During the time that I was thinking about offering myself for ordination, the diocese of Blackburn, under whose jurisdiction and care I was then under, were running an educational course called God our Rock, subtitled, Foundations for Christian Living. It was a course that anyone could enrol on and take but it was especially recommended to anyone who, like myself at that time, was thinking about offering themselves for any kind of authorised ministry, whether that was lay or ordained. It was a course you could take in two ways. You could either simply attend the weekly sessions or you could take the course with assessment. The latter option was the one recommended for those considering putting themselves forward for Church ministry and so that was the way I decided to take the course.

The course itself was split into 3 parts; God’s People, God’s Church, and God’s Book and for those who were being assessed, there was an essay to write for each part of the course. There was no marking involved but there was feedback given on the essays and at the end all those who’d completed the course received a certificate which stated that they’d either completed the course, or that they’d completed the course with assessment. I still have the essays I wrote for that course at home and so it’s quite easy for me to remember that the essay I wrote for the first part of the course, God’s People, was in answer to the question, ‘Does being a Christian mean being a doormat?’

A doormat, of course, as we all know, is a small mat that people place immediately in front of the doors to their homes; they’re there for people to wipe their feet on so that they don’t bring dirt they’ve picked up on their feet from the street, into people’s homes. But in the sense in which it was meant in that essay question, a doormat, as again I’m sure you all know, refers to a submissive person who allows other people to treat them badly without complaining or attempting to defend themselves. In that sense, it refers to someone who allows other people to walk all over them in the same way that everyone who enters a house, walks on the mat in front of the door. 

I don’t know what your immediate reaction was to that question. But even if you answer was the same as the answer I gave in my essay, ‘No’, it is a question that does, sometimes, need to be asked and answered. It needs to be asked and answered because some people, both inside the Church and outside the Church seem to answer that question with a ‘Yes’.

I’ve met people who’ve criticised Christians for being ‘doormats’. People who, in a sense, have despised Christians for being ‘doormats’ and for not standing up for themselves. People who have said that if being a Christian is about letting people walk all over you, they’re not interested because there’s no way they’d ever let anyone treat them in the way that Christians let others treat them. I’ve also met people in the Church who, whilst I’m sure they would never have thought of themselves as ‘doormats’ have, to all intents and purposes, allowed themselves to be used as such because, no matter how badly others treated them, they would never complain or stand up for themselves. And invariably, in my experience, people who allowed themselves to be treated in this way have allowed it because they wanted to avoid conflicts and arguments.

I’m sure that none of us wants conflict, especially in the Church. I’m sure that none of us want to get into arguments with other people, again, especially in the Church. But does that mean then, that to be a Christian we have to be a ‘doormat’? Does it mean it’s ok for Christians to allow themselves to be treated as ‘doormats’?

To be a Christian, of course, means to be Christ like. So if we want to know if being a Christian means being a ‘doormat’, we have to ask whether Jesus himself was a ‘doormat’. And for some people, in a sense, the answer seems to be ‘Yes’. There’s no doubt that Jesus did allow himself to be misused and abused in the most terrible way. There’s no doubt Jesus did that without complaint or any real attempt at self-defence. But, before we think that makes it necessary, or even ok for Christians to be ‘doormats’, we have to look at Jesus life, his ministry and example as a whole. And we have to put his suffering into its proper context.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus teaches his disciples about what is going to happen to him:

‘… that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.’

And Peter, at least, isn’t too impressed by what Jesus has told them. In fact, he tells Jesus in no uncertain terms that he’s wrong. Perhaps we could say that Peter was having a go at Jesus for suggesting he was going to allow himself to be treated as a ‘doormat’. But Jesus tells Peter that he’s the one who’s got it wrong because he’s only thinking in human terms, not in God’s terms. In fact, Jesus actually calls Peter, ‘Satan’, the evil one, the devil.

If we look at this encounter between Jesus and Peter as a simple story, what do we see? It’s an argument. Jesus says something Peter disagrees with, he tells Jesus he’s wrong, and in response Jesus tells Peter it’s him who’s got it wrong, and in the process, he resorts to name-calling, to abuse and insult.  That’s hardly the response of a ‘doormat’ is it? And if we look at the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry as a whole, how many times do we find him arguing with people and engaging in name-calling and trading insults? How often did Jesus, in response to some attack or criticism from the Pharisees respond with an extremely erudite answer, but one that was laden with biting insults? Just think of what Jesus called them.

Fools, although a more accurate translation of the Greek would be ‘moron’ and, given what the Scriptures say about fools, that they say there is no God, immoral morons at that. Snakes and brood of vipers, people today might express the same sentiment by saying someone was ‘poisonous’. Hypocrites. That was a common insult Jesus used but the original meaning of the word isn’t what we often think it is. Originally, a hypocrite wasn’t someone who didn’t practice what they preached; a hypocrite was an actor. So, when Jesus called the Pharisees ‘hypocrites’, he was probably saying that they were people who were all show and no substance. People who didn’t really take their faith seriously but just liked to play the part. So they were ‘whitewashed sepulchres’, all white and lovely on the outside, but full of death, filth and corruption on the inside.

These are hardly the words and actions of a person we would call a ‘doormat’ are they? In fact, Jesus was anything but a ‘doormat’. He was perfectly capable of standing up for himself against anyone, and he was perfectly willing to do it too. And as we look at Jesus’ ministry as a whole, we find that only once did he allow himself to be used and abused without any complaint or attempt at self-defence. That was in the final hours of his life; when the time that he’d often called ‘his hour’ finally came. Only then did he allow himself to be used as a ‘doormat’, and then, only to fulfil the Scriptures in obedience to God. When the time had come for him to be the ‘Suffering Servant’ of Isaiah’s prophecies whom we read about this morning, of whom Isaiah said,

The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backwards. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

The one of whom Isaiah also prophesied,

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 

I think sometimes, some Christians, perhaps many Christians, look at those final hours of Jesus’ life and take that as the only example we’re called to follow; an example to suffer abuse and misuse without complaining and without any attempts at self-defence. And so, sometimes Christians do allow themselves to be treated as ‘doormats’. But that is only part of the example Jesus gave us and it’s not an example to suffer in silence for the sake of it, but to suffer in silence only if our suffering in silence brings about some greater good. Jesus also left us another example to follow; an example to stand up for what’s right and to speak out against what’s wrong; an example to defend ourselves against malicious and unwarranted attacks from others, even if that means having to argue with them, and if their ways are human ways and not God’s ways, to criticise them for their ways.

Christians are not called to be ‘doormats’ because Jesus himself wasn’t a ‘doormat’, for anyone. And so, far from simply enduring wrong and suffering in silence, we’re called to stand up for ourselves and speak out in protest whenever and wherever we see God’s ways ignored. And, while we may not want to be involved in or see conflict and arguments within the Church, it is perhaps especially in the Church where we need to do that. To do as Jesus himself did and speak out in complaint and protest whenever and wherever we see people, especially in the Church, and even the Church itself, thinking and acting in human ways rather than God’s ways.

Amen.

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The Propers for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Trinity 15) can be viewed here.

A few days ago, I had a visit from my daughter and her children. In many ways it was a visit that said a lot about how different generations of people like and do different things. When I used to visit my grandparents, myself and my sisters would talk to them and play board games or cards and dominoes with them. This week, within 10 minutes or so of arriving at the vicarage, and starting with the youngest, who’s 9, my grandchildren started to make their way to one of the bedrooms where they all sat, in separate chairs, playing on their mobile phones for the rest of the visit, while my daughter and I sat downstairs talking.

One of the things we talked about were some of the films and TV programmes we each like to watch or have watched. I must admit that I’d never even heard of some the TV programmes my daughter mentioned, and most of those I had heard of I’ve rarely, if ever, watched. One of those programmes that came up in the conversation was Big Brother. I know that Big Brother was a very popular programme for many years, but I only ever watched a part of one of the early episodes before I decided that there must be lots of better things I could do with my time. My daughter, who used to watch it regularly, asked why I didn’t like it. I told her that I didn’t really have any interest in watching people act in an outrageous, and often obnoxious, way simply because they wanted to draw attention to themselves in their pursuit of celebrity and all that goes with that. My daughter agreed with my summing up of what the programme seemed to have been about, but said she liked to watch it, nonetheless.

I think that a programme like Big Brother could have been made, that there were plenty of people wiling to ‘enter the house’, as I think the saying went, and that it was so popular, says something about the society we live in. It used to be said the Britain was a ‘class-ridden’ society, a society that was ordered and run according to social status and in Britain’s case, there were 3 social orders of people which were known as the upper, middle, and working classes of people. I’m sure we all know that. But today, I think our society is more concerned with celebrity than anything else. And I think there’s very good reason for that.

In a society run and structured on social class, it’s quite natural that those in a lower class would aspire to be a member of one of the higher classes. For one thing, that brings the higher standard of living that I’m sure we’d all like. At one time that would have been very difficult if not impossible for most people to achieve but in today’s society, people can achieve a very high standard of living no matter what class they were born into, and one way to do that is by becoming famous. Because, in today’s society, fame can bring great rewards and give people a standard of living that, in the past, only the higher classes of people could ever have hoped to enjoy. And so, we have what’s often called a cult of celebrity in today’s society and we have programmes like Big Brother and no shortage of people who are willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of how unpleasant it might be, to achieve fame and fortune by becoming a celebrity.

But as well as fame and fortune, something else that comes with celebrity, something that again, was reserved for the higher classes in the past, is the amount of influence in society it can give to a person. And I think, in today’s society, celebrity seems to be more important than anything else to those who want to influence society. The rise of populist politicians is one way to see that. How many people, for example, when they voted in the last general election, said they voted for the Tories or Conservatives? And when they talk about what’s going on in the country today, how many people talk about the Tories, or the Conservatives, or the government? When they voted and when they talk about these things, don’t most people rather simply say Boris? They voted for Boris: Boris has done this; Boris has done that. One example of the cult of celebrity.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the rich and the famous, what we once called the higher classes, and these days, celebrities too, are treated differently, and far better, than other people in our society. In addition to the greater wealth and better standard of living they enjoy; they’re listened to more than others in our society. That may be understandable when it happens in society generally, it’s less understandable when it happens in the Church. And yet both historically, and still today, it has and does happen.

Historically speaking, I think the Church’s attitude towards social status and class can be summed up in a verse from a well-known hymn that is never printed in hymn books today. The hymn is All Things Bright and Beautiful and when it was originally written, in 1848, it contained this verse:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

The implication of those words is clear; whatever state, or social class a person was born into, that is how God intended them to be. That person then, was not to seek to improve their lot, but to simply be a good Christian and to be happy in whatever social position God had put them in. By implication too, any social climbing, any attempt to change your lot in life, was to go against God’s will and purpose and to invite divine retribution on yourself.

As I said, we don’t sing that verse of the hymn these days but that doesn’t mean the Church has rid itself of this kind of attitude towards social status. All Things Bright and Beautiful was written over 170 years ago. I was ordained less than 20 years ago and yet I’ve been in parishes where they still reserved pews for people based on their social class. And if any member of the hoi polloi should sit in one, even by mistake, they would very quickly and be told by a churchwarden to move and sit somewhere else.

That’s one parish, but the wider Church can still be every bit as prejudiced when it comes to social class and status. Another parish I know well went into interregnum this Easter when their vicar retired. They had a new vicar by July, so the parish was in interregnum for about 3 months. How long was this parish in interregnum? Could the urgency with which the appointment of a new incumbent for the parish I’m talking about was treated possibly have something to do with the fact that it has a mega bank balance (and I use word mega in its true sense, let the reader understand), and where the congregation is predominantly made up of professional people such, doctors, barristers and solicitors, teachers and architects, of business owners and senior managerial staff?

And in recent years, it seems that the Church has also succumbed to the cult of celebrity too. There have been a number of TV programmes such as A Country Parish in 2003 and An Island Parish that was shown between 2012 and 2017, that have followed the lives of the clergy, and made minor celebrities of at least some of them. But some clergy have become real celebrities and have appeared on all sorts of TV shows, most of which have had nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity and the Church. Quite how a priest can do this and run a parish is a mystery to me and many other clergy I know. No doubt he has a very understanding bishop, and congregation too. But I, and others, do wonder whether this would have been allowed if the priest in question hadn’t already been a well-known musician before his ordination.

But whatever the reasons for these things happening, for the Church to treat people differently, and especially to treat some better than others because of who they are or what their social standing and status is, is particularly bad because it’s completely contrary to the Gospel.

As we read this morning, St James tell us,

‘… if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place”, while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there”, or, “Sit down at my feet”, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become corrupt judges/judges with evil thoughts?’

And didn’t Jesus say,

“Judge not, that you be not judged.”? 

Whatever we think about others, and whatever the Church may think about them, or us, we must always remember that, in God’s eyes, we’re all poor and undeserving. So, as Christians, we really can’t afford to make distinctions between people and especially, we can’t afford to look down on people and treat them badly or as inferiors, no matter who or what they are. If we do, then we have Jesus’ own warning that we can expect the same kind of treatment to be meted out to us. As he said,

“For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when there is the log in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

So let’s ask Jesus to help us take those logs out of our eyes. Let’s ask him to heal our blindness so that we can see both ourselves and others as we, and they, really are, through God’s eyes and not through the eyes of human prejudices about social class and status. There should be no room for these things in the hearts of Christians, or in the life of the Church because there is no room for them in the kingdom of God. And if we do carry these things in our hearts and show them in our lives, how can there possibly be room for us in God’s kingdom?

Amen.

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The Propers for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Trinity 14) can be viewed here.

In recent years we’ve heard quite a lot of criticism of American presidents, haven’t we? It would be difficult to catalogue the number and range of criticisms that were levelled at Donald Trump during his presidency and now it seems the knives are out for President Joe Biden as his competency, trustworthiness and not to mention his handling of the situation in Afghanistan are all being questioned. But no matter what people may think of Messrs Trump and Biden, the one who is widely regarded as the worst, and certainly, I think, most infamous of all Presidents of the United States, at least in living memory, is Richard Nixon.

Most of us here will remember Nixon, I’m sure, but for those who don’t, Nixon was forced to resign from office during his second term of office as President to avoid impeachment for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that Nixon fully lived up to his nickname of ‘Tricky Dick’ and ended his term as President and his political career in disgrace, and yet for many people, including myself, he remains a fascinating character. He is widely regarded as a man who had the ability to be a good, perhaps even great President of the United States. He can be credited with some notable achievements, opening relations between the United States and China, negotiating the first nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union and ending American involvement in the Vietnam War, for example. And yet he ended up being regarded as one of, if not the, worst Presidents ever and a disgrace to himself, the Presidency, and his country because of his shady way of doing things and attempts to cover up his involvement in illegal activities carried out on his behalf. So why was Nixon like that? I think the answer lies in his own words.

Towards the end of his farewell speech to his Cabinet and Staff, Nixon said this,

“Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” 

I don’t anyone has ever given a more accurate epitaph to themselves than Nixon did in those words. Nixon could be extremely petty. He believed people were always trying to put him down, so he tried to put them down. He believed people were out to destroy him, so he tried to destroy them. He believed that people hated him, so he hated them. And in the end, he did destroy himself. 

I’ve chosen to speak about Nixon this morning because I think he is a very high-profile example of what can happen to us if we don’t take the lessons of this morning’s readings to heart and try our best to live by those lessons. In our both our Old and New Testament readings this morning, we’re urged to live as God intended us to live. We’re urged to keep God’s commandments and, in the Letter of St James, not to let ourselves be contaminated or stained by the world. And that’s a message that’s taken up and reinforced in our Gospel reading, in Jesus’ own words:

“Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”  

On one level, this is a teaching about ritual purity. It’s a teaching that eating without washing our hands first, whilst it might not be very hygienic, doesn’t damage our relationship with God because that is based on the kind of people we are in our hearts, not in our stomachs. And although this morning we don’t read the verses that actually say this, it’s also a teaching that there isn’t really any such thing as ritually unclean food because again, the food we eat simply goes into our bodies through our mouths, through our stomachs, and then out of our bodies.

But on another level, this is a teaching about what can enter into a person from outside and can contaminate and stain us. Jesus says,

“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts…”

some of which Jesus names before he says,

“All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

I’ve spoken before about the ancient understanding of the heart. For people of ancient times, it was the heart, not as we understand, the brain, where decisions were made. For the ancients, including the people Jesus was speaking to, everything that a person experiences in life entered the heart. It was in the heart where everything was considered and where the appropriate response was formulated. And so it was from the heart that actions came. And if these actions, and the thoughts that created them, were contrary to God’s commandments, it was these things that came from within a person, from their heart, that defiled a person. What this morning’s readings are telling us then, is that we mustn’t allow what we experience in the world to corrupt us by leading us away from God and abandoning his commandments.

The case of President Richard Nixon is an example of what can happen to a person if and when they allow the world to make them angry and bitter. His example shows us what we can become if we choose, and it is a choice, if we choose to repay people in kind for the insults and injuries and hurt they’ve caused us, or we think they’d like to cause us. His, is a high-profile example but it can happen to all of us in so many ways. I remember, for example, saying one time to an old school friend of mine that he wasn’t very nice to his girlfriend at times. His answer was that his last girlfriend had done the same things to him, so he was just getting his own back! But how many people have we met who’ve been through a bad experience and then treated other people, people who had nothing to do with the experience in question, badly as a result of that experience. Treated them as though either they were responsible for what had happened or as though they would do the same thing if they got the chance? It’s something we’ve probably all experienced, and probably all done at some time, and when we’ve done it, we’ve probably excused it by calling it the ‘baggage’ we’re carrying with us. 

It is easy to allow the world to make us like this because there are so many things that happen in the world, and to us, as we go through life that can make us angry and bitter. But if we do allow the world to make us like this, and that is our choice, these things damage our relationships with one another as individuals. They can damage relationships between groups of people. They can damage relationships between nations. And they damage our relationship with God too because being angry and bitter at others for what has happened to us, is allowing the world to contaminate or stain us, not least because it stops us from loving our neighbour as God intends us to.

Whatever the world throws at us, and whatever enters into our hearts as a result, Jesus calls us not to let these things turn us to evil thoughts because from evil thoughts spring evil actions. Whatever the world throws at us, and whatever enters our hearts as a result, we’re called to remain uncontaminated and unstained by them and faithful to God’s commandments and Jesus’ teaching. We know the rewards both for faithfulness and unfaithfulness to God and Christ and I’m sure we all want the reward that faithfulness brings. So whatever the world throws at us and whatever enters into our hearts as a result, we have to do our best to remain uncontaminated and unstained. Perhaps then, we could do a lot worse than take those words from Richard Nixon’s farewell speech and apply them to our own situation as Christians:

“Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”

Amen.

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The Propers for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.