Congratulations?

If there is one point in an Induction when I wince it is when someone (often someone who I feel should know better) congratulates the new Pastor on their appointment.  The Biblical verbal phrase that seems to cover this kind of appointment is being set apart.  The implication - no, it is the explicit meaning - of congratulation is of human achievement, of promotion, of a new job successfully negotiated, of privilege or of some combination of some of those.

Setting apart is not a reason to be congratulated or commiserated.   If the year 4 teacher in one school is promoted to be Deputy Head in another you send a congratulatory message.  If the year 4 teacher is assigned year 2 next year you observe and note the change.  That is setting apart and exactly characterises the New Testament's approach to Christian ministry though of course not the disciples' - which earned them a telling off from Jesus.

 

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,  even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

 

This seems clear enough.

 

Today one of the Gentile rulers, David Cameron, changed his Government cabinet around - in the lordly manner that Gentile rulers do when an election is looming.  Meanwhile, in the Church of England Synod  the decision was made to allow the appointment of female Bishops.   David Cameron thought this was a great idea - most specifically, "a great day for the Church and for equality".

 

It all sounds so plausible.  It is a total denial of the meaning of ministry.  What is this equality?  Seen in the skewed vision of a venerable British establishment Institution and through the eyes of a Gentile ruler women have just broken through a glass ceiling.

 

Seen through the eyes of Jesus and the radical values of the Gospel they have secured a lower place than they had when generically left at home doing the ironing.  No congratulations there then.  Wait a minute: here comes (my italics) Regional Minister (Team Leader) of the East Midlands Baptist Association the Revd Dianne Tidball with the official Baptist line:

 

“Congratulations to our Anglican friends on having the wisdom, courage and grace to open the door to women becoming Bishops.  We are pleased to learn that the vote enabling women to fulfil all roles within the church has been passed.  We are delighted that the wider church will have the opportunity to benefit further from the gifts and experience that women, already in senior roles, will bring."

 

That's it I guess.  If you believe in senior roles, you offer congratulations.  Is there anyone out there who believes Jesus actually meant what he said?  If we are denying ourselves how can we thereby be congratulated or achieve a this-worldly equality?

Natural Wastage

There's nothing like a Church committee as a setting for making bizarre new theology.

The Daily Telegraph carried a report on the General Synod at which a member was quoted as follows:

“The perfect storm we can see arriving fast on the horizon is the ageing congregations,” he said. “The average age is 61 now, with many congregations above that.  … 2020 apparently is when our congregations start falling through the floor because of natural wastage, that is people dying."

The Salvation Army coined the term 'promoted to glory' for its members passing through death to life everlasting (a vertical contradiction of falling through the floor).  The Apostle Paul liked the phrase fallen asleep in Jesus.  John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress famously described arriving in a Celestial City:

Now, while they were thus drawing towards the gate, behold a company of the heavenly host came out to meet them: to whom it was said by the other two shining ones,

"These are the men that have loved our Lord when they were in the world, and that have left all for his holy name; and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy." Then the heavenly host gave a great shout, saying, “Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.” Rev. 19:9.

There came out also at this time to meet them several of the King’s trumpeters, clothed in white and shining raiment, who, with melodious noises and loud, made even the heavens to echo with their sound. These trumpeters saluted Christian and his fellow with ten thousand welcomes from the world; and this they did with shouting and sound of trumpet.

This done, they compassed them round on every side; some went before, some behind, and some on the right hand, and some on the left, ... And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they came to it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with hearing of their melodious notes. Here also they had the city itself in view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to welcome them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there with such company, and that for ever and ever; oh, by what tongue or pen can their glorious joy be expressed!

Alternatively, you can call it natural wastage . . . 

Christians would be wiser to value older people and reach them with the Good News of eternity in glory with Jesus than, "Hey, join us and soon become our natural wastage".

Synod

Rarely does the Supreme Governor of the Church of England stray into deeply theological territory.  I suppose that in the week after one of her junior bishops called her son Big Ears it is unsurprising that she is looking a little beyond her Church for virtue!

The Queen addressed her Church's General Synod thus,

"It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue and that the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation depend on the contribution of individuals and groups of all faiths and none."

Wow.  I wonder if she realised what she said?

This is profoundly true and far too little understood.  There is no difference in the duties and opportunities of virtue for the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Believer, the Nominalist, the Buddhist, the Muslim or the whatever.  This is explained by the apostle Paul:

For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat in our true characters, in order that each may then receive an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless. [Weymouth's translation] 

Virtue will indeed be expected all round.  Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Queen Elizabeth, Kim Jong-il, Barack Obama, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict and every one of the rest of us.  Does faith help virtue?  I think this is possible.  Indeed, our Lord said that his followers would be light and salt in a dark and rotten world.

 

But at the heart of the Christian message is no virtue.  Just the opposite in fact.  A cross.   Condemnation, not complements.   Death not life.  Savagery not elegance.  Blood not beauty. Bad not good.  Shame, not virtue.

 

What the Synodic observation lacks are two further observations:

 

1.  That people of faith and people without faith - all of whom have the same possibility and responsibility for virtue - ALL FALL SHORT.

 

2.  There is forgiveness through a crucified Saviour who calls us to him.

 

To put it another way - the call to virtue is universal, the remedy for our failing it is unique.  Thank you Jesus!