Christ the King,25 November 2012

"There are female bishops in heaven, where God's really in charge. It's slower than it should be, but it'll come". A Facebook post by Frances, a Roman Catholic teenager whose mother is training to be an Anglican priest, offers us a richly textured reflection for the last week of the church's year.

According to the infamous atheist bus that can still be seen on our streets it's all much simpler than Frances would allow. 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life'. In his recent book Unapologetic (of which I'm an unapologetic fan) another Francis, Spufford, reserves some of his very considerable appetite for scorn for that bus and for its message. Paraphrasing him, to suggest that human life is something to be enjoyed is to turn human life into a tub of Ben & Jerry's or an episode of The Archers. Those are things to be enjoyed. But life has rather more flavours than a scoop of Caramel Choo  Choo and rather more depth than thirteen minutes of the nation's favourite radio soap.

For example, I spent last week in a Benedictine monastery. The chief work of monks and nuns is the worship of God. The divine Offices are sung with beauty and reverence from before the sun has risen until after it has set. It is a place of profound peace. But not just of peace. New doors have been fitted to the buildings, and the storms of last week revealed that they have not been fitted terribly well. So no sooner is the divine Office finished than members of the community roll up the sleeves of their habits, climb stepladders, and wield Stanley knives in an attempt to ease the hinges. I hope they enjoy their work and I hope they enjoy their prayer, but the one verb scarcely does justice to both. More is asked of them, and more is asked of us.

Various verbs are likewise needed to describe our membership of the Church of England. We know that, locally, church works. Here at St Peter's prayers are said, worship is offered and on the portico and in the playground community is built in a fashion that we are proud to call inclusive. Yet we also know that, nationally, church looks a bit different. At the end of a week like this week, it looks absurd. Even if we rejoice that our ecclesiology allows a handful of lay people to thwart the avowed wishes of their bishops (and I do rejoice in that - there are other ecclesiologies and other churches in which it could not even begin to be possible); even if we rejoice that the Church of England still manages to form Christians who are capable of thinking and voting counter-culturally (and I rejoice in that too - on the whole we're not brilliant at it, particularly when it comes to issues of wealth creation and redistribution); even if we rejoice in these things we are left with a episcopate which is theologically incoherent and a public profile which is utterly discredited. We still belong to St Peter's Eaton Square, and we still belong to the national Church. Yet our belonging to each is of a different order. It requires different things of us and makes different claims upon us.

And today's feast reinforces what Frances identifies, our need to live at different speeds and to face in different directions. Our year ends with the proclamation that Christ is King. He is risen from the dead; he has ascended into heaven; he reigns supreme over all things and in him will all things be made new. Yet we who proclaim his kingship know at the same time that evidence in support of our proclamation is often hard to find. The planet is disfigured by war, poverty and injustice. The king appears sadly negligent of his kingdom. Enjoy your life? We need a better formula.

It is provided by our understanding of who we are. We are dust, made of the same elements that make the world we inhabit. We share with our fellow creatures a capacity for enjoyment and for its opposite. Yet we are more than dust, too. We bear within us a spark of divine life that is heaven-sent; it is this that we will kindle in Thomas and in Sofia today. Christ's kingdom is not of this world. So we are made to fix the door hinges - and we are made to sing God's praises. We are made to share the common life of St Peter's - and we are made to pray for, live alongside and love our brothers and sisters who conceive of God's church rather differently. We are made to be citizens of Westminster - and we are made to be citizens of Christ's kingdom. We are called to tend the spark within us until it burns so brightly that when our neighbours see us they see heaven's fire.

So I want Thomas and Sofia to enjoy their lives; I want all of us to enjoy the year before us; and I want to see women bishops as soon as possible. But I want more than that. I want God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven; I want us to attend to the truth that comes from Christ; I want us to allow it to shape us, mould us and ultimately engulf us. "The Son of God became the son of man"

writes Irenaeus "that man might become the son of God". It's a rather more ambitious proposal than the atheist bus allows. Amen.

Second Sunday before Advent, 18 November 2012

 Is 'Skyfall' a serious contender for the title of 'best Bond film ever'? I think it is. The performances are excellent. The chases are fast. The fight scenes are thrilling. There are Komodo dragons, a blissfully limited amount of passionate slush, and one perfectly timed but utterly unacknowledged dry Martini. But there is also a story of two men who have been betrayed.

One of the two is Silva, a languidly creepy villain, portrayed without any trace of a white pussy cat. He is one of Britain's top agents stationed in Hong Kong. M, played again by Judi Dench, hands him over to the Chinese before the territory reverts. Silva is part of the price she's willing to pay for a trouble-free transition. The other is Bond, James Bond. At the beginning of the film he wrestles with a terrorist on the roof of a moving train. Another British agent has the chance to take one shot. But the sightline is not clear. Bond's writhing form flits in and out of the crosshairs. 'Take the shot' says M. She betrays him, just as she betrays Silva. Adamantine certainty crumbles.

The mighty stones of Jerusalem's Temple must have looked like a certainty far more reliable and far less fickle than M's loyalty. Their massive weight betokened God's commitment to his people Israel. This was the place where he had elected to dwell, at the very heart of his chosen people. "What large stones and what large buildings!" exclaim the fishermen from Galilee who have come up to the big city. Jesus's response must shock them to the core. "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down". Jesus predicts the inversion of all certainties. He predicts the overthrow of everything that the disciples - everything that the Israelites - believe and trust. "Take the shot" says M. Jesus takes aim at what is dearest to his people, and squeezes the trigger.

Jada and Lorian are being baptized in a landscape that bears an eerie resemblance to that inhabited by Silva and Bond. Just as betrayed secret agents must learn to live without the biggest certainty of their professional lives, so Jada and Lorian, and all of us are learning to live without the certainties with which we have long lived. A global  geopolitical settlement that prevailed for decades has collapsed. Religion has re-acquired its medieval potential for terror. The fragile planet creaks under the burden of unlimited growth. The Internet has revolutionized our communication. Like Silva and like Bond we live on the other side of certainty, in a place where the stones of the temple have been thrown down.

So how do they cope? I don't think I'm giving anything away if I tell you that Bond survives. The future of the franchise is assured. Silva longs for revenge. With fiendish ingenuity he plots M's destruction from his island hideaway. The only agent capable of thwarting him is, of course, 007. And Bond cannot resist the call. After the railway shooting he embarks on a lengthy binge in a tropical paradise, but when England is threatened he cannot but return.

Silva's response is nihilistic despair; Bond's is unquestioning patriotism. But what is ours? The Gospel does not offer a plan for our uncertain times. It has much to say about many of the crises that affect us: about the destructive power of greed; about the centrality of forgiveness; about the virtue of self-giving in place of self-serving. But it does not offer one comprehensive route-map out of them. The prophet Daniel foresees a time of anguish. The prophet Jesus foresees wars and rumours of wars. The prophets of political and economic punditry foresee protracted recession, global warming and intractable strife in the Middle East. And what God offers is not the sort of neat solution that Q Division is tasked with dreaming up. Baptism is not the sacramental equivalent of a bio-hazard suit that can be concealed inside a cigarette lighter. It will not shield its wearers against everything that they encounter. What God offers is far more intuitive than that. It is the deadliest secret weapon of all. What God offers is companionship.

Secret agents are probably the loneliest people on the planet. I can't help wondering if that accounts for the success and the longevity of the Bond series. I wonder if in Bond's aloneness we see our own aloneness: a far more exotic version of it, obviously, one that is full of beautiful women, gorgeous locations and world-saving secrets. But Silva and Bond are fundamentally alone. In their possession of state secrets, in the small hours of the morning, or as they confront death, they have only their hatred of England and their pride in England for company. They are like us. No matter how strong our relationships are we ultimately face the perils of the post-certain world by ourselves. Which is why God offers what God offers in baptism. God offers it because only God can offer it, and what God offers is what we need above all else. The only one who can be with us in our aloneness is the one who is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, the one who promises to be with us to skyfall and beyond. Amen.

  

All Saints Sunday, 4 November 2012

When we were children my sister possessed a good singing voice and enough confidence to use it when the occasion demanded. In church she sang lustily. The problem was that the only hymn she knew was 'We plough the fields and scatter'. Whatever the season and whatever the hymn chosen for it, that is what she would sing. Loudly.

What we sing in church matters, and the day on which we sing it matters too. On one Sunday of the year my sister's choice could not be faulted. On every other Sunday it would have jarred horribly had she not been three years old. Some hymns simply belong on some days. It's impossible to conceive of Palm Sunday without 'Ride on, ride on' or of Pentecost without 'Come down, O love divine'. And, for me at least, it's impossible to conceive of All Saints without 'For all the saints'.

Why is that? It part it's sentiment, of course. That hymn has ushered in every All Saintstide that I can remember and is as much a part of this time of year as fireworks, poppies, and the church heating not working. In part it's that it's dear to any priest who has ever worked as a bishop's chaplain. Our motto is 'We feebly struggle, they in glory shine'. But it's the combination of William Walsham How's words and Vaughan Williams's tune which have assured the hymn its place in the pantheon of classics. It will surely be sung for as long as hymns are sung. 

The words. How was a nineteenth century Shropshire parish priest and a rather reluctant bishop, and in 'For all the saints' he sketches out for the church he served the essence of saintliness. The saints are not principally those who have done great things or thought great thoughts. The saints are, first, those who have confessed the name of Jesus before the world. They are those whose witness to the name of Jesus has been costly. How characterizes saintliness in bellicose terms. Saintliness is a well-fought fight; there is fierce strife and warfare long.  He published the hymn in 1864, when the American Civil War was at its height and the forces of the British Empire were engaged against the Ashanti. Today it is almost always sung a week before Remembrance Sunday, when images of men huddled in their trenches are fresh in our minds. Then and now the image of saintliness as struggle resonates deeply with those who sing the hymn.

Yet, secondly, this struggle, the struggle of saintliness, is not a struggle fought in vain, for the saints are rewarded with rest. After the noble fight comes the golden evening and the sweet calm of Paradise. But if this sounds like a rather individualistic account of the Christian life - sainthood as a tough job well done with an an appropriate recompense attached - then How envisages more.

Thirdly 'But lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day; the saints triumphant rise in bright array...' Beyond the struggles of the saints, beyond their costly witness and beyond the martyrdoms of centuries there comes a day when the King of Glory makes all things new, gathering the faithful from earth's wide bounds and ocean's farthest coast. So How sets before the church the vocation of the saints, the consolation of the saints, and the hope of the saints: the vocation of the church, the consolation of the church, and the hope of the church.

The music. Vaughan Williams entitled his tune 'Sine Nomine', as it was destined for the feast when all the saints are honoured but none are named. I know I'll be corrected if I'm wrong but it's written in four-four time and so could - I think - be played as a march. It was certainly intended as a processional, and the adjective 'rousing' could have been invented to describe it. It's not just soldiers who march, of course. Civil rights campaigners march; ban-the-bomb protestors march; anti-poverty agitators march. People march with a common purpose. They may be diverse in almost every respect, they may be a countless host, but the cause unites them and makes them one. And a march - any sort of march -  is a good metaphor for the life of a saint: never static, but always advancing, in the company of others, in knowledge of God and obedience to his call.

And perhaps it is this that accounts for the status of 'For all the saints'. The words are theologically coherent (which cannot be said of every hymn), and the tune is a good sing (ditto). But, more important than either is that 'For all the saints' enables the church to become a part of the reality that it's singing about. When the struggle of sainthood is at its darkest, writes How, the distant triumph song can already be heard. The times may seem bleak and hope may seem impossible, but the embattled saints are already on the side of the victors. Desmond Tutu says 'We used to say to the apartheid government "you may have all the guns, you may have all this power, but you have already lost. Come, join the winning side!"' The same is true of the saints, and the same is true of us. When we sing Alleluia to Father, Son and Holy Ghost we are not just exercising our lungs, or politely doing what custom expects of us at this time of year. We are adding our voices to those of the blest communion. We are claiming our place among the fellowship divine. We are singing because they are singing, and they are singing because they know they've won. '...All are one in thee, for all are thine'. They are singing us home - in a song that will never end. Amen.