The Joy of the Gospel

The common feature in our readings from scripture this morning is that in both we encounter a case of mistaken identity. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, tells Amos to flee away to the land of Judah: ‘Earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom. Then Amos responds, ‘I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.

Amos appears to be an upstart, a bit of a fraud, with no real prophetic pedigree. He is dismissed by Amaziah and the religious establishment. He could not possibly be a prophet. And certainly, the message he brings is unpalatable to the people of Israel. Even Amos acknowledges their uncertainty, ‘I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son’. He comes with no sense of entitlement, but only with a willingness and a desire to speak the truth. Similarly, in our gospel reading, the passage that follows the description of Jesus sending out the Twelve. King Herod hears of Jesus. ‘Some were saying, ‘John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him’. But others said, ‘It is Elijah’. And others said, ‘It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.’ But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised’. Not for the first time, Jesus is mistaken for John the Baptist.

This provides the occasion for Mark, almost as an aside, to describe the death of John the Baptist. With the fearlessness of Amos, John has taken Herod Antipas to task for marrying Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife’ – a text, no doubt, that was ringing in the ears of King Henry VIII as people wrestled with ‘the King’s Great Matter’ at the time of the Reformation. The circumstances of the Baptist’s death provide some insight into the sometimes volatile and careless way in which rulers and leaders make rash promises and then in order to save face maim and destroy the lives of others. But Herod imagines that Jesus is John the Baptist – another case of mistaken identity. And another John the Baptist worries him – because if Jesus is anything like John, he will be fearless in telling the truth.

Mistaken identity. For months now, we have worn our masks, if not in order to save face, then certainly to save lives. But in the course of these months, we may at times have felt that our identity has been obscured. There have been occasions, where we have not recognized each other. We may have been smiling or even scowling behind those masks, and others have been oblivious. And yet we look forward in the coming weeks to a time when the restrictions on wearing masks will be removed. Again we will see one another face to face.

But in the course of this pandemic, we have discovered, to our surprise, that the identity of the Church of England has also been obscured. No one can doubt for a moment just how challenging the last 18 months have been. This last week as the General Synod prepared to meet this weekend, a rather heated debate was generated by some careless comments about the role of the parish church and of the parish priest. Given the rather injudicious description of clergy as ‘key limiting factors’, the reaction on social media has been stormy to say the least. This has revealed something of a crisis of identity and an unsettling dissatisfaction with the current leadership of the Church of England. For the last couple of decades, the leaders of the Church of England have fetishized leadership, and now they are surprised that the leadership has come in for such trenchant and searching criticism. Hanging desperately onto the coat-tails of the Pentecostal Revival of the twentieth century and making rash promises about creating 10,000 new lay-led churches may not be the best way to restore confidence. The gospel reading today has some interesting things to say about where rash promises can lead. But of course, such accusations and counter-accusations are unfair. They are simply a symptom, a reflection of our anxieties about the kind of ministry and mission that the Church of England will exercise in a world which has changed and is changing.

This church has seen some of the key movements for reform and renewal in the Church of England. What can we learn from them? Thomas Cranmer, one of the Oxford martyrs, who brought the liturgy into the vernacular and ensured that the scriptures might be placed in the hands of every believer, held on to the threefold pattern of Bishop, Priest and Deacon, which had characterized the universal church from the earliest times. Historians like Eamon Duffy and Diarmaid MacCulloch may have profoundly different perspectives on the English Reformation, but both acknowledge that the parish church was the place where the rubber hit the road and the reforms had the greatest impact. John Wesley preached in this University Church, and went on to preach to thousands in towns and cities in the face of the many changes wrought by the urbanization which followed the industrial revolution. He travelled as a missionary to North America and was shocked to discover that there were so few clergy to minister to the masses. His approach in ordaining ministers to serve his societies may have been unorthodox, but there can be no doubt that he saw the need for clergy to preach and teach, to serve and minister. And then John Keble, on the 14^th July in 1833 (a day we will commemorate next week) launched the Oxford Movement from this very pulpit, lamenting ‘national apostasy’. Along with Newman and others, Keble, a Professor of Poetry, inspired the renewal of the church and its sacramental life.

None of these movements of renewal began with a Strategic Plan, or a debate in General Synod. Without any real discussion or intent, it is quite simply bizarre that we have adopted a peculiar polity for decision-making in which Bishops imitate company executives, outlining their vision to a group of share-holders on General Synod, as if the parish churches of the Church of England, with all their precious patrimony, were little more than branches of McDonalds. And yet, when we consider the legacy of the Wesleys and the Oxford Movement, while we should acknowledge that their leaders often faced criticism and sometimes suffered for their commitment to speak the truth, they were distinguished not because they had completed a mini-MBA but because they were passionate about the truth of the gospel and giving expression to the poetry of the soul. They recognized that by inhabiting the riches of their tradition, by returning to the sources, to the scriptures and the witness of the saints, they would find the resources to proclaim the faith afresh in each generation. They knew that such an enterprise demanded the attention of well-educated clergy and laity, with some theological depth and sophistication. But here’s an uncomfortable and unsettling truth: every single one of these remarkable movements for renewal in the Church of England began with rigorous scholarship and sound learning. 

There was a priest who once said that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, but certainty. He may have been right. I suspect that’s the sort of observation that may have been made from this pulpit on more than one occasion. But I’m not so sure. Sometimes, I think the opposite of faith is actually.. fear. In Greek and Latin, the word for faith is the same word as ‘trust’. To believe, to have faith, is to trust, and if you are ever to trust someone, the most debilitating thing is fear. That’s why faith demands courage, commitment, even risk. That’s why the most oft-repeated phrase in scripture is ‘Do not be afraid!’  And yet, if the Anglican Twittersphere is anything to go by, the Church of England seems to be gripped by fear at the moment.

So today, I want to invite you to take heart from prophets like Amos and John the Baptist. Let us have the confidence to say what we think, to give voice to what we believe, to have confidence in who we are, and to recognize that one of the great gifts of the Anglican tradition has been its willingness to bring the Christian tradition into patient dialogue with modernity, with contemporary culture, because the doctrine of the incarnation, which stands at the heart of our faith, recognizes and affirms that the whole of human experience is charged with the mystery of Divine Love. Perhaps we need to be less wrapped up in ourselves and our own survival, and more concerned about the society we are called to serve, a society characterized by increasing injustice and inequality, inequalities laid bare by the impact of this terrible virus in the course of this pandemic.

But more than that, perhaps we will sound less defensive if we have the confidence to share our doubts and uncertainties. Perhaps we need to discover the confidence to invite others into the conversation without feeling that our identity or survival is somehow threatened. Perhaps we can still draw on the deep reservoirs of our spiritual tradition to allow ourselves to be less anxious and more joyful, confident that ‘the one who calls is faithful’. Perhaps we will then discover that there can be no mistake about our identity as the Church of England. Perhaps we may then put aside all fear and discover again the joy of the gospel.