Month: August 2024

Which Community?

Sermon for Evensong, Headingley St Michael & All Angels, 11 August 2024
Reading: Hebrews 12:1-17

What a week it has been! Like all of us who preach or otherwise have opportunity to comment on events, my thoughts have been influenced this week by events that have unfolded since the murder of three children in Southport.  Southport, as it happens, is where I was born, though I don’t have any relatives or friends there now.

I stand, of course, with all people of goodwill in condeming both the initial act of murder, and the violence and rioting that have ensued on the streets of cities across the UK. Injury, looting, arson and the unseen psychological scars suffered by many people in minority communities are an abomination to God. Where, we might ask, is the protection that God has promised us in tonight’s psalm? “Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day”1

We have seen rioting on the streets before, 2011 being the last time it spread beyond one city. What seems particularly unusual about this summer’s events is that many of those who took part did not fit the stereotype of a young, poorly educated man from a deprived community. Older people, women and the well-educated were among them. One middle-aged couple  is said to have joined in the violence after their usual afternoon game of bingo.

There has already been much speculation about what lies behind the escalation of violence in response to the initial incident. What seems beyond doubt is that what happened on the streets was to a large extent influenced by what happens online. So-called ‘trolls’ on social media, allegedly reinforced by foreign agents seeking to exploit our divisions, have played on existing fears and prejudices to encourage a violent response. Some of these fears may be counted as ‘legitimate concerns’ about the level of immigration, but I suggest that is more of an excuse than an explanation. The real roots of trouble lie deeper than that. Where do we look behind the online trolling and incitement, for an explanation of why some people respond to it while others condemn it? 

One factor that I want us to look at, I suggest the most important one, is a sense of community – or the lack of one. The rioters may well consider that they belong to a sort of community, one that mainly exists online.  The internet and social media have of course given opportunity for us all to connect with like-minded people wherever they may be. Often for good, but sometimes for ill. 

Being part of an online community, though, is very different from being part of civil society. What people really need is a strong, real-time community rooted in a particular place. It is the lack of such meaningful ties, among other factors, that can give rise to dissatisfaction and suspicion of those who are seen as ‘outsiders’.  

Look at the contrast between those who came together from far and wide to join a temporary mob, and the many people who afterwards came out on the street to start the process of restoring hope. Churches, mosques, and other community groups have quickly come together to clean up, repair, offer support, and stand in solidarity with those who have to endure the hatred of others.  These people may well have communicated through social media groups, but in this instance with their actual neighbours, building on existing local connections or forging new ones in the desire to overcome the forces of hate. The American writer and campaigner for racial justice, Maya Angelou, is credited with saying “Hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”

What does our Hebrews reading tonight tell us about communities in general and churches in particular? Let me read you verses 14 and 15 in the Jerusalem Bible translation, which I think puts it very well: “Always be wanting peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one can ever see the Lord. Be careful that no-one is deprived of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness should begin to grow and make trouble; this can poison a whole community”.  ‘Depriving people of the grace of God’ might mean failing to share the Good News of his love, while we have seen this week what can grow from the ‘root of bitterness’.

Headingley – as a town, not just the church – does seem to have a stronger sense of community than other parts of Leeds, but I’ve come across many places where the church is the only kind of community association in the area.

We – Christians, church members – can benefit from this kind of community wherever we live. That is the glory of the Church of England’ parish system, and a jewel that perhaps isn’t recognised as such by those who grew up in the church, nor promoted well enough: that to be a Christian is to be received into the sort of supportive and inclusive community that many people can only dream of.

The Gospel properly understood is the ‘good news’ that we take part, not in our own mission, but in God’s mission through Jesus to restore all things to himself. Jesus, who the writer to the Hebrews reminds us “stood such opposition from sinners”. ‘Equality, diversity and inclusion’ is something that companies and other organisations have recently started to take on board as important to their flourishing, but that is not new to us in the church. If we are not equal, diverse and inclusive, how can we be disciples of Jesus?

What also makes the Church stand out from any other kind of community is that it exists not just in the ‘here and now’. The Body of Christ is without boundaries of time or space. When we recite the final phrases of the Apostles’ Creed, it’s easy to miss the significance of what we proclaim: I believe in the holy catholic Church … The Communion of Saints … the forgiveness of sins … the resurrection of the body … and the life everlasting”.

Which brings me, at last, to the first verse of Hebrews chapter 12: “With so many witnesses in a great cloud on every side of us, we too, then, should throw off everything that hinders us”. That ‘great cloud of witnesses’ is both the rest of the worldwide church on earth, and all those who have gone before us. We cannot see them, but our faith is that they in some sense can see us and continue to encourage us – nay, to incite us – to “run the race that is set before us”, as they did.

So to conclude, if this week you have been tempted to be cowed by the violence of the few and the forces of darkness that lie behind them, let me leave you with three thoughts: that most people are reasonable, despise violence and racism as much as we do, and want to respond to hate with love; that in standing up to it, online or in person, we take part in God’s mission of reconciliation through the strength of Christ who suffered for us; and that in doing so we are incited, not by trolls, but by this great cloud of witnesses, this community throughout time and space in which we find our life and meaning.  Amen.  

  1. Psalm 91:5, Book of Common Prayer Psalter ↩︎

Restraining anger

Sermon for Bramley St Peter, 11 August 2024
Text: Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Protests in Leeds, August 2024
Protests in Leeds, August 2024

It started in a bar after work. “It’s them”, said Dem, the influencer.  “That’s why we can’t get work any more. It’s them.  They’re not like us. They don’t respect us. Don’t understand us. Don’t share our religion. They’re after our jobs”. “Even in our great city!” someone else added. “Yes, our great city!” everyone else repeated.

Soon they were out in the streets. Two of the people they called “them” happened to pass by. Legal immigrants innocently walking through the streets of this great city. Before they knew what was happening, they were being dragged off to the nearest stadium where a rally was now taking place, thousands of working men joining in.  For two hours all that could be heard was a chant of “Our great city!” with perhaps the odd cry of “It’s all their fault” – maybe even “Death to them”.

Eventually the mayor heard what was going on and came to the stadium. Grabbing the microphone he appealed to the mob for calm. “What’s all this about?” he asked. “These people are not after your jobs. They haven’t broken the law.  Everyone knows our city is great, but these people coming here aren’t going to change that. Go home, or the government will call out the troops and read the riot act”.

Fortunately  it worked. On this occasion there was no more violence. But life in the city was never quite the same. Those whose lives had been threatened that night, would never forget it. An event to be responded to – not with violence, but with a renewed determination to live peacefully in their host nation. To be, in the words of one of their religious leaders, “all things to all people”.

Because what I have described was not the riots in English cities this week – though it could have been. It’s all there in the Bible.  Acts chapter 19, usually titled ‘The riot in Ephesus’. And St Paul was there.1 As his fellow Jews were dragged to the ampitheatre by the mob, to the chants of ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians’, he had to be restrained from getting involved. Paul knew both sides of hatred. Until his conversion on the Damascus road, he was the one calling for Christians to be imprisoned or even killed. So he would have understood the hatred that was coursing through the veins of that Ephesian mob. Maybe he was tempted to revert to his old ways of violence, this time in defence of the Christians.

Can we be in any doubt that he would have remembered this incident when, about ten years later, he wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus? He wrote to a church that still knew the realities of division. Those who had been caught up in the riot may still have borne the psychological scars of it. The church itself, started among Jews, had grown through Paul’s ministry to include many gentile believers, and that by itself could give much cause for tension between them. And in a city of around 50,000 people2 they were, as a religious community, still a small minority, always at risk of being the subect of suspicion and even violence from the wider population.

This, then, is the context of the passage that Michael read to us. When Paul writes words such as ‘falsehood’, ‘anger’, ‘wrath’, ‘wrangling’ and ‘slander’, he may be reliving the events of that night. But in those ten years, he has changed. He no longer invites his hearers to express their anger with violence. Instead, he writes of ‘truth’, he uses verbs like ‘building up’, ‘being kind’, ‘forgiving’, ‘living in love’: these are the exact opposite of the hatred that the believers in Ephesus had experienced.

They are also the only way in which divisions in society can be healed. The American writer and campaigner for racial justice, Maya Angelou, is credited with saying “Hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.” At a time when hatred, division and violence seem to be growing in our own society, it is even more important that we resist the temptation to give the proverbial ‘eye for an eye’. I know when I hear of atrocities being committed that I am tempted to feel hate towards those who commit them. And when I read comments on social media, posted by someone I know personally, that repeat false accusations against certain groups of people, it’s tempting to wade in and be rude in my response. But that isn’t the way of peace.

This week, we have seen some truly heart-warming responses to the violence across the UK. Churches, mosques, and other community groups have quickly come together to clean up, repair, offer support, and stand in solidarity with those who have to endure the hatred of others. In the long term, that’s the only way that divisions will be healed. Just as Britain avoided descending into fascism in the 1930s, despite the rabble rousing speeches of Mosley, so I believe the majority today will not be taken in by the hate speech from Tommy Robinson and his like.

However, the letter was written mainly to give advice about how the Christian believers in Ephesus should behave among themselves, particularly given cultural and religious differences among them. After all, if they couldn’t live Christlike lives and promote unity within the church, how could they do so in the more challenging world beyond its walls?

“Be angry”, says Paul – not as a command to feel angry about nothing, but being realistic, recognising that there are things that do rightfully make us angry. But he immediately adds – “do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger”.  This is the sort of advice often given to couples, not to let our little household arguments carry on for days, but making it up before we go to bed. Never easy, like any other good advice, it takes a lot of effort.

It’s also good advice within the Church. There will be things that make us angry, or at least annoyed. It might be a new way of doing things in worship, or a PCC decision that we disagree with, or just someone else’s attitude or opinion. Paul’s advice is to let no evil words come out of our mouth, but to use words that “give grace to those who hear”. Again, not easy and it takes effort. The good news here is, that God offers us his help. Paul tells his listeners to ‘be imitators of God’ – which at first seems impossible! – but adds, “as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us”. He also invokes the Holy Spirit, given to us, he says as “a seal for the day of redemption”, meaning something like “protecting us from being rejected by God”. He also refers to the members of the chuch as being “members of one another”. So what at first may seem impossible – responding gracefully to those who annoy or anger us – is made possible by the grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit within us.

When we do feel anger, whether it’s at something happening at home, at church or an injustice in the wider world, what matters is to turn that anger into something constructive. It might mean making time to talk to the person who has angered you, to try and understand their point of view better. Or it may mean finding the confidence to speak up in a discussion for what you believe to be true. Or  volunteering your time to help with some church or conmmunity activity that seeks to make other people’s lives better.

So to sum up, anger is not in itself wrong, especially if it’s anger at what we believe goes against God’s will. What matters is that we don’t let that anger fester or push us into an angry response, but bring it to God in prayer, and seek with the help of the Holy Spirit a constructive way to respond that will be in accordance with God’s grace.  As Paul also wrote to the Roman church, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’  “

  1. Commentaries disagree on whether Paul actually wrote Ephesians or whether the letter was written by one of his followers in Ephesus (see e.g. Gerd Theissen, ‘The New Testament: An Introduction’, 2002). But either way, the author of the letter would have experienced, or at least been very aware of, the riot in question. ↩︎
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephesus ↩︎