REAL Christianity is hard ball

As I said in my last blog post, one of the good things about being retired is being able to listen to other peoples' sermons, especially the good ones (sermons that is)! This morning the vicar was preaching on Galatians 5.13-26 and like any good preacher, his sermon drew me back to reflect upon my own spiritual journey. Lately I've been thinking, as many times in the past, that Christianity is TOO hard. I'll have to say what I mean by that.

In this reading St. Paul talks about the 'fruit of the Spirit' as opposed to the 'desires of the flesh'. The popular view is that the 'desires of the flesh' is what the Church waves its finger at saying 'no, no, no - naughty'; and the 'fruit of the Spirit' is what being 'good' is all about and what the Church pats you on the back for showing. But we all know that being 'good' is not all that easy and indulging in the 'desires of the flesh' is much more pleasurable. Or so it seems, if we don't think too much about the consequences. The 'fruit of the Spirit' demands hard work, but we can fall into the 'desires of the flesh' much more easily and comfortably. So the latter tends to win us over most of the time. St. Paul knew about this and wrote about his own struggle with it. And every Christian who's more than Christian in name only knows all about their own personal struggle. But the thing is, Christianity is not at all about trying to be 'good' rather than 'bad'.

I can't recall from the gospels, Jesus ever telling anybody that they had to be 'good'. He definitely said 'be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect'. Which is something rather different. So the sooner we ditch the idea of Christianity involving being good or bad, the better. We've got to have a much more informed and mature idea of what Jesus was calling us to be and become.

The Temptation of Christ

Jesus put everything in terms of the Kingdom of God, one of the essential threads of which is about fulfilling and creative, life giving and enhancing, relationships with others, self and God. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5 to 7) and you'll soon get the idea. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit from God the Father to help us in this endeavour. We believe He was the best example of this endeavour. He lived it out in His humanity through the Holy Spirit that came on Him at His baptism. And the same is true for all who have been baptised in His name, even those we would label as the 'bad' ones. All this was tested out for Jesus during the time, immediately after His baptism, that he spent in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. The 'devil' was constantly 'saying' to Him then, "'fruit of the Spirit' or 'desires of the flesh', you choose". That's not how the Temptation narrative reads but it's essentially what it's about. The 'fruit of the Spirit, as St. Paul put it is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, i.e. all that makes for fulfilling, creative, life giving and enhancing relationships. And we know the way Jesus went.

Christian discipleship, being a follower of Christ is about becoming like Christ himself. That is, choosing and following that fulfilling, creative, life giving and life enhancing way rather than choosing the 'desires of the flesh' which essentially only serves the ego, the self. It's total self concern and self absorption, to the exclusion of everything and everybody else. But, and this is a big BUT, even with the help of the Holy Spirit, following that way that bears the fruit of the spirit is very difficult indeed. The hardship begins the moment we make the choice because it demands a change in us. And sometimes it feels TOO hard. In making the change we experience loss, and grief, sometimes in the extreme. And it's this that's laid me low so many times, asking myself how I can carry on or making me feel not worthy to be called 'Christian'.

But this morning, the truth of it was laid out in front of me in the text the vicar was preaching on. St. Paul says in verse 24 'And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.' And in the very next verse he reminds us, literally, that it's not a competition! St. Paul was so perceptive. Choosing the life giving way over the sterile, self absorbed and in some cases death dealing way is, St. Paul says, a kind of crucifixion. And what comes after crucifixion? Resurrection. To give up a death dealing way for a life giving way must lead, in the end to joy. And the Psalmist has God saying somewhere I recall, 'enter into the joy of the Lord.' And I remember then that it's a process, sometimes a very long, even life long process to be journeyed through at your own pace, dealing always with the sense of grief and loss but with the hope and realization and experience from time to time of the promised joy.

So the true Christian way isn't at all a 'soft' way. It's not about some easy syrupy 'goodness' as it's so often portrayed by those who really don't know. True Christianity is real hard ball. It's not at all for the feint hearted. Maybe that's why there's so few, trying to be a faithful few.

 

Easter - Do you REALLY know what it's about?

The Harrowing of Hell

We are four weeks post 'Easter' at present but it's still Easter, until 9th June when it becomes Pentecost - Whit Sunday for we oldies.

I've listened to a good few sermons, and a few good sermons, since I retired. And actually 'listened' even more since I stopped preaching. And since I retired I've come to the conclusion that all serving clergy should be required to listen to at least one sermon a month other than their own, if only to expose them to the heresy being preached in the Church of England, and increasingly so it seems, as time goes by. I've honestly sat there sometimes, mentally reviewing what's being said, with such saintly thoughts as, 'Mother of God, what bo****ks is this??!!'

Now I'll admit, in the past, to having gone a bit 'off piste' myself from time to time with my sermons. It's been especially evident when the Satanic push back has come along, which it has fairly often, particularly when I've been desperate for a new way of saying something that I've said dozens of times before. It's been tempting then to spin my own interpretation purely for effect, or to get people to agree with me or get them on side in the spiritual war of attrition that Beelzebub has waged between me and the congregation. (And will still be waging between me and you now!) Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to what I'm talking about as offering 'cheap grace.' As I look back over the years, I don't think I did too badly at sticking to the Party line, or, should I say, the Gospel as received by the Apostles and handed on through Holy Tradition.

The miracle of Easter is a time when it's tempting to steer clear of the hard, difficult to explain bits of the work God did in Jesus Christ. Because it's hard for we clergy to understand and get to grips with, we may think we have to soften it up for our hearers. So we can succumb to the temptation to change the language and/or, God forbid, tamper with the theology. We can do it in our sermons and rather more worryingly (because it'll be repeated week after week) write it in those bits of the services we can make up for ourselves. And one of the worst 'offences' in making it easier is what I'll call 'stopping short.' This offence I'd say is akin to what C.S. Lewis says in his book The Screwtape Letters, about the road to hell - it's  'soft under foot, without turnings, without signposts and slopes gently downwards.'

Two things I've heard said at Easter are examples of this 'stopping short' and in doing that, missing entirely the point of  Easter. (And just as an aside, it's interesting to note at this point that the Greek word for sin means 'missing the mark'.) I've heard it said from the pulpit that Easter is about Jesus dying on the cross to save the whole of humankind from their sin so that everybody in God's mercy will go to heaven. There's at least a couple of things here that are not in accordance with the Gospel. But I don't want to nit pick, I'll just say that this is an example of 'stopping short' which leads us to miss the real point of Easter.

Another thing I've heard at Easter is that Jesus 'came alive'. This again is a wonderful, or dreadful example of stopping short. And a good example of where the language we use can either make or break the Gospel message. Jesus didn't simply 'come alive', as though his heart and lungs just suddenly started working again and he got up and walked away. The miracle of Easter is much more profound than what's said here about coming alive, and what was said in the paragraph above, about Jesus dying to save us from our sin.

The miracle of Easter is about - DEATH. Yes, death. And it's beautifully summed up in words from what's known as the 'Short Eucharistic Preface' for Easter (that can be said when the bread and wine are being consecrated) in our service book Common Worship. Listen to this. This is what it says:

"But chiefly are we bound to praise you
because you raised him gloriously from the dead.
For he is the true paschal lamb who was offered for us,
and has taken away the sin of the world.
By his death he has destroyed death,
and by his rising to life again he has restored to us everlasting life."

Do you see?

Jesus didn't 'come alive'. God raised Jesus from the dead. I see a difference, and not just a marginal difference, but a very profound difference. Do you?

And yes, in dying Jesus took away the sin of the world. (The preacher was at least right there) But Jesus didn't stop short there. In dying he destroyed death itself. And THAT'S the point. St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians says that Jesus put all his enemies under his feet and 'the last enemy to be destroyed is death' (1 Corinthians 15.26) And through that we become what Adam and Eve were before sin took its hold, we are restored to everlasting life. The Easter Icon above shows Jesus hauling Adam and Eve out of hell, restoring them to everlasting life.

Death; physical, psychological and spiritual death is annihilation. And it's that annihilation that we are saved from through the Easter miracle. Sin is a step that leads to death, to annihilation. So we aren't just saved from our sin.

Now I won't pretend to know what all that actually and really means for me or anybody else. I might never come to know, yet I hope I will. But it's what the Apostles preached and taught and it's been at the heart of the catholic faith ever since, so I won't ever stop short of preaching it, or writing about it and neither should anyone else who is charged with passing on the Gospel. For those who believe, it is literally a matter of life or death.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!