Article
- Date:
- Sunday 14th February 2021
Year B, The Sunday next before Lent - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint
- Service:
- Service of the Word
- Readings:
- Mark 9.2-9
We live in a validation culture: quite why we think a detergent will be effective because a film star says so, I have never worked out; and what has a football superstar got to say about insurance policies? But clearly this nonsense works, and it works because we are foolish enough to go along with it. On both sides of the Atlantic, after all, we have had heads of state who made their names in television entertainment.
At a more serious level, celebrity has been an important part of cultural endorsement such that, for example, many pieces were attributed to famous composers, such as Josquin Desires, Bach and Mozart, by minor composers in order to get publishing contracts; the misappropriation didn't make the music any better, but there we are. And there are many ghost-written autobiographies of the famous. We are, it seems, often more committed to celebrity than to substance.
Elijah was that kind of person. His name weaves in and out of the history of the chosen people such that some people thought that he would return to earth to be the herald of the Messiah; this was because he never actually died on earth but was carried into heaven. He was therefore the source of glamorous credentials. Moses, on the other hand, was the sort of man on whom you could bet the farm. Of all the personalities of the Old Testament, even surpassing Abraham, Moses was the main man, in spite of the theologically spiteful way in which he was denied entry into the Promised Land
So here we are, the inner cabinet, at the top of the mountain where Jesus transfigures himself to reveal something of his heavenly glory, accompanied by the most solid and the most glamorous of men. We should be, and we are, impressed. Our spokesman suggests, as an act of reverence, celebrating the auspicious occasion by providing shade in holy booths, similar to those for the Festival of Tabernacles, or Sukkot which celebrates the end of the forty years of wandering in the desert. We see Jesus, our leader, in the presence of the miraculously spiritual and the Scripturally authoritative.
Down from the mountain, as ordinary human beings, the story fades over the millennia until we hardly know what to make of it, except to say that it signifies continuity between the history of the Chosen People and the Messianic mission of Jesus. All well and good, but the real point of the Transfiguration is the hegemony of the mystical and the magnificence of the Law.
It is dangerous to make generalisations about cultures but, from our documented history, it is relatively safe to say that the history of British Christianity in the last five hundred years has been one of theological pragmatism, sometimes amounting to desiccation. We do not, as a whole, like the Elijah brand, the mystery, ritual or emotion in our religion; we have established a perfectly good working relationship with the Almighty, set out clearly in the Book of Common Prayer and there's an end of it; we leave the Elijah branding, the mystery and the pilgrimages and the processions to others with, I think, a certain degree of distaste. The problem with this approach is that it tends, if we are not careful, to put us on a pragmatic level with the Almighty which, in turn, leads to pride and the reduction of Jesus to our terms.
This rather flat-footed way of "doing God" ought, in principle, to make us more comfortable with the Moses brand, with The Law but I am not sure we are any better. It used to be said of us that we were quintessentially law-abiding, that that was one of our great national virtues. Now, I am not sure because it seems to me that a distinction has grown up between the powerful who make and break the laws and the powerless who are supposed to keep them. During the pandemic it is quite remarkable how people have argued themselves into justifications for bending the Law to their own advantage, regardless of what this might mean for the protection of other people.
The virtue of the Law is not, as is often thought, that it sets out punishment tariffs for infraction; its virtue, from Moses until today is that it is a set of standards which guarantee that we are all treated equally, not identically of course, but equally, which is why Law, whether its source is religious or secular, is the foundation of community.
Let me, then, end by saying two things which arise from these reflections: first, submission to the Law, even if we do not like it, or understand it, or think it is an ass, or think we know better, is a fundamental obligation which can only be abridged by open, clear, principled proposals for reform; unjust laws lead to unjust communities but to make principled objection is quite different from bending the law for personal advantage. Secondly - and I think this has come out clearly during the past year - desiccated ritualism makes for a poor spiritual diet. Sitting alone in my room with my prayer book has shown me that much of what is familiar is rather mundane, that no matter how beautiful Cranmer's prose might be, it lacks theological flair, excitement and creativity, it lacks the sense that we are sharing in the divine love, the sense that we have something to give. There is a world of difference between being humble and being helpless, being imperfect and being fatalistic, being obedient and being thoughtlessly repetitive.
So there we were on the mountain, the mystical, the legal and above all, in Jesus, the compassionately practical. not quite in the same league as faith, hope and charity, but important nonetheless.