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.

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The Propers for the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.

In our reading from 2 Corinthians this morning, we find St Paul discussing one of what we might call his favourite themes, which is his anthropology, his understanding of humanity, of what it means to be a human being. It would be very simple to say that St Paul has a dualistic understanding of human beings, that we’re made up of both a body and a spirit, which are often in conflict with one another. But that doesn’t really do justice to St Paul’s understanding of humanity, which is actually far more complicated than that.

For St Paul, human beings are very complicated creatures. We’re made up of a body, which is neither good nor evil and can be transformed and raised to life again after death, but our bodies are made of flesh which is evil and can’t. To simplify that, we might say that our bodies are about being in the world, whereas our flesh is about being of the world. We’re also made up of mind which allows us to contemplate and understand the ways of God, and of heart which motivates us to act in the way we do. Finally, we’re made up of soul, which is the essential and immortal part of human beings, and of spirit which is that part of us that can enter into relationship with God.

So, for St Paul, being human, and especially being human and a disciple of Christ, is a very complicated business. The inherent weakness and frailty of human beings as creatures of flesh and blood, constantly sets us against our inner self, our mind and heart, and our soul and spirit, so that, as St Paul puts it in his Letter to the Romans:

‘For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.’ 

So, for St Paul, the real problem with being human, and a disciple of Christ, isn’t that we don’t know how to do what God wants us to do, nor that we don’t want to do it, it’s that the weakness and inherent sinfulness of our bodies of flesh and blood conspires against us to stop us being the good, Christian people we know we should be, and actually want to be.

But that leaves us with quite a problem doesn’t it, because in this morning’s reading St Paul warns us that,

‘… we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.’ 

But if we don’t do the good that we want to do, but only the evil we don’t want to do, that’s going to leave us with quite a lot to answer for isn’t it? So how can we deal with that problem?

Well, having set the problem, it seems St Paul also supplies the answer because, as he says in his Letter to the Romans,

‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ 

And for St Paul, it is always Jesus who is the answer. His death frees us from sin, his resurrection is our promise of eternal life, and the gift of the Holy Spirit is the guarantor of these things. So, regardless of the evil our flesh might have compelled us to do whilst we’ve been inhabiting our earthly bodies, it’s always better to be with Christ than to be in our bodies. And so, as we read this morning, St Paul can say;

‘… we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.’ 

But of course, to be at home with the Lord in the way St Paul means it in our reading this morning, means to be with Christ in our heavenly home, and we might like to be at home with Christ before we get there. And the good news for us is that we can be. We can be at home with Christ, in a spiritual sense at least, by entering the kingdom of God and, as we know, God’s kingdom is not just in heaven, but anywhere and everywhere God’s will is done. But where we ought to be able to find the kingdom most easily, is in the Church because the Church is called to be an earthly manifestation of God’s kingdom, a place where the world and it’s ways are not done, and God’s will is.

We know that God’s will is that all people should be saved, and so we know that his kingdom is open to all people. And that accords perfectly with what Jesus says in this morning’s Gospel when he says the kingdom,

” … is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

And if that’s the way it is in the kingdom, that’s the way it should be in the Church too. So there should be no place in the Church for the ‘We don’t want their sort here’ attitude we sometimes find amongst Church people. We always have to bear in mind that if entry to the kingdom was based on merit, we’d all have a pretty hard time getting in, if we could get in at all. And it’s just as well for us that is the case because, as St Paul says, we don’t do the good we should do and want to do, but rather the evil we shouldn’t do and don’t want to do. So the Church too must be open to all. And if it’s not, then the Church in that place isn’t a manifestation of God’s kingdom, but rather a manifestation of the sinfulness of the flesh.

None of us can stand in judgement on other people because, like them, we’re made up of the same stuff; we all have the same weakness, our flesh that’s prone to sinfulness. And so, when someone wants to be at home with the Lord in the Church, we should be more concerned about making sure they can be, rather than about the kind of person they are. They might not be the kind of people we’d choose to have in the Church, but it’s not our Church, and so just because they’re not our cup of tea, doesn’t mean God isn’t calling them.  I’ll give you an example of what I mean. 

A few years ago, before I was ordained, a few of us from the parish church were out for a drink when a certain lady came over and asked if she could join us.
Now, this lady was a well-known character in the parish. She drank like a fish, swore like a trooper and in her younger days, so it was said, including by some members of her own family, she’d been a ‘lady of the night’. Nevertheless, as Christians should, we invited her to sit down with us, and as soon as she had, she started asking us about the Church and our faith. As the time went on, a few people made their excuses and left until, in the end, there were just two of us still sat with her. After chatting to us for quite some time, she asked where she could buy a Bible, we told her, and with that she left us. We thought that was the end of it. But the next Sunday, the lady was in church, in fact she was in church every Sunday after that. She was confirmed and she became a regular pilgrim to Walsingham with us. That lady didn’t come to church after any prompting by the Church, she approached us out of the blue. She was, I’m sure, typical of the kind of person whom some would say, aren’t wanted in the Church. But, because of how she came to the Church and what happened afterwards, how devoted she was, I don’t think there’s much doubt that God wanted her there and called her to be there. 

I tell you that story because, in a sense, that lady’s story is our story too. We might not have committed the same sins that she had, but nevertheless, we are all sinners. That lady might not have been worthy to enter this earthly manifestation of the kingdom of God we call the Church by her own merits, but neither are we. We’re all here for no other reason than that by some means and for some reason, God called us to be here because he wants us to be here. And that is good news, for all of us. It’s good news because it means that, despite the weakness of our flesh, despite the fact that we do the evil we don’t want to do rather than the good we do want to do, we can be of good courage and full of confidence that we will one day be at home with the Lord in heaven. Because why would God call us, we creatures of weak, sinful flesh, and want us to be at home with the Lord in the Church, his kingdom on earth, if he isn’t also calling us and wants us to be at home with Lord in his heavenly kingdom?

Amen.

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The Propers for the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Trinity 2) can be viewed here.

There’s a saying in the Church, and about the Church, which perhaps some of you may have heard, and which goes “The Church would be a wonderful thing, if it wasn’t for its people.” That seems a rather strange thing to say I know because the Church is its people, in fact there wouldn’t and couldn’t be a Church without its people. But nevertheless, there is more than a hint of truth in this saying. Because if we think about what the Church is called to be, and then think about how it is in reality, whose fault is it that the Church isn’t the wonderful thing it’s called to be, except for its people? The most common accusation made against the Church and its people is that of hypocrisy, of not practicing what we preach. And there can’t be anyone else to blame for that other than the Church’s people themselves. 

As we know, disciples of Christ, the people of the Church, are called to love one another. We’re called to bear with each other’s faults and failings and to forgive one another if we sin against each another. We’re called to follow Jesus’ teaching and example in our own lives. But as we know only too well, we don’t always live up to those high ideals and all too often, what we actually see in the Church, is behaviour that’s no different than anyone else’s behaviour. We see behaviour that’s every bit as worldly as anyone else’s. We know it shouldn’t be like that because we’re called to be in the world but not of the world but in fact, in far too many cases, the people who make up the Church act rather as though they’re in the Church but not of the Church. 

None of this does anything whatsoever to help the mission of the Church. For quite a few years now, the Church of England’s focus has been on mission, about how to proclaim the Gospel in both word and deed, with the purpose of fostering Church growth. But to be perfectly honest, unless the people in the Church start to act a bit more like the Christians they ought to be, we’re simply wasting our time.

I’m sure I’ve told you before about a conversation I once overheard in which two women, who were regular churchgoers, we’re chatting about the latest argument in their parish congregation and offering their opinions of the people involved, when they were interrupted by a man who was in their company at the time. He said words to the effect of,

‘You people go to church, you talk about love and forgiveness, but then, as soon as you leave, you do nothing but call and criticise one another. You’re always falling out and arguing among yourselves. Is it any wonder people don’t take you seriously? Perhaps if you tried practicing what you preached people might take a bit more notice of you and what you say. I know I would.’

When it comes to mission, I think that conversation sums up the Church’s problem in a nutshell. Unless we, the people of the Church, start to act in a more Christian way, we’re not going to be able to encourage enough people to come to church to stop the decline in our congregations. And we’re not going to be able to lead the Church into growth because we’re not going to inspire people to become Christians themselves, unless we act like Christians ourselves.

We all want to be better Christians, I’m sure of that, but of course, we’re human beings too and that often gets in our way. We all like to have things our own way, and that applies in the Church as much as in any other area of life. And when other people stop us from having things our own way, usually because they want things their way, we can end up arguing and falling out, and criticising and calling one another. All very un-Christian things to do, but we do them because they’re all very human things to do. And we see these things being played in this morning’s Gospel.

In the early chapters of St Mark’s Gospel, we read about Jesus healing many people, but he also pronounces the forgiveness of sins, and he heals on the Sabbath and these things were taboo. So by the time we get to this morning’s reading, it’s clear that Jesus is doing things in a way that some people aren’t happy with. And, whilst he’s attracting a big following, he’s also stirring up some opposition. Some people think Jesus is mad or possessed by Beelzebul (and in Jesus’ day madness, mental illness, was usually seen as some kind of demonic possession). And when his family hear of all this, they come to take him away and restrain him. 

And isn’t this what often happens in the Church? We might not use the same terminology, but we can do, and to all intents and purposes say, the same things. We might not say people are mad, but we might say that they’re stupid, that they don’t know what they’re talking about and that what they’re doing or suggesting is stupid and wrong. We might not say that they’re possessed by demons, but we might say that what they’re doing and saying is un-Christian. And if what they’re doing and saying is done in the name of the Lord and is un-Christian, then they’re leading people astray. In that case, what they’re doing and saying is anti-Christ, it’s evil. It may even be an unforgiveable sin against the Spirit. But are they being un-Christian? Or is it just that we don’t like or don’t agree with what they’re doing and saying? And whilst we don’t take people away or restrain them in the way that Jesus’ family wanted to do with him, we can and do put them away and restrain them. We isolate them by not allowing them to have any say or influence in what goes on in the Church. Only a few weeks ago I told you about Hans Küng, who had his teaching license revoked by the Roman Catholic Church for daring to say, that Church was wrong in some ways and denying the doctrine of papal infallibility. But we can do this in so many ways and we do it whenever and wherever we exclude people from things simply because we don’t like or agree with what they say and do. 

We know these things go on because they’re all too visible. They go on in local congregations but, as the conversation I related to you a few minutes ago shows, they become visible to those outside a congregation too, because people talk about them publicly. They go on within denominations of the Church, and we only have to look at the bickering that goes on between the different traditions of the Church of England to know that. Perhaps the worst example of this in recent times has been the quite appalling way those on different sides of the debate about women’s ordination have treated each other at times. I, personally, have heard people speak, quite publicly, about their ‘vituperative hatred’, a bitter and abusive hatred of those on the other side of the debate. And people referring to those on the other side of the debate as ‘the enemy’. Again, also quite publicly. And it goes on at a worldwide level, between the different denominations of the Church. Who can ever forget the disgraceful spectacle from a few years ago of monks, belonging to different denominations of the Church, brawling at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, one of Christianity’s most sacred sites, simply because each wanted to worship there, but they couldn’t countenance worshipping together, at the same time? 

All these things are symptoms of what Jesus calls in this morning’s Gospel, a house divided against itself. And, as Jesus also says, a house divided against itself can never stand. And so, as long as the people of the Church continue to act in the un-Christian way the so often, and far too often do, whilst we may have some local successes, our attempts at mission in the wider sense will, I think, be very sadly doomed to failure.

If we want mission to succeed, if we want to encourage people to come to church and inspire them to become Christians so that we can lead the Church into growth, then everyone in the Church, from the child in Sunday School to the highest Archbishop, Pope and Patriarch, needs to learn how to see everyone else in the Church as our brothers and sisters and mothers and treat them accordingly. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with everyone else in the Church about the way to do things, but there are two things we do have to realise and accept. We have to realise and accept that there is only one thing to do in the Church, and that is to do God’s will. And we do God’s will by following the teaching and example of Jesus, not by insisting on having our own way. And we need to realise and accept that, as God has called each of us by name, so his will for each of us is unique to us. And so, just because other people don’t do things our way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong, or evil. Just because people see things and do things differently than we see and do them doesn’t mean that they’re not looking to do God’s will too. 

When it comes to mission, the Church is talking the talk, but it needs also to walk the walk. And that means that the people of the Church, each and every one of us, need to do that. Because until we do, the Church will continue to be a house divided against itself and our attempts at mission will be maintenance, running repairs to stop the house from falling down, rather than construction to build it up. As individuals, or even as a congregation, we might not be able to make much of a dent in the work that’s needed on the whole house, but we can build up our own small part of it. So let’s do that. Let’s be the people, the Christians, we’re called to be so that, when people talk about this place, this church, this house of God, they won’t say ‘The Church would be a wonderful thing, if it wasn’t for its people’, but rather, that church is a wonderful thing, because of its people.

Amen.

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The Propers for the 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.