“A Typical Family” - Poor Families - God’s Family…

“The typical family can expect to be £2,000 better off despite the proposed cuts in tax credits.” That’s one of the assertions I saw recently in the Press in the build-up to the House of Lords vote which overturned the Government’s plan to reduce the level of tax credits paid to lower-paid workers and poorer families.

I’m not sure how the politicians assess what a “typical family” is. The Government has some praiseworthy aims - amongst them the reduction both of the nation’s “deficit” and of the need for so many to be dependent upon benefits, whether they be social payments or tax credits. The increase in the National Minimum Wage is important in this respect - though I find myself disturbed that the Government has tried to call it the “National Living Wage” - effectively undercutting what others had independently assessed to be the true amount necessary to ensure a basic quality of living.

But the Maths don’t add up. It’s clear that at least half of poorer paid workers and families on tax credits would find the cuts greater than any increase received from the new minimum wage and higher tax threshold. And even if 80% stood to benefit - as the Government first asserted - such a course must be questioned if only for the effect on the 20% who would not benefit, because these would be the poorest of all.

All politicians these days sing the merits of “hard-working families.” But this doesn’t help when there is no job to work hard at. It doesn’t help when hard work is still rewarded only with the lowest possible wage. If you’re a “typical” person in employment, you might expect to benefit. But can you easily accept those benefits if their cost is real hardship for those who are poor?

I was in another church recently where someone was saying how disappointed he was at the congregation’s level of response to an appeal for a local Foodbank. I agree with the importance of Foodbank initiatives and glad we support our own. But then I thought of some of the people in that congregation of which he was speaking, who could themselves barely make ends meet; how could they contribute when they might themselves need the Foodbank? We need to recognise the needs of others - but I’m afraid we need to recognise that those others might include people we sit next to in our own churches. The poor are not other people, the object of our charity, somebody else. Remember that. Remember Jesus’ words: “He sent me to bring good news to the poor….”

Martin Jackson

from the November Parish Magazine - follow the links from the top of this blog page, or find it by clicking here

Not the medium but the message

(Jeremiah 23.23-29; Hebrews 11.29-12.2; Luke 12.49-56)

Barbara Brown Taylor is an American Episcopalian priest who apparently gets nominated quite routinely as “one of the top ten preachers in North America.” So while she is presently paying a visit to this country, the Church Times took the opportunity to ask her the question, “In the age of the screen and social media, is the sermon at risk?” Perhaps this is a dangerous way for me to start!
 

Here’s her answer to that question:
 

I know plenty of people who will happily listen to a good storyteller, lecturer, or stand-up comedian for 20 minutes; so technology does not seem to be the problem. The problem has more to do with the setting, content, and purpose of the traditional sermon, which too many people experience as predictable, manipulative, or both.
 

As long as sermons are conceived as being about affirming a certain belief system, and recruiting new believers to it, then they are going to attract only people who are in the market for those things.
 

When I preach, my goal is to say something that sounds like good news to anyone who is listening, no strings attached. There's no substitute for the unmediated presence of a live speaker, which is dangerous and potentially catalytic in a way that watching a screen will never be. 
 

So she’s saying the opposite of what has become received wisdom. The sermon has its place. The preacher has his or her place: “There's no substitute for the unmediated presence of a live speaker...” The problem is not the medium but the message.
 

The big issue is what should the message be? What should we be trying to put over to anyone with the ears to hear? And there’s something to think about in her answer: “When I preach, my goal is to say something that sounds like good news to anyone who is listening, no strings attached.”
 

What sounds like “good news” to you? What sounds like “good news” to you that is also good news to other people? – “good news” to people you might not get on with? And how does the Church deal with the fact that people are looking for quite different things in issues of daily life and in what they consider to be important? That’s a question that sometimes defeats us – perhaps because we haven’t got the vision or understanding to deal with it; but sometimes it perplexes even the most able, intelligent and wise.
 

“Good news,” I think, is going to entail the admission that we simply don’t get it right all the time. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, was at the Edinburgh Book Festival last week. He was reminded that his years as archbishop were marked by turbulence over the church's stance on the role of gay priests and bishops; gay marriage became a subject for angry debate; and homophobia became an issue in the wider Anglican Communion. So did he feel he had let down gay and lesbian people? His response was first a pause to think about it. Then he said,
 

I know that a very great many of my gay and lesbian friends would say that I did. The best thing I can say is that is a question that I ask myself really rather a lot and I don't quite know the answer.
 

Perhaps he could have quoted Jesus in today’s Gospel reading: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three…” There’s a realism in what Jesus says: try as hard as you may, but people are not going to agree. If they fall out over words and feelings, that’s bad enough. When they come to blows and take up guns and bombs, that is the world as we all too tragically know it.

 

 

Barbara Brown Taylor had said, “When I preach, my goal is to say something that sounds like good news to anyone who is listening, no strings attached.” And the point of Jesus’ teaching is that it should be “good news.” The problem is what we want to hear, and what we are prepared to do…
 

The Church Times asked Barbara Brown Taylor about her experience of giving up her pastoral ministry as a parish priest – she’s written a book about it called, Leaving Church. So, they asked her, “What do you miss, and what do you not miss?”  
 

I miss doing baptisms and funerals, visiting nursing homes, and being called to the emergency room in the middle of the night. I miss being immersed in a great worship service, which is like conducting a great symphony. I miss the children, and watching them grow up.
 

I do not miss being the object of people's inordinate adulation, or hostility. I do not miss breaking up church fights - or causing them - or trying to meet my own expectations of what a good priest should be and do. I do not miss being the CEO of a small non-profit organisation that relies on overworking its volunteers. But, in hindsight, I bless it all. 
 

As I read these words, I could hear a chorus of clergy crying, “Yes to that!” “I do not miss being the object of people's inordinate adulation, or hostility. I do not miss breaking up church fights - or causing them…” But if that’s how it is in the Church as we know it, that’s how it was for Jesus, who comes to preach good news, who heals the sick, gives sight to the blind and even raises the dead – but with it also by his own admission brings division.
 

The word “Gospel” means simply Good News. It’s Good News that we are to preach, it’s Good News that we are to live out day-by-day. It needs to be Good News for the people we meet, whoever they are, with no strings attached. But it’s not the same as something that will keep everybody happy. It’s not a lowest-common-denominator, let’s-not-offend-anyone religious message. The Good News of the Kingdom recognises the true needs of our world. Good news for the poor can’t be preached while the rich are appeased. There are scarce prospects for peace in a world where so much reliance is placed upon weapons of force. Injustice for women will continue as a matter of fact while the administration of the law in so many parts of the world remains the preserve of men. Bullying and discrimination are perpetuated whenever people insist on the right to say whatever they think and feel about people who they perceive as different. While all this remains true, the message of Jesus brings division. But how else can it achieve its aims?
 

The Gospel of Jesus is simple Good News. But what do we hear? How will we hear? Listen in faith, says the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews – and recognise God’s Good News in a faith which is “stronger than kingdoms,” in a weakness which is greater than strength, in justice and promise, in the hope of Resurrection. And if it’s to be good news for everybody, we should add that we need to listen – and respond – with humility. God provides “something better” not only for me but for all those people who are quite different from me. Together we are called to be God’s people; for us all Jesus is “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” He shows it when he goes to the Cross for love of the whole world, for me, for you, for those people we don’t get on with. If he didn’t do it for them, how could he do it for me?

 

What not to wear - a sermon for Trinity 21

This sermon is by Paul Heatherington, one of our Readers. Or it would be - if I could get the document to up-load properly! Sorry I can't provide a working link.

Paul looks at St. Matthew's take on the invitations to attend the king's son's wedding feast (not the one illustrated at Cana, though I wonder if this was in Jesus' mind when he told his original story) - and he makes a good point about connections with themes in the Isaiah reading given as the Old Testament reading for Trinity 21. I'd be interested in exploring further the contrasts with St. Luke's take on the story. Why is there so much violence in Matthew's version? Why the point in Matthew about the man who came wrongly dressed being thrown out "into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"?

In short, I wonder if Matthew really "gets" the point of the story? This wonderful image of a king / God, who distributes "admit for free" invitations without limit - but mustn't there be a catch?

Isn't that the problem so often with the Church? We can't quite grasp the sheer limitlessness of God's grace, so we look for the catch. We try to explain the parables, rather than simply let them speak. Matthew seems to be trying to apply this story to a world of violence and rejection. He wants it to be relevant to his readers. But the problem of seeking relevance is that we straightway limit the Gospel message. We need to let Christ speak for himself.

How... is the quandary that the Vicar of St. Cuthbert's is wrestling with. I'd like you to be able to read Paul's sermon, and have a think about it yourself. But until I can get our "esnips" account working properly...