Over the 40 plus years I’ve now been going to church, I’ve made many friends in many places and in a number of different churches. Unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with many of those friends over the years, partly because I’ve moved around from place to place, but also because many of them have died. One of the latter, and one of the best friends I’ve made over those years, was a man called Mike. Mike was an ex-paratrooper and a very straightforward and plain-speaking kind of man, and because of his plain-speaking ways, he was one of those characters whom people either liked or didn’t, and there wasn’t really any in between. And many people didn’t like him, including quite a few those who were members of the church we went to.
Because of his character, one of the things Mike really didn’t have any time for at all was hypocrisy, and, also because of his character, he had no qualms whatsoever in speaking up about hypocrisy when he saw it, and that included when he saw it amongst the members of our parish congregation. As you can imagine, that didn’t make Mike universally popular, in fact I know there were a number of people at the church who’d have been very happy to see the back of him. And from time to time, they got their wish because, from time to time, Mike would decide he’d had enough of ‘being part of hypocrisy’ as he put it, and would take a break from the church.
As I’ve said, Mike and I were friends so we’d still meet up during the times he was absent from church, but during those times, we had many conversations about this problem, the very real problem of hypocrisy in the Church and of how we should respond to it. My argument was that we shouldn’t let the hypocrisy of other people damage our personal relationship with God. Going to church was part of our response to our faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ and at that level, of our personal response to faith, it really doesn’t matter that other people are hypocrites, in fact at that level, it doesn’t matter if everyone else who goes to church is a hypocrite. At that level of personal response to faith, what matters is what we ourselves do; even if everyone else who goes to church is a hypocrite, that doesn’t mean we’re a hypocrite too, and it doesn’t mean we have to be one either.
That argument was usually enough to bring Mike back to church eventually, but it’s an undeniable fact that many, many people have left that Church, permanently, because of the hypocrisy of some members of the Church. It’s an undeniable fact that many, many people are put off the Church, and not only the Church but the Christian faith too, by the hypocrisy of Church members. And in a wider context, it’s an undeniable fact that many people are either turned away from faith or lose the faith they once had by the evil and suffering they see in the world. This has always been a problem for the Church, but I think what’s making this all the more of a problem these days is that the Church itself doesn’t only seem to expect this kind of thinking now, but seems to be almost condoning it in, of all people, the clergy.
I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when reports surfaced that the Archbishop of Canterbury had questioned the existence of God because of the problems and trouble he sees going on in the world. And I was reminded of it again just a few days ago when I was doing some preparatory work for the clergy safeguarding training which we all have to do from time to time, and which I’ll have to do over the next couple of weeks. Part of the work was listening to an online presentation about abuse, and this included some reports the cases of abuse that have taken place in the Church. One of the questions we were asked to think about was how these things have challenged our faith.
I must admit, I find that quite a puzzling question. My faith is in God and in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. My faith is not in any human being or institution, so why should the fact that some people who claim to hold the same faith as me, and yet have acted in ways that are abhorrent to the God I believe in, and in ways that are contrary to the teaching and example of the Lord and Saviour I believe in, challenge my faith? Why should the hypocrisy of some people in the Church, make me doubt God and doubt Christ? Did God abuse those concerned, or did un-Godly, hypocritical human beings abuse them? Did Christ tell his disciples to abuse others, or have un-Christian hypocrites who claim to be his disciples abused them in complete disobedience to Christ’s teaching and with no regard to or for his example? It’s the latter in both cases surely? So whilst these things may cause us to lose faith in human beings, and in some of those in the Church to live out the faith they profess, and whilst they may cause us to lose faith in the Church as an institution which has knowingly allowed these things to go on, and tried to cover them up, to save it’s own reputation, regardless of the cost to the victims, why should these things challenge our faith in God and Christ? Surely what is and should be in question is not our faith in a God and his Christ who tell us these things shouldn’t happen, but the faith, character and conduct of those human beings who’ve done these things anyway.
In his Letter to the Ephesians, St Pauls writes that God
‘…gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…’
Yet it seems that today, the Church actually expects even those who lead the Church to be tossed to and fro by the tumult of the waves; to question the very faith that we’re called to grow in and live by, on account of every wind of change, or example of human cunning, craftiness and deceit that we hear about. Is it any wonder then, that the Church is not growing?
This morning, in our readings, we heard three stories about faith. We heard about Isaiah’s commission as a prophet. We often call Isaiah THE prophet of Advent because he foretold the Messiah’s birth. And we find prophecies of the Messiah’s suffering and death for our salvation in Isaiah too, in those parts of his prophecy that we know as the Song of the Suffering Servant. As a prophet, Isaiah spoke out against the sins and faithlessness of the people and called them back to God so that they might be saved and, like all prophets, Isaiah suffered because his message. But does that fact that people were sinful and chose to remain sinful rather than heed Isaiah’s warning mean that we should doubt his message was from God? As Christians we believe that Isaiah’s prophecies have been fulfilled but if other people don’t, or act as though they don’t, does that mean we should start to doubt them too? Does the fact that some people don’t believe in Jesus, or say they do whilst acting as if they don’t, mean that we also have to doubt him, his Incarnation, his message and ministry, his death for our salvation, and his Resurrection which promises us eternal life? Surely not.
In our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul says:
‘I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.’
So why then should the Church today be asking us, if not actually expecting us, to doubt the Gospel? Because that is what the Church is doing if it’s asking or expecting us to question our faith. Why should we doubt the Gospel in which we stand and believe, and by which we’re being saved because of the evil of some people who don’t believe and so who don’t stand in or live by the Gospel?
Why should we question the means of our salvation because of the actions of those who are condemning themselves by their unbelief?
And in the Gospel, we heard the story of the great catch of fish. The meaning of the story is that, if we’re willing to do what Jesus tells us to do, we will draw people to faith, we will be fishers of men. But it’s us who have faith who are called to bring those who don’t have it, to faith. We’re not called to doubt and question our own faith because of the evil that men do, because of the un-Godly, un-Christian or hypocritical actions of the unfaithful. And if we do, then rather than us being fishers of men, we’ll be in danger of becoming the ones being fished. Rather than us dragging the unfaithful to life in Christ, we’ll be the ones who end up caught in their net, the net of the unfaithful, and we’ll be the ones in danger of being dragged away from Christ, and life, to death.
From a number of conversations I’ve had in recent years, I’m sure that by constantly asking and expecting us to question our faith in the light of the evil and suffering in the world, the Church thinks it’s helping us to ‘identify with the brokenness of the world’; that’s I phrase I’ve heard quite a lot of in recent times. But we’re already part of the brokenness of the world by virtue of the fact that we’re human beings who live in it. As Christians we’re called to help the world find a better way, a way to heal it’s brokenness. But how can we do that if we constantly, and publicly call into the question the very thing that we have to offer, our faith in a God who loves us come what may and in a Saviour who taught us that better way and who gave his life for us so that we might have eternal life?
We have a better way, and we can have eternal life, every single human being can have these things, but the price of these things is faith in the God and his Christ who offers them to us. So before we start to doubt and question our faith, let’s remember who it is who does the evil and causes the suffering in the world. It’s not God, it’s us, human beings. So why should we question and doubt him for what we ourselves have done and caused. It’s not Jesus who tells people to be evil and cause suffering, it’s us, human beings who do that against his wishes. So why should we question and doubt him because we can’t follow his teaching and example. So let’s remember that and remain faithful before we allow ourselves to be ‘tossed to and fro by the waves’ of the sinful actions of human beings and find that what we once believed was in vain because we’ve allowed others to catch us in their net, and drag us away from it.
Amen.
The Propers for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time (4th before Lent) can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 