York Minster

Telling it like it is

Date: 16th December 2007
Preacher: The Revd Canon Jeremy Fletcher

I wonder, sometimes, whether we are just too polite of our own good. We are Christians – and western ones at that. Some of us are English Christians, if that’s all right with you, if you don’t mind me saying so. And of course we should earn our hearing. Of course we should respect other people. Of course we should listen, understand, clarify, put ourselves in their shoes. Of course we should not seek to offend, we should not antagonise. And in the church we should aim to please, we should act in a way which is worthy of our setting and our calling: we should craft acts of worship which satisfy the demands of taste and culture and depth and artistic merit. We should speak with good judgement and sound learning.  It is what we do.

But there are times when this degree of politeness, courtesy, good judgement and inoffensive behaviour is itself an offence to the gospel. The passages which stand out in the Bible are those where the old order is not gently soothed and smoothed, but overturned. Take Paul in Acts 13: he’s not speaking to Christians but Jews in the Synagogue in Perga – and he tells it straight. He doesn’t quite say ‘you’ put Jesus to death, but it is not difficult to imagine his hearers squirming as he tells them that the people of Jerusalem misunderstood the prophets – and by extension you are in danger of doing the same thing.

Or take Isaiah chapter 5. This is more like a hostile Prime Minster’s Question time than a religious leader’s address. He tears into those who in his day oppress the poor, misrepresent religious faith and practice, who trust in themselves and not in God, who pander to their own needs and pleasures and drag the whole of society down with them. This is a sermon with a snarl, not a homily with a hymn to follow.

Or take John the Baptist, referred to by Paul in Acts 13, and who is remembered on this Third Sunday of Advent as a forerunner of Christ, the one who prepared the way. With great and good standing before him he starts his message by calling them a bunch of snakes. He slams the immorality of his King, attacks the corruption of the religious establishment and gives the occupying Roman forces a hard time too.

 There is a time to speak, and a time to stay silent. Isaiah, John, Jesus, Paul, all speak out, and we will fail them if we do not, on occasion. So thank God for the Archbishop of York and his pair of scissors. I am not bored with people asking me if I’m chopping up my dog collar too: I haven’t, mainly because for me not to wear a collar will look like forgetfulness rather than radical protest. But woe betide me if I don’t do something to make that situation better. Thank God for the people in Bali who booed and cried and got angry because the world is in danger of talking itself to death over climate change. And then ask yourself whether there are some things which require a protest, require a hard word, require us to stand.

The Christ for whose coming we are preparing came to bring peace, and a sword. His coming should not be the occasion of sentimental cooing over a lovely baby.  Whatever the carol says, the baby cried. The baby cries today over Darfur and Zimbabwe and gross consumption which will kill us with its excess. Christ cries over every injustice and abuse of power, just like the prophets and John said. To prepare for the coming of Christ is to rejoice that a new world will begin, and then to do all that we can to make it happen. And, just sometimes, that might mean taking a TV interviewer by surprise, or sending people away from church worried rather than anaesthetised. Listen to Isaiah. “The Lord of hosts is exalted by justice”. Just sometimes comfort will have to take second place.