I answer the question ‘are you religious?’ by ‘No, I’m a Christian’.

Now I know that such assertions as this are really playful ways of making a point, for Christianity is of course a religion. The word is almost certainly derived from religare – to bind. Religion is binding yourself to your God. I suspect St Paul, however, might have argued it’s meaning is returning to bondage!

And this is the point. There has always been a tendency in religions in general, and Christianity in particular to move from the freedom of the Spirit, with all its grown up responsibilities, to the slavery of the letter, with its infantile dependency on dogma and rules.

And it would be nice to say that religion is responsible for wars and crusades, for inquisitions and apartheid, for divisions in Northern Ireland and genocide in Serbia. But that would be an over-simplification.

Nonetheless, at a basic level, Our Lord’s cleansing of the temple, whip in hand, was a rant against religion; against the deadening effects of the letter of the law; against the cultural appropriation of faith in the living God, for commercial purposes.

St Paul may have had the etymology of religion in mind when he wrote to the Galatians: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (5.1,2)

Perhaps religion, this binding and stifling straightjacket on life, has been nowhere more successful than in identifying itself in the human mind with guilt. I only need to sit on the tube in my dog-collar, and I’m aware that half the carriage immediately feel guilty.

Why did the thief last week leave the beautiful leather holdall he had stolen from Frank in Hammersmith, outside of my vicarage door? Guilt! (He had of course removed from it anything of value, and it was only an overlooked business card that allowed me to track it down to Frank.) (Reminds me of the letter received by the Tax Inspector:“I feel so guilty, I can’t sleep; so here is £1000 of tax I owe you. If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the other £1000…”)

So what is at the heart of Christianity, or ‘pure religion’ as the Apostle James calls it, that distinguishes it from the bondage of false religion?

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”

The ministry of the Holy Spirit enables a work of grace in our hearts that draws us on to love God and others.

By the 16th Century, at a time when cloying religion was getting the upper hand in Christiandom, the Reformation and the Counter-reformation rediscovered this great liberating truth.

‘Sin boldly!’, Martin Luther once wrote to his friend Philipp Melanchthon. This sprang from Luther’s overwhelming conviction that we are saved by grace, and that the message of the cross of Christ is, as Paul writes in v18 of today’s epistle, the power of God to those of us who are being saved.

Of course Luther was not advocating deliberate sin, but he was reminding Melanchthon, who erred on the side of legalism, the letter, that living life is a messy business and we need not be so terrified of putting a foot wrong, that we never put a foot forward!

This is the outrage of grace. No wonder it was a stumbling block (the Greek word is ‘scandal’) to the law-driven Jews of the first century. They would not trust God unless they saw signs. As they say to Jesus, whip still in hand, standing in the chaos he had brought to the Temple court:

“What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” (John 2.18)

Or as Paul puts it in the epistle: “Jews demand miraculous signs.” (1 Cor 1.22)

This is walking by sight and not by faith; the very opposite of what Paul commended to the Corinthians in his second letter (2 Cor 5.7). Although we should pray to see evidence of God at work among us, we must not cross over the line and become those who only believe when we see God at work.

Paul also points out in the epistle that the message of the cross is foolishness to the Greeks and Gentiles. Not that Paul is being anti-intellectual here. This is the man who wrote the letter to the Romans!

He is pointing out another scandal of the Gospel, that it cannot be grasped by intellectual rigour alone.

You remember that verse in Luke’s Gospel:

“Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” (Luke 10.21)

The ‘wisdom’ that these worldly-wise Greeks and Gentiles desired, is probably the equivalent of today’s New Age pick ‘n mix; consumer religion, where you have a little bit of Christianity, a smidge of Sofi mysticism, a comforting hint of re-incarnation and an ethical shot of New Labour – and write on the form ‘Church of England’!

In the first century it was the ancient gnosticism: the speculative knowledge passed on sometimes through arcane ritual and sometimes just to those ‘wise’ enough to receive spiritual revelations and secrets. It’s instant religion. We heard lots about it through the Da Vinci Code and will no doubt hear more now the Gnostic Gospel of Judas is about to be published.

In contrast, the way of the cross is simply accepting the grace of God through the passion of Christ. It is of course at times painful and costly, as it was for Christ, involving a life of self-giving. But it is the self-giving that springs from love, and which results in deep inner peace and joy.

This is never very popular. Just as there were gnostic Jews in Corinth, there are always ‘quick fix’ Christians around, who want the gain without the pain. The super-apostles who were arriving in Corinth as Paul wrote, argued that Paul was weak and ineffectual. They preached the way of success and triumph. Paul gloried in following Christ in the way of suffering and hardship, weakness and dependency on God. (See 2 Corinthians 11.19ff)

Jesus’s anger against the temple-traders, leading to such uncharacteristic physical violence from our Lord, is another attack on easy religion: a religion that is all about doing the right things, rather than loving God with heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as our self.

The disciplines of lent are supposed to help us in our struggle against ‘the world, the flesh and the devil’ (today’s post-communion prayer). But we should not finish lent feeling pleased with ourselves and with what we have achieved – we’ve lost a few pounds and been to some improving studies. That would be religion.

The result of a good and holy lent will be a greater love for God and a deeper desire to serve others. Or in the words of the epistle, knowing ‘Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God’ better.(v24) This is Christianity.

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” 2 Cor 3.6

Flesh & Spirit

Flesh & Spirit

“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Gal 5:16

A prominent element of the religious culture in which I grew up in the 60s and 70s was the ‘testimony’: people telling us how they had been ‘saved’; how they had come to faith.

They were amazingly varied and many of them very moving, and some quite remarkable: Peter in front of his TV in Australia; Mary in her wheelchair in the orphanage chapel; Kevin in a memorable restaurant called Fudpuckers.

But there was a genre, usually recounted by burnt out looking thirty-somethings (I see a number of you here this morning), which ran along the lines: “There was no sin and debauchery to which I had not sunk (sometimes they went on to add “and then at the age of five...”).

Yet others would give you a tantalising glimpse of the sins and broad hints of the debauchery of their misspent youth. And I would often sit and complain to God that I’d become a Christian far to early to get a good crack at debauchery.

Today’s epistle from Paul’s difficult letter to the Galatians, contains this list, which even as a child you would mentally tick off as we ran the gamut of the sins of the flesh. [I was never sure what ‘lasciviousness’ was, but by the very sound of it, I’d committed it...]

Paul’s teaching on ‘the flesh’, or rather a misinterpretation of it, gave rise to a number of heresies in the early church.

These heresies were both to do with the person of Christ, and also to do with our attitude to the human body and to sex in particular: docetism, modal monarchianism, ascetic gnosticism, antinomianism - the names remain in the minds of all theological students long after the contents of the heresies have been forgotten.

The Scriptures, and Paul himself, use the word ‘flesh’ to convey a variety of meanings. Here’s half a dozen of them:

1 - Meat - Ps 78:27 “He rained flesh also upon them as dust...”
2 -The Body - the usually meaning of the Greek word ‘sarx’ (sarcasm - the rending of the flesh) - and of the equivalent Hebrew word for flesh.
3 - A Person - Gen 2:24 “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
4 - People - human race - Isa 40:5 “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together...”
5 - Frail human nature contrasted with God’s power - Mark 14:38 “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (You remember how the Russian translator struggled with this idiom and translated “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” by “The vodka is OK but the meat is terrible.”)
6 - Fallen and perverse human nature - “the lust of the flesh”.

Or if you don’t like the biblical imagery of the fall in the garden of Eden, then you can follow Richard Dawkins and his ‘Selfish Gene’: we’re born that way - we’re part of nature, red in tooth and claw.

Or indeed if you look into your own soul, you know that it is easier to be selfish and self-centred than to be generous and altruistic - that takes effort.

This 6th meaning is what Paul has in mind in here in Galatians and he goes on to amplify it.

His hit list of fallen human nature covers three dominant areas of our lives: sexuality, spirituality and society.

1 Sexuality - fornication, impurity, licentiousness
- the pursuit of sex as an end in itself, regardless of the feelings, responsibilities and respect we owe to each other - and to society. And to society - Christianity is essentially a communal faith where individual freedoms are moderated by social responsibility.

This is very difficult to work out in our divided society where there are very varied sexual mores. And of course some would argue that what we do in the bedroom is nothing to do with wider society. This was the late Abp Runcie’s view expressed in his candid biography.

In our understanding of human relationships, intimacy and sexuality, we must certainly hear scripture; and we must certainly pay heed to the tradition of the Church; but we must also listen to wider human society - and I don’t just mean its liberalising clamour, nor its sometimes reactionary response to embarrassed confusion.

We have to recognise that in the last four thousand years, guided by God, much has changed in this area, and much, inevitably, has yet to change. It is only the underlying principles of Christian behaviour which remain constant.

2 Spirituality - on Paul’s list, idolatry & sorcery
- the need for human kind to worship and the danger of worshipping ‘other gods’ of our own making. For example:

- the cult of self - the body beautiful and self-gratification - fuelled by the
- the cult of money - the love of which is the root of all evil
- consumerism - shopping mall temples - Tesco ergo sum - retail therapy
- the cult of ‘my church’ - pride, intolerance and lack of Christian charity
- the cult of others - worshipping the lover, the spouse, the children

Each of us has our own personal idols which claim our devotion, may sap our energy and ultimately lead to disintegration and enslavement.

3 Society - enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing
- the ills which fragment community life and lead to distrust, social isolation, pain and anguish.

So Paul’s ‘lust of the flesh’ is not to be confused simply with desire and the enjoyment of our bodily appetites. It is not primarily to do with what the President of the US did with a young assistant; or with what King David did with a beautiful married woman.

It is about why they did it; whether they abused their charisma to achieve it; and what they did subsequently - privately and publicly. These are the lusts of the flesh.

So what is the Apostle’s solution to this civil war within us - the backcloth of so much human history, literature and art; the backcloth of our war-riven century; the backcloth of our own experience of the messiness of life.

It is to walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit; to be what you are in Christ.

It is to have that attitude which was in Christ Jesus. Paul lists the fruit of this Spirit of Christ in relation to God, Others and Self.

God - love, joy, peace - these should be our characteristics.
Others - patience, kindness, generosity. I come across too many people in our churches who think a balanced personality means you have a chip on both shoulders.
Self - faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

We crucify the flesh: we make those moment by moment decisions to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit rather than to follow our demanding animal self - the lust of the flesh - the selfish gene. And we need not only the help of God’s Spirit, but of his Word and Sacraments, and of his people, and of the best of his world.

At it’s very simplest level, it is like the young boy standing by the apple barrel outside the grocer’s: “Are you trying to steal one of my apples?” “No sir, I’m trying not to.”

Paul uses two verbs in this passage to describe the process: being led by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. The one is primarily passive. The other is active.

To be led by the Spirit is to follow our inner desire for holiness: to pursue the good and the beautiful.

St Mary’s is rightly known for the beauty of its music and liturgy. But this is can become idolatrous unless it is also known as a place of worship and prayer. The Spirit leads us to God.

Then Paul talks of actively walking in the Spirit - ‘keeping in step’ with the Spirit - running with the Spirit.

Two men are running away from a grizzly bear that is gaining on them. One man stops and starts putting on running shoes. The other one says “it’s no use, we’ll never outrun the bear.” “As he finishes tying the laces he says “I know. But I’ve only got to outrun you...”

Paul uses the competitive metaphor of the runner to talk of the disciplines of the spiritual life. These have been the mainstay of authentic Christianity down through the centuries, and they have nurtured the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - in the lives those who like us, try to follow Christ.

So we must put ourselves in places where we can be led by the Spirit, and not by our selfish desires. And as we do that we will continue to train ourselves through the spiritual disciplines so that we can walk in the Spirit. Then we will know increasing growth in holiness and re-orietning of our desires and attitudes.

“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Gal 5:16

Shepherd & Bishop

Shepherd & Bishop

Ezek 34.11-16; John 10.10-20; 1 Peter 2.19-25

“Ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” 1 Pet 2.25

If I get asked one more time who I think should be the next Archbishop of Canterbury... and I reply the same way every time: “Tony, you’ve got to decide...”

There are of course a number of parallels between church and state.

For just as democracy is the safest way of preserving social freedom, so episcopacy is arguably the safest way of maintaining Christian liberty.

Good bishops and priests are able to curb excesses among themselves and their people; and are able to nurture and protect themselves and those in their charge.

And both democracy and church order are necessary because of the Flaw in every human being. The Flaw that produces the atrocities that mark each succeeding century; the Flaw that sometimes mars our families and relationships; the Flaw that is able to draw us spiralling down in self-hatred.

And it’s because of that Flaw that Peter is able to state quite simply: “Ye were as sheep going astray;”

A common theme, and not a very flattering one, runs through many biblical metaphors, from Genesis to Revelation: we are wandering children, roaming sheep, stubborn mules, deserting disciples, straying lovers.

This is not only the reality of the human condition, but it is the reality of our Christian condition. There is no ‘Sinless Perfection’, as the heresy is called, this side of the Pearly Gates.

The great Victorian Preacher Spurgeon, in one of many apocryphal stories, is said to have invited a couple of ‘sinless perfectionists’ to dinner, and when they were least expecting it, emptied a jug of cold water over their heads. He remarks that ‘they were not as sinless as they claimed to be’.

It is in our nature to want God when we need him and to want the freedom to go our own way and do our own thing at all other times.

But in that paradoxical way that God deals with us, as we really are, this is a converting condition for us - it drives us to God.

Because we do truly want God, when we need him, so our deepest needs drive us to our deepest beliefs. When we recognise that we are needy, then we understand why we must believe.

The cynic of course will always say that we ‘make up’ what we believe in order to give us comfort in our need. It is the cynic’s right to believe this, and ours to doubt it.

This morning’s OT lesson from Ezekiel was certainly in the mind of Jesus, John and Peter as they spoke and wrote. The prophet expands the understanding of our need in the words of God, the shepherd and bishop of our souls to which Peter is alluding. So God says:

“I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” (Ezekiel 34.16)

Here is insight written two and a half thousand years ago, but describing our frail mortality.

We are lost - we sometimes do not know who we are, or what we believe, or who loves us, if anybody.

We have strayed - although we knew the way to go, we have deliberately, or neglectfully, wandered away.

We are injured - life, with all its unexpected and sometimes unwanted twists and turns, has left our minds and bodies in need of repair. Our consciences are scarred.

We are weak - for we know what noble creatures we should be and yet so often we dabble in the mud.

We are arrogant and unjust - we dare to play at god and even to oppress others, physically or psychologically.

So will God punish us? No!

You know the story of the guide who was explaining to the Holy Land pilgrims how an eastern shepherd always leads his flock from the front, gently guiding the sheep who trustingly follow. Unlike the western shepherds who drive the flock forward from behind.

Just then they drove past a dozen sheep being herded from behind by a man with a large staff and a loud voice. The guide immediately jumped out of the coach to investigate. He soon returned, and obviously relieved he declared: “He’s a butcher, not a shepherd!”

There is that common view of God as the Bad Butcher rather than the Good Shepherd!

“I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” (E z 3416)

Jesus, whom John characteristically casts as God in replaying the Ezekiel passage, echoes the words of the prophet: “I will feed them with rich pasture.” So Jesus says in the verse before where our Gospel started today: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Peter’s message in the pastoral epistles is the same: that God cares and wants us to live full lives.

When we grasp this reality of our faith in the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, then we will want to return to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, to find rich pasture for our life.

St Ignatius of Antioch was around in the first century at about the same time that this letter of Peter and John’s Gospel was written. He once commented: “A bishop never more resembles Jesus Christ than when his mouth is closed.”

Beyond the humour, there is deep wisdom in this, and imagery which was common in the early church: an allusion to Christ who is both sheep and shepherd.

So the early church applied Isaiah 53 to Jesus when the prophet uses the image of the Suffering Servant: “as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”

The Good Shepherd, or ideal shepherd, or Jesus’s words can even be translated ‘beautiful shepherd’, perhaps harking back to Samuel’s description of David, Israel’s Shepherd King: ‘ he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome’ (1 Sam 16.12)...

The Good Shepherd meekly lays down his life for the sheep. He knows them and they know him. There is mutual confidence, trust and mutual responsibility.

The word Bishop, which means overseer or guardian, speaks of this mutual responsibility. And it hints that we have it not just towards our Lord, but towards all those who care for us: our bishops and the priests to whom they have given the cure of souls.

It also reminds us of another heavy theme of Scripture: care for one another; love of God and neighbour.

I was on the edge of a conversation the other day when the vicar of a struggling church was accusing a leader from a big evangelical church of sheep stealing.

The vicar was a difficult man, who may have missed his calling as a bear tamer. In the end, the evangelical, rather exasperated, remarked: “we don’t steal sheep, we just grow good grass.”

[For a moment I thought I had uncovered a n evangelical drug cartel...]

And of course it is true, that if we do care for one another - not with that smothering, overzealous care, that in the free churches is called ‘heavy shepherding’ - wonderful imagery -

- if we do care for one another, and for the other sheep who are not of our flock, not in our clique, then we will grow in grace and the likeness of Christ, and perhaps even in numbers.

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, as it is sometimes called, let us be encouraged to believe that Christ, our Shepherd and Guardian, wants to lead us in green pastures, to restore our souls. He is a shepherd not a butcher.

And let us remember our responsibilities to him and to each other, to be loving and careful; to speak and to act in such a way as builds up the Body of Christ. We are shepherds, not butchers.

For “Ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” 1 Pet 2.25

War on Terror

The War against Terror

“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9

Here’s a strange picture! The almighty, the omnipotent, the omniscient Creator of all things, playing hide-and-seek in the Garden.

“Where are you Adam?”

“Coming ready or not!”

And Adam is not ready. He is naked, and ashamed, and confused, and angry with Eve and with himself. And he has become afraid of the God who is Love.

“Where are you Adam?” This is not a question about location. It is a metaphysical question.

Adam is lost. And so the war against terror begins.

“Where are you Adam?”

I am plotting mayhem and revenge; the slaying of Abel; the atrocities of humanity before the flood; the wickedness of the cities before the scattering from Babel;

I am plotting nationalism and weapons of destruction; infanticide and torture; oppression and racism; inquisitions and discrimination; religious hatred and world wars; holocausts and ethnic cleansing; acts of terror and global injustice.

This third chapter of Genesis is an ancient aetiology of human evil. An attempt to explain why the world is as it is. Since the dawn of civilisation, humans have wrestled with the terror that is within.

They have experienced great goodness - the simple pleasures of walking with the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day.

And they have witnessed great evil - the exercise of godlike powers to humiliate and destroy those who are ‘other’.

This war against terrorism which we are currently waging is sometimes in danger of assuming that ‘the other’ against whom we fight, is somehow inherently different from us.

But we are all earthlings and tainted with Adam’s sin. We are all children of Eve and under our mother’s curse.

Solzhenitsyn, who certainly suffered at the hands of evil men and women, was wise enough to write:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Quoted in Mayne, Learning to Dance, DLT 2001, p166)

War can only ever be enjoined with a sense of humility and with a recognition that those whom we attack are not all evil and we are not all good.

The little boy is standing up in the back seat of the car and his father keeps telling him to sit down. At last the father stops the car and forcibly sits the boy down. As they continue the journey, the sulking boy in the back shouts: “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”

From childhood we experience the division within the self that in this story of Adam and Eve is the result of their disobedience.

In the NT Paul is absorbed with this duality within and uses the word ‘flesh’ to denote the fallen and perverse side of our human nature - “the lust of the flesh” to describe the constant pull of the unrestrained ego.

This is what Paul has in mind in those lists in Galatians where he characterizes the two different sides to our nature.

For Adam and Eve in the garden, the duality within immediately skewed three dominant areas of their life: sexuality, spirituality and society. They were ashamed of their nakedness and sexual companionship becomes an arena for struggle and not just for pleasure; they become afraid of God; and they turn on each other in blame and recrimination.

Paul deals with these same three areas.

Sexuality - in Paul’s lists: fornication, impurity, licentiousness - the pursuit of sex as an end in itself, regardless of the feelings, responsibilities and respect we owe to each other - and to society. And to society? That’s a more difficult point in our divided society where there are very varied sexual mores.

And of course some would argue that what we do in the bedroom is nothing to do with wider society. This was Abp Runcie’s view expressed in his candid biography. Genesis acknowledges that there is an inner tension with regard to our sexuality, and that this must always be taken into account.

Spirituality - the need for human kind to worship and the danger of idolatry - of worshipping ‘other gods’ of our own making - eg

- the cult of self - the body beautiful and self gratification - fuelled by the

- the cult of money - the love of which is the root of all evil - consumerism - shopping mall temples - Tesco ergo sum - retail therapy

- the cult of ‘my church’ - pride, intolerance and lack of Xn charity

- the cult of others - worshipping the lover, the spouse, the children

Society - in Paul’s lists: enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing
- the ills which fragment community life and lead to distrust, social isolation, pain and anguish

Genesis only hints at an answer to this war within. From Eve there is to come one who will crush the serpent’s head. The NT interprets the work of Christ as the unifying factor that may not end the war here and now, but that may give us a victory over the dark side.

And what is the Apostle’s solution to this civil war within us - the backcloth of so much human history, literature and art; the backcloth of this war-riven century; the backcloth of our own experience of the messiness of life.

It is to walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit; to be what you are in Christ. It is to have that attitude which was in Christ Jesus.

Paul lists the fruit of this Spirit of Christ, the other side of this inner duality, in relation to God, Others and Self

God - love, joy, peace - these should be the characteristics of our Christian life

Others - patience, kindness, generosity (To dwell above...) These are to be the marks of our Christian society.

Self - faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. This is the way to tame the self.

So with vivid imagery Paul says we are to crucify the flesh: to make those moment by moment decisions to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit rather than to follow our demanding animal self - the lust of the flesh - the selfish gene.

And for this we need not only the help of God’s Spirit, but of his Word and Sacraments, and of his people, and of the best of his world.

Paul uses two verbs to describe the process: being led by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. The one passive. The other active.

To be led by the Spirit is to follow our desire for holiness: to pursue the good and the beautiful. Now here is the paradox. For we spoke earlier of the cult of the body beautiful, of aesthetics and the glory of the world. The difference is in our motivation for the pursuit of beauty. Is it to worship the creature - or to worship the creator?

Then Paul talks of walking in the Spirit - ‘keeping in step’ with the Spirit. Or to switch the metaphor, it is like sailing - finding the wind - and the exhilaration of running before it. As we approach lent, the spiritual disciplines are there to help us develop our openness to the Spirit.

God’s challenge to us is as it always has been: to live with him, following Christ and the way to life;

or to hide with Adam and rebel and follow the destructive inner path to death.

“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9