The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday)

2nd March 2008 : 6:30pm

Preacher: The Revd John Chynchen

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you . (James 5.1)

In the first chunk of the reading from James – about one third of the Chapter 5 – the writer takes a big stick and lays about the rich.

“You must be very rich,” said John le Carré, bluntly…in the course of his celebrated interview with fellow novelist Graham Greene. Le Carré dug deeper, “Do you ever fear the ‘Eye of the Needle?” The great man replied simply, “I’ve given it all away.”

One could conclude that Christian teaching – especially the teaching directly attributed to Jesus in the gospels – runs so contrary to the universal concept of worldly success that the attainment of such material success is almost guaranteed to generate moral anxiety…and even deep feelings of guilt…in affluent Christians. Our democratic capitalist system – even in a half-hearted democracy – is gravely impaired by the scarcity of prescriptions for a spiritual element compatible with its highly developed and sophisticated political and economic components.

Church leaders must shoulder a proportion of the blame for this incompatibility. For much of the time they have led from the rear…only arriving on the ‘battlefield’ in time to erect ‘monuments’, such as: Religion does yield high dividends, but only to those who are content with what they have; or, fix your hopes not on so uncertain a thing as money, but on God. In the late 1940s, some seventy years ago, there was a well-worn Americanism about in English-speaking quarters: Tell that to the Marines! Well…it’s like that when a preacher is trying to get the gospel message inscribed on those monuments in the age in which we live…an age of materialism and science.

It is in the here and now that I feel concern for those well-to –do members of this…or any other congregation who faithfully come along to church, week after week, to offer their devotions and their talents. They frequently participate in a wordy drama containing an agenda designed to induce waves of moral anxiety. These affluent but guilt-harassed souls can be seen either as resourceful, talented, energetic winners in the great cross-country run of life, or, as through James’ eyes, as the unscrupulous bunch who have scratched, bitten and kicked their way to the peak of the pyramid erected in the name of unholy capitalism. Sporting metaphors are hardly a new thing. It was the father of classical economic liberalism, Adam Smith, who wrote in 1759: “In the race for wealth and honours and preferment, he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors. But if he should jostle or throw down any of them…it is a violation of fair play.” Fair play, like that other Anglo-Saxon mystery known as cricket, is universally misunderstood.

The theologian Paul Tillich said that ‘any serious Christian must be a socialist’. In Latin America, Jesus Christ has been subverted into the John the Baptist of Karl Marx and embraced as a political liberator…the Nazarene Subversive. Whatever, I believe that the creative and – sometimes – fruitful tension of earthly discord running through the heart of the political process is part and parcel of the evolving human story but it must be a mistake to attempt to bind the cogency of scripture to any one blueprint for national or global governance.

The word of God is transcendent and finds all our human systems and master plans gravely wanting. Jesus was equally at home, on a personal level, with revolutionaries and capitalists – even with men who had made fortunes in collaboration with the hated imperialists from Rome.

I believe that the truly godly can find joy, fun and satisfaction in succeeding…in doing a job exceedingly well and being suitably rewarded. Sophisticated material things can still be enjoyed without feelings of insecure dependence on one hand and guilt on the other. But this can only work if one is included and involved in a community within which individuality is not lost, and it is in making a contribution to the building of such a community that one can grasp the chance to share God’s life.

Those who are rich in this world’s goods are not to be proud. They are to do good and to be rich in well-doing, to be ready to give generously and to share with others, and so acquire a treasure which will form a good foundation for the future. Then, with new-found humility and patience, they will grasp the life that is life indeed. Amen.