March Letter, 2010.

Society? Our neighbours - the people who live in the next flat - people in the workplace - people on the tube and buses and trains and in the streets and public places in village, town and city - in London, Paris, New York!
Church? Christ's people gathered into infinitely varied congregations - all who have committed themselves as disciples of the risen Lord.

For about 1400 years 'Society' and 'Church' were roughly coterminous - in society you belonged to the church. Of course that took centuries to stabilise - perhaps 600 years. But after about 1100 that was the pattern of life that people in Europe experienced. But after about 1800 that religious, monarchical structure began to fall apart - with the advances in knowledge and in industry, society began to be those who were not necessarily of church. Three centuries later the balance between church and society has, as we all know very well, flipped, so that church is, at most, a mere 10% of society. This is the world we know in Western European countries today. While churches have wrestled with the problems of this relationship for the past century - since the end of the war of 1914-1918 which so changed society - yet our own understanding of church remains largely fixed in the ancient, and valued, traditions of both catholic and protestant church.

There is one remaining, valuable link between church and society - music. Up to the 18th century, composers were part of the church establishment. So, from the early Renaissance composers like Tallis and Byrd through Johann Sebastian Bach and to some of the present day like James MacMillan, their music - but not necessarily the words! - continue to inspire and thrill people with music which radiates something of the inner heart of Christian faith. But this is a very small link today between church and society.

Is it possible to pinpoint where the link between the traditions of the churches and society in general was fractured? It cannot have only been the necessity of taking on a modern form of life as distinct from the managed feudal and hierarchical forms of society from 1200-1800. Today, Christians do sometimes challenge the modern way of life as being a consumer society. But that is to throw stones from within glasshouses! There is a deeper malaise. Jesus, according to John's gospel said, "I came that they might have life ..." (John 10 :10) The way to life was to be through his voluntary giving himself up to his enemies and to death. While there have been amazing witnesses to the new life that Jesus offers - both amongst artists and musicians as well as clergy and others - the dominant motif lay for centuries in the crucifixion of Jesus, dying for our sins. Whether it was in the crucifixes and statues of catholicism or in the Bible preached 'raw' by our protestant forebears, there seems to have been little emphasis on the new creation that the Father made in the raising of Jesus.

It is quite understandable! Life is a fraught adventure and most of us are only too aware of the great fragility and tenuousness of the outcome of what we are engaged in - in the long run at least. But the Christian gospel is all about the new life that God has given us in the risen Lord - for all humanity. And if that is so - if the gospel is true - then Jesus, the risen Lord, is to be found in society - as well as in church. Inevitably the fracture that came about during several centuries has caused the church aspect among us to be one of an unacknowledged sort of hauteur. Christians have become distinct from society whereas we were meant to be salt, part of and spread out amongst our neighbours.

We are near, once more, to the great commemoration of the death and raising to life of the Lord. This commemoration of Easter lies not in time as we measure it. Not. certainly, as days and weeks after Ash Wednesday! Easter - the raising to life of the crucified Jesus by the Father - is in the everyday, 'timeless' now. The transcendent, risen Lord is present to all, here and now. Paul's enigmatic passage in 2 Corinthians is very remarkable -

"... we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you." (2 Corinthians 4: 7-12)

A very happy Easter - now - and always!