Readings – James 5.13–20; Mark 9.38–50
“Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”
There is a striking and rather horrifying picture about our Christian past that occasionally does the rounds on the Internet. It is a photograph of two strangely shaped tombstones, located either side of a high wall. The tombstones are even higher, and from the top of each a hand stretches out to touch the other.
The touching hands between the tombs of Colonel van Gorcum and Lady van Aefferden in the Dutch city of Roermond. © memolands.com gallery and used under Creative Commons Licence 2.0.
The graves are located in the Dutch city of Roermond, and belong to Colonel van Gorcum, a Protestant cavalry officer, and his wife Lady van Aefferden, a Catholic minor noble. They were married in 1842, and after thirty-eight years of presumably happy marriage, the Colonel died and was buried in the Protestant part of the local cemetery, where the dead were divided from one another denominationally by a high wall. His wife therefore refused to be buried in the grand family plot, in the Catholic part of the cemetery, insisting that she would be buried on her own immediately across the wall from him. That is where she was laid to rest eight years later, in 1888, and their graves remain to this day a reminder of the capacity of love to triumph over bigotry.
Love conquers all – even tribalism and stupidity.
Christ presents a dire warning in today’s Gospel about those who place stumbling blocks in the way of faith. The horrid things done due to disagreements between Catholics and Protestants are a huge stumbling block to Christian faith for many, a major contributor to the decline of Christianity in this country and across Europe. Today we pay a heavy price for the sins for the past.
Of course, we’re not like that these days. We’re much more enlightened. Devizes is now absolutely normal in terms of today’s Christianity, certainly in this country, in that the social action of the Church, our commitment to supporting the needy, or the homeless, or people with addiction problems, is carried out absolutely ecumenically. Not only do Conservative Roman Catholics work hand in hand with staunchly Evangelical Protestants, but both work with people at the most theologically liberal end of the Quakers or Anglicans or Methodists, who might see themselves as following a Christian path towards a universal truth rather than understanding Christianity as even presenting a distinct truth at all. All of us seem to have taken on board Jesus’ command to the apostles today about the stranger healing in His name: “Do not stop him; for … whoever is not against us is for us.”
More than that, Christians are usually keen to work with people of other faiths to help the needy. Across the UK, churches and mosques are currently working hand-in-hand to support refugees newly arrived from Afghanistan as they settle into their new home. I could also reference the extraordinary joint efforts between Christians and Sikhs to feed the most vulnerable during the lockdowns.
Incidentally, did you know that in Sikhism, every temple is required to have an active community kitchen which feeds all who come to it, free of charge, regardless of their religion or status in life? The next time you’re passing a temple at the right time of day pop in – as long as you’re happy that it’s all vegetarian – and you will be made very welcome.
Now, shall I end this sermon at this point, with all of us feeling warm and glowing because we’re so much more enlightened than our grandfathers or our great-great-grandfathers? Or might there be a more challenging message to take forward?
Of course there is!
Firstly, we may be more tolerant of different forms of Christianity or different faiths entirely, but most Christian denominations, including the Church of England, seem to have become much more internally divided.
We’re usually delighted to engage with Roman Catholics, or Muslims, who hold very different views from us on gender or sexuality. But, be honest, how do you feel about our fellow Anglicans who don’t accept the ministry of women, even those whom they acknowledge to be holy and gifted, as priests and bishops? What about our fellow Anglicans who think that abortion is morally wrong under any circumstances? What about our fellow Anglicans who believe that sexually active same-sex relationships, even if loving, faithful, and lifelong, can only ever be morally deficient? Are we tolerant of them, or do we think and say things about them that we would never imagine saying about a conservative Baptist, or a Hindu?
Secondly, it strikes me that even as we’ve become more religiously tolerant, we’ve become more politically intolerant. For example, I’m sure there is among you this morning the full spectrum of opinions about Brexit. Let me ask you, regardless of your personal view on the matter, have there been times over the past five years where you’ve got into an argument about Brexit where you’ve behaved in a manner you were later embarrassed about? Also, have you seen friends who you’d always found to be congenial soulmates, kind and decent people who happened to vote the other way from you in the Referendum, show you a side of their character you were shocked by? I think the vast majority of us have seen ugly sides of ourselves, and also of people who we’d always loved and admired.
Those two things together lead me conclude that this one of the big lessons from this morning’s Gospel reading: we spent a lot of time dreaming about how to get everyone to agree about our biggest problems, when the question we need to ask is how to live fruitfully with people with whom we disagree profoundly.
When you think about it, a world where everybody agreed all the time would be a bit creepy and robotic. It might not suffer much conflict, but it would also be full of staleness, and incompetence, and injustice. It would, in the language of today’s Gospel, be a world without saltiness.
We should therefore be grateful to God for our differences! We all know that organisations or societies or workplaces dominated by cosy consensuses can be places where everyone is nice on the surface, but underneath lurks all sorts of poor practice, corruption, and abuse of the weak. Healthy organic societies need a little saltiness just as healthy human organisms do. There is always a need for people to challenge received wisdom, even if it makes people uncomfortable or upset.
At the same time, too much salt kills. So, equally, there is always a need for people to find mechanisms through which people who are genuinely divided over important things can work together for the common good. Balance is the key here; there is a need for what we might term a social ecology both in the Church and in wider society. We need enough agreement for all to flourish, but enough disagreement to stop us becoming unhealthily bland and flavourless.
Where to find the balance point? That is inevitably a matter of judgement. Might I suggest taking St James’ advice this morning that “[t]he prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective”. Ask God to show you how to work for the causes you believe to be just, without being unable to coexist with those who disagree with you about them. God does find ways that are not immediately obvious, if we listen to Him. Pray also for our Church of England to be able to find ways of coexisting that are not immediately apparent. The C of E is at times frustrating and annoying, but neither this country nor the Christian Church worldwide would be better places it tore itself apart. Pray for God to show it how to embody both inclusivity and unity: pray as St James exhorted us to this morning, in the way Elijah did: pray fervently, and then pray again.
In conclusion, be glad that you do not live amidst the sort of divisions and bigotries that characterised the Church of the past, but be aware that the Church of the present has plenty of fractures too. Think about how to relate constructively with people you disagree with about the most divisive issues in the Church, and about the most divisive issues in secular society: but never do so at the cost of being silent in the face of injustice or incompetence, or just for the sake of a quiet life. Never lose your saltiness, while asking to God for show you how much of it is healthiest for you and for us all.
Now to the only wise God our saviour, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
