to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds … In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not denying their religious heritages … You cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.

Not bad for someone who looks towards Mecca when she prays!  Incidentally, her advocacy of the view that it is when we our confident in our own religious beliefs that we are not threatened, but able to accommodate, if not be enriched, by those of differing convictions is an approach she shares with Professor Tariq Ramadan who will be speaking here at the CRC Spring Conference on 19 May – so please book your place and learn more about this extremely encouraging perspective.

Then there was the publication of the Ipsos MORI report with the pithy title, Religious and Social Attitudes of UK Christians in 2011, which had been commissioned by Professor Richard Dawkins’ ‘Foundation for Reason and Science UK’.  The report presents the findings of a questionnaire completed by over 1000 UK citizens who identified themselves as Christian in the 2011 Census.

The questions are far-ranging, but assume a prior understanding of what being a Christian means, essentially holding certain beliefs and participating in overtly religious activity on a regular basis.  Not surprisingly, against this measure, many respondents didn’t fare too well – apparently, calling into question their Christian designation.

One of the most poignant and amusing moments of the past few days took place when Richard Dawkins and Giles Fraser were being interviewed about the report.  The latter was pointing out that the wrong questions had been asked allowing erroneous conclusions to be drawn.  One question, ‘What is the first book in the New Testament?’, provided a particularly good example as it was indicative of biblical knowledge not necessarily of Christian faith.

Professor Dawkins’ defence of this question in particular and the report more generally dissolved into an embarrassed own-goal when Fraser asked Dawkins, the great champion of Darwinian evolution, to give the subtitle of The Origin of Species, surely holy writ for the Professor.  Pretty much the only identifiable words in the ensuring incoherent mumblings were ‘O God’ – thereby, on the basis of the reports’ assumptions, delegating Dawkins to the class of miss-categorized unbelieving evolutionists to which, I suppose we could add, who harbour nascent religious proclivities.

It was a delight!  Incidentally, for those of us who are also struggling to recall the subtitle, here it is: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.  Admittedly, a little longer than the Gospel of Matthew, but there again the learned Professor has edited an edition of this work and produced an audiobook of it, as well as having written widely in this field.

But, more seriously, what is the role of religion in public life?  And how should Christian identity be expressed and assessed?  These are hugely relevant questions that are becoming more pressing by the day.  In fact, ever since Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (legal opinion) against Salman Rushdie in February 1989 for his alleged blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad in the book The Satanic Verses (1988), any notion that religion  can remain a private affair or that there is no demonstrable link between personal belief and public action became untenable.

Almost invariably, religion relates us to one another and to the world, every bit as much as to God, and what we believe will shape that relating because beliefs form the interpretative lens through we experience the outside world.

And to gain perspective on these weighty matters, our gospel reading leads us to the top of a mountain to witness a supernatural occurrence involving smoke and mirrors or, more accurately, shining apparel, figures long dead, cloudy countenances and a heavenly voice.  The sort of passage, you would have thought, that readily fuels the fires of those protesting Christianity’s irrelevance.

Or, at least it would do, if you interpreted it literally and maintained that Mark supplies us with an accurate record of an event from Jesus’ life.  But does he?  Is not the Transfiguration a piece of narrative theology – painting Jesus against a broader canvas, one that embraces a pilgrimage of faith reaching back to the founder figures of Judaism – to Moses and Elijah?  And is it not significant that this incident occurs immediately after Jesus has needed to make plain to his disciples that nature of him mission and the costliness of his way:

Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed … If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  (Mark 8.31, 34-35)

There could hardly be a more demanding message than this and yet it is one that receives divine authentication on the summit of Transfiguration: ‘This is my son, the beloved, listen to him!’ (Mark 9.7).

And notice, unlike his forebears in faith, Jesus is not transported into heaven upon a chariot of fire or given tablets of stone inscribed with sacred law and precept.  Rather, he descends the peak with nothing in his hands, but the faith be embodies, as he makes his way to Jerusalem to confront religious and political authorities not with swords and clubs, but with a gospel of compassion.

A gospel that bears witness to a God who cannot be contained in a building, not even one as awesome and glorious as Herod’s Temple, but who resides within the earthiness and ordinariness of creation and who reigns within the human heart that is vulnerable to grace.

A gospel that recognises the dignity of each person and is committed to their well-being, especially  those denied space to be true to themselves and to be truly themselves.

And as he leads on, step by step, compassion remains his closest companion as he continues to minister to the weak and marginalised, to help the wealthy and self-centred break free from their preoccupations, to celebrate the beauty of childhood and worth of women, to recognise the contribution of the poor and the value of committed relationships, to call to account those entrusted with the spiritual care of a community and the living conditions of a nation.

And when asked to sum up his faith, Jesus forges the love of God with the love of neighbour – thereby demonstrating the impossibility of private religion whilst locating worship of God within our serving of one another:

Jesus answered, ‘The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’  (Mark 12.29-31)

Now whatever else the Transfiguration is about it is highlighting and affirming Jesus’ gospel of compassion and way of costly love, thereby locating the heart of faith not within a set of beliefs or religious practices or holy shrine, but within a way of being human.

Now once we recognise that Christian identity resides first and foremost in the humanity of Jesus and his way of compassion then the role of religion within public life begins to emerge as a source for good – relating us to one another openly and responsibly, motivating us to recognise and respect the humanity of others, challenging us to think beyond our own self-interests and pursuit of personal gain, enabling us to appreciate difference and to be enriched by it, inspiring us to dare to believe that we are not locked into some tragic endgame over which we have no control.

One person who recognises the centrality of compassion within Christianity is Karen Armstrong.  In November 2009, she launched a Charter of Compassion, based on the Golden Rule (‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’; Luke 6.31/Matthew 7.12), which she hopes will unite people of different religions and spirituality, as well as those of none.  It reads:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

One can’t help thinking that if Christians, side-by-side with members of other faith traditions, gave themselves to this vocation the likes of Richard Dawkins would soon be silenced, perhaps even won over.   But it is insightful that there is no reference Jesus’ way of compassion, or anything like it, in the recent survey he commissioned.  In fact, you could be fully committed to this way yet, according to the identity markers of the survey, be judged unchristian.

I wonder what that says about how Christianity is conceived both outside and within the church?  And I wonder if someone was to secretly observe the life of this congregation what appreciation of Christianity they would gain?

Moments of great calm,
kneeling before an altar
of wood in a stone church
in summer, waiting for God
to speak; the air a staircase
for silence; the sun’s light
ringing me, as though I acted
a great role.  And the audience
still; all that close throng
of spirits waiting, as I,
for the message.
                        Prompt me, God;
But not yet.  When I speak,
though it be you who speak
through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

I have this poem, by RS Thomas, written out in the front of the notebook I use when I am jotting down thoughts for sermons.  It reminds me that the space before the words come together is precious, even if terrifying.  What feels like emptiness to me has the potential to be God’s inspiration…

“Prompt me, God
But not yet…
The meaning is in the waiting.”

I have to admit, though, that at 7 o’clock this morning my anxious bleary-eyed prayer was “Prompt me God, and now would be great!”.

When Janet Morley spoke at the last Library evening about the poems she has gathered together in her collection for Lent and Easter, she reminded me of the beauty and power of poetry.

Poetry is a mystery to me.  I have several poetry books on my shelves but I find it very difficult to open them and read them.  There are many reasons for this, but I think Janet helped me to recognise that one of the reasons is that they demand a lot from me.  The richest poetry isn’t instantly accessible.  We may have to read it several times in order to digest it.  We may have to speak it out loud, or hear it read, before we get a sense of its meaning.  And even then, the meaning is often quite elusive.  Whose meaning do we seek?  Are we looking for the poet’s meaning or are we waiting for it to resonate with something deep within us?  The beauty of poetry is in the way it slows us down, makes us engage with the present and yet draw from all the experience of our lives so far…

When I was a student I used to enjoy visiting my Great Uncle Ben in Stoke-on-Trent.  My own grandparents had died and Ben was my grandfather’s youngest brother and had been practically brought up by him.  I never met my grandfather but Ben had adored him, so through Ben I got a glimpse of Harold.

Ben was a down to earth working class man from Stoke.  He used to encourage me to pray for wisdom, and I did.  I didn’t realise what I was praying for though.  It is easy to confuse knowledge and wisdom.  As I prayed for wisdom I hoped that my heart would be filled with insight but instead my heart was broken.  It made no sense to me.  I was praying for a deeper sense of God’s presence in my life but it just seemed that I was being abandoned.

The meaning, it would seem, is in the waiting…

But it isn’t passive.  We have to engage fully in all that’s going on in our lives, slowing ourselves down to be as attentive as possible, to become as aware of the present as we can be, open to what we can learn from the past and expectant for the future but alive right now.

“Wisdom”, Joan Chittister writes, “is the gift of living the present to the utmost and learning from the now whatever we will need to respond with integrity to whatever our future brings. But, if that’s really true, wisdom is going to give most of us nothing but trouble.”

Eric Hoffer wrote: “The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.”

Wisdom literature is poetry.  It demands our attention,

“Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out, ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.’”  Proverbs 8.1-4

Wisdom is to be found in the essence of our everyday lives.  It is not locked away in poetry or theology books, high up on shelves.  This is one of the extraordinary things about poetry – the poet uses concrete life experience, often something very familiar, mundane even, but lets it shine in a different light revealing to us deep insight and truth.

But the wisdom of others has no purchase on us until it pierces our defences, “until it sinks its teeth and nails into us.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God”

Do you understand those seventeen simple words?

I have preached at least twice on this passage, the Prologue of John – and the mystery is still intact.

For me, this is its beauty.  It is a metaphor and as such doesn’t need to be broken into its component parts and digested, but understood, as poetry…

The meaning is in the waiting…

“In the beginning” inevitably draws us back to the opening words of Genesis -

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void… while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

I am familiar with the feminine noun for the Spirit of God (although I rarely hear God’s Spirit referred to as “she”) but I am not so conversant with wisdom literature; I was not instantly reminded of this passage from Proverbs where the voice of Wisdom speaks:

“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.”

This isn’t the time to explore the depth of the resonance between Divine Wisdom, Sophia and the eternal Word, Logos but clearly the echoes are strong.

But I am delighted that in our readings this morning we have the feminine and the masculine side by side in the Godhead, in the beginning, before all things were made…

I refuse to conflate the masculine and the feminine, and I refuse to allow them to be exclusively identified with gender – each of us has word and spirit, each of us gains from our knowledge and our understanding, each of us has masculine and feminine traits.  Neither will I enter into the unnecessary word-games of whether masculine or feminine is dominant – I believe that in Christ there is both eternal wisdom and pre-existent word:

Male and female God created us and God saw all that She had made and said, “It is good, very, very good.”

I am not interested in women bishops any more than I am interested in men bishops – but I am horrified that the church is still divided over gender.

I read something in the Church Times this week which struck me.  It’s from the writings of Margery Kempe at the turn of the 15^th century…

“The Lord answered me in my mind and said: “As it is appropriate for the wife to be on homely terms with her husband, be he ever so great a Lord and she ever so poor a woman when he weds her, yet they must lie together and rest together in joy and peace, just so it must be between you and me, for I take no heed for what you have been but what you would be, and I have often told you that I have clean forgiven you all your sins.

Therefore I must be intimate with you.”

In poetry the meaning is intimate, it is in the words and yet beyond them, it is in our experience and yet not contained by it, so too wisdom is found in the intimate call of life, in the quest for knowledge and truth and in the mystery of our partial understanding.

Wisdom is not a gift but a vocation; wisdom costs.

“Wisdom calls us to know ourselves, to squeeze out of every moment in life whatever lessons it holds for us, whatever responses it demands at that time.
It is wisdom that calls each of us to be everything we have the capacity to be.
It is wisdom that is the internal force that drives us to become the fullness of ourselves.” 
(Joan Chittister)

by Rev’d Ian Wallis

THE SCHOLARLY SEARCH for Jesus of Nazareth can be likened to a cosmologist’s quest for the origins of the universe.¹ Billions of years ago, an high-temperature explosion of super-dense matter occurred, the so-called ‘Big Bang’, giving rise to all that exists.  The enormity of this split-second wonder makes investigation into its causes (if, indeed, there are any) extremely difficult.  What is more, those clues to date, black holes and the like, suggest a radically different order of things.

Two thousand years ago, another explosion of indescribable capacity took place, creating faith out of its absence, whilst launching one fading Galilean star into divine orbit.  Resurrection, the inauguration of Christian time.  But what of resurrection minus one?  Opinions vary, with many investigations abandoned on the grounds of impossibility or superfluity.  Impossible, because the search for the historical Jesus is like looking into the vortex of a supernova hoping to uncover its history; at best, it yields distorted or fragmented images.  Superfluous, because resurrection and Pentecost, the genesis of Christianity, are divine acts which can only be apprehended through faith and not proved (or disproved) through the canons of human inquiry.

For all that, to change the metaphor, the digging continues, with enthusiastic archaeologists, undaunted by previous frustrations, returning to well-excavated sites in the hope of fresh finds.  Participants in this latest wave of interest in Jesus set about the task of examining New Testament documents and other relevant sources with filters allegedly capable of sifting from the deposits of first century Judaism and the accretions of nascent Christianity the genuine artefacts of what Jesus did and said, as well as details of the circumstances surrounding his death.² Then the business of reconstruction commences with various assemblies of ‘assured results’ generating sometimes widely divergent profiles.  Occupying the same library classification, these scholarly identikits are forced to keep company on the same shelf:  charismatic holy man, eschatological prophet, itinerant philosopher, social reformer, zealous freedom-fighter, anointed messiah, Galilean sage, to name only some.³ Confronting them en masse is like standing before a police identification parade without an eyewitness to single out the guilty man.  How do you choose between them?  Should we even try?

A new English translation of Albert Schweitzer’s masterpiece, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, reminds us of the pitfalls associated with trying to uncover the Jesus of history.  Returning to our opening allusion, star-gazing can readily deteriorate into navel-gazing, yielding an all-too-familiar Jesus who embodies the ideological predilections of the researcher’s time.  Schweitzer’s judgement on 19^th century lives of Jesus remains salutary:

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and died to give his work its final consecration, never existed.  He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb.⁴

Yet, warning heeded, many contributions to what has rather pretentiously become known as the ‘Third Quest’ (as if there has only been three!) do seem to be more self-aware and better focused than their predecessors, pursuing the task of locating Jesus within his historical context and interpreting his ministry in the light of the various expressions of Jewish faith and other influences evident in first century Galilee or Judea.  Nor does the ensuing galaxy of interpretations necessarily spell failure.  After all, why should Jesus fit comfortably into our categories and recognise our incompatibilities?  Or, indeed, why should he have possessed only one persona – we don’t, and few doubt he was infinitely more interesting than his biographers and researchers!  Perhaps, budding ‘questers’ could do with showing a good deal more humility in their achievements matched by a good deal more respect for the profound and multifaceted personhood that is the mystery who is Jesus.

But the questions ‘Is it possible?’ and ‘Why bother?’ continue to orbit.  In a recent book, Luke Johnson sets out to explode current attempts to uncover the Jesus of history behind the Christ of faith.  He claims the whole enterprise is misguided and doomed to failure because the only sources available to us are all written from the perspective of the resurrection.  The authentic Jesus for these authors is not a Galilean Jew, but the risen Lord who continues to be a powerful presence: ‘the real Jesus for Christian faith is not simply a figure of the past but very much and above all a figure of the present, a figure, indeed, who defines believers’ present by his presence’.⁵

However, Professor Johnson recognises the need to reach beyond the Big Bang in order to anchor the experience of the resurrected Lord in the ministry of someone who shared our time-space continuum.  And to do so in a way that is faithful to the early Christian witness and, whilst rooting faith in Jesus of Nazareth, steers clear of placing it at the mercy of historians.

It is not the facts of Jesus’ life that can find new expression in the lives of others, but rather the pattern of his existence.  Jesus’ existence is one of radical obedience toward God and self-deposing service towards others forms a pattern for all humanity that can be written in the heart by the Holy Spirit.⁶

Jesus’ ‘pattern of existence’ is the golden thread linking him to his followers.  But how can we be confident this is not also an expression of resurrection faith projected back onto Jesus for legitimacy and authorization?  Because, claims Johnson, the four Gospels, the letters of Paul, the Deutero-Pauline epistles, Hebrews and 1 Peter all bear witness.  But where did these authors acquire it?  This is surely the crux.  For we can only be confident that Jesus’ pattern of existence was normative for Christians after his death on the grounds that it was normative for Jesus’ first followers during his life, otherwise we should have no access to it.  And this brings us back to cosmology.

One way of detecting black holes, putatively the ‘stuff’ of pre-Big Bang, is by the gravitational pull they exert upon neighbouring stars, altering their orbits.  What is opaque becomes discernable and open to investigation though its impact on other entities.  Could it be that we gain access to Jesus’ ‘pattern of existence’ through those with whom he shared it?  Could it be that we know about Jesus’ faith through the faith of his disciples, a faith they acquired in his company and under his tutelage?  No slight of hand is intended here for Jesus’ faith, as increasingly acknowledged,⁷ is what we are talking about and should be preferred to its substitute circumlocutions (e.g. pattern of existence, self-understanding, selfhood, etc.).⁸

Yet to talk of Jesus’ faith (or, indeed, Johnson’s ‘pattern of existence’) requires us to steer a course through a cluster of questions and difficulties.  For instance, according to Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus, like a phoenix from the ashes, rises to significance within the Christian proclamation where he is encountered within God’s dynamic word.  Believers were never interested in who Jesus was, but only in who he is – a living presence liberated from the constraints of history – and so ‘the kerygma does not permit any inquiry into the personal faith of the preacher’.⁹ But what if the personal faith of the preacher was the medium of the message and, as a consequence, of significance from the outset?  What if Jesus’ strategy for communicating the blessings associated with God’s presence revolved around inspiring his faith in others – faith which formed the divine life within him, defining and resourcing a particular embodiment of human being in relation to God and God’s world?  A faith which, like a master craftsman with his apprentices, Jesus exemplified personally and communicated to his followers, providing them with fundamental skills, insights and practices for discerning and disseminating God’s glory within the fabric of this spiritually ambiguous world.  Then we should have access to Jesus of Nazareth though the medium of faith.

This is the line of inquiry I pursue in Holy Saturday Faith,¹⁰ where I attempt to identify the constituents of Jesus’ faith – his habitus as I describe it:

• the experience of forgiveness as liberation from all that makes God inaccessible and remote;
• prayer as the gift of a new identity as a child of God, created for covenant and entrusted with the Father’s business;
• wisdom as the art of discerning God’s presence in creation and learning to go with the grain of God’s creative purposes;
• living joyously as a means of participating in the blessings associated with God’s presence and, in particular, extending hospitality in God’s name;
• a radical exposition of loving God and humanity as an expression of being formed within the love of God;
• the pursuit and embodiment of the vocation to be God’s go-between.

One of the remarkable characteristics of this habitus to emerge during my investigations is that, whilst always informed by theological beliefs, it is not limited to any particular creed.  In this respect, it can be compared to the function of grammar in language giving rise to a multiplicity of linguistic forms, or to the primal elements of the universe, possessing the innate capacity for diversification of life within certain constraints.  Thus, whilst Jesus practised his habitus of faith within the climate of one set of beliefs, Christians from the outset have been practising it – knowingly or otherwise – within others, inhabiting the habitus of faith through various theological articulations and so gaining access to Jesus’ embodiment of human being in relation to God.  ‘And here lies the genius – to locate the essence of faith within a generative core of insights, practices and disciplines readily transferable and capable of giving rise to seemingly limitless improvisation.’¹¹

Consider, for example, Jesus’ way of praying encapsulated in what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9b-13; Luke 11:2b-4; Didache 8).¹² The fundamental significance of this formulation resides not so much in the meaning of the petitions as in the identity it bestows upon those who make this prayer their own.  Who, by inhabiting it, are able to share in Jesus’ filial consciousness as they begin to experience life as a child of God, embracing the blessings and responsibilities of belonging to God’s family and relating to God as Father.  This orientation towards God and, by implication, God’s people and creation, is one of the defining characteristics of Jesus’ faith and whilst, for instance, Paul does not mention the Lord’s Prayer in as many words (we do not know whether it formed a part of his own spirituality), it is clear that Jesus’ way of relating to God was not only a constitutive component of his own faith, but also a defining characteristic of Christian living:¹³

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.  And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Gal. 4:4-6 NRSV; also Rom. 8:14-17)

One consequence of all this is that there is nothing incompatible or incoherent about sharing Jesus’ habitus of faith whilst also believing in him.¹⁴ On the contrary, this seems to have happened quite naturally from the outset.  Few New Testament books possess a clearer appreciation of Jesus’ uniqueness in relation to salvation than the Letter to the Hebrews (1:1-4; 8:1-7; 9:11-28; 10:11-18) and yet Jesus is also recognized as the definitive exemplar of faith (12:1-2; cf. 5:7-10).  In Revelation, the sacrificial Lamb who is worthy of our worship (5:6-14; 7:9-17; 12:10-12) is the same Jesus whose faith we are exhorted to embody (2:12-17; 14:12).  For all Paul’s rich christological reflection, the example of Jesus remains normative for Christian living (Rom. 12-15; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 2:1-11; 1 Thess. 1:6–7).  The canonical Gospels present very different portraits of Jesus, but a strikingly consistent understanding of discipleship as the challenge to embrace his vocation and continue to exercise it in his authority.  We could also cite 1 Peter, the Pastorals and extra-canonical works, including the remarkable image found in the Shepherd of Hermas of believers clothing themselves in the faith of the Lord (e.g. Vis. 4.1; Man. 9; Sim. 6).

Significantly, it is the impact of later Christology which drives a wedge between sharing the faith of Jesus and placing one’s trust in him, the incarnate Word, the Son of God.¹⁵ Thomas Aquinas, pursuing a similar line to the champion of Nicene orthodoxy Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, maintains that whilst the incarnate Son of God possessed and taught every moral virtue, he could not have exercised faith without compromising his divine nature:

The field of faith is divine reality that is hidden from sight …  Now, a virtue, like any other habit, takes its character from its field of action.  Hence, where divine reality is not hidden from sight there is no point in faith.  But from the moment of conception Christ had the full vision of the very being of God, as we will hold later on.  Therefore he could not have had faith.  Hence: (i) The reason faith ranks higher than the moral virtues is that it deals with more important affairs than they do.  Yet it handles these affairs with certain limitations.  Now Christ suffered no such limitations.  And so, even though he did have moral virtues he could not have had faith. (Summa Theologiae, 3a.7.3)

As I have suggested elsewhere, Jesus’ faith remains the unanswered challenge to classical two-natures Christology.¹⁶ To parody another theological conundrum:  If Jesus exercised faith, how can he have been divine?  If he was divine, how can he have exercised faith?  If he exercised faith whilst being divine, in what sense Incarnation?  How these issues are resolved has tended to depend on whether you start pre or post ‘Big-Bang’.  If your point of departure is the risen and ascended Christ, then the divine nature remains in the driving seat throughout Jesus’ life; if you begin with the Galilean Jew from Nazareth, then faith fuels his ministry and substantiates his being in relation to God.

Yet, perhaps these are not as mutually exclusive as has often been claimed.  It is true, if the resurrection as traditionally conceived is the birth of faith, then we can know little of Jesus’ own practice.  But if Jesus’ own practice of faith precipitated an evolving process of christological reflection among those with whom he shared it and who, through doing so, increasingly came to place their trust in him, then his habitus becomes both the medium and the motivation for the continuing exploration of Jesus’ theological identity and significance.  Who is this Jesus whose faith makes Israel’s God, long experienced as absent, present and rich with blessing?  This line of thinking may seem alien to us now, but not so in the first century.  Faith as embodied belief rather than abstract formulation was the currency of the day, with the great figures of Israel’s past joining forces with contemporary counterparts to be a source of inspiration, example and, if necessary, coercion.

It is for this reason that Paul, when attempting to communicate Jesus’ enduring capacity to make God accessible, identifies faith as the lynch pin.¹⁷ For the apostle, Jesus’ faith finds definitive expression in obedience to the point of death on the cross.  An act of faith so radical as to transcend the alienating dispensation of being-in-sin-under-the-law, so that the promise of faith, of living in wholesome relationship with God, entrusted to Abraham may find universal fulfilment in him.  For Paul, Jesus Christ is not the object of faith, but its source and living embodiment.  All faith flows from his faith and in him all humanity discovers that quality of existence which faith, through the Spirit, is able to form within us.  Evidently, this was Paul’s own experience, both personally and through his ministry, and it is one which leads him to ask, who is Jesus Christ in relation to God that, though he was crucified, yet lives and brings others to life?

The impetus for discovering Jesus’ theological identity, therefore, may well reside in his habitus of faith which continues to be accessible to us precisely because he made it so – Jesus inducted those around him in the art of faith, believing it was the vehicle through which his vision for the coming of God’s kingdom would find at least partial realization before God intervened decisively to bring it to fulfilment.  Thus, although Jesus’ intention here was to extend access to God and to the blessing associated with God’s presence, those who made his practice of faith their own and who, through doing so, began to experience God afresh, found themselves asking searching questions about Jesus and his relation to God’s salvific plans as discerned in the Scriptures.  Poignantly, this process is reflected in our canonical gospels whose very existence confirms that Jesus’ ministry prior to his death was considered indispensable for his enduring significance.  In many respects, the three Synoptic Gospels are very different from one another and yet they share the conviction that access to Jesus’ identity is a destination reached by those who become his followers and allow his faith to form within them.  Rarely is Jesus the object of belief in the first three Gospels (cf. Mark 9:42 par.; 15:32 par.); rather, in his presence faith comes to life (cf. ‘You faith has caused you to live’; Mark 5:34 par.; 10:52 par.; Luke 7:50; 17:19) and finds authoritative expression through him (cf. Matt. 17:20; Mark 11:22-4 par.).  Only at the end, when Jesus’ faith has been tested through suffering to the point of death are those who have kept his company able to appreciate his worth.  By contrast, the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel invites belief in himself as God’s liberating presence from the outset, but not as an alternative to following his example.  For those who believe in him are commissioned to continue his mission to the world and to perform even mightier acts of God.¹⁸ In this respect, John’s Jesus is not a different Jesus from the one we encounter in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but rather a Jesus whose theological identity has become clearer to those who continue to feel the impact of his life upon theirs – who experience resurrection as Jesus’ lively presence inhabiting the habitus of faith.

Our intergalactic explorations must draw to a close and it is time to return to base.  We haven’t uncovered any fresh Jesuses to supplement the ever-burgeoning scholarly identity parade; but, there again, this was not our intention.  Rather, whilst the search for Jesus of Nazareth behind the phenomenon of the resurrection continues, we have attempted to identify at least one ‘shuttle’ capable of making the journey – a particular embodiment of faith evident in those who, whether before or after the crucifixion, allowed his life to impact upon theirs: embodying forgiveness, learning to call God ‘Father’, becoming wise, living joyously, loving wholeheartedly, pursuing God’s kingdom.  Here is a vehicle capable of putting us in touch with Jesus and, as we embark, we too – like millions before us – will find ourselves transported into his company where we shall be able not only to engage with the mystery of his identity, but grow into the mystery of our own.

Download PCC Agenda Feb 2012

Jimmy is a traditional ‘man of the road.’  Someone who has chosen to be of no fixed abode and wouldn’t thank you for the offer of settled accommodation – ‘too much trouble, too much responsibility’.  Possessions on his back, bedding also, he wears a knowing, yet strangely contented, expression – greeting those he meets with an affable ‘good day’, sharing the crack over a cup of tea and sandwich wherever he finds a welcome.

Derek is also of no fixed abode, but not willingly.  He hasn’t the temperament for it, being naturally anxious and wary.  Evicted from social housing years ago through rent arrears, he now relies on private landlords.  Yet when he manages to find somewhere to settle there is always some reason why he can’t stay and so he moves on – desperate to find the security that eludes him.

Peter also struggles to stay in the same place, although for different reasons.  Addictions are too well established and feeding them is the number one preoccupation, which means, when suffering a ‘downer’, anything saleable and in reach is sold to secure the next ‘hit’. Until recently, he had a council flat; but when the officers discovered he’d removed all the plumbing, they removed him.

Michael is still in his council flat which is not lacking for creature comforts.  It is the kind of accommodation that many would give their right arms for.  But it isn’t home for Michael who can’t manage the loneliness of occupying his own space – so he spends as little time there as possible, sometimes choosing to sleep rough, preferring the public places where he is able to find the attention and affirmation he craves.

In some ways, Kevin is similar.  He also lives in a flat provided by the local authority.  However, to cope with the loneliness of living alone, he acquired a canine companion; then some of the neighbours reported him and keep complaining about the dog barking and causing a nuisance.  Eviction proceedings have been started on more than one occasion, but so far he has managed to stay put – only, though, through spending much of the day and night, walking the streets, lead in hand, dog by his side.

Remi is in an altogether different situation.  Some time ago, he came to the UK, fleeing civil unrest and persecution, seeking asylum and hoping to settle his family here so that they could make a fresh start.  Initially, accommodation was provided, but once his application had been considered and a decision reached, it was withdrawn.  So even though he has been granted leave to remain, he finds himself on the streets or the floors of whatever shelters will receive him.

Jimmy, Derek, Peter, Michael, Kevin, Remi.  In any one week, some or all of these persons (although I’ve changed their names), along with others, will present themselves at the vicarage door.  It is, of course, only a subset of those who in one way or another can be characterised as homeless.  In my last parish, for example, there were young single mums – supposedly, a vulnerable group in receipt of priority attention by local authorities.  But if there is no social housing available and, what there is, is not always allocated on the basis of need, all that happens is that your name is moved further up a waiting list.

Homelessness is not out there in somebody else’s backyard, so to speak; it is in ours.  In truth, I not infrequently – sometimes literally – bump into some anonymous soul who has hunkered down for the night in the coffin porch or by the bins.  Sometimes they are ready to talk and although the fragments of their stories relate very different situations and circumstances they seem to find a common voice in communicating a sense of loss and being lost – a kind of living bereavement for themselves.

These are some of the faces behind the statistics that highlight the alarming levels of homelessness and poverty in this city, never mind throughout the country and around the world.   Although the situation is, at least in some ways, considerably more serious – a number of the persons mentioned earlier are not included because, strictly speaking, they are not without access to accommodation.

But if my years as a priest have taught me anything it is that homelessness is not an accommodation crisis; it is a symptom of a community lamentably lacking in social cohesiveness – in the glue that relates us to one another.

A community that has so professionalized care that it has inadvertently devalued, if not outlawed, the practice of neighbourliness and showing common kindness.  That encourages us to look upon one another through the protective spectacles of health and safety and CRB.  A community that values personal wealth and possessions above creating a more wholesome quality of life for all.  One that in seeking to help its weakest members has engendered a culture of dependency and diminished responsibility.  A community that no longer shares a narrative that makes these dis-eases visible and points us towards a remedy.

It would be easy at this point to blame the politicians; but it would be dishonest to do so, because we are citizens of a democracy.  Which presumably implies that the Government and its polices reflect the views of at least many, if not most, of us.  Nor should we overestimate what can be accomplished by any one Administration – for the roots of homelessness reach beyond party politics to embrace society as a whole.

And we hear all this within the context of a church congregation that seeks to be truly inclusive, although when the doorbell rings and one of our homeless members is standing there, to be honest with you, I have no idea what that means.  Somehow, a sandwich and cup of tea or even a referral to the Stop Gap night shelter seem woefully inadequate.

Here is a challenge that I hope we can make our own; in truth, if we are to be an inclusive church, welcoming the homeless is part of our vocation.  And maybe the place to start is with motivation – for with so much going on and with so many priorities there is, I suspect, something in each of us that would rather look the other way and leave the problem (as it is often described) of homelessness to someone else.

But we can’t and the reason why we can’t is highlighted in this morning’s Gospel reading which narrates the presentation of the newly born Jesus at the Jerusalem Temple.  There is much in this story that repays close attention, but let us focus on one aspect – recognition.

Simeon and Anna, priest and prophet, both recognised the Christ in the face of the infant.  In one so frail and unformed, so useless, they discover their liberation in the fulfilment of their hopes.

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:
your word has been fulfilled.
My own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people;
A light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.  (Luke 2.29-32)

The Christ in the infant, of course, is a retrospective insight flowing from recognition of the Christ in the ministry of Jesus.  For the ‘Christ’ figure, in Hebrew ‘Messiah’, denotes an Archetype – the liberator from oppression and fulfiller of our hopes.  And it is one that many found and continue to find its definitive exposition in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

And yet, and here we touch one of the originating impulses of the Christian Way, it is an Archetype that awaits recognition in the face of one and all, especially those of least account.

Think of the zealous Pharisee Saul, hell-bent on eradicating the followers of Jesus, until he encounters the Christ in the faces of those he sought to destroy:  ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ (Acts 9.4; Galatians 1.13-17)

Think of that parable, popularized as ‘the Sheep and the Goats’, which seems to sum up so much of what Jesus was about, as well as to disclose the experiences of those who continued to practice his Way.

‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?  And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25.37-40)

Recognizing the Christ in the face of the hungry and the thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the diseased and the imprisoned.  I wonder if our response to Jimmy, Derek, Peter, Michael, Kevin and Remi will begin to take shape as we recognise The Christ in their faces and find in his and their presence the resources we need to serve him through serving them.