1st Sunday of Epiphany
11th January 2015
Over the past few days we have seen events that may well make us despair at the human ability to be inhuman. There can be no doubt that any reasonable person must be appalled by the events that we have seen on our TV screens and read about in our Newspapers. And there has been quite some reaction against what we have seen – condemnation of the jihadist cause and support for those who were killed and what they stood for.
But the Christian tradition offers something to temper our approach. This is not to uncondemn the actions of those who have killed – they are more than worthy of condemnation. But it is to hold a slightly more discerning lens up to the ways we may react.
One reaction – to other action that are carried out in the name of religion is the question asked (or statement made) that religion is the cause of our problems – theism, agnosticism, atheism and scepticism slugging it out to see which is best (or perhaps least worst). Whilst we may be particularly sensitive to hearing this in relation to religion where at least four ‘isms’ fight for supremacy and virtue, it is also a feature of the political world where three other ‘isms’ join skepticism (or perhaps cynicism!): capitalism, socialism and communism.
But this places too much of a focus on systems of belief (whether they are religious or political) and the codes of behaviour that they tend to generate. Even if we have paid scant attention to the riches of scripture, we are likely to know that Jesus challenges anyone who believe that merely by following a code one will build the Kingdom of heaven – and each of these ‘isms’ strives to provide a code to follow, and easy way to work out what is right and wrong – each of these ‘isms’ is the result of the human instinct to try and explain things and contain them within a system – a code of understanding and behaviour – or to use the Jewish term a ‘Law’. If we are to apply Christian insight to this, then we should know that it is not by following the Law (whichever one we choose) that things will come right, but it is by how we live in the light of knowing that God calls us to love one another.
In attacking any of these systems (as we may well wish to do) we seek to blame the system – not the human behaviour within the system. Again we have an insight to bring to this – for the Christian tradition calls us to remember that we are human – that we get things wrong – to use a word that is sometimes avoided we have the capacity to sin. Given this even the best code will not enable any of us to glimpse heaven here on earth – that will only happen if we set our hearts on that – if we not only obey the code we choose, but we live it out. We are called not just to observe the Law, but to join in fulfilling the Law in our actions.
So as we see the dangers of following to bluntly one code of conduct (derived from a religious impulse) we are called to condemn its results. But we might also want to look at how the other codes of conduct at play in the story that has unfolded might be judged if we look back in the light of a call to bring about the kingdom. If we listened to this evening’s readings then this kingdom – one of justice and peace, one that sees beyond the values and judgements of this world – is heralded not by ‘the shouting or raising of voices’, but by the living of lives in ways that are ‘a light for all peoples, and a lamp to the nations’. Perhaps we all need to judge ourselves by this call from the prophet.