Sunday 27 June 2010, 4 after Trinity

It’s forty-five years since Bob Dylan recorded Subterranean Homesick Blues, a raucous, joyous stream of words and images articulating his profound unease at the staid conventions of American life.

Girl by the whirlpool looking for a new fool, he sang, don’t follow leaders watch the parking meters. Bob Dylan’s generation is beginning to draw its pension; it is being succeeded by a generation which grew up listening to its parents’ records; and on the evidence of the last few weeks it has listened hard.

Don’t follow leaders. The Commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has found himself out of a job after expressing doubts about the team surrounding his Commander-in-Chief. His Commander-in-Chief has found himself battling to maintain his credibility as oil pours into the Gulf of Mexico, growing (to some ears at least) ever more shrill and ever more belligerent in his treatment of the Chief Executive of BP. The Chief Executive of BP has found himself under attack for what he has said and for what he has not said, for what he has done and for what he has not done. Don’t follow leaders. Fabio Capello knows what his fate will be if his side does not trounce the Germans in Bloemfontein this afternoon. The power of the great man to rally his people and convince them to follow him in a common endeavour has never seemed weaker.

This ought to make the Church pause, for we are a company of followers. We are those who have heard a call and have responded, as surely as Elisha heard the call of the prophet Elijah and followed him, and as surely as the men and women of the Galilean villages heard the call of the prophet Jesus and followed him. And as a company of followers we are asked to call others. Don’t follow leaders. How can we hope to set about this task in the cynical, coalition-governed twenty-first century?

Tomorrow Nigel Moreland, Carl Boswell and PJ Luard will arrive at Land’s End. They will have run there from John O’Groats in just seventeen days, completing a double marathon on each of those days. Moreland, Boswell and Luard were all comrades of Captain Mark Hale, killed in Afghanistan last August while attempting to rescue an injured soldier. Their record-breaking fund-raising run is a tribute to their fallen friend, and they reckon that the compound fractures and muscle injuries they have sustained are worth it. Meanwhile crowds numbering tens of thousands are passing up the conveniences of the iTunes era to spend the weekend camping in Glastonbury. This year the weather is being kind to them, but they won’t have known that when they bought their tickets. The music festival, a child of the age of Subterranean Homesick Blues, has not gone the way of the beehive hairdo or the kaftan. It has grown and grown in popularity.

We will not follow political leaders who are unable to control events, whether that inability is their fault or not; political leaders will not follow military leaders who speak too freely to the press, whether they speak the truth or not; the markets will not follow business leaders who appear out of touch with reality, whether that appearance is fair or not. Yet we will follow Mark Hale all the way to Land’s End and we will brave heatstroke or trench foot at Glastonbury for the sake of Kylie, Dizzee Rascal and Seasick Steve.

Why follow these leaders? Mark Hale’s comrades do not offer a political ideology. They offer one man’s story, a story of authentic heroism, a story of personal valour. The story connects in a way that the ideology does not. Glastonbury does not offer a business strategy. It offers a shared experience, an experience of common life, an experience of common celebration. The experience connects in a way that the strategy cannot. Long-distance run and open-air festival do not offer a military solution. They offer, through the good-will and the funds that they generate, an opportunity to effect real and positive change to the world. The opportunity connects in a way that a proposed solution never can and never will.

Our age follows leaders who offer an authentic story; the possibility of a shared experience; and opportunity to make a positive change. Our Church is built around the story of Jesus Christ, who gave his life for love of us and was raised on the third day; around the shared experience of prayer and worship, which gathers saint and sinner, prostitute and priest to gather at one table; around the transforming power that is released through those glass doors into our community week by week. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows sang Dylan. But perhaps we do; perhaps we need to be reminded of the story we share, the experience we offer, the power we wield. We have a Gospel to proclaim. Haven’t we?