Two talks

I did two talks at church this morning, one for each of the two big morning services, and some people asked if they could have a written copy so here they are. First of all, a talk in the 0930 "tricky questions" series. Apparently they decided they ought to have one on hypocrisy, and I was the obvious choice for speaker. Hmmm ...

HTC 0930, 17 July 2011
“Are Christians hypocrites?” Matthew 23:1-12

Our Tricky Question for today: how to react when Christians are accused of being hypocrites.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definition: “Hypocrite: One who falsely professes to be virtuously or religiously inclined; one who pretends to have feelings or beliefs of a higher order than his real ones; hence generally, a dissembler, pretender”.

I suppose that most people here, clambering out of bed and off to church for 9:30 on a Sunday morning, most must have some kind of virtuous or religious inclination, so the first version of the meaning won't apply. But what about pretending to beliefs of higher order than one actually has?

People look at our actions, they listen to our words, they notice the gaps. For example people will say they can't understand how X can be allowed to belong to a Christian community, given what X did ten years ago, or even how X behaves in the workplace today. It is quite common to hear people say that Christians are hypocrites, meaning that Christians don't live up to the teaching they pretend to follow. (Though I read some interesting research recently, which stated that if people actually knew Christians personally then they tend to express a more favourable opinion.) That is our Tricky Question for today, and the obvious response is: are people right to say Christians are hypocrites in this sense? By and large, is it true that we dodge the demanding parts of our faith? Is it fair to say that most Christians attend church only to enjoy the benefits of a rather select social club?

Let's measure ourselves up against the teaching of our Master and Lord. In our Gospel reading He launches a devastating critique of the “scribes and the Pharisees”, the religious specialists of the day. The Pharisees of Jesus' time were not the priestly caste; they were a group of people who wanted to take God's Law seriously. In the middle of a society subject to great challenges, reeling from the impact of foreign ways of thought, oppressed by the imposition of imperial rule from Rome, the Pharisees took the view that it was vital to get back to God's Law and really implement it in society. They wanted people to see practical holiness in action. They wanted to call their society back to God. When I read the Gospels, it seems to me that the Pharisees started off thinking of Jesus as one of them. They invited Him to dinner parties. They thought they had accountable friendships with Him, and could call Him to task (in loving and positive ways, naturally) when He seemed to be getting woolly on details of holiness. They emphasized social justice, and the importance of “walking the talk” so that the average guy could see what he had to do. By and large the Pharisees would be better-off than the average guy; being religious was an expensive and time-consuming business. Coincidentally they believed that being prosperous was a sign of God's favour anyway.

Does any of this sound at all familiar?

Our passage marks the climax of an attack by Jesus on their whole approach. He says that they talk well enough, but they don't follow through with the kind of action that matters (verse 3). He says that they obsess about the need for purity, but won't do a single thing that actually helps the average guy (verse 4). He says that it is obvious that the Pharisees live in a world where appearances matter more than what is really there, as if God wasn't paying attention to what they really do (verse 5). He says that they are taken up with the importance of hierarchy, of titles, of fame and honour (verses 6-12). Reading between the lines, it seems that Jesus is saying that they came this close to the Kingdom of Heaven, but have gone off on a completely wrong tack because in fact they don't act as if God existed at all; shockingly, and despite their apparent holiness, they live in a purely secular world of status and celebrity. And so He tells His own followers to avoid hierarchy, to avoid elevating people to the status of father-figures or gurus, and to practice a kind of leadership which doesn't deem itself to be too important to deal with ordinary routine (verses 8-12). He continues, in the verses after our passage, by calling the Pharisees “hypocrites”, play-actors, people who spend all their energies playing a part, not being their true selves, indulging in a fatal kind of group-think, ignoring the real consequences of their actions, living in a false reality (verses 13, 15, 23, 25, 29).

So what about us? I think we risk this hypocrisy most when we use slogans which, while actually being quite good in themselves, make big promises about our behaviour. That's when the gap between propaganda and reality is going to be most painfully obvious to the outsider. Examples:

• We are a healing community;
• Church is a place for radical discipleship;
• This congregation is a loving and welcoming family;
• Church is a place for generous giving;
• This service is for Spirit-led worship;
• Our church is a House of Prayer for all.

Think about the promises these seem to make to someone coming from the outside. I'm not saying we should stop saying any of this. I am asserting that these slogans make big promises to people coming from the outside into our fellowship, and if we're going to use these slogans then we need continually to be asking the Lord Jesus to point out to us where we are falling short, and to energize us by His Spirit to make good the defects. This should be a routine part of our weekly Confession.

So here is one response: let us Listen carefully to the words and phrases we use, and make sure that our slogans do not become the moral equivalent of writing cheques which our communal experience together will not fulfil in any way at all.

But I don't think that the “listen” response is enough.

I find these words of Jesus to the scribes and the Pharisees to be most unsettling. I know I don't practice what I preach. I know I create problems for other people. I know there's a part of me that loves attention and status, when I can get it. I'm often happy to stay with comfortable group-think, and I often suppose that if my circle says something is all right then I don't need to worry about it. I am uneasily aware that in global terms we are a privileged and relatively secure community, so that it is too easy for us to talk glibly about the cost of discipleship. I know that I often get distracted by marginal issues rather than concentrating on what is really important in Jesus' eyes. And I recognize in myself the impulse to create authority-figures and gurus out of my Christian brothers and sisters.

When I hear people asking why all Christians are such hypocrites, in my heart of hearts I know – at least as far as I am concerned – they've got a point. Guilty as charged. We must Learn the truth.

But that's what the Bible tells me about myself anyway. Jeremiah 17:9; “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”. There's no Good News of salvation for me until I admit that I suffer from a deep brokenness that needs fixing. As Jesus said, healthy people don't need a doctor (Matthew 9:12). If I want salvation then I must learn that I need fixing, that I'm a recovering hypocrite, that I haven't arrived yet, and that the only way to make the journey to health is to accept that I am ill, that my heart is indeed desperately deceitful and that I need help from Someone Who is bigger than me. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

So here is another response to this question. Yes, Christians are hypocrites, because Christians are broken people who have only just begun to realize that they need fixing. Being put off Christ because the Church is full of sinners is like refusing the benefits of modern medicine because hospitals are full of very sick people. And that has uncomfortable implications for us in terms of what we expect from our mutual fellowship. As 1 John says over and over again: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God”. That's not the soft cuddly instruction it might seem to be at first sight. It's saying, learn that Wilfrid Kendall is not a sweet-natured humble person of righteousness, but a deeply-flawed disciple with all sorts of stubborn issues – and love him anyway, because he was bought at enormous price and set free by the Lord and Saviour of Mankind.

And finally that leads to another point. It's easy to get depressed thinking about hypocrisy and Christians. So many of the good examples of Christian discipleship end up as yet more Christian people with clay feet. But the Christian journey of faith is not just about listening to make sure we don't promise what we aren't trying to deliver. It's not just about learning that we are broken people on a slow pilgrimage of healing. There's something more.

I think the best way I can tell this is to relate something that happened to me last month:

Monday 6 June 2011. I met an old friend for coffee this evening. We've known each other, on and off, for 39 years, all my adult life. He's older, shaven head, stretched out thin by the years. I'm also older, balder, but I'm struggling not to be too filled out by the years. It was good to spend a couple of hours together. He knows me at my best and at my worst, and we can still spend time being with each other, enjoying each others' company. Afterwards I went on to our church prayer meeting, and there I sensed the Lord saying to me, “I've known you since before you were born, more than all your life. I know you at your best and I know you at your very worst, and I love you, and we can spend time together, enjoying each others' company. Because I know you exactly as you are, strengths and weaknesses, and it is for that person, the real you, that I gave my life; it is that person whom I Love with a passion that is stronger than death, strengths and weaknesses, warts and all”.

Jesus says: “Shoulder my yoke [with me] and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”. (Matthew 11:29)

We like to pretend all sorts of things about our life together. We want to say we are a caring community, or a charismatic community, or a community that seeks to transform, to offer the Gospel to all who come. We like to say that we want to be accessible to others, to be a church family where one can find secure relationships. There's a bit of truth in all of this, but not the whole truth, not consistently. It's easy for us to forget that the heart of the matter is that we are a community of saved sinners, often beset by compromise, often failing to be the people we have been called to be. We can take offence when people call us hypocrites, but often that is who we are. We need to face facts squarely. We aren't yet what we should be. As Paul said in one of his most deeply personal letters (2 Corinthians 6:8b), we are the impostors who speak the truth.

So let's take that on board. Let's make the effort to accept that we haven't arrived yet, that we have all sorts of flaws, both individually and as a community. Let's factor that in to our expectations ; we are all going to have our little ways, splinters in our eyes that stop us seeing the truth clearly, sometimes (it has to be said) rather more than splinters. That means we have to be gentle with each other, ready to make allowances, but also ready at the right moment to help each other face up to whom we really are and to make small baby steps towards becoming the kind of people God made us to be. But let's also remember that each one of us is deeply and profoundly loved by the Lord God, seen exactly for who we are, and yet loved passionately with a love stronger than death.

So are Christians hypocrites?

Let's listen carefully to the words and phrases we use, weigh them, and make sure that our slogans are not like writing cheques which our communal experience together will not at all fulfil.

It's true, Christians are hypocrites, because Christians are just broken people who have begun to learn that they need fixing. Being put off Christ because the Church is full of sinners is like refusing the benefits of modern medicine because hospitals are full of very sick people.

And the Lord says: “I've known you since before you were born, more than all your life. I know you at your best and I know you at your very worst, and I love you, and we can spend time together, enjoying each others' comany. Because I know you exactly as you are, strengths and weaknesses, and it is for that person, the real you, that I gave my life; it is that person whom I love with a passion that is stronger than death; I love you, strengths and weaknesses, warts and all”.

Listen, Learn, be Loved.

Amen

Secondly, one on Jacob the confidence trickster, who got blessed despite himself.

HTC 1100, 17 July 2011: “Jacob's run”
Genesis 28:10-19a and Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

Our Gospel passage is a tough one, a farming tale told to a farming community, all about good and bad plants, and how they grow up together apparently all the same, but how they will be treated differently at Judgement Day, how it will be great for the good plants, and very very bad for the bad plants. When I look at the context, I see that this story is told by Jesus after a series of increasingly serious confrontations with the Pharisees – people of the day who thought that a strong line should be taken about enforcing purity and religious observances, people who thought that the Kingdom of Heaven would be brought closer if only some time and trouble were taken to force God's people to shape up and act holy. So Jesus' story is a bit of a slap in the face for people of that persuasion: it's saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is not going to be anything like as simple as that. All sorts of people are going to grow all mixed up together, and the grand sorting-out won't happen till Judgement Day. Jesus is saying, if you want to establish an “in” club of right-thinking people then (a) you will find it is impossible to make the proper distinctions, and (b) you'll actually be working against the Kingdom of Heaven, which is a much more open affair. And he's also saying, yes indeed there will be a grand sorting-out. Christian faith is not just some kind of intriguing mind-game: it has real consequences for all of us, real eternal consequences.

But instead of focussing on the Gospel story itself, I'm going to dwell on the Old Testament reading. The story of Jacob would have been told over and over again to Jesus and to His hearers; it would be part of the mental landscape, and has strong links to Jesus in it. So let's look first at Jacob, and then come back to the Gospel passage with Jacob in mind.

Jacob on the run

He was running for his life. He had so nearly pulled it off, a confidence trick that would have set him up, made him secure, guaranteed him a rich old age. But he hadn't thought it through, and now he had to get out of his home territory, leave behind all he'd ever known, disappear and vanish. There was no time to plan, no time to fix things; he'd been forced to embark immediately on a desperate journey of hundreds of miles, on his own, vulnerable, at risk. He had to run, run, run.

The frustrating thought must have been running through his head, how close he'd come to success. Despite being the junior son, the stay-at-home child, the mother's boy, the one who didn't keep the old man supplied with tasty meals of freshly killed meat, he'd so nearly managed to win the whole show. Helped by his conniving mum, he'd managed to con his blind and failing father into blessing him instead of his older twin brother the Action Man. He'd set it up so carefully too; Action Man had already carelessly promised away the headship of the family, simply to get a refreshing bowl of soup after a hard day hunting. Jacob had had it all lined up: Action Man gives up his first-born privileges, and Bewildered Old Dad gives his blessing; when the music stops there's Jacob, holding all the blessings and all the privileges, first of the family, top of the pile.

Except Jacob had missed the obvious flaw in the plan. Infuriated Action Man would cut through all the wheeling and dealing, and gut Jacob like a dead deer, and then all the manipulation, all the deceptions, all the planning would be worth nothing. So Jacob has to run, has to throw away even the partial security of being junior son, has to flee out into the wild country and keep on running for hundreds of miles, running away to an uncertain welcome from his mother's brother in far-off Haran.

Even crooked wheeler-dealers have to rest, so when the sun set and it was too dark to travel further, Jacob called it a day. Normally a traveller would make sure they stopped at a village, claimed hospitality and safe haven. But Jacob didn't do that – I imagine he didn't want to leave an obvious trail for his enraged huntsman brother to follow. Instead, he decided to sleep rough, with a stone for a pillow. Not the most comfortable of resting places, but the exhausted boy drops off into a troubled sleep notwithstanding.

He's not the most prepossessing of characters, is this Jacob. Junior son of a dysfunctional family; son of a weak father who takes the easy way out of difficult situations, son of a stunningly beautiful mother who plays favourites with her children, younger twin brother to a reckless and thoughtless Action Man, one who from boyhood has learned a life of manipulation and deceit, untrustworthy, sly. Some people think of the Old Testament as a chronicle of happy family life; I don't know where they pick up this idea. Our story today is quite typical of this part of the Bible; brother murderously inclined towards brother, parents who have no idea whatsoever of how to bring up their kids in a consistent framework of love and discipline, people who easily fail and who mess up big-time.

That's the context in which Jacob has a dream. Jacob, this wheeler-dealer, this con-man, this manipulator, this wide boy who's come to the point of failure of all his misbegotten plans, Jacob has a dream and hears the voice of God Almighty. And what does he hear, but a promise of greatness which stretches unimaginably far beyond all his trickery and lies. God promises Jacob a future and a meaning that stretches far into the future, children and childrens' children who will cover the earth, offspring who will be a blessing to all the people of the world.

It could seem so unfair; why does God want to bless this little crook?

The shocking secret

This passage is just one example amongst many Bible passages which declare a shocking open secret. God deals with everyone, not just good people. Look at our Gospel passage and you see the good plants and the bad plants all mixed up together, because it isn't obvious how to tell the difference. It won't depend on what postcode you come from, nor will it depend on your education. God doesn't make special allowances for the nice folk, the ones on top of the pile, the people who know how to behave in church in a proper and dignified manner. God deals with us as we really are – and if I have a problem with that then I have a problem with God. I have to say, if we find that thought offensive, if it disturbs our sense of how things ought to be, if so then honestly my reading of the Bible is that we are getting the right message. The Gospel is offensive. In 1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul describes the Gospel of Christ crucified as a stumbling block to the devoutly religious and an scandal to sophisticated people; God doesn't deal with people according to what they deserve.

When I was a student, I found myself living in a house with someone who was a very rough diamond. He was often angry, had a drink problem, could be violent – once I said something unwise which enraged him and I had to sneak out by the back door to avoid a nasty situation. Life was very stressful and difficult with him around. But then he suddenly became a Christian, full of the joy of the Lord. And I was shocked to discover I had a big problem with this. I had a problem with someone being able to turn a switch, as it were, express repentance, and then be suddenly OK with God. Did all the past count for nothing? Could the slate really be wiped clean just like that? I knew the correct answer was, yes, it can be wiped clean, yes, God is prepared to forgive people when they repent. But emotionally it was a difficult place for me, and I had to struggle to accept the shocking reality of what I knew theoretically to be true.

God's encounter with Jacob is shocking in this way. And so is Jesus' story and what it implies about the activities of the scribes and the Pharisees, who no doubt were good decent honest folk, trying hard to raise the general level of godliness amongst the people of their day. If we have a problem with that then we have a problem with God; that's the way He works.

Does what we do matter?

So does what we do matter? Is it acceptable for people to behave badly, and then to find forgiveness from God? Is church just a useful social club for people who want good company? I think the Bible shows us that the answer to this question is both yes and no. The story of Jacob doesn't end with his dream and the promise. When I read on, I discover that the rest of Jacob's life is one long struggle with consequences. Very soon after this story, Jacob meets a con-man who is cleverer at deception than he is – and has to spend fourteen years working out a bad debt as a consequence. As a consequence of the deception, Jacob has to deal with a complex, unsatisfactory, even tragic family life (a long and degrading fertility war involving two wives and two conscripted serving maids), and to deal with a pathologically violent rabble of murderously disorderly sons who make his own upbringing look like an island of tranquillity in comparison. But, on the other hand, Jacob is continually reassured that God's enormous promise to him is to be made good; that his life is indeed weighted with a significance and fruitfulness that will reach far down the years.

And so it is with us. We know we aren't as good as we ought to be; each Sunday we admit this using the general confession. We know our actions often don't meet the promises of our words. Our lives are just like the field in the Gospel story; good and bad plants growing there all together. And we have to deal with the consequences, which can be costly and lengthy. If we were in this game of church just for public show, then it wouldn't make much sense, but Jesus' stories tell us the Kingdom of Heaven is all about hidden growth, not about public show. We are here today because we've heard the promise; we've heard God's word which tells us that we can become part of something bigger than ourselves, that God is prepared to deal with us just as we are, that we are hugely valuable to Him because we were bought at an unimaginable price, at a price paid in blood. And just as God re-asserted his promise to Jacob, so we are met today at Eucharist to be reminded of the price by which we are redeemed.

We aren't anywhere near as good as we ought to be; we meet as a collection of needy people, warts and all. If people call us hypocrites, then it is our imperfections that they see, and we have to be candid and honest about this. But all the same we are worth everything to the Lord our God, and – God-willing – we will one day grow into a fruitful crop, become the people we were always meant to be. We must take ourselves at God's valuation; worth the price of the blood of His Son. Just like Jacob, in fact, because Jacob's promise was that God said He'd raise up salvation and blessing for all out of Jacob's undistinguished and dodgy origins. Jacob would not have been able to see it clearly, but God promised him that his inglorious run for a precarious safety would eventually result in salvation for all mankind. That's the kind of promise we have too, one which takes a bad plant and against all the odds makes it good.

Amen