2008 did not end well for me because of health problems, so because of the need to catch up I shall not be disappearing for the whole of January for the remainder of my sabbatical. I shall have a post Christmas holiday at some stage and I shall take a variety of study days to reflect on the reading I did while I was away in August and September, but I shall not be unavailable for the planning and discussion we need for the implementation of our Parish Mission Action Plan revision. Our aim will be to concentrate on the strengthening of our pastoral contacts as a congregation (see page 9), the continuing improvement of communication in all its forms, and deep reflection on the meaning and practice of our faith in a world which continues radically to challenge us.
As we approach the New Year the news commentators are full of quite dire prognostications about the change we must expect in our society and our way of life as the financial situation continues to worsen and to reveal its full impact. They talk of change comparable to the changes brought about by the Great Depression, Post War social reorganization and the Thatcherite revolution. They raise the question of our having to work together as a less individualistic society to survive the pressures we shall all experience and they also point to the danger in such situations of a search for scape-goats. In the 1930ies it was the Jews; more recently it was trade unionists, it seems unlikely that bankers or hedge fund managers will be targeted in quite the same way but it is a typical historic process we must be on our guard against.
What part will the Church have to play both in this crisis and in the social changes which might grow out of it. There is a danger I suspect in an over optimistic enthusiasm that at last our time has come. ‘ Some church leaders have been in danger of giving the impression that society has at last realized the folly of its ways and that it is now looking for real values and where better to look than the churches or the faiths. If that is the case then with one or two significant exceptions I’m not sure how well we are equipped to meet such interest. Yes it will be important that thoughtful, discerning, sensitive responses are made to the questions that may be asked us; but faith is not an answer to the problems of our time, just as Barack Obama is not the answer to the problems of America, or a new government to the problems of Israel Palestine. Such all embracing, mood changing answers are only illusions. The building up of values and convictions, of vision and hope takes a long time, great patience and small steps. Maturity takes a long time to mature.
In his New Statesman interview before Christmas, Rowan Williams was asked about his message to non-believers, in an increasingly secular Britain. “One thing which I think is always important to say, is [that] the Christian faith is essentially about a path to human maturity. It’s a faith that allows you to express both your freedom and your dependence, until there’s a balance. Quite often these days we don’t know what to do with our dependence, and we’re a bit ashamed and awkward about it, and therefore quite often we don’t know how to express our freedom What I most want to say to the world at large is: ‘Look at Christianity carefully and what you see is this balance, between dependence on the God who created you and that sense that grace and gift are utterly fundamental, and you rely on that. And, coming out of that, a certain authority in your own life, learning to live your own life, and shape creatively your own life and the life of those around you. I think it’s basic in the Bible. It’s basic in Christian tradition. And it’s where the Gospel most hits the deep human needs. “
As often when the Archbishop is musing in front of a journalist’s tape recorder this needs careful reflection to see quite what he is getting at. To begin with it’s interesting that he doesn’t choose to talk about God to a non believer. He does not set out to explore a series of propositions but to initiate a conversation. His starting point is a question about humanity what does it mean to be maturely human? And the identification of maturity depends on getting the balance right between dependence and freedom.
How are we to understand these things? Dependence may be something we become aware of in moments of crisis; the investments, the job, the colleagues, the financial system we depended on suddenly collapses; our health breaks down and we become dependent on nurses and doctors; the family love we had taken for granted breaks up and we are suddenly no longer at home. At which point various reactions set in. We give up and simply wait for someone or something to look after us; we dig in and look for another job, another love, another outlet for our skills and energies; we try to keep going and pretend that everything is all right; we look for someone to blame and to get angry with.
In his sermon for Christmas day the Archbishop pointed to small signs of salvation, small local gestures that never reach the headlines but which make a big difference to the lives of the people involved. He gives as an example Families for peace’ communities in the Holy Land where people take the risk of meeting the enemies who have caused them to suffer for the sake of the causes which divide them, in order to begin to create understanding and reconciliation. In such situations we see people discovering a new freedom in relationships with those they had thought were their enemies and a new sense of a mutual dependence which they had not realised they needed.
Because our situation in Hampstead is not nearly so dramatic, and because it may not yet be clear what real suffering will be experienced by whom and in what ways in this financial crisis, we cannot begin to predict or plan for what kind of saving work will be required of us as a sign of our human maturity in faith and a deepening of our experience of freedom and dependence.
But even perhaps at this stage one question or challenge faces us in relation to our material expectations. It is easy to live in NW3 and to assume that there is a standard of living which we all ought to aspire to, which is obviously’ the way we should live if we have a certain level of income. And our children absorb the same kind of expectations and learn early on the same kind of competitiveness and acquisitiveness. We and they learn to compare ourselves with one another we can become defensive if somehow we think we or our are children are not being given the right kind of recognition or opportunities. And so perhaps unconsciously we build up a life style which others aspire to or feel deprived of. We may think that we are different, we may not read the designer life style magazines, we may be able to point to others who are far more bound up in that sort of thing’ than we are, and yet unless we give far more thought to these things than perhaps we do we are caught up in a culture which inescapably shapes us in ways we are unaware of. And so whether or not we are seriously being challenged by the present crisis, now is a time for considering what we take financially for granted and how we use our money. We might ask ourselves the following questions;
– How does what I spend answer to my real needs?
– Who benefits from what I spend (ie employees, producers, manufacturers and how do I find out?)
– How does what I do with what I buy praise God by serving human life? What effect does the way I spend money have on my children what are their values and expectations?
– How does my lifestyle contribute to human alienation?
– How much debt is morally justifiable how much of my debt depends on impatience rather than real need?
– What proportion of my income could I give away to charities in which I might begin to take a real interest?
– What would it mean for me to have real sense of mature freedom and to grow in a deeply dependent trust in God and a willingness to accept my own dependence on others and their dependence on me?
– This is only the beginning of a debate which I suspect will become more and more important for us in the coming year.
With my love and prayers and good wishes for the New Year,
Father Stephen
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker