All Saints Church – King’s Lynn

It is a strange thing that sometimes groups which begin by representing the interests of others often end up by alientating the very people they set out to represent. This is partly due to some self-opinionated members taking the lead, and riding their own ‘hobby horses’, and partly because of a failure to listen to what is being said. At best the group loses its impetus and purpose, often disbanding, and at most does a great deal of harm lambasting those individuals and ‘bodies’ it considers who are failing the community.

Jesus was often criticised by the Pharisees who took it upon themselves to represent the interests of the community. No doubt they did represent the interests of some, although their zealousness made their protestations and their whole approach probably unacceptable to the majority.

In the town in which I live, there are those who write articulate letters to the newspaper, complaining about Council policy, the state of cleanliness of the local hospital, issues about parking, problems with this and problems with that. I wonder whether, and to what extent, the act of complaining really gets things done? It certainly makes people unpopular !

The church has never tried to be a community of perfect people(you only need read the Letters of St. Paul to work that one out!), although there are those who blame Christians for the failures in society and for their indifference to the needs of individuals and communities. The other day I read an article in which the writer tried to claim that the church had lost its’ place at the centre of the community. Well, it didn’t upset me because the statement is true in a way and not in another – the church is a community of believers drawn from a community of people, simply that, and inevitably many of the benevolent and charitable works it exercised have been taken over long ago by other agencies.

The therapist Virginia Satir identifies types of behaviour in people and ‘the blamer’ is the one who is always accusing someone.The curious thing is, that ‘blamers’ don’t usually want answers, even if they are offered, they are more concerned with their own feelings of superiority and ‘throwing their weight around’. Admittedly, we can all adopt this stance from time to time, but their are those who seem to want to make a career of making other people miserable through their accusations.

Perhaps those who are ready to apportion blame should take care that the good they attempt to do isn’t eclipsed by the harm which may result in being overly critical. As a friend pointed out to me, the roots of communities go very deep, and all too often those who rise to defend those interests have been around for too short a time to understand the implications or the complexity of the social history which belies them.

I wrote the following piece for my ‘thought for the week’, and present it here for any comments you may wish to make ….

A letter arrived on Sunday afternoon, posted through the letterbox when I was out.  It wasn’t a bill or an invitation to dinner.  It was a rather hurtful critique of me, as a priest, which completely took me by surprise.  I suppose no-one likes to be criticised and especially not by a friend. 

The problem with ‘paper complaints’ is that they fail to express the tone of delivery.  The reader is always left wondering and, probably, tends to read more into what is ‘said’, without any comfort of any correction being available.   It was a very sad receipt of someone’s unhappiness and upset. 

After twenty years in ministry, in my experience,  people seem to spend more time being upset than being happy.  Why are we determined to be upset – because someone has offended or insulted us; impugned our integrity; deceived and lied to us; failed to acknowledge our generosity or just simply ignored us ?  The Gospels are full of stories about people who feel ‘hard done to’ and ‘left out’, spurned and wronged.  

The truth is, we cannot be denigrated or abused, through the actions of others, unless we choose to be so!  If we are offended or upset, it is because we think we deserve better and, quite frankly, that flies in the face of Gospel teaching.   Jesus tells us that if we are struck on one cheek by someone, which could be seen as a physical or verbal action, we should not retaliate, but  ‘turn the other cheek’, turning our face not once, but repeatedly until,  in effect, we take their anger away.    

Jesus always stood against those who maintained their right to respect and, of whom he was highly critical, as his arguments with the Pharisees clearly show.  He condemns their precise, ‘unflawed behaviour’, as they see it, particularly in their readiness to take offence at what he preached. Their failure was that they were too concerned about who they were, an ‘activity’ which consumed them so much that they failed to understand who he was. 

In 1989, the American photographer, Andres Serrano was paid for, and exhibited an extremely controversial work.  His subject was a plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of his own urine, controversially known as Piss Christ.  Whilst it is hardly a tasteful subject, the significance of what he was attempting to portray was misunderstood by many, and condemned by many Christians as blasphemous.  However, it was understood by one person, the Religious and art critic, Sister Mary Beckett, who said that it was not blasphemous but  a statement of ‘what we have done to Christ’.   In essence, it took the incisive and spiritual mind of a humble religious sister, dispossessed of worldly things, to see the truth. 

Far from being blasphemous, it is an irrevocable statement of how sometimes we fail to surrender our sense of importance and our dignity, and all that we feel is due to us,  in exchange for the deeply beautiful moving expression of Christ’s sacrifice as the profoundest expression of love, honour and respect in our lives as Christians towards others.  For all that may happen to us, it is nothing in comparison to what happened to Him, who gave His love and His life in exchange for His dignity and self-respect.            

The evening television news revealed a story which is so shocking, I feel almost ashamed to reproduce it here. 

Apparently, a ‘serving British soldier’ was jailed today, for three years, for urinating on a disabled woman, who lay dying in the street.

In the fifty years, or so, of my life, I would like to say that this would never have happened in the past.  That would be a lie – the lack of respect shown to the Irish, black people and ethnic minorities, particularly in the sixties and seventies, and the practice of ’queer(gay)-bashing’  – all are equally as disturbing as the event reported in todays media.  A basic lack of respect for the individual – a lack of respect for our ‘humanity’.

We are in ‘striking distance’ of All Saints’ Day, which celebrates the lives of those who gave clear examples of the way in which humanity is honoured and respected.  A day which exalts all that is good and honourable.  A holy day which is undergirded by the message of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ – which sanctifies and honours all human nature, both in its’ frailty and in its’ strength. 

Sadly, all too often, human beings align themselves with acheivement and might – weakness and humility appear to have little or nothing to offer.  The Solemnity of All Saints reminds us – not of greatness or holiness – but of the grace which God gives to the weak and ordinary, the humble and the vulnerable, and of the way in which they respond to the ‘Jesus’ who is ‘incarnated’ before them, in human nature.

What did Jesus say?  “In as much as you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me … ”. Perhaps one of the prison Chaplains might help the ‘young soldier’ to understand the meaning of the words’.