Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

I am giving the talks in December for Minutes that Matter on RTHK Radio 4. The music for each talk is from the Sistine Chapel Choir's recording of music for Christmas and Advent with the mezz-soprano Cecilia Bartoli.

Talk One: Not as clever as we like to think we are

Humankind universally believes in the idea of human progress. At its simplest, this is the belief that things are constantly getting better and improving. There is evidence for this. You only have to look at the advances in science and technology, in medicine, and in human knowledge generally. It is true that these advances have had some negative side effects - climate change being one of the most dramatic - but people undoubtedly live longer today than they used to and diseases that were killers only a generation or two ago are so no more. Fewer people are living in absolute poverty and, incredibly, more people now die of over-eating than starvation.

It is no surprise, then, that we apply this idea of 'progress' more generally than simply to scientific knowledge and discoveries. We simply assume that because we have demonstrably progressed in some areas of human knowledge and endeavour that the same must be true in all areas. In social and moral attitudes, for example, it is taken as obvious that what we believe now must be superior to what was believed in the past. We see this particularly, but by no means exclusively, in the area of sexual ethics.

The idea that what we believe now must be an improvement on what was believed in the past is written into the DNA of developed societies, even if some living in them still mistakenly insist on clinging to the outdated attitudes of the past. Spiritually, therefore, what we believe now, must, we think, be an improvement on what past generations believed. As evidence we point to the fairy tales, superstitions, and myths of the past. Increasingly included in these fairy tales and myths of the past is any belief in a deity.

In the past, humans have believed in spirits inhabiting trees and plants, then in various gods of different kinds, and then, more generally, in one god of an organized religion. Now, in so-called developed and ‘educated’ societies, we increasingly believe in none. While we still - albeit somewhat reluctantly at times - acknowledge the right of people to believe and practise whatever religion they wish, religion is not seen as being about truth, but about personal choice and preference. Religion is kept out of the decision-making processes of society in a way that would have been inconceivable in the past, and still is in some societies at least today.

The message is clear, however: just as science has progressed, so too we as a species have, and are, progressing spiritually. As we progress, we will have less and less time for God and religion, even on a personal level. It is hard not to succumb to this understanding and even Christians are buying into it and reshaping their faith - if it can be called that - accordingly. The result is that religion is not seen as being about finding God and obeying him in this life so that we will live forever with him in the next, but about how we find fulfilment now and work to make this world an ever better place in which to live for the short time we are here.

The Bible’s view of human history, however, is not one of progress, but of decline; of an ever-increasing descent into darkness and ignorance. St Paul wrote: ‘For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse ... ' (Romans 1:19-20)

The wonder of the physical world in which we live that science has discovered and revealed to us was meant, St Paul believed, to lead us to seek God.

The incredible irony is that what was meant to lead us to God has only led us to move further from him. Rather than being amazed at the vastness and wonder of creation and worshipping the Creator, we have instead become amazed at our own cleverness in observing and describing it all.

The Bible’s message is that our only hope is for us to return to the One who made us. But to do that we need to abandon our pride and belief in ourselves. Until we find God, we will not find ourselves. We may tell ourselves that everything is getting better, that we are progressing well and advancing. The truth, however, is that without God, we are lost. What we all are in need of is not greater knowledge, but the forgiveness that can only come when we turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

But that means that we first need to admit that we are not nearly as clever as we like to think we are.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript for the fifth of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Five: Never Again

Jesus’ family were devout Jews.  Jesus and his first followers were all observant Jews.  The person credited in the Church with leading the Church in reaching out to non-Jews was the most observant Jew of all.  The writings the Church used as the basis for understanding their Lord, faith, and mission were all Jewish.  Our Bibles, as Christians, are predominantly made up of the Hebrew Scriptures, and even that part of it that we don’t share with the Jewish people was written by Jews.

We can understand there having been arguments between Christians and Jews as there always are in any family.  You would think, however, that, with such a background, it would have been impossible and inconceivable the Church could turn on people, simply because they were Jews.  Nevertheless, the unthinkable happened.

The story of the parting of the ways between Jew and Christian is a complicated one and more nuanced than it is often presented as being.  At the beginning, some Jews didn’t like Christians any more than some Christians liked Jews.  But this sort of mutual dislike is hardly a new phenomenon.  The systematic persecution of a people, however, solely because of their religion and ethnicity, and the attribution to them of crimes more imagined than real, is something else altogether.

This hatred of the Jewish people, and hatred is not too strong a word, was to be exploited in the twentieth century by the Nazis and was to reach its awful climax in the Holocaust.  This was an unprecedented event in which, tragically, many Christians at the time were complicit.

Six million lives were lost in the Holocaust.  As if that were not bad enough, also lost was a culture that was rich and which had much to offer a world that, in the mid-20th century, was entering a new age.  The music I have played during these talks was composed by Gideon Klein, a Czech Jewish composer.  He was sent to the Terezin concentration camp where he continued to compose until he was sent, first to Auschwitz, and then to the Fürstengrube labour camp where he died in 1945.

Many do not believe that anything like the Holocaust could ever happen again.  That, however, is not good enough.  It must never happen again.  And yet, despite all we know, antisemitism is still with us.  It is in the headlines every day.  It may be taking on new forms and disguises, but it is the same evil.  This time Christians must stand with the Jewish people against the antisemites and not with the antisemites against the Jews.

On my recent visit to Yad Vashem, I had the privilege of spending time with Jewish friends there studying more about the Holocaust and its causes.  While there, I wrote to Christian friends about what I was learning.  One of my Christian friends wrote an email back asking me if I had thought of being circumcised.  He meant that if this was how I felt, why didn’t I become a Jew.

I am a committed and convinced Christian.  I am a follower of Jesus whose message I believe is good news both for Jews and for all who will hear and respond in faith to it.  I am, however, deeply ashamed of the indifference of many in the Church to the suffering of the Jewish people, both past and present, suffering that we Christians must bear some of the responsibility for causing.

[Music:
Gideon Klein, Madrigal 1 pour soprano, Alto, Ténor and basse]

Christians too are children of Abraham.  Isaac and Jacob are our ancestors.  The Lord we worship and follow is of the tribe of Judah, the son of David; a Jewish child of a Jewish mother.  We call him by a Jewish title, Christ, the Messiah.  The privilege of belonging to the people of God is ours.  Nevertheless, as St Paul wrote, the gifts and calling of God to his ancient people, the Jews, are irrevocable.

May God grant then to those of us who are Christians not to be proud or arrogant, but grateful to God for his mercy.  And may all of us, as we remember the Holocaust, commit to making sure that it really will be ‘never again’.

Thought for the Week - August 4

I had the privilege of giving the 'Thought for the Week' on RTHK Radio 3 today. This is a transcript of the talk with a link to the broadcast in the Radio 3 archive.

Anne Frank

Many of you will know the story of Anne Frank.  Anne; her parents, Otto and Edith; and her sister, Margot; together with four others went into hiding in a secret annexe of a building in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War 2.

On her 13^th birthday, just before the family went into hiding, Anne was given a diary.  During her time in the annexe, she wrote about her life there describing her thoughts and feelings.  Those in the annexe kept in touch with what was going on in the outside world through those who were helping them and by listening to the radio.  One day on the radio, Anne heard the Dutch Minister of Education, who had escaped to England, appealing to people to keep hold of any diaries or documents they had for use after the war.  Anne was inspired to go over her diary and rewrite it into one running story of her life in captivity, hoping it would be read when the war was over.

Before Anne had completed her rewriting, however, on this day, August 4 in 1944, Anne and her family were discovered in a police raid on the building.  Anne was taken to prison and then transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration camp.  Otto was sent to the camp for men.  Anne, Margot, and her mother to the labour camp for women.  In 1944, Anne and Margot were deported to the Bergen-Belsen camp where they died.

Anne’s writings were discovered and looked after by those helping the Franks.  Her father, who alone survived, published an edited version of her diary after the war.  It was an immediate success.  Later a fuller version was also published.  The Diary has made Anne famous, and the house where they went into hiding is now a major tourist attraction.  A quote from Anne’s diary is well-known: ‘I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.’  This positive outlook in the face of adversity appeals to us and Anne’s story has been made into a universal story of youthful optimism and the triumph of the human spirit.  This, however, will not do.

We like to think of Anne in the annexe full of life and hope.  But hers is not a story of any girl, it is a story of a Jewish girl who suffered like millions of other Jews for no other reason than that they were Jews.  Anne’s final words in her diary were: ‘if only there were no other people in the world.’  But there were.  And many of them were anything but ‘good at heart’.  We pass over the awfulness of Anne’s death in our desire to read of her life, but as we read in her diary of her life, we need also to remember how it ended.  This is a description from an eye-witness at the Concentration camp:

‘I saw Anne and her sister Margot again in the barracks … It was winter and you didn’t have any clothes.  So all of the ingredients for illness were present.  They were in bad shape.  Day by day they got weaker … You could see that they were very sick.  The Frank girls were so emaciated.  They looked terrible.  They had little squabbles, caused by their illness, because it was clear that they had typhus … They had those hollowed-out faces, skin over bone.  They were terribly cold.  They had the least desirable places in the barracks, below, near the door, which was constantly opened and closed.  You heard them constantly screaming, “Close the door, close the door,” and the voices became weaker every day.  You could really see both of them dying …’

Anne and Margot may have died in the camp of typhus, but it was antisemitism that killed them.  As we see antisemitism on the rise again in our world, we need to read these words, heart-breaking though they are, and make a simple promise:

Never again.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript for the fourth of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Four: A Wild Olive Tree

Jesus was a Jew. He interpreted his life and ministry in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures. His mother and followers all believed that he came in fulfilment of promises made to the significant figures in Israel’s history. So important were his own people to him that Jesus made no attempt to reach out to anyone else. ‘He came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ as he himself put it. All this should have made antisemitism inconceivable in the Church. As history shows us only too clearly however, it didn’t. So what went wrong?

The Church began as a grouping within Judaism. The apostles were all based in Jerusalem and continued to live as observant Jews, observing the Jewish times of prayer and going daily to the Temple to pray. The credit and the blame for the Church becoming more than a group within Judaism is given in equal measure to Saint Paul.

In popular histories of the Church, it is under the influence of St Paul that the Church reached out beyond the confines of Judaism and left behind its Jewish roots to become a universal faith and religion. There is no question that St Paul was an amazing evangelist for the Christian faith and no doubt either that he believed that the Gospel was not only for the Jews, but for the Gentiles also. St Paul, however, wouldn’t recognize himself from the descriptions of him and his teaching in many accounts of his life and theology.

Yes indeed, St Paul did believe the Gospel was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews, but as he himself puts it, it was for the Jews first. He was after all a devout, observant Jew himself. He describes himself in this way: ‘circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews’. And while he came to see his birth and upbringing in a new light when he became a follower of Christ, he didn’t stop being an observant Jew. He still understood both the Lord he followed and the Gospel message he preached in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures. He still went to the Temple when he was in Jerusalem and still believed that God’s promises to Israel stood. He says so explicitly in his most important letter to the Christians in Rome.

Ironically, it is also in his letter to the Romans that he has to combat an increasing tendency in the Church, a tendency which has now become the norm in the Church. As Gentiles came into the Church, and more and more of the Church’s members were ex-pagans rather than Jews, the Church became less and less Jewish in character. This led the non-Jewish majority in the Church to look down on the Jewish minority and take a superior attitude toward them.

St Paul is horrified at this attitude. Apart from the fact that such pride and arrogance should have no place in the Church whatever the reason, in this case it showed a complete lack of understanding of the Gospel itself and the role of the Jewish people. Describing the people of Israel as an ‘olive tree’ that the Gentiles have been grafted on to, he warns the Gentiles:

‘do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.’ He continues: ‘So do not become proud but stand in awe.’

We do not know whether the Roman Christians listened to St Paul’s warning, what is certain is that, tragically, the Church historically did not. It was not long before the Jewish roots of the Church were all but forgotten and the two faiths that St Paul saw as belonging to the same root had parted ways. 

[Music: 

Gideon Klein, Duo pour violon and alto en 1/4 de ton: Andante]

The parting of the ways between Jew and Christian was to have tragic consequences. Doubtless there were faults on both sides; there always are. But, as the saying has it: ‘to the victor the spoils’. With the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in the Jewish War of AD 66-70, Jewish Christianity was to lose all influence in the Church and, with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, Christianity was to become the dominant force in the Empire and, with its dominance, the pride and arrogance that St Paul warned against was given free rein.

The Church of today can’t put the clock back – would that we could! We can, however, work hard to make sure that never again is antisemitism allowed a place in the Church and that the warning of St Paul, unheard in his own day is, at long last, heard in ours.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Four Tuesdays in July, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript for the third of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Three: Jesus the Jewish Rabbi

Christians will only be able to combat antisemitism both in the Church and the world if we better understand where we ourselves come from.  In my last talk at this time, I pointed to how our history as a Church begins with the promises of God to Abraham, promises which are repeated throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, culminating in the promise of a ‘son of David’, the great King of Israel.  Such an understanding may not prevent us falling into the sin of antisemitism, but it may at least make us pause for thought.

While we pause to contemplate where we have come from, we may also like to consider the example of the Lord we follow.  Nowadays, most of those of us who are Christians are Gentiles.  We are not Jews.  Most of the work we do as a Church is directed towards other Gentiles.  Jesus himself told his disciples to ‘go into all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’.  No matter what mistakes we may have made in the process, we have, as a Church, sought to do this.

In our attempts to bring people to believe in Christ, we have sought to make him as attractive to people as possible, and this has resulted in us leaving out those bits that we ourselves find unattractive or those bits that we think they will find unattractive.  So, for example, today we seek to show people how welcoming, inclusive, and forgiving Jesus was - which is true, he was - but we leave out the fact that he said that anyone who didn’t leave all that he had could not be one of his followers.

We also don’t tell them that he was a Jewish Rabbi who saw his ministry as being to the Jewish people in fulfilment of the Jewish Scriptures.  Instead, we make Jesus into a universal religious teacher whose teaching is for all people whatever their background.  This, apart from making Jesus’ teaching sound no more than pious platitudes of the kind that you might find in a self-help manual, also distorts who Jesus really was.

His mother pointed out that Jesus’ birth was in accordance with the promise made to her Jewish ancestors.  Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, the one who was to prepare the way for Jesus, was told that John would ‘turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.’  Rather than being a teacher of universal truths, Jesus’ teaching can only be understood in relation to the Hebrew Scriptures.  Jesus sought to explain and interpret them.  This may at times have been in a radical and shocking way, but he would have nothing to do with any suggestion that he had come to get rid of the Hebrew Scriptures:

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets;’ he said, ‘I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.’

When asked by a lawyer what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus replied that the lawyer must keep the ten commandments.  When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus recites the Shema, which was and is at the heart of Jewish prayer and worship.  Jesus dressed as an observant Jew, prayed as an observant Jew, and lived as an observant Jew.  He also avoided contact with Gentiles and confined his ministry to the historic boundaries of Israel.  For the avoidance of any doubt, on one occasion he specifically states: ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

[Music:
Gideon Klein, Duo pour violon and alto en 1/4 de ton: Lento]

Clearly Jesus’ life and ministry was to have significance for other than his own people.  But that was to come later.  First, he came to his own. 

After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus says to his disciples:

‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’

As Christians this is where we need to begin. We will only understand Jesus’ teaching and significance when we understand not only who he was, but also the people to whom he came. When St John in the Book of Revelation has a vision of the exalted Jesus in heaven, he sees: 

'the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David’

This is not only who Jesus was; it is who he still is.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Three Tuesdays in July, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript to the second talk in my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Two: Beginnings

How can Christians respond to the rise of antisemitism that we are witnessing at the present time?  How can we avoid being complicit in it as, to our shame, we were during the dark days of the third Reich?  How are we to avoid a repeat of the Shoah, the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered in concentration camps such as Auschwitz, while many endured unbearable pain and suffering?

Others are more competent than I am to describe the causes and events that led to the Holocaust.  The Yad Vashem website has many helpful resources for any who wish to know more.  Hopefully though, as a Christian leader, I am in a position to talk about the history of Christianity, and at least to express an opinion on how we should react to antisemitism today.  In what follows, then, I speak unashamedly as a Christian.  I am not a Jew, and I realize that my Jewish friends will not agree with some of what I have to say.  What I hope is that they will be able to see that in speaking about my faith, I am not speaking against theirs.  And, from the outset, I wish to distance myself as far as possible from the attitudes towards Judaism that have characterized many Christians in the past.

Ask most Christians to give a potted history of Christianity and they will, as likely as not, begin with Jesus’ baptism and his ministry in Galilee.  This is not unreasonable.  It is how St Mark, the first to write an account of Jesus’ life, begins his Gospel.  Others will perhaps go back to the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the announcement to her that she is to give birth.  Again, it is not an unreasonable place to begin.  However, it is the Blessed Virgin Mary herself who gives us a clue as to where we should begin.  In giving thanks to God for what has happened to her, she says:

‘He has helped his servant Israel,

    in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

    to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’

These words are part of what has become known as the Magnificat, a hymn which is said or sung in Church services all over the world as part of Christian daily worship.  We listen to many famous musical settings of it by the great composers here on Radio 4.  Of course, Christianity centres on Christ.  The clue is in the name.  But it doesn’t begin with Christ, at least not in the sense that this is normally understood.  Its specific earthly history at least begins with God’s promise to Abraham and with his dealings with Israel.

This, indeed, is how St Matthew explains it in his Gospel.  St Matthew’s opening words are: ‘An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.’  He identifies Jesus using a Jewish title that comes from the great King of Israel, David, and traces Jesus’ ancestry back to the father of the Jewish people, Abraham.

Once Summer is over, we will start to look forward to Christmas.  Christians believe that in the history of the Jewish people as recounted in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a looking forward to the coming of Christ.  This is why readings from the Hebrew Scriptures feature so prominently both in the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ birth and in the services that will take place in a few months’ time.

[Music: 

Gideon Klein, Divertimento: Tempo di marcia]

The Christian name for the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, is the Old Testament.  Most Bibles are divided using this title.  Fair enough.  Christians believe that God did something new when Christ came.  But old can also be understood in the sense of being no longer relevant, out of date, or even wrong.  That is not how the first Christians thought of these writings.  These were their Scriptures, they were all Jews themselves after all.  They believed that what God was doing in their midst, through the person in whom they believed, could only be understood by studying and learning from these Scriptures.

Christians can only hope to understand their history by going back to where it all began in what we may call the Old Testament, but which remains strangely new and relevant to us today.

Minutes that Matter: Talk 2 Tuesdays in July, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

I am giving the talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.  This is the transcript of the first talk with a link to the audio on the RTHK website.

Talk One: Antisemitism

Recently, I had the very great privilege of being invited to attend a Seminar organized by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.  Yad Vashem is the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem whose mission is not only to inform people about what happened in those terrible days of the Third Reich in Germany, but also, through education and outreach, to help people learn the lessons of the Holocaust and to combat the rise of antisemitism today.  There were 30 of us there, Christian leaders from 13 different nationalities, with the majority from America.  We all shared a commitment to Christ and a desire to learn more about what had led people, brought up in a Christian culture, to take part in such an unprecedented programme of hate and mass murder.

We all felt deep shame at our part as Christians in the horrors that we were studying, moved both to tears and, hopefully, repentance.  We also felt, I think, a sense of responsibility to join with our Jewish brothers and sisters to work together to make sure that it could never happen again, while seeing with horror that antisemitism refuses to go away.  Sadly, there seems to be truth in the saying that ‘the only thing history seems to teach us, is that history doesn’t teach us anything’.

Since returning from Jerusalem, I have read headlines reporting acts of violence against Jews in America, Nazi swastikas painted on photographs of Holocaust survivors in Vienna, and the toleration of antisemitism in one of the two major British political parties in the UK – the country I come from.  And this is to give just three examples from many.

One of the observations that has been made of Jeremy Corbyn, the present leader of the political party in the UK that I have referred to, is, that when asked to condemn antisemitism, he always replies that he condemns antisemitism and all other forms of racism.  At first, this seems entirely reasonable.  Christians, in particular, should surely be against all forms of discrimination.  The problem is that this response, while it cannot be faulted for what it affirms, gives the impression that the person responding in this way wants not so much to condemn racism as to minimize the seriousness of antisemitism.  It is, after all, just one form of racism.  That may be unfair, and not what is intended, but it remains an impression, nevertheless.

Friends in the Church I have shared my experience in Jerusalem with, interestingly, have had a similar reaction when I have talked with them about antisemitism.  Their first reaction hasn’t been to share my repulsion towards this specific evil and join in condemning it, but to ask me how I feel about other evils.  Why won’t we face up to this evil I wonder?  Could it be that we still don’t see how evil it is?  Could it be that the seeds of antisemitism still remain planted in the soil not only of Christianity, but of the culture of our own times?

I would like to think not.  But, if we want to avoid an enemy planting them there once more, we, and again particularly those of us who are Christians, have to face up to the reality of antisemitism and of the Church’s responsibility historically for it.  Bishop Otto Dibelius, who became the President of the World Council of Churches after the war, said in 1928:

‘Despite the evil ring that the word has acquired in many cases, I have always considered myself an antisemite.  It cannot be denied that Judaism plays a leading role in all the corruptive phenomena of modern civilization.’

[Music:

Gideon Klein, Mouvements pour quatuor à cordes, Op. 2: Largo]

Bishop Dibelius was by no means alone in thinking this way.  Thankfully, I know no Church leader or Christian who would say that today.  But, to quote Martin Niemoller, another Church leader from those dark days:

‘First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —

     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —

     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —

     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.’

It is not enough for us to be against antisemitism, we need both to speak and act.

Minutes that Matter: Talk 1 Tuesdays in July, 2019

I had the privilege of giving the 'Thought for the Week' on RTHK Radio 3 today.  This is a transcript of the talk with a link to the broadcast in the Radio 3 archive.

Thought for the Week: April 21, 2019

Easter Sunday

Today is Easter Sunday.  This is the highlight of the Church’s Year.  It is the day when Christians all around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It all began when, nearly 2,000 years ago, a group of women who had followed him went to the tomb where he had been buried after his crucifixion by the Roman authorities.  They found it empty.  One of them, Mary Magdalene, claimed that Jesus had appeared to her.

His closest male disciples also claimed that he had appeared to them and other appearances followed.  It wasn’t long before the disciples were telling everyone that Jesus was alive and people were believing them.  The fact that the authorities couldn’t produce his body, which would have shut everyone up, only gave added credence to the reports that he was alive.

The rest, as they say, is history and the Christian Church was to go on to greater and greater success, eventually becoming the dominant force in the growth and development of western civilization although its influence has been felt all over the world and the Church today is strong in both Africa and Asia.

It’s a great story of success and the Church is right to celebrate it.  It’s just the sort of story for this time of year as well when, in the northern hemisphere, we are enjoying the arrival of Spring and looking forward to Summer.  In my own Church today, the Church will be decorated with lots of flowers as we celebrate Jesus being alive.

So far, so good; and far be it for me to say anything to spoil it.  However, it’s one thing to celebrate Jesus being alive and another thing altogether to understand what it means.  And this is where even Christians have some difficulty.  In the Bible, Jesus’ resurrection is linked inseparably to his death, not in the obvious sense that you can’t come back from the dead unless you first die, but in the sense that his death was for a purpose: it achieved something, something more than someone dying for what they believed.

This may be why Christmas, for most people, is the more popular Christian festival.  What’s not to like about celebrating the birth of a baby?  We can all get our minds around this and get together because of it.  And this too may be why Christians prefer to focus on the events of Easter Sunday rather than the events of Good Friday.  My Church will be full today.  It wasn’t full on Friday.

This isn’t just because death is something that we don’t want to think about – although there is that in it – but because of the Bible’s unremitting message that the responsibility for Jesus’ death isn’t down to those like Pilate and the governing authorities who arranged it, but because of you and me.  How on earth can we be held responsible is the obvious question?  The answer lies in the earliest explanation of Jesus’ death given by his first followers.  Their message quite simply was that: ‘Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures’.  In other words, that Jesus’ death was an event designed and determined by God to bring forgiveness for sin: yours and mine.

The universal symbol of Christianity is a plain Cross.  Jesus may have died on the Cross, but the Cross is now empty.  Christ is alive!  At the front of my Church, however, is a large Crucifix – a wooden Cross with the figure of Christ nailed to it.  A reminder that there is no escaping the death of Christ as much as we might like to.  The Risen Christ who Christians celebrate today is the Christ who died for us and who now today invites us to find forgiveness through his death for us.

And that really is something worth celebrating.

Thought for the Week; Easter Sunday

Minutes that Matter: November, 2018

Here is the final part of my series of talks for RTHK's 'Minutes that Matter' programme.  The link to the audio is at the end.

Talk Five: Teach it to your children

Jesus, when asked what was the greatest commandment, replied: ‘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.’  This would have come as no surprise to the person asking the question.  Jesus was quoting from the book of Deuteronomy in the Bible and it was also part of people’s daily prayers.  The Bible continues by commanding that we teach these words to our children.

The education of children is a major part of my life and the life of my Church.  If, however, I judge the success or otherwise of what we are doing by how much it fulfils the command of the Bible, then I am forced to admit that we are failing terribly.  Failing, not because we don’t care about children and their education, we do.  But failing because we have got the focus of our education all wrong.  For the Bible, the beginning and end of education should be no less than God himself.  If children leave school not having learnt about God and not having had the opportunity to enter a relationship with him in the person of Jesus Christ, then as Christians we have failed no matter how much else the child may have learnt.

Sherlock Holmes, in one story, tells Dr Watson that you can tell what an adult is like by looking at their children.  It is also true that you can see what parents most value in their lives by observing what they want for their children.  What we prioritize in the upbringing and education of our children shows what we prioritize in our own lives.  The children are a mirror that reflects what is important to us and what really matters to us.  If we prioritize social standing and material wealth that will be reflected in the choices we make for our children.  If we prioritize knowing God and his commandments that too will be reflected in the choices we make and how we bring them up.  This, as they say, is not rocket science.

Given how we relegate God to the side-lines of our lives or, more often than not, ignore him completely, it is comes as no surprise that God does not play a particularly central role in the education of our children and the choices we make for them.  We will normally begin choosing a school for them, for example, by examining the school’s academic performance rather than asking what it teaches about God.

In the same way that the Church is tailoring its message in an attempt to make it more relevant and acceptable to the society in which we live, so too we Christians are tailoring the education we give our children to be like the education on offer in the society around us.  There is very little real difference in the curriculum pursued in church schools and that followed in any other school that children may attend.

But if God really is the one ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’, any education that leaves God out of it cannot be called Christian education.  Nor is any education that relegates learning about God to a few lessons of RE and a religious assembly each week - with perhaps the observance of a few festivals thrown in for good measure.  If we take God seriously, if we want to love him with all our ‘heart, soul, mind, and strength’, then we will want our children to do so as well.  This will mean radically revising our curricula to make God their central concern.  It means moving God from the periphery of our children’s education to its centre. 

The author Yuval Noah Harari has written: ‘If this generation lacks a comprehensive view of the cosmos, the future of life will be decided at random.’  As the One who created the cosmos, it is only God who can give them the comprehensive view of life that they need.  I am not for one moment suggesting that children don’t need to learn to read, write, and add-up.  Nor that we should neglect teaching them about the world in which we live.  It is to suggest that, as we do so, we must do so as people who believe that as it was God who created the world, it can only be properly studied if we include him in the picture.

An old Catholic catechism asks the question: ‘Why did God make me?’  The answer it gives is: ‘God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.’ 

Knowing God should be central both to how we educate our children and to how, as adults, we live our lives.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Five

Minutes that Matter: November, 2018

The link to the audio is at the end of this transcript of my fourth talk for RTHK's 'Minutes that Matter' programme.

Talk Four: Only the few

The nice thing about being God is that you don’t need anyone to believe in you.  By virtue of being God, you don’t need anyone or anything to validate your existence.  That is, by definition, what it means to be God.  So when, for example, Moses asked the voice from the burning bush who he should say was sending him to tell Pharaoh to ‘let his people go’, the reply he got was to tell them, ‘I Am Who I Am’ had sent him.  God is - whether people believe in him or not.

God does not need us, but the opposite is true for us.  We do need God.  I don’t mean that we need him in an emotional sense as we might need someone to love or to love us, although that is true too.  No, we need God in the literal sense that our very existence depends on him as does the physical world in which we live.  As St Paul said, ‘in him we live and move and have our being’.  

It is this dependence on God for our very existence that makes the idea that we should keep faith and science separate from each other so funny and ridiculous at the same time.  There would be no science without God.  God not only thought of the world the scientist studies in the first place, he brought it into being and, what is more, he keeps it in being as he does the scientist who studies it - whether he or she realizes it or not.

The reason why the Gospel message is so amazing is that despite not needing us, and despite everything we have done as individuals and as a race to either annoy or ignore him, he hasn’t lost interest in us.  More than that, he continues to love us and to offer us the chance not only of forgiveness for the mess we have made both of ourselves and his creation, but of knowing him and entering a relationship with him.  A relationship not simply of a creature to their creator, but of a child to their father.  Sadly, all too many of us don’t think it is worth the effort, and choose a cosy agnosticism rather than seeking him.  This agnosticism is no more than atheism by another name.  It is a convenient reason to exclude God from our lives.

Christians can get very worried about this.  God may not need anyone to believe in him, but we do.  We seem to need people to believe in God if only to reassure ourselves that we are not mistaken in our faith or because we need the approval that comes through popularity.  It is this, in part, that explains the present desire of many Christians to be relevant even at the cost of changing their message.

Christians, however, have nothing to lose by being unpopular and in a minority and everything to gain.  Jesus’ brother, James, said that to be friends with the society around us is to be an 'enemy with God'.  Having God as our friend is surely worth a little unpopularity and rejection?  

St Paul reassured the Christians in Rome who seemed powerless and irrelevant compared to might and splendour of Rome with these words: ‘If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?’  He continues to tell them that a little suffering - and he himself suffered more than a little - is ultimately of no consequence.  ‘Nothing’, he says, ‘in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’.

It is, of course, sad that people don’t believe in God.  Sad that they prefer to worship the creature rather the Creator.  Sad that they prefer material wealth to spiritual riches.  Sad that they think themselves clever not believing in God when all it shows is their foolishness.  But it doesn’t change anything, God still is.

On one occasion, Jesus was asked whether only a few will be saved.  It can feel like that at times, especially in the society in which we find ourselves.  The temptation is to doubt or despair or to change our message to make it easier for people to believe so that we won’t be so few and alone.  However, in his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned against such an approach:

‘Enter’, he said, ‘through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.’

Believing in God may be hard in the age in which we live, yet God never said it would be easy.  But then, nothing worth having ever is.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Four

Minutes that Matter: November, 2018

The link to the audio is at the end of this transcript of my third talk for RTHK's 'Minutes that Matter' programme.

Talk Three: Continuing without God

When I first entered the Church’s ministry, the Church had the reputation for often being cold and unfriendly; unwelcoming to newcomers.  I am pleased to say that this has changed.  Go to most Churches on a Sunday and the problem won’t be a lack of welcome.  If anything, you are more likely to be put off by the enthusiasm of the welcome you receive!  There is nothing insincere about this.  Churches genuinely want to welcome people and make them feel comfortable.  The cynic might say that this is because congregation numbers are falling and so churches are grateful for anyone who wants to join. 

While there might be an element of this in some cases, I think the motives are sincere enough, and most Christians believe that welcoming people is more than about increasing numbers.  The realisation that it is important to welcome people has gone alongside an increasing emphasis in the Church’s message on inclusivity.  If you go to Church on a Sunday, as well as receiving a welcome, you are likely to hear a message that stresses how Jesus reached out to all members of society; that he included all in his welcome whether they were rich or poor, high or lowly.  The Church, you will hear, welcomes people regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, colour, social background, or sexuality - without distinction.

And again, this is sincerely meant.  The Church may not always live up to its ideal, but there is on the whole a real desire to do so, and most Churches would be very upset if they felt that they had failed to do so.  Nor is inclusivity limited to the initial welcome.  The Church has sought to reinvent itself theologically to meet the challenges of a secular society that has little time for God.  In addition to being inclusive in its welcome, it seeks to stress forgiveness, tolerance, understanding, open-mindedness, and social justice.  In any Church, you are as likely to find activities the purpose of which is to work for a fairer society as you are those to bring people to faith in God.

This welcoming inclusivity combined with a non-judgemental theology stressing social justice, equality, and fairness seeks to be the Gospel for the 21st century. An update of the Christian message to get away from the perceived failings of the past when, alongside a lack of welcome, there was much talk of sin and judgement alongside a failure to address social exclusion and unfairness. The new Gospel has been enthusiastically embraced across the Churches, and you are as likely to hear it on the lips of Catholic and Anglican bishops as you are Presbyterian ministers and Baptist pastors. The only problem with it is that it is wrong.

Wrong, that is, if the aim is a faithful presentation of the message of Jesus Christ.  The 21^st Century Gospel certainly includes bits of Jesus’ teaching in it, but it is highly selective in which bits it includes.  So, for example, parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are popular.  And passages in which Jesus eats and drinks with sinners are freely quoted.  As are any in which Jesus shows a positive attitude to women and those discriminated against in the society of his day.

Parables, however, such as those in which the King comes and murders those who refused to welcome his son or where the people are thrown into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth are not very popular.  And passages where Jesus speaks of judgement and the punishment in hell of those who refuse to accept his message are rarely quoted.  Nor are any where Jesus himself seems to discriminate.  There was, after all, very little gender balance in his choice of the twelve apostles.

In the previous two talks at this time, I have spoken of how people in our society have very little interest in God.  Many Christians seem to think that the best way to reach people in our society is by having very little interest in him ourselves.  Far better to come up with a message that addresses the concerns of the day and is in harmony with the political agenda of our time.  I am not questioning people’s sincerity, nor arguing for a return to the past – there were many failings, who could deny it?  But in seeking to welcome people, we need to have something to welcome them to.  And people are unlikely to be attracted to a watered-down version of something that they can get elsewhere.

It is time to bring back God.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Three

Minutes that Matter: November, 2018

The link to the audio is at the end of this transcript of the second talk for RTHK's 'Minutes that Matter' programme.

Talk Two: We are all atheists now

Most people in our society are not atheists.  Instead, most people, if asked whether there was a God, would say that it is impossible to be sure one way or another.  This means that whether or not there is a God is simply a question that has no real relevance to them in how they live their lives and go about their daily existence.  If it is impossible to know, why waste time trying to find out?  For most people, the question of how to afford somewhere to live or which to school to send their child to are far more troubling and pressing issues than whether there is a God or not.

This is true even for those who are convinced there is a God or suspect that there might be.  Try taking this simple test: Imagine that it was suddenly announced that it had been conclusively shown that there was not a God of any kind; that the universe and the physical world as we know it just is.  What difference would that make to your life on a daily basis?

The answer for most of us is that it would make little or no difference at all.  It would have no impact on what we think and believe, who we enter a relationship with, how we bring up our children, what we eat or wear, where we go on holiday, or how we spend what little free time we have after doing all the things we have to do each day.  And this is as true for most Christians and theists, in general, as it is for those who belong to no religion, in particular.

We all know people who claim to be atheists.  People who are certain that there is no God of any kind.  We have all heard of famous celebrity atheists such as Richard Dawkins, who make a point of sharing their atheism and tying to convince people to join them in their unbelief.  But what is the difference between how an atheist lives his or her life and how a theist lives theirs?

For many churchgoers, being a Christian is mainly about subscribing to Jesus’ ethical teaching about how we treat each other as it is about anything else.  Much of the doctrinal stuff that clergy go on about in their sermons, frankly, just goes over our heads.  This is not for one moment to say that people don’t enjoy going to Church, or that the Church isn’t important to them, or even that they don’t find the idea of God reassuring.  It is just that God makes very little real difference to the choices and decisions they make in their daily lives.  Life would go on much the same without God.

Indeed, there is no reason why, with a little adjustment, the Church itself couldn’t continue without God.  After all, it’s nice for people to have somewhere to meet and socialize.  And who doesn’t like a good sing song?  All it needs is for the clergy to make a few changes to their sermons to focus on life in the here and now, and church life could go on much as before.  In fact, this is something that many clergy have done already.

Sermons are often no more than encouraging thoughts about how we should live our lives or else they are a poor parody of self-help manuals.  When they do get serious, the theme is more likely to be what we need to do to improve life in the here and now of this world rather than how we can obtain life in the there and then of the next. 

Am I being unfair and unduly cynical?  I don’t think I am.  The fact is that God has become in the life of many, churchgoers included, something of an optional extra.  Nice to have, maybe, but not really necessary.  Practically speaking, we are all atheists now.

St Paul wrote that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then believers are of all people most to be pitied and, of course, for Jesus to have been raised from the dead requires that there is a God to have raised him.

Biblical Christianity is not simply about following those bits of Jesus’ teaching that we find nice or congenial.  Nor is it about belonging to a religious club with like-minded people; it is something that has God at its heart.  And God changes everything.  Furthermore, if the Bible is right, then the existence of God becomes something that, ultimately, no-one will be able ignore - whether we want to or not.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Two

Minutes that Matter: November, 2018

I gave the talks for the Minutes that Matter programme on RTHK Radio 4 for Fridays in November.  This is the transcript of the first with a link to the audio on the RTHK website.

Talk One: Moving on

October 31 was for many Churches the day that they marked the European Reformation of the 16th Century, the 500th Anniversary of which has been commemorated during the past year.  The Reformation was about many things, but one idea stands out: the doctrine of ‘justification by faith’.  This is the belief that human beings are saved not by anything they do, but solely by the grace of God through faith.  Human works cannot earn favour with God.  As Luther himself put it, ‘If faith is not without all, even the smallest, works, it does not justify.’

This was an important insight and a corrective to much thinking at the time.  Pendulums, however, swing from side to side and this particular pendulum swung quickly to the other side with the result that the question for many protestants, who adopted ‘justification by faith as their core belief, was about the place human works.  If doing good works doesn’t count towards our salvation, what then is the point of good works?  And what to make of all those parts of the Bible that seem to suggest that they do make a difference and a very real difference at that?

For many Protestants, the answer was quite simple: either get rid of them or just ignore them.  For example, in the letter of St James, the writer tells us that ‘faith without works is dead’.  For St James, who, incidentally, was the brother of Jesus, faith is, of course, important but it has to translate into action.  For Luther, however, the mere suggestion that works were of value led him to dismiss St James’ epistle as ‘a right strawy epistle’ – as he famously called it.  This was unfortunate, and lead to people playing off St Paul, who was believed to teach ‘justification by faith’, with St James, who was thought to teach ‘justification by works’.

The argument over this, and related issues, continued for many years causing much division, bitterness, and hurt until the Churches came to their senses and saw that, in fact, both were true.  We cannot earn God’s grace and forgiveness, but having received it as a gift, we need to show it in how we live.  Or, as St Paul puts it, what counts is ‘faith working through love’.  The sad thing is that it takes more than the realisation that it has been a false argument to heal the divisions of centuries, and 500 years of division are not going to end any time soon.

The argument over how we receive the grace and forgiveness of God was an issue that needed talking about and there were problems in the Church that needed dealing with.  The argument and division that resulted is, however, something that Christians should both repent and be ashamed of.  Incredibly, there are still those who, not only are not ashamed of the division and hatred of the past, but who want to perpetuate it and continue to fight the battles of five hundred years ago.

However, while we perpetuate and even enjoy re-enacting the battles of the past, the world has simply moved on - as, indeed, to be fair, have most Christians.  Again, this is not for one moment to suggest that these issues are unimportant or those involved 500 years ago were not sincere in their faith.  It is to suggest that Christians need to realize that the issues that were so important 500 years ago are not issues today.  In the past, the issue that troubled people may have been how they could receive God’s grace and forgiveness.  It is, however, not so much an issue for most people in the present.  Even those nations that regarded themselves as Christian nations 500 years ago, regard themselves as such no longer.  They have not only moved on, they have moved away – a long way away from the Church and Christian faith. 

Most people in our society are not atheists who deny the existence of God, they are agnostics who think that it impossible to know one way or another.  And make no mistake, many who come to Church each Sunday are not paid up believers, they too are agnostics!

Christians believe that God is a God of grace who freely offers forgiveness to those who come to him in faith.  The challenge for Christians today is how to answer those for whom the question is not, ‘How can I, a sinner, stand before a righteous God?’, but whether there is a God to stand before.  And, perhaps even more challenging, for Christians to show that they have an answer that matters to people in their daily lives.  For it is one thing to believe there is a God; seeing how that belief affects us in our daily lives another altogether.

Minutes that Matter: Talk One

Thought for the Week: November 25, 2018

I gave the Thought for the Week on RTHK Radio 3 this week.  This is the transcript with a link to the audio in the RTHK Programme Archive.

Thought for the Week: November 25, 2018

Jesus, when questioned by Pilate as to whether he was a King, replied, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’  Pilate, in an attempt to get Jesus to be more forthcoming, continued his questioning by asking, ‘So you are a King then.’  ‘You say that I am,' replied Jesus.

We can perhaps understand Pilate’s exasperation and frustration and even share it.  After all, scholars are all agreed that central to Jesus’ message and ministry was his proclamation of the kingdom of God.  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that he was brought before Pilate accused of claiming to be the King of the Jews – a charge, if proven, that meant the death sentence.  Pilate realized, however, that whatever Jesus may or may not have been, he was not a threat to the authority of Rome.  Jesus’ accusers persisted, however.  The rest, as they say, is history.

My kingdom is not of this world,' he had told Pilate, and yet he had taught his disciples to pray, ‘Your kingdom come - on earth as it is in heaven.’  At first sight, at least, there seems to be something of a problem here.  How can we pray for something to come ‘on earth’ that we are also told is ‘not of this world’?

Many Christians think that the prayer for God’s kingdom to come on earth is to be answered by Christians themselves.  We are to establish God’s kingdom by working for peace and justice.  The idea, however, that God’s kingdom on earth is to be established by human effort, apart from being mistaken in its optimism – as previous attempts in history have shown all too clearly – although being well-intentioned, are a form of blasphemy.

There is only one person who can establish God’s kingdom on earth and that is God himself.  Christians don’t – or shouldn’t – work to make it happen in the present; they are to pray for it to come in the future.  Again, as Jesus said, the kingdom is not of this world; it must come from another world.  Of this other worldly kingdom, Christians are even now citizens, and, like the kingdom itself, they themselves are not to be of this world either.  The accusation, of course, is that this makes them too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use.  Would that that were true!  The problem with Christians is that they are not heavenly enough.

The reason I am talking about this is that today in the Church’s calendar is the last Sunday of the Church’s year.  It is the Sunday when the Church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King.  Next Sunday is the start of Advent when we will begin to prepare for Christmas and the birthday of the ‘One born to be King’.  Traditionally, however, Advent is first and foremost not about events in the past, but of that time in the future when God’s other worldly kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Pilate in his exasperation said to Jesus, ‘Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.’  Many earthly rulers have thought that their power was absolute and all-encompassing.  Christians know that it is not.  They wait for God’s kingdom to come, but they also know that even now rulers on earth only rule with God’s permission.  It is a permission that is temporary and comes with an expiry date.  We may not now see all things subject to him, but we will.  Until then, we pray as Jesus taught us, ‘Your kingdom come.’

‘Amen.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’

Thought for the Week

Synod Sermon - Part Four: 'We also believe and so we speak'

Part Four: ‘We also believe and so we speak’

It matters that Milly hears about God.  For although Milly doesn’t realize it, Milly is perishing.  Milly doesn’t see God as important because the Devil has blinded her so she can’t see.  Bright, well-educated, professional Milly thinks she is alive with all her life ahead of her.  She doesn’t know how dark and desperate her situation is.  Milly needs the God who said ‘let light shine out of darkness’ to shine into her heart ‘to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6).

How is that light to shine?  How is the light of God to shine into Milly’s life?  What was it that St Paul said in our reading?

‘We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.’ (2 Corinthians 4:2)

How are we going to commend ourselves to the conscience of Milly in the sight of God?

Synod, St Paul writes:

‘But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture — “I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and so we speak … ’ (2 Corinthians 4:13)

The only hope for Milly, and for millions like her, is if we speak to her of God.  Again, not because she wants to hear, but because she needs to hear.  Because if she doesn’t hear, then she will perish, whatever else the future may hold for her.

This means that whether we know God personally for ourselves and know God collectively as a Church is of immense significance, although she does not know it, for Milly.  For it is only when God is absolutely and completely at the centre of all that we do that we will be able to speak to her of and for God.

Synod, may we, like St Paul, be able to say: ‘we too believe and so we speak’.

May our Synod be first and last about God.