If I were to ask you, ‘What does it mean to be a Christian?’ I hope that everyone would answer that it means to be a disciple of Christ. And if I were to ask what that means, I hope that everyone would answer that it means to follow Christ by modelling our lives on his example, to be like Christ in so far as we’re able. But if I were to ask how we might go about that, then I think I’d start to get some rather different answers from people.
For example, I’ve heard many people describe Jesus as the first socialist and so for them, being a Christian is often about caring for people, especially for the weaker members of society. On the other hand, the Church of England has often been described as ‘the Tory Party at prayer’ and I don’t think I’d be wrong to say that most people who go to church in this country at least are small c conservatives. By that I don’t mean supporters of the Conservative Party, but that they’re conservative in their views; they don’t like change (and people have heard me speak about that often enough) they like to maintain traditions and traditional ways of doing things. So for many people, being a Christian has a lot to do with being what society thinks of as a good, upstanding citizen. Perhaps, dare I say, with being a ‘good’ person.
But therein lies a problem, and it’s a very big problem for us when it comes living out our faith and when it comes to teaching others the faith, to mission and evangelism. The answer to the question ‘What does it mean to be a Christian?’ can be very similar for many people, but when it comes to what that means in practice, to living out being a follower of Jesus Christ, the answers can become very subjective and more about what we think than about what Jesus said and did.
And I’m sure we’ve all come across this. How many people have we heard say that Christinas shouldn’t drink alcohol? Where does that come from? It’s certainly not from Jesus because he drank wine and if it is wrong to drink alcohol what kind of hypocrite was Jesus turning all that water into wine and then letting people who were already drunk, have even more to drink? When I used to ride on the speedway, I had a priest telling me it was wrong because competing against other people was un-Christian. I don’t recall ever reading that in the Gospel and in fact, St Paul uses athletic competition to help illustrate the way Christians should live. And what about that most awful of sayings among church going people,
‘We don’t want their sort here.’ But didn’t God send his Son into the world to save the world? He didn’t send him to save only those who we think are nice, respectable people did he? And we know that Jesus made a point of ministering to those whom his society thought were unrespectable, sinners, tax-collectors, lepers, prostitutes, the hated Romans and perhaps even more hated Samaritans. If we think about these things, we very soon realise that what people often can and do pass off as Christianity is actually nothing more than the standards and values of the society they live in and their own subjective opinions about what’s right and wrong, good and bad, worthy and unworthy. And how can we teach other people what it means to be a Christian if the example of our own lives is largely based on our own subjective views and opinions and on our own subjective version of Jesus and his teaching, rather than on the teaching and example of Christ himself?
But our subjective approach to Christianity doesn’t only hinder our efforts at mission and evangelism, it has a very detrimental effect on our discipleship too because we can take the same subjective approach towards sin.
If we are in any way serious about our faith, we won’t deny that we are sinners. But isn’t it true that we have a tendency to downplay our own sins? And we very often do that by comparing our sins to what we see as the far worse sins of others. So, for example, someone might annoy us to the extent that we think we’d like to punch them in the face. But we don’t actually do it. And to us in our subjective view of things, that makes us not so bad. We recognise that sin of thought, we know we shouldn’t think those things, but we absolve ourselves to some extent, or perhaps even completely, by thinking that at least we didn’t actually punch them in the face and that makes us a lot better than the person who turns that kind of though into action and does whack that annoying person in the face. But while some sins are worse than others, we can’t for example, compare even someone who does punch another person in the face with the crimes of Jack the Ripper, let alone of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. But nevertheless, sin is sin, and whatever the sin is, we shouldn’t be doing it. And we see this is what Jesus says to us in this morning’s Gospel.
We have to remember that, in Jesus’ day, misfortune was seen as a judgement and punishment from God on miscreants.
And so the people Jesus speaks of in the Gospel, the Galileans whose blood was shed and those crushed when the Tower of Siloam fell on them, would have been seen as terrible people whose fate had been handed out to them by God as their just deserts for their sins. But what Jesus says is that their sins, whatever they were, were no worse than anybody else’s. And he says to the crowd that unless they repent of their own sins, and again we’re not told what they were, they too would perish. And the meaning is clear. The punishment for sin is death, and it makes no difference what we think about the gravity of the sin, whatever our sins are, we all have to repent or die. And this makes it clear that we simply can’t afford to look at sin in a subjective way. We can’t say or think that we’ll be all right because our sins are not as bad as someone else’s sins. All sin is wrong, and all sin will be judged in the same way and carry the same sentence. And no matter how trivial or insignificant we think our sins are, and no matter how much better than others we think we are because of that, we all have to repent. We all have to seek forgiveness, repent and do our utmost to sin no more. The good news for us, is that we still have time to do that, and that’s the meaning of the parable of the fig tree at the end of this morning’s Gospel.
Strictly speaking, this is a parable about Israel. They are the unfruitful fig tree that’s about to be dug up because they’ve had ample time to bear fruit but hadn’t; they’d had ample time to repent, turn to the Lord and be saved, but hadn’t done it. The manure, although I hesitate to use such a word in connection, is Jesus, the Word made flesh who represents Israel’s last chance to turn from their sinful ways and bear fruit for God. But the parable applies to us too. We’ve all had time to repent, turn to the Lord and bear fruit. And I’m sure we all have borne fruit, but I’m equally sure that none of us has produced as much fruit as we might have done. But we still have time. And we can still be fertilised, shall I say, by Jesus. We can still be fed with God’s Word through listening to Jesus’ teaching and doing our best to follow his example. But time is running out. We might not be slaughtered on our way to church in the fashion of the Galileans in this morning’s Gospel. We might not be crushed to death by a falling building as those who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them were. But one day will be our last day and then our time for repentance, for turning to the Lord and bearing fruit so that we can be saved will be up. So if we want to be saved, the time for repentance is now, while we still have that time.
And as Jesus makes clear in this morning’s Gospel, it doesn’t matter how serious we think our sins are compared to anyone else’s, they are still sins and we still need to repent.
Just over a week ago I had my biannual Ministerial Development Review. That’s a one-on-one interview with a member of the senior clergy in the diocese, and among the things we discussed was the problem of proclaiming the faith and of being a parish priest at this time when we’re being constantly bombarded, it seems, with news of scandals in the Church, of curious and even dubious statements from senior Church leaders and in a time of great change for and in the Church which the majority of our small c conservative congregations aren’t happy about. And we agreed that, at our own local level, all we can do is be the very best that we can be. To be as faithful to the teaching and example of Christ as we can be. But we will only be that and can only be that if we get rid of that subjective approach to our faith and discipleship that actually is the root of so many of our problems, and we begin to look at Christ’s teaching and example objectively and indeed look at ourselves objectively in the light of Christ’s teaching and example. Or to put it another way, when we stop trying to bend Christ to our ways and bend ourselves to his way.
I said a little earlier that the majority of people who come to church are small c conservatives, people who by nature, don’t like change. But the Christian’s calling is to change, and above all to change ourselves from what we were and are into what Christ calls us to be, and God wants us to be. But we’ll only make that change if we can stop being so subjective in our understanding of our faith and in our living it out in our daily lives. So let’s try to be more objective in these things so that we can change, so that we can repent, turn to the Lord, bear fruit and be saved. So that, whatever is going on in the wider Church, people can look at us and say here, at least, are people who are worthy of the name ‘Christians’ people who understand the faith they preach and practice it. And let’s at least start to do that now, while we still have time.
Amen.
Propers for the 3rd Sunday of Lent, 23rd March 2025
Entrance Antiphon
My eyes are always on the Lord,
for he rescues my feet from the snare.
Turn to me and have mercy on me,
for I am alone and poor.
The Collect
O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness,
who in fasting, prayer and almsgiving have shown us a remedy for sin,
look graciously on this confession of our lowliness,
that we, who are bowed down by our conscience,
may always be lifted up by your mercy.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15
Psalm 103:1-4, 6-8, 11
1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12
Luke 13:1-9
Prayer after Communion
As we receive the pledge of things yet hidden in heaven,
and are nourished while still on earth with the Bread that comes from on high,
we humbly entreat you, O Lord,
that what is being brought about in us in mystery
may come to true completion.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 