Holy Inclusive, part III

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green

There is a sign above the gate. 

I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE. 

JUSTICE IT WAS THAT MOVED MY GREAT CREATOR;
DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,
AND HIGHEST WISDOM JOINED WITH PRIMAL LOVE. 

BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY.
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER. 

The vision in my head, when I hear these words, is of another gate, a real gate, above which is wrought in iron: ‘Work sets you free”. We have here between Dante’s gates of Hell, and the gates of NAZI concentration camps, most well known at Auschwitz, but equally Dachau, Gross Rosen, Flossenbürg, Theresienstadt and others, the gates of exclusion. From life, from humanity, from redemption.

Now we know it’s not work, but the truth that sets you free; and it’s only in the sense of the inmates rhyme, that ‘work makes you free through crematorium number three’, that there’s any freedom on offer here. But, against these iron gates, if we are to set our sights on the most comprehensive vision of inclusion, if we’re to open ourselves to the stranger, the physically, mentally, culturally, ethnically, spiritually different, we must believe in a wholly inclusive God.

But do we? I began these sermons a couple of weeks ago with a question: can we be, not just wholly inclusive, but holy and inclusive? The words above Dante’s gate suggest not.

I was created by the Might divine,
the highest Wisdom and the primal Love…
all hope abandon, ye that enter here! 

Primal love, it seems, can make a primal scream. Long enough to last eternity.

But we don’t believe it. I know you don’t believe it. Because if you did, if you took the concept of Hell seriously, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be out in the world in loud desperation trying to convince everyone of this fate that hangs over them. After all, who, passing by a car crash wouldn’t drop everything to help those unfortunates in mortal peril. And could you tell me that as you pass each day thousands who currently stand with an eternity of suffering, torture and exclusion before them, you have no words to speak to them; No urgency to press upon them the Gospel? No. You don’t believe in this hell, described by much of Christianity. I don’t see the fear, the urgency.

I’m taking two funerals this week. One is for a man whose stoicism and faith are exemplary. Who each week with fading vision and hearing, has spoken out prayers grafted in his heart over 90 years. He is now with the Church Triumphant and we will complete our rites as a witness for our sakes, not his. The other is for a film critic, whose life brushed past every star you can name. Strangely, he requested me to take his funeral. As far as I know he’d only been here once to see the silent film King of Kings we played last Easter. We chatted afterwards;  it may have just been Nicky’s playing, or perhaps the silent film, and curiously he came here because, although this man has the vastest collection of films – such that museums and studios come to him looking for rare pieces –  he had never seen this silent version of the Gospel. But I had not gripped him by the hand and called him to repentance. I don’t know his faith. But I believe and trust that he is safe with God.

And, consider, when we stand before Him on Judgement Day, the Day of Wrath, will He not look at us and say, “Why?”
“Why so few?”
“Could you not have done more for your brothers and sisters?”
Should we not feel shame as they walk through those iron gates, and we look on? Should we not walk with them?

 But we don’t believe it. Now it maybe you don’t believe it because it just seems so overwhelming. It makes life too serious to bear. But life is serious. When we’re sick we know how serious life is, and we all know someone unwell. Those people in war zones, on virus-strewn cruise ships, Those dealing with famine and drought, refugees, our homeless friends here on a Sunday night,  The many struggling day to day in poverty in Wandsworth, crucified by debt, reliant on food banks, children caring for adults; know that life is serious.

So I hope that you don’t believe it, because you know beyond all Scripture, all words and history, the imposing buildings, the ritual and the paintings; I hope you believe that God is love. That the firm ground of your faith is rooted in that simple equation. God is love.

The emperor Domitian famously decided to treat his servant for one day like a prince, showering him in the luxury only a Roman emperor could. The next day he crucified him. That is imperial power. That is a little bit what the Calvinist doctrine feels like to me, where some are destined to salvation, some to perdition. If Divine power is simply imperial power writ large I feel we’re all in trouble. But we know that God is love.

I don’t have time to take you through the arguments today. But to me it’s quite simple. What could one person do, in our short time, that could possibly merit an eternity of suffering?

But more. We know that God has created all things. There’s nothing not wholly created by God. Each of us fashioned in his image. He hateth nothing that he hath made. And then we might consider also the biological, psychological and sociological influences that have yes made us the person we are, but also shaped for better and for worse the way we love, and our knowledge of God. What freedom is within us that could merit an eternity of rejection?

But it’s not so. And it’s not simply that it’s not rational to believe that a God of love could create this iron gate. Within Scripture is the beginning of hope for all creation. There are of course verses about judgement, but consider these: Romans: ‘just as through one transgression came condemnation for all human beings, so also through one act of righteousness came a rectification of life for all human beings’ 1Corinthians: ‘just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be given life’ Romans again: ‘God shut up everyone in obstinacy so that he might show mercy to everyone’ Titus: ‘For the grace of God has appeared, giving salvation to all humans’ John: ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will drag everyone to me’ And again: ‘For I came not that I might judge the world, but that I might save the world’ 1John ‘And he is atonement for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the whole world’ And most famously: ‘For God sent his Son into the world not that he might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.’

And here, the Greek for ‘world’ is kosmos, which might be better translated, ‘cosmos’: ‘Not that he might condemn the cosmos, but that the cosmos might be saved through him.’ Inclusion, you see, has a cosmic appetite.

I remember the first time I preached, 14 years ago, I was nervous not so much with the fear of men but with the fear of God. You never want to preach anything you’re uncertain of, still less to go against dominant strands in Christian teaching. The inclusivity of God, though, and the final inclusion of all creation, is so important to who I understand God to be, that I am convinced it is true. You may disagree, but I believe that the loss of even one soul would constitute a tragedy so great as to question the moral character of the entire universe.  The medieval concept of Hell is the strongest argument against Christianity.

Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and we know how far he’d go to recover the lost sheep. As far as Golgotha. ‘If I climb up into heaven, thou art there/ if I go down to hell, thou art there also.’

But this doesn’t mean that we need not worry. I am content to trust God for the redemption of creation.
I’m not sure we have the administrative capability in the office to take on that task yet. But what we should understand from the passages I quoted from Scripture is our shared common humanity. ‘Just as all die in Adam, so are all made alive in Christ.’ The Old Testament, as is often pointed out, is much less concerned with the individual before God than the nation before God. The New Testament is less a narrowing of this down to the individual as an opening up of the Gospel to all humanity.

Consider John Donne’s famous meditation:

The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all.  When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingraffed into that body, whereof I am a member.  And when she buries a man, that action concerns me; all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated;  God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice;  but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another; 

And then most famously:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

if we acknowledge that our God is wholly inclusive, that any man or woman’s death diminishes us because we are involved in humanity, then this concerns us because for a church to exclude is to separate from God. And where we see exclusion in the church and in society we’re seeing the hell that our faith has told us has been overcome in the resurrection. When we pray ‘thy kingdom come’, we are praying for this exclusion to end.

Division, exclusion, is only part of our fallen world. But by identifying as an inclusive church, we are saying that as a church we will strive, whatever bishops may say, whatever actions taken by government and other institutions effect, we will strive and we will pray to overcome the barriers of exclusion. And whether its poverty, sexuality, gender identification, ethnicity, class, or anything else that might mark someone out as different, that they are welcome here.

If Jesus will leave the 99 to find the lost sheep, if he dines with tax collectors and harlots, the excluded, the dispossessed; then our mandate is clear. This broken bread we share is not for those already on the inside. Those who know they are saved. It is for everyone else. And that must be the basis of our mission and purpose. Because the church is the one institution that exists, first of all, for the people who don’t think they belong to it.

Holy Inclusive, part I

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 112:1-9, 1Corinthians 2:1-12, Matthew 5:13-20

In these three Sundays between Epiphany and Lent, I want to look at what it means to be wholly inclusive. Or rather, what it means to be holy and inclusive.

 Now that Putney has joined the revolution, and having enjoyed the company of our new MP at last week’s service, his name is anathema; but the economist and advisor to Mrs Thatcher, Milton Friedman, began his signature work with an interesting claim that you can’t be socialist and liberal.  The two, he argued, have directly opposed impulses: Socialism to planning and centralised control; Liberalism to the rights and freedom of the individual. You can’t be socialist and liberal. Discuss! 

But in the same way, it could be argued that you cannot be holy and inclusive. Two weeks ago I mentioned that the Greek for church is ‘ecclesia’ – from ek-kaleo – literally ‘called out’. The church is defined as a people set apart; holy. You can read this in our architecture. From the West door to the high altar there are three steps. The space narrows. Holiness is selective. Only the few get to the high altar, mostly wayward children. In Holy Trinity Roehampton, where there are more steps, the feet of the priest celebrating at the high altar are higher than the heads of the congregation in the nave. That is the power play of holiness. Even in today’s Gospel Jesus talks of those who are least and those who are great in the kingdom of God, with the warning that our righteousness must exceed the scribes to enter.

But to be inclusive means to be all embracing. And here’s a little thought experiment. Consider for a moment what you think it means for St Margaret’s to be inclusive. We think perhaps of being more friendly, welcoming, accepting people as they come, having a ramp somewhere, we think of those happy words you read on church profiles, “vibrant”, “diverse”. Mostly, I think, when we think about being inclusive, we think about how we can accept more people into our way of doing things. This is how we do things; Come and join in.

 We are less likely to think: We are the diversity of the people here. And that means that over time we will change as the people change. Imagine if the Polish church fell down and suddenly we had 100 Polish families appear at St Margaret’s every week. Would we be happy introducing Polish hymns, having part of the service in Polish?

 That is unlikely to happen. But we might consider whether our version of inclusion is encouraging people to join our way of doing things, Or whether we’re open to incorporating difference in who we are and what we do. So we should ask – who is the in-group at St Margaret’s? Who is at the margins? Where people sit in church, I always think, can tell you a lot about how included they feel. how close they feel to the centre.

 As a church we want to be holy. We confess our sins, we pray for strength; we try to love our crooked neighbours with our crooked hearts.

But we are also seeking to be inclusive. The PCC at the end of last year unanimously agreed to a statement that as a church we ‘celebrate and affirm every person and do not discriminate’. That ‘we will continue to challenge the church where it continues to discriminate against people on grounds of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, or sexuality.’

Helpfully our bishops have led the way on this subject. You may have read recently their pastoral statement on civil partnerships. They reaffirm in somewhat clinical language that the Church only approves of sex within heterosexual marriage, and not civil partnerships. Several bishops have spoken out against it, and there’s a clear desire to be inclusive; So they are also saying ‘God’s love extends to everyone, whatever their sexuality and how they express it, and everyone is welcome in church.’ It’s a somewhat confusing message, which was then apologised for leading to the priceless Times headline: ‘Archbishops ‘very sorry’ for sex advice’.

One always gets the impression of a very English situation. Perhaps there’s a couple of bishops in a drawing room somewhere sipping sherry, and one says to the other “ah yes, you hear Karen and Melissa have got married”
“Ah lovely. And how is baby Beaujolais?”
“oh yes, very sweet really. Darling.” And then some aide comes in saying a pastoral statement is needed about the new law changes on civil partnership, and someone gets out some large dusty tome on canon law and the bishops are very surprised but of course the rubrics in a seventeenth century prayer book really can’t be changed at this late stage so it is a matter of deep regret etc. etc. 

But, to be fair, inclusion here is not simple. The Church of England is part of a worldwide Anglican communion. When bishops make statements it’s heard across the world. In Africa and Australia society and the church are more conservative and they are highly wary of statements coming from Britain and America. Given our, and especially the church’s, colonial history in Africa the Church of England is rightly keen not to exclude these churches. It is very hard to be inclusive if you find yourself steering between the Scylla and Charybdis of colonialism and homophobia. That is the nature of politics and the difficulty of trying to speak across cultural and national divisions.

 But in the church inclusion today is too often restricted to the subject of sex. Isaiah, in some of his most wonderful passages in today’s reading, widens the call to inclusion:

‘is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them… If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness’

There are many damaging things that exclude. Our language and assumptions about gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability. But poverty has always been the most consistent and ruthless of exclusions.Hunger, homelessness, addiction, oppression, all close access to education, employment and society. For all that we are fixated today on issue of identity, we will have the most success in addressing inclusion if we are able to address the poverty that is within our own community. And lest we forget the visit by the foodbank, 36% of children in Wandsworth live in poverty. It’s a staggering statistic I hope we think about every day. And something we need to keep in mind as we’re thinking about the mission of this church for the future.

There is I hope not an open contradiction between holiness and inclusion. Faith is something that – if we are willing – will always take us deeper wherever we are. It’s call to be better, to develop virtue and honesty, can take all of us further.

But it is inclusive and if Jesus’ teaching speaks to anything it is that externals are of little consequence and he is concerned most of all for the state of our heart. And if there is a persisting negative strain in Jesus’ ministry it is his dislike of hypocrisy and judgement. His call to humility that leaves all criticism of others to God. I am aware enough of my own failings to know better than telling others where they are wrong. To avoid what Isaiah earlier described in ‘the pointing the finger, the speaking of evil’. CS Lewis had that great line that those who are looking down on others will never see the God that is above them. Equally, those who are too quick to give their own opinions, and those who with the established multitude are shouting the loudest, will not hear the voices at the margins of those who have also heard the call of God.

There is a call then to be holy and inclusive, to be wholly inclusive. We need to believe that we can be better. But we need to listen to the experience and voices of those who are different to us.

 Now I have heard from a couple of people that they would like a specific task to take away with them from the sermon.  So this is your homework this week. I’d like you to think about yourself and St Margaret’s. And ask yourself what is your, our unconscious bias? Who fits in easily here? Who might be excluded by our language, our music, our welcome and hospitality? Where can we find greater holiness? How can we be more inclusive?  Amen.