Article
- Date:
- Sunday 23rd April 2023
Year A, The Third Sunday of Easter - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Cuckfield
- Service:
- Eucharist
- Readings:
- Haggai 1.13-2.9
1 Corinthians 3.10-17
"Who," asks Haggai "is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage." This is not a question about decline, asking people to remember better days. It is a question about what the Jewish world was like before the Temple was destroyed and the people exiled to Babylon. It is not dissimilar to such questions as: what was it like before Rome was sacked by the Vandals in 410? What was it like before Western Christians, who called themselves Crusaders, sacked Christian Byzantium exactly 1000 years later? Or what was it like before Martin Luther tore Western Christendom apart or, in more recent times, what was it like in that Glorious Summer of 1014, or what was it like before Allied soldiers liberated Nazi Concentration camps?
There is a sense in all these questions that things were possible before the catastrophe that were not possible afterwards, that some things had gone for good. And at least in Haggai's case the problem was primarily physical: if they all worked hard the returned exiles could rebuild the Temple and, given the progress in structural engineering since the time of Solomon, they might even build it better. That, anyway, was the hope. Sadly, the writers of the period and afterwards up until the wars of the Maccabees, saw issues in black and white terms, as a series of advances and setbacks based on the oscillating faithfulness and unfaithfulness of the people; they knew nothing of the subconscious nor of mental health, so it is impossible to gauge whether the builders were suffering from a sense of hopelessness as they painstakingly put one stone on top of another.
Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians has made an almost clean break from the Jewish state of mind to contemplate the building up of the new church in the name of Jesus. There were setbacks but these were turned into triumphs; there were martyrs but these became an inspiration for those who followed; and then the Roman persecution of Christianity turned into affirmation and for something like 1700 years institutional Christianity continued to grow until it was checked by Marxist and Fascist dictatorships and then, much more fatally but subtly, by late capitalist consumerism.
So, given the Great Commission from Jesus to the Apostles to preach the Good News to all nations, what should be our building strategy now?
In the first place, any building that is to last must be built on firm foundations; and for us that means Word, Sacrament and community.
Over the past two centuries, since reformers in the Church of England stemmed its decline and engineered growth in the industrial cities during the Victorian era, the Church has periodically mounted attempts at revival, the last of these being "Fresh Expressions" almost two decades ago. This has run into trouble on three counts: first, many traditionalists have felt that the Parish system is threatened by worship gatherings in pubs and community centres; Secondly, the attempt to reverse decline has been based, some say, on a managerial approach which resembles big business; but thirdly, and most critically in my view, what has been on offer is a very simplified doctrinal framework, based on re-birth, and a sentimental relationship with Jesus as the Redeemer of individual sins. This approach has tended to be suspicious of Biblical complexity, liturgical richness and the virtues of solemnity and silence. The individual relationship with Jesus has also tended to down-grade the importance of the external community except as a source of new recruits. People ignorant of or alienated from Christianity may be in need of profundity and beauty. These people are not necessarily so shallow that they can only handle an Alpha Course and the acceptance of their fundamental sinfulness.
The truth is, according to Saint Paul, that if the Church is not communal it is nothing. It is communal in the way that it interprets Scripture; it is communal in the way that it celebrates the Eucharist; and it is communal in the way that it worships God in Trinity. And with these virtues, it is communal in the way that it handles its relationships with the wider community.
Here, then, are three basic rules for building the community of Christ's Church:
- First, Word, Sacrament and Community are indivisible
- Secondly, we celebrate in Christ's Church and tell out the Good News because that is why we were created; and this way of living well, living a life of holiness, has nothing whatsoever to do with salvation which depends on Christ’s mercy alone
- Thirdly, living a holy life depends on the persistent pursuit of virtue, an understanding that nothing grand can be achieved unless we do the small things well.
We are not grand architects nor structural engineers, we are like those in Haggai who built patiently and without complaint, who saw something that needed doing and tried to do it.
We may be blessed in having a leader among us, or a leader in the higher echelons of the Church establishment, somebody who helps us to establish a better relationship with Christ, but for the most part we require persistence, not brilliance.
And what, after all, do we think we are doing? If Jesus wants his Church to be in a certain condition the Holy Spirit can engineer that in an instant; no grand plan, no management re-engineering, no sharp public relations campaign, can bring about what our leaders so badly want. Our only tools are a prayerful and generous life, where love is a confection of a multitude of small sacrifices, acts of trust, states of vulnerability and attempts at self-restraint.
For all we know, the Spirit may want us to be reduced to small communities, far from our grand buildings, acting as God's leaven in society; it may be our mission to return, almost literally, to the catacombs, to be an underground movement; the sacrifice demanded of us may be that we should give up not only our self-importance but even our importance. We may be called upon to suffer mockery, or even callousness and cruelty; we may be asked to choose between our comfort and our Christian commitment.
I do not know; but this I say in utter certainty: if we commit ourselves to a holy life in prayer and good works, in what we say and in what we refrain from saying; God will see His Church right; and us, too.