The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Ex 33.7-20; Ps 33; 2 Cor 3.4-18
I wonder if you were amongst those who stood at the
door of their homes at the start of the COVID pandemic
in 2020 to “clap our carers”? Whilst the initiative didn’t
start in the U.K. it soon caught on here, the minute-long
handclapping steadily being amplified by shouts, and
serving spoons being used to bang pots and pans, and
even fireworks being let off. At 8pm on 2 April 2020
Windsor Castle was lit in blue light, emulating the
colour of the NHS logo. Her Late Majesty Queen
Elizabeth lauded an “expression of our national spirit”.
Certainly, ‘Clap for our carers’ gave opportunity for the
general population to express appreciation for NHS
and other keyworkers when they were in the front line
of a deadly epidemic bearing considerable personal
risk. More immediately, the purposeful activity and
hearing neighbours’ banging and crashing brought a
sense of being united in a beneficent act and gave a
sense of solidarity in the face of isolation and
insecurity. We were one; and we were grateful; but we
mostly weren’t ourselves sharing the risk and cost of
front line caring.
Our passage from the book of Exodus this evening
doesn’t spell out the motivation for the people to stand
at the entrances of their tents, but we are told that
when the pillar of cloud descended to the entrance of
the tent of meeting, all the people “would rise and bow
down … at the entrance of their tents”. The pillar was
the sign that Moses was inside, speaking to the Lord
“face to face”, as one speaks to a friend.
The tent of meeting was pitched away from the camp,
outside its boundary. It seems that at the camp, as at
Sinai, the people didn’t want to come too close to God,
for fear of what might result. At Sinai there was the
warning that the people shouldn’t touch the mountain
on pain of death. Here at the camp, when Moses asks
to see God’s glory, he is warned that he cannot behold
this fullness, as “no one shall see me and live”.
It is not clear whether the contagion is God, who must
remain outside the camp, or the people, who cannot
live in God’s presence. Either way, the people’s
preference is for a vicarious religion, standing at the
entrance of their tents suggesting solidarity with
Moses, but a more distant participation in his personal
encounter with the divine.
In this evening’s reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul
presents a contrast between the Mosaic covenant
delivered on Sinai commanding adherence to the Law
and the new covenant in Christ’s blood: “If there is
glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more
does the ministry of justification abound in glory” (2
Cor 3.9).
On this feast of Pentecost, we recall and celebrate the
more dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the one
coinciding with Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. The
Jewish festival marks not only the wheat harvest but
more saliently in rabbinic tradition, the revelation of the
Ten Commandments at Sinai and so the seal of a
common identity of the people of God led by Moses
from Egypt.
Moses is reported to have covered his face after his
meetings with God, so that the reflected divine glory
might not be seen. As Christians we acknowledge that
the face of God was made visible in the first century in
the person of Jesus Christ, who it was possible to
speak with “face to face as with a friend”. More
particularly in light of the outpouring of the Spirit, we
can today marvel and rejoice that it is the God who
said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4.6). But do we
attend to that light?
Grace Davie is a sociologist who researched the
phenomenon in post 1945 Britain of Christian
“believing without belonging”. Her research suggests
that despite holding Christian belief and approving of
church worship, many in the population preferred that
others practice faith in their stead, as if on their behalf.
As Davie expanded her research in Europe and found
this more widely, characterising it as “vicarious
religion”.
Similarly, Nancy Ammerman, working in the US
identifies “Golden Rule”Christians, individuals who
live by the maxim of loving their neighbour as
themselves but who are liminal members of a church
community. We can all think of reasons not to
associate with a church community, from the demands
of commitment through to the ambiguities and
conflicts of institutional life … but at the end of the day,
our worship, the formation of Christian identity and the
path to sanctity are corporate affairs in a way that is
non-negotiable.
Davie’s and Ammerman’s interests are largely in
people who do not frequently attend church. But for
those of us who are regulars in worship and church life,
a similar question begs to be asked.
Just as the people stand far off when Moses meets face
to face with God, is this something we do too?
Certainly, it is easier to bang pots on our front doorstep
than it is to accept the risk in an epidemic of catching
COVID from patients.
There is the possibility that many of us haven’t come
much further in our religious practice than the
Israelites in the camp, when Moses is beyond its limit
in the tent of meeting. For us as for them, the fear is for
how our wellbeing might be compromised in this
encounter, as much as the consequences of the call to
holiness that arises from falling into the hands of the
living God.
If like me, you share this fear, we might do better this
Pentecost than to go one step beyond the vicarious
religion of the doorstep. Let us instead like Moses go
into our tents and meet in the darkness with the
invisible God, saying “Come, Holy Spirit” and, with
John Donne, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God …
except you enthral me, [I] shall never be free.”