Texts: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Today’s readings raise the constant problem in the church of legalism – how far do we need rules and regulations, and how far do we rely on people of goodwill doing the right and decent thing without being required to do so by some rule or other? It’s not quite the issue of law and grace – although that is very important and underlies this problem. It’s more about freedom to do the right thing by choice, rather than by compulsion, recognising that such freedom always carries with it the freedom to do the wrong thing. In the absence of choice, said one of the early church fathers, there can be no morality.
These readings are timely for me as I reflect on our Synod last weekend. As usual, we passed a number of motions on matters of considerable importance, not only to the church, but to our wider society. And I should say at once that in principle I agreed with all of them – in fact, I’m not sure that any person of goodwill could have dissented from any of them. They were, in a sense, ‘motherhood and apple-pie’ motions.
And that’s one of the problems we tend to have in our synods. If we put forward a meaty motion of real substance on which there is room for genuine disagreement, we run the risk of being divisive, and making the diocese seem shambolic. If however we have motions that everyone agrees with, then we seem to be a bunch of pussyfooting patsies with nothing original or helpful to say. That’s a common bind we find ourselves in and I’m not sure there is an answer to it.
But that’s not the issue I want to talk about this morning. What I want to deal with here is a small, typical group of motions that ask the President of Synod (that is, our Bishop) to write a letter to the Prime Minister or some other Minister expressing our views on something or other. In our synod last weekend we had at least three of those motions, one on prisons, one on care of the elderly, and one on gambling. In each case we noted some serious social problems, some inadequacy on part of the Government, either in policy or in funding, and resolved to ask Bishop George to write to the Government to inform them of our concerns.
That’s a common Synod approach. We used to do it over and over again in the Wellington Synod. And we kept doing it even in the complete absence of any evidence that it made a fig of difference. And I shall always remember the classic example of the Wellington Synod solemnly resolving, after a forty-minute debate, that we were opposed to the indiscriminate use of landmines! And, of course, we asked the Bishop to let the Government know of our concerns.
Why do we do it? Well, one explanation is about powerlessness. What else can we do? These issues are so enormous, so out of our reach to solve, that we don’t know what else to do. This is well commented on by Charles Elliott, a former Director of Christian Aid, in his excellent little book, Praying the Kingdom: Towards a Political Spirituality. He says: “We all know the readiness and smugness with which ecclesiastical assemblies pass resolutions condemning sin and sympathising with suffering as though it made a fig of difference to either sinner or sufferer.”
That’s one point, and I agree with him to some extent, but I don’t altogether buy into his understanding of powerlessness. I think our synods suffer from a self-imposed powerlessness, to some degree. When we pass a resolution of this kind, we take it upon ourselves to speak for the whole diocese, for all Anglicans living in our diocese. And we can be mighty strong and brave doing that.
But what we don’t like doing on these important public issues is speaking to the diocese, to all Anglicans living within our borders. And here are two short stories to illustrate the difference between speaking for and speaking to. One comes from a parish, and the other from the Wellington Synod.
A few years back, as you’ll remember, one of the burning issues of the day was Sunday trading. And the parish vestry of which I was a member at the time was asked to pass a resolution voicing strong opposition to Sunday trading with the intention of writing to our local MP. So two of us suggested that we should as a vestry agree that none of us would buy or sell anything on a Sunday – we would lead by example, and try to encourage our parishioners to do the same. That way we would be living out our opposition to Sunday trading.
What do you think happened? You’re quite right. The last I heard that meeting still held the record for the longest vestry meeting in that parish; we could not get agreement on our suggested resolution, but by a narrow majority, the letter was duly sent to our local MP.
Here’s the second story, this time from the Wellington Synod. The issue this time was gambling, and again we were going to write to the Minister expressing our deep concern at the level of gambling in our community. This time someone suggested that, if we were going to take that approach, we should first resolve that the diocese will not accept any proceeds of gambling. Guess what happened this time!
And here’s the third of the two stories I wanted to tell you this morning. This one is about overseas aid. Synod was asked on this occasion to convey to Government our deep concern that New Zealand ’s official overseas aid was woefully low. This time a larrikin priest suggested that we should also resolve to recommend to Anglicans that we each spend on overseas aid a sum equal to the amount that we spend on overseas travel! So if we have an overseas holiday costing us $8,000, then we should give $8,000 to an agency of our choice working in the field of overseas aid. You can imagine how many feathers that ruffled!
In each case, the opposition to these somewhat radical suggestions took the form of a charge of legalism. Any attempt to tell church members what they should and shouldn’t do about trading on Sundays, or gambling, or overseas holidays, was legalism – and even judgmentalism – and therefore very bad. And, of course, there’s some force to that criticism. But if Synod or Vestries should not take it upon themselves to tell church members what they can and can’t do, why is it okay to demand that the Government tells everybody in the country - including church members – what they can and can’t do on these very same issues? Sometimes we even demand law changes or new laws – why isn’t that legalism? It’s apparently okay for the Church to tell the Government to lay down the law, so long as the Church doesn’t lay down the law itself.
And into all this mix come today’s readings. It is sometimes argued that one of the major differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the former laid down the law, and the latter did not. Is that a fair comment? Well, yes and no. Our first reading seems to support that thesis. As the Israelites move into the Promised Land they are exhorted to keep the law, to remember it and to pass it on to succeeding generations.
Then if we fast-forward to the time of Jesus, it appears that Jesus had little time for those who are sticklers for the law, at least in respect of the so-called purity laws. Jesus says the real issue is the state of our hearts, our own moral codes, our consciences, as we might say today. And he certainly doesn’t spare our blushes. He says that it is out of the human heart that come “evil thoughts, sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly”. The way to a better society, then, is not legislation, but a change of heart.
The wonderfully blunt St James puts it in a nutshell: Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Then he adds something very interesting. He says this: those who look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continue to do this, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.
Obeying the law, says St James, is the way to freedom. That is a thought that Synods and Vestries and the whole Church would do well to ponder. If we want a society in which one day a week is a Sabbath in the proper sense of that word, then we can start by refusing to trade on Sundays, whatever the law of the land may allow. If we want a society in which gambling decreases, then we can decline to gamble and decline to seek funding from gambling proceeds, whatever the law of the land may allow. And if we want more money to go from New Zealand towards overseas aid, then we can increase our own giving to appropriate agencies.
That’s not legalism. That’s the freedom we have to live out our faith in accordance with our own beliefs. Who could vote against that?
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