Advent
3 2024 – “You Brood of Vipers!”
It will not have
escaped your attention these past few weeks that the Church of
England it's in a bit of a pickle. It has been going through some struggles,
not least in understanding what it’s leadership should look like. Amidst it
all, many feel that one lone voice seems to have been crying out in the
wilderness - that of the Bishop of Newcastle.
It has been
interesting to observe how brave she has been in calling out the institutional
elitism that is at the heart of so much that seems to so many to be wrong,
demanding radical root-and-branch culture change at the top of the institution.
It has also been interesting to witness some of the backlash she has faced as a
result - not least from some of her colleagues. I find this especially
troubling given the general institutional silence over the direct issues at
hand. It seems many are more concerned for with their own standing than
addressing the corporate culture that has corroded the higher echelons of the
Church of England for so long. This all raises some probing questions about how
the Church should be led.
So, how are
those called to lead the Church to understand their roles, and how can they inhabit
them in a healthier way so that they are a Christ-like presence in leading
God's people?
It is
interesting, isn’t it, that at this moment and as we begin stepping up our
preparations for receiving Christ at the celebration of his birth in just 10
days’ time, the Sunday Lectionary gives us John the Baptist – this lone voice
crying in the wilderness. And how does his proclamation begin? “You brood of
vipers!” Later on in the reading, we are told that this is Good News. I must
say, on first hearing that doesn’t sound much like good news. Perhaps, we need
to consider the wider narrative?
As we discover
later in the passage, some were challenged and changed by John’s ministry. Some
would oppose it and deal with John just as they had the many prophets before
him who had said things those in places of power had not liked to hear.
“You brood of
Vipers!”
Sometimes it's
difficult for us to hear the truth, especially if it requires from us a
response which demands we change or one which challenges our reputation and status. Truth
can easily get thrown out of the window in an attempt at self-preservation.
Sometimes it is hard when other people are sent to us by God to proclaim the
truth they see in a prophetic way. How are we meant to receive that?
“You brood of
Vipers!”
It can be
difficult for us to receive. It's all too easy to become defensive, resistant or
project blame elsewhere – often the prophet themselves, the whistle-blower, the
accuser or the victim. It is too easy to become obstructers of the truth rather
than receivers and bearers of it.
“You brood of
Vipers!”
It is abundantly
clear that the Church of England must change, and its hierarchy has to listen.
More than that, we desperately need a new form of hierarchy than we have
witnessed these past few years. We need people in senior positions who strive
to be pastors to the Pastors and lovers of the people. Individuals of
compassion and care. More of those who have grown up on our council estates, in
working class communities and have seen the struggles first-hand. And
certainly, we need the majority to have done significant time in parish and
front-line ministry. We need parish priests and chaplains as the next
generation of bishops, not strategists, corporate elites and conglomerate CEOs.
The only kind of ‘top-down’ should be the direction of money. Decision making
must become ‘bottom-up’. What we know about Church growth is that the long-term
growth of the Church happens at a local level. It happens when priests are
present, active and available in their communities – when priests are praying
for and with the people they have been called to serve and leading them on in a
missional way, so that those very people become emboldened and empowered to
engage in the mission of God in their communities, being able to explore their
own callings under God and under the guidance of a leader who cares for them.
That is how the Church grows.
Yet, we must
avoid the kind of hero worship and short-termism that we have seen strangle the
Church in the last decade or so – that way always leads to disaster – a kind of
boom and bust economics of mission. The only hero here is Jesus. It can never
be any pioneer minister, vicar, bishop or archbishop. All must point to Christ.
At a much deeper
level, this reveals is the need for us, both as individuals and as a community,
to keep pondering deeper our understanding of the Church. The Church on a
purely human level, as a human institution, will always fail us, because the
Church as an institution is of human design. It doesn’t matter how many reforms
and changes we make, human institutions will always let us down. So, we must
sit lightly to the institutional aspects of the Church whilst continuing to
hold it to account and change it for the better.
Yet, as much as
we may need structures to make the whole thing creak along, we are not here to
worship or be a part of an institution actually. We do need structures to
manage our earthly resources, keep the buildings standing and to ensure that we
have ministers to deploy at the local level. All of that takes organising in a
materialistic sense. Sadly, however, we may have fallen into the trap of thinking
about the Church far too much in institutional and corporate terms and not nearly
enough according to its spiritual, ecclesial and eternal credentials. As much
as we may need structure, the Church that we are a part of is not fundamentally
an institution, it’s a Church that is eternal and universal and has very firm
spiritual foundations. It is the gathering of God’s holy people, the Body of
Christ, fed by the Holy Spirit and by Christ’s Body in word and sacrament. It
recognises God’s agency in the coming of Jesus sent in human form so that we
can feel, touch and see what it is to live a perfectly godly and righteous life
and, God willing, emulate him. We are fed by our Incarnate Lord in the
Eucharist, where we step into his enteral sacrifice, made once for all, as we
worship our Father in heaven through that same Jesus who has given access to
his grace. Our measuring rod is not strategies, statistics and action plans,
but those beautifully rounded historic formularies that the early Church spilt
blood, sweat and tears bringing into existence, rooted in the historic ordering
of the Church, the Apostles teaching, the breaking of bread and the prayers.
That’s what unites us as people of God the world over and members of Christ’s
Church. We are a hopeful people looking forward with expectation to the coming
of the Kingdom of God, when a new dawn will break through bringing with it the
justice and peace for which we strive. Perhaps the time has come for the Church
of England to find its ecclesiological grounding, its theology of Church, once
again.
So, I pray that
as we continue to walk through Advent in the Spirit together we may keep
walking that self-reflective spiritual journey of repentance that John calls us
to from the wilderness. May we open our hearts to the redemptive grace of our
God, so that come Christmas Day when Jesus is born anew into our world, we may
also find space for him in our hearts as well.
Amen.
R.T. Parker-McGee 2024
