London, Paris, Rome and Wilcrick...
As I was giving a sort of ‘Thought for the day’ on Thursday in Undy, Pope Benedict XVI was landing in the UK. He was going to have a nice cup of tea with the Queen in Holyrood.
Amidst the controversy and scandals (and one of his senior
advisors Cardinal Walter Kasper saying that the UK is like a Third World country) the POPE came to tell us that FAITH IS IMPORTANT, not just to CATHOLICS or ANGLICANS, but to everyone.
First he delivered a sermon that rounded on what he called aggressive secularism and atheism. As he travels to different venues, his speeches and sermons have become a little more complex, building on what he said in the Westminster Hall was “The importance of building on solid moral and ethical foundations”. Religion, he said, is not a “problem for the legislators to solve” but a “vital contributor to the national conversation”
Of course, he then spoke about the “increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity” and how in human terms “time is always short”, and we should concentrate our effort, the holy and the secular together in working to solve the problems of today
First he delivered a sermon that rounded on what he called aggressive secularism and atheism. As he travels to different venues, his speeches and sermons have become a little more complex, building on what he said in the Westminster Hall was “The importance of building on solid moral and ethical foundations”. Religion, he said, is not a “problem for the legislators to solve” but a “vital contributor to the national conversation”
Of course, he then spoke about the “increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity” and how in human terms “time is always short”, and we should concentrate our effort, the holy and the secular together in working to solve the problems of today
, war, poverty, environmental catastrophe and a hundred other different problems that face us today.
“The Church and Christianity is not a problem, it’s a benefit to society”, that was his message.
The POPE was saying that FAITH is the structure of our everyday lives whatever we might think about it. It is the antecedent of our legal and education systems, it provides a structure for how we
“The Church and Christianity is not a problem, it’s a benefit to society”, that was his message.
The POPE was saying that FAITH is the structure of our everyday lives whatever we might think about it. It is the antecedent of our legal and education systems, it provides a structure for how we
treat each other and how we live our lives.
He was saying that the importance of the ‘checks and balances’ of religion cannot be underestimated; a wholly secular society would be a much worse place.
This week, two things made me think about the importance of what we are doing here in church, and in the communities around us.
I had a call on my mobile phone on Thursday night, the police told me that Langstone church had been broken into and a lot of damage had been done.
When I arrived there I met a policeman who had caught two people in the church. He told me that lots of police had taken the ‘call’ and rushed to see what was happening in the church. One policeman had commented “how could people do this?” all the police in attendance agreed, similarly in the morning the Crime Scene people also felt it was not just disappointing, but despicable that a church would be desecrated in such a way. They linked damage to the church with a downward spiral of morality and the loss of ‘community’.
This is just what the Pope was saying, you might not love the church, you might never go to church, you might not have any religion at all, but somewhere deep down most people agree that it stands for something we are in danger of losing, and at the very least a social good.
Another incident made me smile; I recently met someone who told me that he didn’t believe in any religion or faith and he had his own code, which he lived by. When I enquired what it might be, he told me;
“Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that since around 1670 this saying (in its’ many forms) has been referred to as the "Golden Rule", and usually refers to a saying of Christ. In the King James Version it says
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matthew 7:12, see also Luke 6:31)
The common English phrasing is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
My unsuccessful atheist friend had been living by a saying of Christ, and determining his judgments and his philosophy on it.
The Pope’s journey to the UK could have got a lot more smiles if I wrote his sermon, it also wouldn’t have been so hard to read.
Some of the media picked up on his direct comments, and not really knowing how to deal with them, they decided instead to report on women priests and homosexuality; The pace of the church in dealing with what for many is normal and everyday.
They also brought to the spotlight the awful and damaging scandals of abuse involving Catholic Priests and citing the disinterest of the church as a failure in bringing these monsters to justice.
All these things are held up by some as good reasons to control and censure the church from every aspect of society and civic life, but they are not.
They are in the main, the cries of disappointment from ordinary people who had hoped for so much more, those who had invested heavily in the church in a spiritual and physical sense only to be let down badly.
Whether Richard Dawkins, and perhaps now Stephen Hawking like it or not, the church still holds a responsibility to the world, even if it lets people down so often. As an imperfect vessel; it is still the vessel to carry the love of Christ to the world.
Clergy sometimes joke that if you have six people attending a church decide it needs to close you will have one hundred and fifty letters of complaint. Like all humour, it has the ring of truth to it.
Surrounding all our churches are communities that might not be supporting in any physical or spiritual sense, but somehow we represent something that is good, and whose loss is their loss.
We need to translate this into a real need, so that people can once again engage with the church, and come to hear the message of hope and peace, which is needed by so many in today’s Britain.
I wish the POPE well in his visit to us in the UK, I hope that he finds that we are not a ‘third world country’ in terms of spirituality.
If the last stop in his tour turns out to be this Benefice, I would like to tell him that we might not have the fantastic splendour of St. Peter’s Square to look out on each morning, we might not be surrounded by priceless art and beautiful architecture, but even in the smallest of churches with the smallest congregations, we can still ‘fighting the good fight’, trying to live by the Golden Rule and in hopeful anticipation, trying to build the Kingdom of God for those around us.
He was saying that the importance of the ‘checks and balances’ of religion cannot be underestimated; a wholly secular society would be a much worse place.
This week, two things made me think about the importance of what we are doing here in church, and in the communities around us.
I had a call on my mobile phone on Thursday night, the police told me that Langstone church had been broken into and a lot of damage had been done.
When I arrived there I met a policeman who had caught two people in the church. He told me that lots of police had taken the ‘call’ and rushed to see what was happening in the church. One policeman had commented “how could people do this?” all the police in attendance agreed, similarly in the morning the Crime Scene people also felt it was not just disappointing, but despicable that a church would be desecrated in such a way. They linked damage to the church with a downward spiral of morality and the loss of ‘community’.
This is just what the Pope was saying, you might not love the church, you might never go to church, you might not have any religion at all, but somewhere deep down most people agree that it stands for something we are in danger of losing, and at the very least a social good.
Another incident made me smile; I recently met someone who told me that he didn’t believe in any religion or faith and he had his own code, which he lived by. When I enquired what it might be, he told me;
“Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that since around 1670 this saying (in its’ many forms) has been referred to as the "Golden Rule", and usually refers to a saying of Christ. In the King James Version it says
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matthew 7:12, see also Luke 6:31)
The common English phrasing is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
My unsuccessful atheist friend had been living by a saying of Christ, and determining his judgments and his philosophy on it.
The Pope’s journey to the UK could have got a lot more smiles if I wrote his sermon, it also wouldn’t have been so hard to read.
Some of the media picked up on his direct comments, and not really knowing how to deal with them, they decided instead to report on women priests and homosexuality; The pace of the church in dealing with what for many is normal and everyday.
They also brought to the spotlight the awful and damaging scandals of abuse involving Catholic Priests and citing the disinterest of the church as a failure in bringing these monsters to justice.
All these things are held up by some as good reasons to control and censure the church from every aspect of society and civic life, but they are not.
They are in the main, the cries of disappointment from ordinary people who had hoped for so much more, those who had invested heavily in the church in a spiritual and physical sense only to be let down badly.
Whether Richard Dawkins, and perhaps now Stephen Hawking like it or not, the church still holds a responsibility to the world, even if it lets people down so often. As an imperfect vessel; it is still the vessel to carry the love of Christ to the world.
Clergy sometimes joke that if you have six people attending a church decide it needs to close you will have one hundred and fifty letters of complaint. Like all humour, it has the ring of truth to it.
Surrounding all our churches are communities that might not be supporting in any physical or spiritual sense, but somehow we represent something that is good, and whose loss is their loss.
We need to translate this into a real need, so that people can once again engage with the church, and come to hear the message of hope and peace, which is needed by so many in today’s Britain.
I wish the POPE well in his visit to us in the UK, I hope that he finds that we are not a ‘third world country’ in terms of spirituality.
If the last stop in his tour turns out to be this Benefice, I would like to tell him that we might not have the fantastic splendour of St. Peter’s Square to look out on each morning, we might not be surrounded by priceless art and beautiful architecture, but even in the smallest of churches with the smallest congregations, we can still ‘fighting the good fight’, trying to live by the Golden Rule and in hopeful anticipation, trying to build the Kingdom of God for those around us.
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