What if I don’t want to switch?: “after a couple of months we will begin requiring you to switch in order to access your Blogger account”

Well that’s that then. I don’t want to change – I am very suspicious of ‘beta’ products – but we don’t have a choice.

Another shamelessly stolen picture, this time from Sandmonkey.

“NATO, as the leader of the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan (unlike the USSR before it) will not mount a serious effort. Signs of stress are already evident. NATO will quickly fold under the mounting pressure (which may spell, for all intents and purposes, the end of that treaty organization).”

Another good blog to keep track of (along with John Robb’s own weblog). If you’re interested in that sort of thing.

“The world will be saved by beauty.”
(The Idiot)

Monastic Mumblings, a Friar’s Journey: Sea of Scarlet:

“Torture is an unmitigated moral evil. I have no understanding of any sort of truly Christian theology in which torture is not a grave moral sin. So here we are in what can arguably be considered the most ‘Christian’ of political times and for the last five years we have been torturing various suspects around the world. Where is the outrage?… Somehow something has changed in American Christianity. We no longer believe in the gentle Shepherd from Nazareth, we have put our faith in politics, guns and bombs. We have lost our way on a sea of scarlet sin, and have no one to blame but ourselves.”

I agree rather strongly with this. Haven’t managed to read Kavanaugh yet, but he’s climbing up the reading list.

A sermon preached 11 August 2004 on Matthew 18.15-17 – inspired by the comments, many thanks to you all.

A few weeks ago, in our regular Wednesday morning bible study, ____, ____ and I were discussing church discipline, and I quoted this morning’s gospel passage. The passage gives clear directions for how to deal with those who sin against you: first take your objection to them privately. Second, invite some others along ‘so that every matter may be established’ by a larger community. Finally, bring it to the attention of the whole church, whose judgement will be reinforced with heavenly power – whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Powerful stuff – the church determines what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and establishes eternal boundaries.

There are a number of things I would like to say about this. The first is simply to say that when I was quoting it, I thought that I was quoting a teaching from Paul. I find this teaching much more akin to Paul’s broader teaching than to Christ’s (I was thinking of the teaching Christ gives about how often you should be forgiving your brother for their sin, and He says seven times seven times, which comes immediately after this passage). Paul is much more concerned with questions of church discipline – the main tenor of Christ’s teaching, on the other hand, is about the nature of the Kingdom. But this is Christ teaching us about how to exercise church discipline, so we must pay especial attention to it.

Which brings me to my second point. It seems to me – especially if it has the authority of being Christ’s own words – that this is a very good teaching, and one that the church as a whole, and perhaps every parish church in particular, should pay especial attention to. The idea of church discipline can seem quite foreign to the Church of England, in that historically the boundaries of acceptable behaviour have been set so very broadly. But there are movements of the Spirit even in the Church of England, and although a recent proposal for strengthening clergy discipline was rejected by General Synod, I think that such a system will eventually be established. I, for one, would welcome that.

Such a system, however, would apply to the clergy, but what about the laity, the people of God, all the different church members? When was the last time that one Christian in this church admonished another for not living up to their faith, for falling short of Christian standards? I find that quite an unsettling thought in many ways, but perhaps that simply shows how very English I am, and that it seems an invasion of privacy or an intrusion into someone else’s business to be following Christ’s teaching. Christ was clearly not an Englishman.

It seems to me that we in the church really should take Christ’s teaching seriously and, in the words of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, teach and admonish each other in all wisdom. I feel that this would be very healthy for a church – if there was a culture that embraced such mutual criticism and encouragement – I think that it would make us much more effective witnesses to our faith. Note that I said ‘and encouragement’ – simply because governing all these questions of church discipline is surely Christ’s teaching about motes and beams and the prohibition on judgement of each other….

Ah. Christ also teaches us not to judge. How can we not judge, when Christ also tells us ‘if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector’. Well, remember that one of the disciples was a tax collector, and that Zacchaeus was saved even without giving up his job. I’m not sure about pagans – they would certainly seem to be outside the faith community, and certainly this teaching has been taken as the sanction for excommunication.

I think that the key is that the admonishment and correction of one member by another is set in the context of forgiveness, not of judgement and condemnation. In other words, the reproof is on behalf of the one committing the sin. If the wages of sin are death then how is it that a loving brother or sister can allow another to persist in sin, when it destroys life? The forgiveness must already be present, otherwise the person making the correction only brings more judgement down upon their own head (which I think has happened at certain times in church history). So we are to correct each other in the faith, as long as it takes place from love and an assurance of acceptance and an acknowledgement that we are all sinners, and that we need each other’s support to proceed in the Way.

Yet there is still this hard question. What do you do when there is no agreement on what constitutes a sin? When one group in the church says that certain actions are sinful, and another group in the church says that they are not? Well, this is of course the question that some of the finest minds in our church are currently wrestling with, so I’ll leave a final answer until they have given their report. All I would say is this – there is a vast level of agreement on the important questions which face the church, most especially the necessity to seek justice in our world. I think the Lord will be with us if we pursued his teaching on those matters with our whole heart, rather than being caught up with a forensic pursuit of each other’s sin.

In the meantime I think our calling is a simple one. And I would finish by quoting Paul’s teaching from the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians, where he writes this: “Brethren, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”

I have been troubled by Simon’s comment on my ‘not ducking’ post. It’s opened up a whole abyss, which I would like to describe.

Simon said:

“It is clear in scripture that Paul expected the church to exclude unrepentant sinners – for their own good [so that they would understand the seriousness of their sin] and for the good of the church [if you let person A off without comment person B will feel he can commit the same sin with impnity].

Sin is a cancer, which should not [be] left untreated. It depends very much on the manner in which we treat it. Paul tells us to deal with things privately where possible, so that there can be love and so that reputations are not harmed. If my brother sins and the first thins I do id denounce it at the next church meeting – I am wrong. But if my brother sins and I privately show him a better way and help him renew his relationship with God – i am right.

The brothers in your story are learning how to avoid being picky and judgmental and grassing on each other and to have a right self awareness. Good. But I am concerned that they might start to accept sin – we still need to know that sin is sin, and help each other to overcome it rather than beating each other about it.”

Now then. I really disagree with this, but the disagreement goes so far down that I don’t know quite where to stop. So I end up writing something which is (hopefully) more positive.

Firstly, though, let us take a cue from the way in which the Roman Catholic Church dealt with Galileo. Cardinal Bellarmino wrote:

“If there were any real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe and that the earth is in the third heaven, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth around the Sun, then we would have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and rather admit that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true”.

This is how I feel with respect to the sorts of passages in Paul that Simon is referring to. I think Paul is wonderful, but I also think that – if he is saying what Simon thinks he is saying – he is saying something radically opposed to the message of Christ. So I would rather admit that I do not understand Paul, than to accept him as an authority mandating something which I know – from Christ – to be untrue.

Of course, the burden is on me to say what I know from Christ to be true. Which is the point of this post. It needn’t take very long.

I think that Christ established a New Covenant in his blood. This New Covenant was the one promised in the Old Testament, whereby God’s laws and commands would be written in people’s hearts. The foundation of this New Covenant – this new marriage between God and His people – is built upon a refusal to judge. Hence ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged, for the measure ye give will be the measure ye receive’; hence ‘forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us’; hence all the teaching about forgiveness as the foundation of Christian life.

The Old Covenant(s) involved keeping to God’s commands. Hence, for example, David’s charge to Solomon at the end of David’s life (which we had at Morning Prayer the other day, and I found very moving):

“”I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go, and that the LORD may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’”

I understand the New Covenant to be God’s fulfilment of these promises, built upon our fallen state, unable to raise ourselves up, and WHOLLY dependent upon God’s grace for all that we do. We are not to focus upon the commands of God – however wonderful and liberating they are to follow – but we are instead to focus our hearts upon God, to have our hearts broken, to remove our hearts of stone and have instead the gift of hearts of flesh placed within us.

Our New Covenant is the setting aside of judgement upon us, with the quid pro quo that we set aside our judgement of one another, leaving ourselves, as a community, wholly dependent upon God’s grace at individual and group levels. We rely upon God to save the church, for He did say that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

So I really don’t know about the exclusion of unrepentant sinners. Jesus’ example, which we are mandated to follow if we are to walk in his way, was ‘love one another as I have loved you’. The way that he loved was to go to the sinners and break bread with them.

And I’m really unsure about the need to exclude ‘for the good of the church’, pour encourager les autres, so to speak.

So often Christianity has collapsed into being merely a new coat of paint on the Old Covenant. A different set of rules, but the underlying spirituality is unchanged. Even when – perhaps especially when – sola gratia is emphasised the most, the acceptance of grace seems to become a work in and of itself.

We are invited in to a relationship of love. We are the prodigals returning, being met with eagerness by the Father. It is not our business to close the door on the prodigals behind us.

We are the ones who have excluded Christ from amongst us; He is outside the city wall; yet He forgives, and it is that forgiveness which is heartbreaking and liberating.

It gives us no place to stand with regard to one another.

No place to stand.

We must not judge.

We must not judge.

We must not judge.

If this means that an institution falls away then so be it. The church, the Body, this is divine, and far beyond our control.

We are simply to allow that grace to take root and flourish within us, to become channels of mercy and peace.

So if the priest tells the sinner to leave, then I shall leave too. For I too am a sinner, and my place, following Christ, is to be with the sinner. I have no place to stand other than that.

And it seems to me now that that is where the church belongs, that is where the church is most truly itself. So perhaps God is even more in this process than I suspected.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

And Jesus’ blood ne’er failed me yet.

Rev’d Dr. Leander Harding » Blog Archive » The Pope’s Speech:

“Anglican theology at its best is thoroughly committed to the slogans of the Reformation, by scripture alone, by grace alone and by faith alone. Nevertheless it has also had a high appreciation for the Greek inheritance in theology including Platonic philosophy and the Greek Church Fathers. It may be that Anglicans have unique resources for healing this rift which has appeared between faith and reason both in the culture and in theology which can build resources for a dialogue of civilizations.”

Back when I was a civil servant I was assessed on the Belbin model of management, and I came out quite strongly as a ‘plant’, with associated Shaper and Resource/Investigator traits. What I was – by quite a long way – rather bad at was the ‘Completer/Finisher’ type. In other words, I’m not good at detail. If I concentrate on the detail, that’s fine, but most details don’t seem to have an obvious link to the larger picture – hence they get overlooked. (In so far as the plant has real gifts, they are constituted by being able to see the wood rather than individual trees). We all have differing strengths and weaknesses, the key – as was emphasised in my training – is that we delegate to cover our weaknesses, rather than wasting energy trying to control all of the outcomes ourselves, often with hugely destructive consequences. Hence Belbin has a vocabulary of ‘allowable weaknesses’ – and the allowable weaknesses of a plant are inattention to detail (so it all fits together).

Anyhow, an example today – rather funny once I saw that side of it – of how I sometimes get tripped up on detail.

Parish Quiet Day – led by my colleague – excellent use of time and resources – very enjoyable. But I have to leave half way through because I have agreed to take an anniversary service for one of the Mersea organisations that I’m officially involved with. This is annoying, because the Quiet Day is doing me all sorts of good, and chiming with much that I have been reflecting on recently (important quote from my colleague: “Christian holiness is not a matter of moralism but of mysticism.” Now that is wonderfully accurate and pithy (and reassuring in terms of how it shows how far my colleague and I are in tune 🙂

Anyhow, after an hours drive to return to Mersea – and then a half hour wait on the other side of the Strood because the tide is up again (groan) – I get home and check the details for the service I am taking this afternoon.

And I discover that I have been booked for two thousand and SEVEN.

Grrrrr.

Further to what I wrote earlier, I’ve come to a bit of a conclusion about what not ducking will look like.

Obviously much will depend on the detail (wherein the devil doth dwell) but it seems to me now that if some members of our Body are excluded on the grounds of their sinful proclivities, my place is with those who are excluded. Because I too am a sinner.

~~~~

A brother in Scetis committed a fault. A council was called to which abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go to it. Then the priest sent someone to him, saying, ‘Come, for everyone is waiting for you’. So he got up and went. He took a leaking jug and filled it with water and carried it with him. The others came out to meet him and said, ‘What is this, father?’ The old man said to them, ‘My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the sins of another.’ When they heard that, they said no more to the brother but forgave him.

A brother asked abba Poemen, ‘If I see my brother sin, is it right to say nothing about it?’ The old man replied, ‘Whenever we cover our brother’s sin, God will cover ours; whenever we tell people about our brother’s guilt, God will do the same about ours.’

A brother sinned and the priest ordered him to go out of the church; abba Bessarion got up and went out with him, saying ‘I, too, am a sinner.’

(From ‘Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers’, ed Benedicta Ward)