The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

There are many passages in the gospels which have the power to make us feel uncomfortable. And often they are to do with judgment, with the idea that there can be people who reject God and whom therefore God may reject. Our preferred image of God is an all embracing one; our preferred image of the church is an all inclusive one, welcoming everyone.  We push to the back of our minds the idea that there could be a lot of people who do not want to be welcomed and who actively despise and oppose the church.
Jesus is on his way up to Jerusalem. He has just been asked whether only a few people will be saved – presumably by someone who was sure he was on the right list. Jesus replies by telling everyone that they should strive to enter by the narrow gate – being saved isn’t an easy matter. He goes on to say that many who have taken their own salvation for granted will be shut out and many whom they think should be shut out will in fact be warmly welcomed.
Jesus then becomes aware of  a series of conflicting desires in him and around him Herod wants to kill him. He, Jesus, wants to gather the people of Jerusalem to him as a mother hen gathers her chicks. The people of Jerusalem want no such thing. Nevertheless, God wants Jesus to carry on his way and face the hostility of the so called city of peace – Jerusalem. The Pharisees are suggesting Jesus should get away. Jesus carries on his way to the place where prophets are persecuted and rejected.
Paul also paints a picture of those who are enemies of Christ, though, interestingly, he calls them enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their minds, Paul says, are set on earthly things; their god is the belly and their glory is in their shame, in other words they spend their lives satisfying their physical appetites. That I suppose is a standard Christian way of characterising opponents of the gospel and sometimes it may be true – looked at from a contemporary perspective we might want to say that materialism gets in the way of the gospel – too much emphasis on all my needs, my comfort, my satisfaction, my security. And such a perspective will inevitably find the cross of Christ difficult to say the least.
So where does this leave us in being forced to think about opponents of the gospel in our own day? How does it affect our view of an all embracing God and an inclusive church? We don’t I think  need to stop thinking that God loves everyone, nor should we seek to exclude anyone from the church, who really needs or wants to be here.. But perhaps we should be clearer about the fact that Christianity is not a comfortable thing; and when Christians are really being true to their beliefs though they may inspire some people, they will certainly antagonise and alienate others.
And that brings us to the heart of the matter; it may often be true that people are turned away from Christianity by its faults, by its failures of charity, by its heinous sins of cruelty and abuse and persecution; people may be turned away by our inadequate or uninspiring accounts of Christianity; but does that mean that everyone could be converted to Christianity if only we all became better Christians? Or might it be the case that, however, much we lived up to our calling there would still be opposition and even persecution? After all the Son of God was crucified.
Perhaps then as we prepare for the observance of Holy Week and Good Friday we should  already be thinking about the cross. Does the cross of Christ bring salvation to all? Does it mean that however much people may reject Christianity for whatever reason they will in the end be welcomed into the kingdom? Or is the cross of Christ meant to show us what the world will always be like? We have made a world in which the love of God represented in the life of Jesus will always end up being crucified? So that the more the church seeks to represent that love the greater the opposition that will emerge?
Those questions may sound a little theoretical. We do not seem likely to be persecuted in Hampstead. The worst we may experience is indifference; in England as in Western Europe the church seems simply to be in decline – its own failings and divisions threaten its life not external persecution.  And yet Christianity represents a transcendent drama; the Son of God shows what it means to hunger and thirst after righteousness; he shows us how to forgive an enemy; how to include those whom society turns its back on; how to build community in his name; how to wait on God and prepare for his kingdom; and there is something in all that which engages the opposition of those who are afraid of the love Jesus demonstrates, who are frightened of their own humanity.
And this leads us finally to a fruitful question which we might ask ourselves this Lent. If I could meet the man Jesus would I immediately see him as a friend? Or might there be something about him which would threaten to expose all the careful ways in which I have constructed my life to avoid the humanity God wills for me? Am I really afraid of God’s plan for humanity – the friendship and the mutual self giving, the co-operation and equality, the honesty and vision which God wills for us?
We have asked  ourselves whether the church would be persecuted if it truly lived the life the spirit seeks to inspire in the church. Perhaps  we should first have asked  in what way we ourselves might at some unacknowledged level    be unwilling to respond to Christ and even ourselves live as opponents of the gospel? And the more we see of our own capacity to be enemies of the cross of Christ, the more miraculous will seem those words with which Jesus expresses his abiding love for those who resist his call.