Live and Let Die

I moonlight as chaplain to a livery company in the city. The big livery companies used to be guilds that had monopolies on trade, a bit like trade unions, but somewhere in the last seven centuries they’ve morphed into large charities and today their charitable activities amount to around seventy-five million pounds a year. For me, like most things in the Church of England, it’s unpaid. But there are perks – You get some nice dinners and I got to see the King’s portrait before it was cool. The main duty is to preach at the annual company service, which was this week. It’s a tough gig because the congregation are often not church-goers, not necessarily Christian; In fact, you know that quite a few are there largely because there’s a very nice lunch in a very fancy hall, and, as the preacher, you’re stood between them and a glass of champagne. They are also largely the great and the good; His majesty the King is a member, so you really could get anyone turn up, and there’s quite a few clergy – and no one really wants to preach in front of other clergy. Except our young curate of course, Who knows to be kind to the poor old vicar.

What made preaching particularly difficult, this time, is that the church to which the company is attached, and patron of, is St Michael, Cornhill. Itself a beautiful Wren and Hawksmoor church embellished by Gilbert Scott (so basically all the church architects that most people have heard of), But it’s recently been taken over by St Helen’s, Bishopsgate. Famously conservative, St Helen’s opposes women in leadership and the current movement in the Church to bless same-sex relationships – to such an extent that the conservative churches in London have threatened to withhold money from the diocese, and are setting up their own enclave – a church within a church. It’s very much like the old joke of St Peter showing the newcomer round heaven, and him pointing out a walled off area – at which point, Peter shhses him, saying “that’s St Helen’s Bishopsgate – they think they’re the only ones in here.”

So taking a service with this vicar was not completely comfortable. He was of course very amiable because we are the Church of England, but it felt rather like preaching at an interfaith service. We both believe in God, but I’m not sure it’s the same God. It’s something that’s peculiar to religion and philosophy that you can say that. A great many words cover things we point at. And a whole lot of other words cover things we can do to the things we’re pointing at. But if you asked ten Christians from ten different churches what they meant by God you’d get ten quite different descriptions. Even at St Margaret’s, I expect we’d get some colourful ideas about God from the children, and probably a lot more confidence than some of our own hesitant and ill-defined attempts.

Difference, though, makes life and conversation interesting. I love that St Margaret’s has babies and nonagenarians. I reckon we’ve got all decades here up to 100. But equally, there are passionate supporters of all our major political parties; There are Chelsea, Tottenham and even Fulham supporters. Though I don’t think I’ve come across any Arsenal supporters, not that I’d mind. We’re an inclusive church. During the Six nations you’re very welcome to support any team that’s playing England. The difficulty that liberals have is that they’re advocating a live and let live approach. Usually, the words associated with liberals are things like “affirming”, “generous”, “open”. This is all very well. But they should be aware that their opposition is strictly live and let die. The Guns ‘n’ Roses version. (better) This makes for unpleasantly asymmetric warfare – Where one side is looking for inclusion and the other damnation.

Fortunately for both sides, this was at stake at the time the New Testament was written, so it’s a subject to which the Bible speaks directly. St Paul in our reading speaks for the ‘uncircumcision’, ‘aliens’ from Israel, ‘strangers to the covenants’, having no hope and without God in the world. We can lose sight of what’s being said here, especially if we’re cradle Anglicans. Imagine believing that you were beyond grace. That you were unacceptable to God. Just because of how you were born. Imagine hearing the words: ‘you, who were once far off have been brought near’
‘in his flesh he has made both groups unto one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.’
‘that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two,’
‘Thus making peace,’
‘and might reconcile both groups to God’
‘So he proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near’
‘So then you are no longer strangers and aliens’
‘but members of the household of God.’
‘built upon the foundation of the apostles… in him the whole structure is joined together’
‘you also are built together spiritually in to a dwelling place for God.’ How many times is St Paul saying the same thing here, with a whole host of different images? It’s like a chant, crescendoing throughout, “together, together, together, TOGETHER.”

At the service on Thursday I just preached about love. Love, interestingly, is just like God. If you get 10 Christians from 10 different churches to write down what they mean by love you’ll get 10 different answers. But, from St Paul, I can tell you that love is the instinct that says: I will not sacrifice our togetherness for the sake of my pride, my opinion, my position. I will not sacrifice our togetherness for anything. I will not sacrifice our togetherness, even for my life.

Because as every wedding couple knows, you can have faith, you can work miracles, you can prophecy the future, you can raise the dead, but if you don’t have love, God’s not in it. It’s not Christian. And there are some churches where you have to ask, as Justin Timberlake and the Black Eyed Peas once did: “Where is the love?”

Love is patient, Love is kind; Love does not insist on its own way. Love does not live and let die. One of the Desert Fathers around the third century had a pithy expression that ‘our life and death is with our neighbour; that if we win our neighbour we win God and if we cause her to stumble we have sinned against Christ’. To see in the welfare of our sister or brother, our own salvation – is something close to love. However mad you get, however frustrated, however sure you are that you’re right, don’t be the one to say: that’s it – I give up on you.

My sense in all this, is that it’s a lot about purity. And in my mind Christianity is radically opposed to purity. St Paul hitting out at circumcision, St Peter at Kosher, Jesus at hypocrisy, at Sabbath observation, at the exclusion of lepers, women, Samaritans and whoever else. Christianity does not believe in purity. And if you look closely at purity, you realise that it’s a tool to oppress women – we don’t think of purity for men and women in the same way – Or it’s racism – I can’t actually believe that the expression “ethnic cleansing” is still something people say – It’s a collusion with this idea of purity of blood, which remains everywhere a justification of horror. Even my 5 year old instinctively knows that in Harry Potter calling someone a ‘mudblood’ is abhorrent. But purity crops up in unlikely places – some of the woke obsessions with language and the cancel-culture that goes with it – is a form of purity. Anything that creates fear and shame is an agent of purity; And purity is hostile to togetherness, and so hostile to love. And so hostile to God.

The prevailing mood of the world today is division – In the aggression that continues to threaten our world, With Britain, France, Europe, America, all suffering from increasing divisions, Within political parties, within institutions, within the Harry Potter franchise, in the Church of England.

I’m saying that we must be the people who bring together. The introit that began our service will have reminded many of us of Ted. As someone who gently over decades built and maintained the house of God. Painted with trusting, Floored with faith, With walls of truth, A roof of peace, Building a house of love. This is the awesome place St Paul is asking us to build: To build ourselves together into a dwelling place for God, With our foundations in Christ, A house of the Lord, to dwell in, together, forever. Amen.

Now, this Louis, is baptism. It’s where we welcome you into the house of God, The house of faith. It’s where you’re surrounded by love in your parents, your family, their closest friends who will be your godparents. It’s where we all say “yes” we are in this together. Baptism makes this your house and we’re glad to share it with you. So would you now please join us at the font, with your parents and godparents.