I’m sure that anyone who’s read the Gospels will have noticed that the fourth Gospel, St John’s Gospel, is quite different to the other three. The Gospels of Ss Matthew, Mark and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they tell much the same stories and, taken together, they form a synopsis, a general summary of the life and earthly ministry of Jesus. St John’s Gospel though, stands apart from that because it tells many different stories and is much more theological in its portrayal of Jesus. There’s no uncertainty about who Jesus is in John’s Gospel, as there often is in the other Gospels. It begins by clearly stating that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God and ends by saying that the Gospel has been written so that the reader may believe in him.
One of the great differences between St John’s Gospel and the others is that St John doesn’t give an account of the Last Supper. There’s a scene in the Upper Room at supper where Jesus washes his disciples feet but rather than an account of the meal itself there’s a long speech by Jesus that we know as The Farewell Discourse, the final teaching that Jesus gave his disciples. But what we do have in John’s Gospel is the teaching that we’re reading in our Sunday Gospels at the moment, Jesus’ teaching that his body and blood are given for the life of the world and that we must eat his body and drink his blood if we wish to have life. So, while St John gives us no account of the Last Supper itself, no account of the institution of the Eucharist, what he does give us is this very explicit explanation of the meaning of the that meal and of the Eucharist.
Later in John’s Gospel, in The Farewell Discourse, Jesus tells us that his Church should be one, and we see the Eucharist as a symbol of that unity because through sharing bread and wine at the Eucharist, we unite our lives to his, and he unites his life to ours. We become one with him as he is one with the Father and in him we become one with each other. That’s why the well-known hymn O Thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray speaks of the Eucharist as ‘…this blessed sacrament of unity.’ But we know that, in spite of Jesus’ prayer for unity and in spite of the fact that Christians throughout the world share in the Eucharist, the Church is not one, it’s divided and Christians throughout the world seem to spend as much time arguing and falling out with each other as they do in being about the business of being disciples of Christ. And this morning’s Gospel tells us, in passing, why that is.
At the beginning of this morning’s Gospel we read this:
‘…the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
The bone of contention between ‘the Jews’ and Jesus here was his statement that he’d come down from heaven and that’s understandable. I’m sure if we met someone who told us that, we’d be reluctant to accept it too. But the real problem seems to have been not what Jesus said but who he was. These people knew Jesus; they knew his family. And their objection to what he said wasn’t put in terms of ‘How can anyone make such a claim?’ but rather in terms of ‘He’s just a carpenter’s son. Who does he think he is?’
And this is the root cause of our disunity; the way we treat other people because of who and what they are, or simply who and what we think they are. The lack of respect we show for them and what they say because of who and what they are, or we think they are. Our intolerance of others because they don’t think like we do. Our dismissive attitude towards others because, if they don’t think and act like we do, they must be wrong.
And how often do we come across situations like that in the Church? How often do we treat other people in the Church like that? Very often we treat newcomers to the Church in that way. I’m sure we’ve all seen it and heard it, and perhaps even been guilty of doing it. Someone new comes to our church, they point out something that’s not right, perhaps the way some people are behaving, and the response is a very indignant, ‘Who do they think they are? I’ve been coming to this church all my life; they’ve only been coming here for five minutes. What right have they got to tell us what to do? ‘ And so what that person says is ignored. But what they’ve said might very well be true. Just because they’ve only been coming to our church for ‘five minutes’ is neither here nor there. They may have been going to another church for just as long or perhaps even longer than we’ve been going to our church. And even if they are new to the Church, that’s no reason to dismiss what they say. One of the great things about people who are new to anything is that, because it is so new to them, they’re full of enthusiasm, they want to see things done in the right way. Because they’re new to it, they haven’t become jaded in any way by long exposure to problems and difficulties, and that means bitter experience hasn’t tempered their ideals.
Another group of people who’re often treated in that way are younger people and children. Our problem with what they might try to tell us is usually put in terms of ‘What do they know? They’re just kids.’ But even ‘kids’ can teach us a thing or two because they tend to look at things in a very idealistic way – this is what Jesus said so this is the way it should be and if we’re not doing it that way, we’re doing it wrong.
But we can also dismiss people and what they say because of their background. If we think someone has a bit of a shady past or has perhaps come from ‘a bad family’ we might not even want them in the Church. That’s the ‘We don’t want their sort here’ scenario. But that doesn’t allow for people’s willingness and ability to change, to put the past behind them and be different and better in the future. And what that kind of attitude most certainly does do is stop us from following Christ’s example of seeking out and saving the lost. But, as Christians, isn’t that exactly what we’re called to do?
Parish priests can suffer because of these kinds of attitudes too. Every parish priest I know, and ever have known, can tell stories of moving to a new parish and having to endure tales of how much more wonderful the last parish priest was than they are. Problems of trying to change anything because ‘Fr so and so never did this’ and then being told just what Fr so and so did do and that they should do the same. In most cases that’s as far as it goes, and most priests have broad enough shoulders and thick enough skin to cope with that. But there is always a small minority of people who are deeply resentful of the new parish priest and go out of their way to be awkward and obstructive, and at times deeply offensive towards them. They won’t even give the new priest a chance and for no other reason than they aren’t the last priest. But what this attitude shows an unwillingness to accept that we all have unique talents and just as the last priest had theirs, so the new one will have theirs, and they will have knowledge and skills that the last one didn’t. And just because the last priest did things a certain way, that doesn’t mean to say it was the best or only way to do them. Just because the last priest didn’t do something doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done, perhaps they should have been doing it.
These are problems that affect parishes and parish churches but the problems that affect the wider Church are simply these problem writ large; an unwillingness to accept that others may have a valid point of view, an inability to see that our way is not the only way, that others are not wrong simply because they don’t think and act the way we do. Perhaps above all, an uncharitable attitude towards others based on nothing more than who and what they are.
During my sabbatical I was studying mission and evangelism, especially in early medieval England, how the Church manged to convert the pagan Anglo Saxons to Christianity in a relatively short time span. One of the things that helped them do this was that Christianity was a centralised faith with clearly defined core beliefs that all Christians held to, wherever they were in the world. Paganism, on the other hand, was emotive and localised, it was about what the people in a particular place believed and their ways of doing things. For the Anglo Saxons, being part of that all-embracing faith and part of the Church meant greater cooperation with their neighbours and that led to greater security in a violent world. But, as we look at the Church today, even our own Anglican Church, don’t we see something more resembling medieval paganism than medieval Christianity? The Church splintering into self-interested groups who care more about their own ideas than the core teachings of the faith? And don’t we see Anglican parish churches acting more like independent local congregations than as part of an all-embracing, universal, Catholic Church which proclaims one Catholic faith in all places? Parish churches which act like local churches for local people who neither care what other churches are doing nor want outsiders joining their congregations.
The greatest asset the Church has is its people because we all have unique gifts to bring to the Church. We all also have a unique story to tell because our faith journeys are all unique. Each and everyone of us has faced unique challenges in life and our own unique way of living out our faith through those challenges. So we all have something to contribute to the Church and to give to each other. But we all have to be willing to give everyone the chance to tell their story, to offer what they have, by being prepared to listen to what everyone has to say, no matter who and what they are. So let’s listen to what others have to tell us. To newcomers to the Church and to our church. To children and young people. To new priests as well as old. To other denominations of the Church and to other parish churches and congregations. That is the way to become more united as a Church and that is the way to become more united with Christ because that is the way he said it should be among his disciples.
Amen.
Propers for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Trinity 11), 11th August 2024
Entrance Antiphon
Lord, be true to your covenant,
forget not the life of your poor ones forever.
Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
do not ignore the shouts of your enemies.
The Collect
O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 34:2-9
Ephesians 4:30-5:2
John 6:41-51
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 34:1-8
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 