It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that for many years now the Church has been adopting an increasingly secular business model of operating. One way we see this in the way the Church treats and staffs parishes. When a parish church goes into interregnum these days, there’s no guarantee that it will get another parish priest. Instead, it’s on the cards that it will be put into a united benefice or team ministry and have to share a priest with one or more other parishes. It could be, especially if it hasn’t paid parish share in full, the PCC of a parish church may come under pressure to close their church, for the good of the wider Church. And doesn’t this mirror the way unprofitable branches of secular businesses are treated? Because aren’t they subject to staff cuts, amalgamations and closures, and told it’s for the good of the business as a whole?
We see it too in the way the Church adopts policies taken from secular society. These days, it seems, if society sees fit to have a policy for something, the Church follows suit and produces one too. In the society we live in of course, some policies are required by law, but does the Church have to follow secular models when it produces policies? And how much does the Church pay people to produce them? And it seems that the Church isn’t only concerned about statutory and business practices when it comes to adopting policies because to many people in the Church today, it seems that the Church is far too keen and quick to jump on the bandwagon of every agenda item that today’s ‘woke culture’ throws up, and to produce a policy on that too.
Perhaps, before the Church goes any further down the secular, business, woke culture road it seems intent on following these days, before it goes so far down that road that it can’t turn back, it needs to stop and take some time to think and reflect. To take the time to think about what the Church is, what it is called to be, and what it is, in truth, becoming.
The Church is very keen to tell ordinands preparing for ordination to sacred ministry in the Church, and to tell the clergy too, that they must have, and practice, self-awareness. Ordinands and clergy are told repeatedly that they must strive to see themselves as others see them, and especially to try to see themselves in the light of Christ’s teaching and example. We’re told to seek the help of others to help us to do that. We have to complete Ministerial Development Reviews to help us to be more self-aware and Christ-like. And it’s expected of us that we have a spiritual director to help us to do these things on a more regular basis than the bi-annua MDR. But perhaps now is the time for the Church herself in the persons of those who lead the Church to practice some self-awareness and to seek help too.
Many people in the Church, both lay and ordained think it’s high time that the Church remembered that it is a Church and not a business. It’s high time that the Church remembered it is a Church and not a community aid organisation with Christian origins and religious trimmings. It’s high time that the Church remembered that it’s purpose for being is to call the world to the ways of Christ and not to lead Christ’s people into the ways of the world.
As important as finances and policies for people’s safety and well-being, and for justice and equality are, and those things are important, it’s high time that the Church remembered that it doesn’t need to follow the world’s lead in dealing with these things. It’s high time the Church remembered that it already has a policy for dealing with all these issues. The Church has had a policy for dealing with these things for 2,000 years. The Church was founded on that policy and it’s a policy that’s superior in scope and understanding to anything that human society has devised, or can ever devise, because it’s a policy that’s been given to us by God. The policy was given to us, in person, by God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, and it’s called the Gospel.
In our Gospel reading this morning we read the well-known story of Jesus calming the storm, not to mention the disciples fears. And we could liken the disciples situation in the Gospel to the situation the Church is in today. The disciples were out in a boat in stormy weather and rough seas, and they were frightened that the boat was going to sink. And we could say that the Church is in stormy weather and rough seas today, and many people are afraid that the Church is in danger of sinking. But I think we really do have to ask the extent to which the Church’s problems have been self-inflicted because, whilst in the Gospel, the disciples turn to Christ for help and salvation, can we really say the same has always been true of the Church? Isn’t it the case that often, and far too often, that Church has, and is, looking to the world for solutions to its difficulties?
The Church, certainly in our time and place, is obsessed with money, and I don’t think obsessed is too strong a word to use. The Church is quite open today that the way it operates is driven by concerns about money. But isn’t the Church supposed to follow Christ’s example? And didn’t Jesus drive the money men out of the temple saying that they had turned his Father’s house, a house of prayer for the nations, into a marketplace and a den of thieves?
These days, the Church is quite open in saying that the way it treats and staffs parishes is driven by concerns about money. This coming week a local parish priest will be ‘welcomed’ as the incumbent of 2 parishes in north Manchester, though I should say as incumbent of 2 more parishes because he already has one parish in this diocese. 3 years ago, when my wife, Diane, and I were on holiday, we visited a well-known, world-famous, in fact, medieval market town in the West Midlands. When we visited the parish church there, we noticed the ‘Who’s Who’ board in the entrance which showed that, in addition to a parish priest and a curate, they also had 1 assistant priest and 8 associate priests attached to the parish. World famous medieval market town: 1 parish – 11 clergy. North Manchester: 3 parishes – 1 priest. And yet don’t we read in the Gospel that Jesus and his disciples had a common purse? And don’t we read that in the Acts of the Apostles that the early Church shared all things, everything they had, in common? The Church has a lot to say these days abut justice and equality, is that situation I’ve just described just or equitable?
One of the most shameful things that has gone on in the Church is the way people, especially young people have been abused over the years. What’s even more shameful is the fact that those in authority in the Church have known about it and covered it up. And so, understandably now these things have come to light, the Church is very keen on safeguarding, and all parishes have to have a safeguarding policy and safeguarding officer. But hasn’t the Church always had those things? Aren’t we all, each and every one of us, safeguarding officers? And haven’t we always been? Because didn’t Jesus say,
“… whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Doesn’t the core of the Gospel, the great commandment to love your neighbour as yourself more than adequately serve as a safeguarding policy to prevent these things happening? It does as long as it’s observed. That the Church’s little ones have been abused, that the Church has known about it and done nothing except try to cover it up, is ample evidence that the Church has had total disregard for this, its own God-given, Gospel safeguarding policy.
And doesn’t the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself also more than adequately serve as a policy on justice and equality? How can there be injustice and inequality if we really do love our neighbour as much as we love ourselves? And if the Church needs that to be explained more clearly, then it’s simply a matter of reading St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians where he writes,
‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’
I think the truth of the matter is, that many of the Church’s problems are, to some extent at least, self-inflicted because they stem from the Church’s own hypocrisy. They stem from the Church ignoring or paying little more than lip service to Christ’s teaching and example. At one time, because the Church was held in such high regard and with such respect, the Church could get away with that. But these days, it isn’t and can’t get away with it any longer. And because the world is criticising the Church and holding it, and its leaders especially, up to the light of the world’s scrutiny, the Church and its leaders are trying to appease the world by doing what the world wants it to do. But the Church can’t do that without further compromising the Gospel.
This morning’s Gospel reading calls to mind another story about a time when the disciples were at sea in stormy weather, the time they saw Jesus walking on the water. St Matthew tells us that Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus but, as soon as he saw the wind, in other words, as soon as he became more concerned with the things going on around him than with Jesus, he took his eyes and mind off Jesus, and began to sink. Then, when he called on Jesus again, Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and out of danger. Perhaps that is a lesson the Church is in urgent need of being reminded of and taking to heart. That the answer to the Church’s problems doesn’t lie in concentrating on what’s going on in the world and copying the world’s ways and policies, but in turning back to Jesus and to the Gospel.
If the Church continues as it has been doing in recent times and continues further along the road towards adopting a secular business model of operating; if it continues to adopt secular policies and a woke culture agenda; and especially if it continues to do these things in preference to returning to Christ and the Gospel, I think there are many people, both inside the Church and outside, who will feel perfectly justified in echoing the words of Jesus we read in this morning’s Gospel. They will feel, and indeed will be, perfectly justified in asking he Church and its leaders, ‘Why are you so frightened? Where is your faith? And they will also, those in the Church especially, be perfectly justified in expecting the Church and its leaders to give them an honest answer.
Amen.
The Propers for the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 