St John's, Higham, Kent: 150th Anniversary of the Consecration

His most recent biographer does not record whether Higham's most illustrious resident was present at the consecration of its new parish church, but then 1862 was a difficult year for Charles Dickens. He turned fifty and he wrote little more than a largely-forgotten short story, 'His Boots'. His brother Fred was locked up in the Queen's Bench Prison and his son Alfred failed the Army exams. Closer to home he was forced to exchange his beloved Gad's Hill for what he called 'the nastiest little house in London' in order that his daughters might enjoy the metropolitan season - and the historical detectives suspect that the actress Nelly Ternan may have born him a child, in exile in France. Perhaps it's no wonder that he didn't play country squire when the altar and walls of St John's were anointed with holy oil and God's praises were sung for the first time within these walls. They had been sung here for well over a year before things began to look up and he began work on the novel that would become Our Mutual Friend.

 

Dickens, that great teller of tales, loved to tease visitors to his study at Gad's Hill. They would enter and close the door behind them. Then they would look around and be amazed to discover that the door had disappeared. Instead all around them, all around the walls, were book-lined shelves. On close examination, some of these had extraordinary titles. There was Cat's Lives, in nine volumes, and A Short History of a Chancery Suit, in twenty-one volumes. His suspicions raised, the visitor might subject these books to an even closer examination, and would then discover that they were false. Dummy books had been built onto the back of the door. Their titles amused the great novelist. They couldn't be taken down and read, but they could be swung open, allowing the visitor to walk through and leave the study. The painted books were a doorway, a means of access to another place.

 

One hundred and fifty years after the consecration - and two hundred years after Dickens's birth - St John's is lit up by one hundred and fifty icons. Icons are pictures. Not landscapes or sea views, of course, but formal, stylized pictures of saints and Biblical scenes. But those who pray with icons believe that they have something in common with the study door at Gad's Hill. The visitor to Dickens's study might enjoy poring over the fictitious titles painted on the spines, just as a visitor to your exhibition might enjoy poring over the technical skill of the iconographers. But unless the visitor to Gad's was willing to look beyond the dummy books he would remain forever stuck in the study, looking at the surface of the door. And unless the visitor to St John's is willing to look beyond the gold leaf and the egg tempera he will remain every bit as stuck. For just like Dickens's practical joke the icons'  painted panels are a doorway, a means of access to another place.

 

Those who pray with icons believe that they are one of the means that God has chosen to reveal himself to the world. When a faithful person looks upon an icon he or she does not just look upon painted wood; he or she looks upon the one whose image is painted upon the wood, and the one whose image is painted upon the wood looks upon the faithful person. A computer-literate generation will not find this difficult to grasp. When we open up our computer screens we are confronted by an array of little images. When we click on one of them - Word, for example, or PowerPoint - we are taken to the programme that we want to use. The point of the little images is that they take us somewhere else. And we call the little images 'icons'. 

 

Most pictures hang on the walls gathering dust. They may entertain us and they may educate us. If the walls they hang on are the walls of Hogwarts they may even move about and speak to us. But most pictures do not allow us to gaze upon the face of God. Even to suggest that this is what icons allow should raise some questions for us - questions about the pictures, certainly, but also questions about God. We don't have to listen very hard to hear the scoffing of the cultured despisers of religion. What sort of God allows his creation to peer at him through wood and paint?

 

Our sort of God is the answer; our sort of God. For our sort of God is the God revealed in Jesus Christ; the God who sits down in a house in Capernaum and takes a child his arms. Our sort of God says 'Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me'. This is the God  who has not held anything back; the God who has come to us in person; the God who identifies himself absolutely with the small and the weak.

 

Charles Dickens wrote books. When we read his collected works we learn something about him. Our God did not write books. We do not have to read his collected works in order to learn something about him. For our God turned up. As Saint James puts it, Wisdom came from above, pure, peaceable, gentle and merciful, in the flesh and blood of Jesus. Wisdom came from above, and Wisdom comes from above. Wisdom's coming is an annoyance, as ancient Solomon said it would be, for Wisdom's coming illuminates all our faults, fragilities and failings. Yet still Wisdom comes, and Wisdom is not ashamed of us: not ashamed of the flesh and blood that Jesus shares; not ashamed of the works of our hands; not ashamed of the things of the earth that we work with our hands. Wisdom takes these and makes them holy. Wisdom comes and through the love we have for one another; through the holy icons; and above all through the bread and wine of the Eucharist Wisdom makes us welcome. Amen.

Sunday 16 September, 15 after Trinity

"Most young people in Britain think that morality means looking after your family or putting others first". So says a BBC poll published this week. Almost 600 young people aged between 16 and 24 were asked to choose which they thought was the most important moral issue from among eight alternatives. 59% opted for caring for the family: only 4% thought that having religious faith or beliefs was the most important.  A British Social Attitudes survey published simultaneously suggests that less than a quarter of young people now consider themselves to be religious.

 

Such figures must be read sceptically. The questions devised by the pollster determine to some extent the answers he is given. But if the figures give us a broadly reliable snapshot then perhaps it's worth asking whether what they suggest - that religion is barely esteemed among the young - actually matters. So long as the young care about something other than themselves - and it appears that they do - then does religion matter?

 

Unsurprisingly I think it does, and I hope that my reasons for thinking that it does amount to more than either professional self-interest or middle-aged reaction. I think that religion does matter. It's not that religion is something that the young should take a respectful interest in whether they like it or not, like they should maths lessons or piano practice. It's not that I adhere to a species of religion that holds that they are at risk of the eternal flames if they don't take such an interest. Put bluntly, it's that I actually believe that, like eating undressed salad and taking strenuous and regular exercise, religion is good for you, even if it's often considerably less fun.   

 

Why is it good for you? What is its purpose? Most people would agree that living in denial of something is unhealthy. Successive British Governments denied for twenty-three years that the blame for the Hillsborough tragedy could be laid anywhere but at the feet of the Liverpool fans. The consequences for us all of that denial will be laid bare in the months ahead: in the anguish suffered by the families; in the eroded trust between communities and police; in the dented confidence in our system of justice.

 

Yes, denial damages, and the purpose of religion is help those who practise it to live free from  denial. For the purpose of religion is to help its practitioners to understand who they really are. When Peter acclaims Jesus as the Messiah he is making a claim about himself as well as a claim about Jesus. He is acknowledging that God is God, that Jesus is God's Anointed One, and that he, Peter, is one of those to whom God's Anointed One has come. He is acknowledging his dependence upon God; he is acknowledging his need of God's Messiah; and he is acknowledging his solidarity with the people to whom God's Messiah has come. Those who live without religion are living, whether consciously or not, with denial. They are living without acknowledging this dependence, this need, or this solidarity.

 

So we're all right then? This is not a moment for complacency. It is emphatically not the case that the practitioners of religion have got everything sorted. Far from it. Peter himself illustrates this perfectly in his very next utterance. He has, as it were, taken the first tentative steps into religion. He acknowledges God. But he also presumes to know God, and to know that God's Messiah cannot suffer and die. In his confession of Jesus as Christ, Peter has begun the journey, but he has only begun it. He will have to follow Jesus to the cross and beyond before he fully knows what his confession means. He will have to set aside the notions of Messiah-ship that he has long held and treasured. He will have to be led into a wholly new understanding. He will have to grow up.

 

If the purpose of religion is to help those who practise it to live free from denial then one of the most pernicious forms of denial is self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is a denial of the passing years; it is a denial of our inevitable ageing; and it is a denial of the irrefutable evidence of our eyes, minds and hearts. If the purpose of religion is to help those who practise it to live free from denial then it is also its purpose to help them towards maturity. Those who live in denial of their dependence upon God or in denial of their need of God often find other gods to be dependent on or to need. But practitioners of religion often depend upon the God of their childhood, or need the God of their adolescence. And this is as unhealthy as living in denial of God. Like Peter, who cannot cope with a Messiah who suffers, we cling to a God who is in reality the tyrannical Headmistress who once terrified us, or the benevolent commanding officer who we once respected. We long for a God who punishes us (or, sometimes, for a God who punishes others); we long for a God who barks orders at us; we long for the God we've always longed for, the teddy-bear God or the Darth Vader God, the God who, whether he's an object of adoration or an object of fear, is the God who has never left the corner of the nursery of our lives.

 

Religion requires of us a mature understanding of the God revealed in Jesus Christ, a mature knowledge of the God disclosed most clearly in the crucified prophet of Nazareth. Hand-in-hand it also requires of us a mature understanding, a mature knowledge, of ourselves. Religion won't let us be toddlers or teenagers once we've left those years behind. Following God, journeying into God's mystery, means journeying into our mystery. The purpose of religion is to help those who practise it to live free from denial, and our greatest denial is our denial of our fractured, fragile selves. Spend any time at all in the company of the living God and the blind rage, the naked fear, the frustrated ambition and the visceral pain that we all hold within ourselves become all-too visible. It's far easier to stay in the nursery with teddy. It's far easier to deny it - but religion won't let us. That's why the polls' findings alarm me. Religion is good for us. What will take its place? Amen.