The release of the national census data always attracts media interest and public attention.
How many of us … where do we live … what do we do. A great deal of attention to changes in the religious profile and the statistic that, for the first time in the history of census records, less than half of the population indicated they had some connection with Christianity. Much has been written about this revelation.
The 2010 Australian Christian Book of the Year – Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia – dealt extensively with the religion question in the census (which hasn’t changed since the first census) and why it wasn’t a very well-worded question … and why whatever figure it produced needed to be treated with considerable caution.
It does not differentiate between believing, behaving or belonging …
It does not differentiate between unbelief, disbelief and non-belief …
It does not differentiate between theism, pantheism, atheism, agnosticism or anti-theism …
And it does not disclose the opinions and convictions of those who choose not to answer this entirely optional question or who have ‘spiritual views’ but do not consider them a religion.
I have long argued that, in the interests of clarity and candour, there ought to be two questions and the wording be different … because we can’t say much with confidence about this particular census statistic.
In sum, the census question is problematic … because what it is asking and why it matters is largely shaped by what you believe the person posing the question might be wanting to know.
Being in the minority does not concern me as a Christian, any more than voting for a minority political party concerns me. Majority opinion is no guarantee of wisdom, insight, accuracy or truthfulness. Whole populations can be swayed to embrace bad ideas and entire communities can adopt poor policies.
Groupthink and the herd mentality are always a danger, even for thinking, discerning people, especially when self-interest and personal gain are being dangled in front of us. Life asks each of us demanding, difficult and different questions … and my answer might not be your answer … assuming we are being asked the same questions … and I suspect we are not. I don’t drink alcohol and don’t have any problem with booze … but it might be a constant issue for you or someone you love. But I do have an issue with anger – mainly anger with myself and my failings – but this might not be troubling for you or someone close.
The problem is that we respond to cues from other people and, if challenged, we retreat into the crowd or justify our behaviour against a general standard. What do I mean by this? We can be easily influenced by others … hence the rise of Internet influencers. We usually prefer group norms in what we wear and in what we think because there is safety in numbers, hence the popularity of certain brands of footwear and the spread of political correctness. And we defend our behaviour by pointing to others – he or she did the same thing – or I am no worse than other people, so leave me alone.
I did not need the religion statistic in the census data to tell me that professing to be a Christian is increasingly fraught in contemporary Australia. After all, there are Christians who hold beliefs that are weird, uninformed, unscientific, prejudiced and dangerous. And that’s just my view. And there are churches with attitudes to public policy and government decision-making that I find deplorable, if not despicable, because they claim expertise on complex matters of administration to which they are not entitled, and exude an inability to grapple with complicated philosophical issues.
There are many reasons to dismiss so-called Christian principles and to disregard the Christians who promote them. But … and here I speak for myself … I am left with the words and works of Jesus … I am confronted with his claims and questions … and I believe he will not let me go as he invites us (invites, not coerces) to follow him into a broader, deeper and richer experience of being human and points us to the door to eternity. It is an invitation he has laid before Carter which others – his parents and godparents – are taking up on his behalf.
During his earthly ministry, Jesus attracted many, many people by what he said and did. He had authority and authenticity. He was real … and he addressed the fears and the longings of those he encountered and engaged. There were certainly difficult aspects of his teaching … and on three occasions, Jesus was conscious that the demanding questions being asked of his closest disciples were being deflected by an appeal to broader sentiment.
On the first occasion, he said to them: “Who do the people say that I am?” They rattled off the range of opinion they had detected among the crowd. When the options were laid on the table, he looks them all in the face and says: what about you? After a potentially haunting pause, Peter says: “You are the Christ, the promised one, the Son of the Living God”. You, Jesus of Nazareth, you are the embodiment of God in human form. This is a turning point in their journey with Jesus.
On the second occasion, Jesus was telling a large crowd of people that he was food from heaven. He was trying to explain that his self-offering would fulfil their spiritual hunger. The crowd found these metaphors difficult to understanding and started to drift away until only the 12 disciples remained.
In what seems a moment of despair at the lack of spiritual vision from his hearers, he laments: “And what of you, will you too leave me?” And again it is Peter who answers: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
And the third occasion, and unsurprisingly it also involves Peter, is recorded in the Bible reading that Jo brought to us a few moments ago. It occurs after Peter has denied three times that he even knew Jesus and after Jesus has appeared to the disciples following his death by crucifixion. One disciple, Judas, betrayed Jesus and hanged himself. Another, Thomas, doubted his master could overcome death. And Peter abandoned Jesus in his hour of need – and no doubt felt overwhelming despair. Jesus rehabilitates Peter by asking him, on three occasions, not whether he knows him … but whether he loves him.
It is an intensely intimate scene. And then Peter notices that another disciple, John, is following behind and is distracted by his presence. “What about him?” Peter asks. Jesus replies: “Don’t worry about him … my relationship with you is not influenced by whatever I may have said to him or whatever I might have asked him to do”. Jesus is clear: I am asking you to follow me and I am inviting you to fulfil your calling.
Everyone who hears the words of Jesus, both then and now, is invited to consider his identity, reflect on his questions, weigh his claims and respond to his invitation. Forget others and do not be distracted by them: the invitation to follow is individual … as unique as our genetic make up … to follow Jesus, to discover our identity, to find our vocation and to reach our destiny. We will recognise there are converging paths as we follow Jesus but our journey is ours, and no-one else’s because only we can hear God call our name.
This is true for Carter as he grows up in a world of colliding convictions and declining consensus. It is the hope and prayer of Lisa and Matt, and his very earnest big sisters, that he recognises the voice of Jesus, despite the noise of popular culture, and that he sees others striving to live like Jesus … overcoming ego, and selfishness and greed … pursuing faith, hope and love … striving to live in a manner that enriches the world, others and self as a priority … and believing that death is not the end but the beginning of a new mode of existence because the love of God will never let us go. None of this is easy or straightforward. Speaking as a recovering hypocrite, I still have much to learn but I am grateful for the presence and the encouragement of those who seek the same things, and we pledge ourselves to point Carter towards the truth and the life that is offered in Jesus Christ, symbolised in baptism.
Advent Sunday marks the beginning of a new year in the Christian calendar but not, of course, the Julian calendar which everyone in the world uses. The latter designates January 1 as the beginning of the year – Julian being, of course, Julius Caesar, who introduced his calendar in 45 BC. So, it predates the life of Jesus. There was nothing special about 1 January in ancient Rome other than it marked the date when the new consuls, government officials, took office. Unlike the Julian calendar, the Christian calendar divides the year into themes that ask us to consider all facets of the Christian story.
In many ways, the Christian seasons are themes for reflection which help to create a mood that work to impart a mindset. This reflection, like all reflection, is not rushed. It involves thinking about something at different levels and not coming to a mind all at once, because it invites us to travel into ourselves and ponder the possibility of transformation. Not rushing to judgement before we have heard the arguments, considered the possibilities and challenged our prejudices and preferences. Sometimes people say: the truth hit me. Possibly so. But insight and wisdom are different … they come slowly and sometimes painfully, especially if they involve admissions and confessions about who we have become or what we might have done.
The Christian year begins with Advent and ends with the Feast of Christ the King – the proclamation by the Church that Jesus has authority and dominion over the entire created order but that the nature of his kingship is outside our expectation and beyond our imagination. But the entirety of the Christian message is not thrown onto a plate and served up to us in one sitting. Thank goodness. We would suffer spiritual indigestion.
Over the next four weeks we journey through the season of Advent and its message: watch and wait for God’s coming afresh and anew in this world and in our lives. We are encouraged to reflect on God’s creative power and our spiritual needs before we celebrate the coming of God in human form in the person of Jesus on Christmas Day. Sunday by Sunday throughout Advent the themes of weekly worship are faith, hope, love … those three gifts known to us so well from the 13th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. In fact, Paul linked them even earlier in his mission as they feature in his first letter to the Thessalonians, written about 17 years after the resurrection, when the expectation of the imminent end of all things was very strong: since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation (1 Thes. 5:8)
Faith, hope and love, Paul says, are the gifts to seek in the time of expectant interim between the comings of Christ, when the guarantees of stability and permanence are gone and all is in question. Let me concentrate today on faith and some of its alleged opposites.
Of course, the word and the experience of faith has not always meant the same thing. In medieval Catholic Europe, the opposite of faith was heresy. Faith was the given, revealed, and authorised version of reality. Faith was creed. It was not questioned or challenged; it was to be accepted and believed. To challenge existing doctrine, to hold divergent views, to look at life differently than the authorities of the day allowed, was to be a heretic, to be a rebel, to be socially disruptive and a saboteur of all that was good and right. You were an enemy of God and best placed at arm’s length from the rest of the Christianity community lest your corrupting influence infect and affect others.
In the 19th century, the opposite of faith was doubt. To doubt, to wonder whether something was accurate, right or true … was to side with science and philosophy, to suggest that knowing and professing the creeds was not that important, that some doctrines might not be true … some teachings might not accord with reality. To doubt was to place human ingenuity above the revealed wisdom of God. And if one element of doctrine were questioned or one aspect of belief were challenged, the whole edifice might come tumbling down. To dare suggest that the world was not made at 9am on Monday 23 October 4004 BC was to risk the integrity of the entire Bible despite the flaws and shortcomings in this method of calculating the world’s age. Doubters flirted with uncertainty and embraced fads that might further dangerous commodities like liberty and freedom.
Over the last thousand years, the strong anchor points of belief and of life have been threatened. There no longer seems a privileged standpoint from which to view truth and reality. All standpoints seem relative, every opinion seems to have its own virtue and its own logic. In ancient times, you did not choose to be religious; you simply were. In modern times, people had to start choosing to be religious. In the post-modern times in which we live, we now know that we choose to be religious – whatever that means. And there exists one of our problems: in choosing to be religious in one way we are afraid about what we might be saying about all the others, including no faith at all – even that they might be a distortion or falsehood.
In the 20th century, the opposite of faith was certainty. In contrast to an earlier mindset that our view of life and living was incomplete or partial because we could not see nor experience anything that was beyond the detection of our senses, there were those who claimed that complete knowledge and absolute truth were within our reach thanks to the scientific method and the power of human reason … and that soon we could give a compelling account of all there is – removing the need for uncertainty about ourselves and our world – and obviating the need for faith. Those who persisted with faith in God were either afraid or unwilling to grasp advances in science – they were people who preferred uncertainty and partial explanations of reality because it allowed them to cling to a God of the gaps – a God that was only as big as the things human beings had yet to explain. Certainty was the opposite of faith. Conversely, there were believers who alleged that certain things in the world were certain – that the existence of God could be proved, providence could be measured and salvation was a concrete concept that was reflected in the twists and turns of human history – visible to those with eyes to see. They preached faith but proffered certainty.
Having faith has meant different things in different epochs of human civilisation. Many people are so sure there is a God and many people are just as sure there is no God … or they live a life which implies that sort of certainty. The atheist mocks the believer; the fundamentalist denounces the atheist. At its worst, no-one listens and everyone is condemned – often with violent ferocity. We Christians ought to be very aware that our understanding of God, heaven and hell is incomplete and that we do not, and cannot ever, know all that there is to know – that we cannot be certain (and must not) about everything although we feel sure about some things.
But what of doubt – should we flee from it, or perhaps embrace it? Doubt is not a bad thing. It is powerful, it keeps us honest and ensures we are sincere. A wise person once said: ‘I am grateful to my atheist friends, they keep me from cheating’. Doubt reminds us that religious faith is not the obvious interpretation of reality. Doubt reminds me that there are other ways of seeing the world – because others see the world differently from us. Doubt destroys our sentimentality and makes us deal with the world as it really is … to let me hear and see the many things which say to others that there is no God. Doubt makes us open to the thoughts of people whose experience of life is different to ours and it can enlarge our sense of being human so that our empathy and sympathy are expanded.
As Christians, we are people of faith … a faith informed by the Bible, by tradition and by reason. We look at reality in the light of those three sources … and we find the essence of truth and meaning in the wonderful birth and the tragic death of Jesus, the Son of God. On this much we stand firm and resolute. These events, we believe, are crucial for any proper understanding of reality and any attempt to discern truth. But such events are radically unsuited to the way of this world. The Jesus story is inherently scandalous, too absurd to be accepted as a key happening by most, let alone all. It is because God’s ways are so different to those of human beings, that our decision to exercise faith … to see the world in the light of the manger and the cross, requires not just some casual nod, not just passing approval, but a profound ‘yes’. It demands a break with the world and its wisdom … to which we give an emphatic ‘no’. It requires a movement of the heart, the soul and the mind … especially in a country like Australia in which the expression of faith is no longer an everyday social custom. To say I believe and I have faith – that I choose to do something about my belief (because faith is belief in action), is harder to do, it costs more and so it means more. As for the Government’s desire to protect religious freedom, I wonder if it misses the point.
More and more, Christians and their belief will appear to be peculiar. I am not at all concerned by this because it will put the question raised by Jesus – “who do you say that I am?” – in the spotlight and require a firm and unambiguous answer. In the season of Advent, we concentrate on the coming of Christ – the wonderful truth that God is with us. Those who have faith, need to be ready for Christ’s coming and to be prepared to meet him. It is also a time in which we invite others, those with open minds and willing spirits, to consider what they believe … why they believe it … what comfort or confusion it brings them … and whether they have doubts that might be the opening to faith and a new reason for living … in companionship with one who said “have faith in God, have faith also in me: I go to prepare a place for you”. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Amen.
During the past 15 months, as a consequence of the pandemic, I have been part of more video conferences than I would have ever imagined … and I am over them. Although I can hear and see people, and often with great clarity, I would rather be in the same room breathing the same air. This is why I am going to Perth tomorrow week to conduct some interviews, because I would rather be speaking with people than looking at them on a screen. This is why I suspect there will always be limits to the digital experience and why old-fashioned ways of communication still have their place in the market. For example, where would authors be without printing presses that produce everything from magazines to books?
And we still want to hear some speak, to experience them preach, because the speaking and the preaching are interactive. You respond to me and I respond to you. Doing a sermon in my shearing shed while looking into my mobile phone does not inspire me to become very animated. In fact, it’s sterile and what you get is a bit stale – partly because it is recorded and then replayed. By way of contrast, when we read the four gospels and their accounts of Jesus preaching, we are struck by their response. No-one was indifferent to him. He drew crowds, not dispersed them. People didn’t have to be dragged along to formal meetings at which they were promised an uplifting message, they followed him and when the moment was right, he addressed them, and most of those who heard felt he was speaking directly to them.
In a world of sound bites, in which attention spans are limited, and most people either listen or ignore what they are hearing within 10 seconds, the speaker must be able to connect very quickly. I understand why this is so – there is so much being said – and I also despair because not everything can be reduced to a sound bite – a 20 second statement of the facts and their importance, or the idea and its relevance. I am confident no-one could accuse Anglicans of pandering to the sound bite. In fact, quite the reverse. Anglicans are known for being long-winded, somewhat wordy and occasionally obscurantist – they use words that most people neither use nor understand.
If you ever visit a Christian bookshop (although all bookshops generally are becoming rare) and seek out something Anglican as a baptism or confirmation gift, you will always find a copy of a prayer book. But you probably need a dictionary as well (or perhaps just a glossary) to explain what words mean … and what the services are trying to convey about what Christians believe and what is distinctive about Anglican faith. There are so many things in the prayer book that are not explained, words the drafters assume the reader would understand, phrases that presumably make sense – despite their odd construction. For someone new, without any exposure to what the Bible is or what the prayer book is intended to convey, the possibility of drawing near to God and having an encounter with Jesus is possibly lost.
I have been thinking about this recently as I work on my book about Special Forces misconduct in Afghanistan. What does the reader already know and what do I need to tell them, to help them understand the arguments I am presenting and the conclusions I am drawing. There is so much jargon and so many euphemisms and acronyms! It is no wonder that so much of what happens in public life is beyond the grasp of so many people; and little surprise that fewer people than ever before have any sense of the Christian message and why it is good news. They might be of a mind to reject it even if they did have it carefully explained … but I wonder how many don’t bother because the packaging is impossible to open, meaning the words don’t make sense or resonate with what they know or think or feel.
It doesn’t surprise me that people come to church but don’t feel the need to return – especially after baptisms. Perhaps it’s because church people love their terminology and appear to want to educate others … so they too can sound like church people. On one level, the desire to educate our friends and neighbours, to expand their horizons beyond the earthly and mundane, to enhance their appreciation of some timeless wisdom, sounds commendable. I suppose it is a form of outreach and connection but it is very different to Luke’s account of Pentecost with tongues of fire and speaking in unknown languages – which was no doubt meaningful and memorable.
When the flames came down on that Pentecost celebration mentioned in the book of Acts, two different things could have happened. The flames and the associated speaking in a new language could have settled on the apostles or just as easily on the Parthians, Medes, Elamites and other people who had gathered in the house. After all, nothing would have prevented God from giving the foreigners a chance to speak Greek. That would have been a vivid reversal of the Tower of Babel story; humans deciding to become like God being thwarted by different languages, God deciding to bestow divinity on human beings by drawing them together with a common language. Very neat.
But no, the divine flame and the Holy Spirit settle on the apostles. For the church to be alive, we are being told that it is the responsibility of the church to speak in the language of the stranger, the language of the visitor coming into the house, rather than for the stranger to be expected to speak in a language that the church expects and knows.
Today I am not focused on whether or not God wants us to use the word ‘stage’ rather than ‘sanctuary’ to describe this elevated platform within St Matthias, although a healthy congregation will make the visitor welcome and be unconcerned that they might not know or follow established customs. What I am talking about, and what the writer of the book of Acts finds important enough to record, is that the church is always being called on to be changed, to find itself made anew, to shape itself around the society in which it is placed.
I am not saying to conform or compromise but to be attentive and alert to the community in which the church is located. There is something holy for the church in finding common ground with people who have nothing to do with the church. There is something holy in showing the un-churched that we understand them and proving to the de-churched that we are willing to be changed for their sake—and for ours.
What happened on the first Pentecost was that the apostles were changed. The insiders learned to speak a new language; that of the outsider. The comfortable thing for the church, the easy thing then and now, is for God to change the outsider to be like us. The hard thing for the church and for the Christian is to be changed. Being mindful that it is Pentecost, we might say that it easier for the outsider to be purified by God’s fire, than for the insider who feels no need for purification … or has lost sight of what it might mean. The easy thing is for someone else to repent. The hard thing is for us to turn around.
It is a human trait that we want everyone to be like us. But one of the consequences of the resurrection is to see old, uncomfortable things in a new light. Seeing health where once there was disease. Seeing love where once there was fear. Seeing peace when the call to arms is so loud. Observing death but overlooking life.
One of the most powerful evangelism tools we have is to change how we view our families and friends, our neighbours and work colleagues, to name a few examples. Do we see Jesus in them? Do we find ourselves resurrected to a new life? Are we willing to learn the language of what it is like to be the bottom 10% of society rather than wherever we are? Are we willing to learn how to speak like someone who has no health insurance, no money for an interstate holiday, and who lives in fear that the loss of one pay cheque will be a disaster? Can we make connections with people who have always, and usually rightfully so, feared the affluence and hubris of Christian churches and their members? The church exists for those who are not yet its members but are they aware of that? What do I express by my actions, what do I exemplify by my deeds? Do I display any signs that the kingdom of God has come nearer?
If we are willing to reflect and to learn, then there is a chance for the church to bind up old wounds and heal them, to show the power of love to overcome animosity, to bring hope that the future for every person does not have to resemble the past. That is resurrection. Can we speak the language of the world in ways that makes the average person, standing on the edge of respectability or security or fear, find meaning and purpose … and even hope and joy? If we do, then it is Pentecost all over again, and this long-preserved biblical story from the book of Acts will once again occur. Amen.