Walbrook Talk 3

Talk 3 Church sent out The passion of the Body of Christ Wednesday March 25th

We are on our way to Easter. We get there through the passion of Lent and Holy Week. We said that the Church is our first evidence of the resurrection, but the passion us how the resurrection is presently experienced by the Church. One body is gathered and brought into existence. Then that body is given, opened and distributed. Christ divides and disburses himself, opening his body so that we may become part of it. And he gives his body, that is, his saints, to the world. The Church displays the cross, and suffers this cross publicly for the world’s sake. This week I will say that this body, the Church is sent through the world, so the world can decide for itself what to see when it sees this most ambiguous sight. 1. The Body of Christ given to man God gives himself to man. He patiently offers his Son as the image of man redeemed and glorified, and as the means by which we should become that image. With this sacrifice and offering, God is wooing man. So it is that Christ gives himself now, and the gathered community of the Church, its worship and Christian life are together the form in which he does so. Christ has made himself our servant. He seeks us and finds us and calms us and treats our injuries and removes the cause of our pain and distress. When we come into Church the Lord bathes and binds our wounds. We receive bumps and cuts in the course of life in the world, and when we receive his treatment for them they heal. Christ makes the Church ready to be his body for the world, purifying it and making it whole. We experience this purification as a passion. Since this purification happens in public, the Church is continually humbled before the world. Christ performs this service publicly in order to show that his body is the way open for the world. The Church is the view of the Son set everywhere before the world, the body opened so that the world may enter communion with God. When it sees this body the world is free to decide whether it sees life and salvation, or death and a dead-end. Will the world receive this body as its passage into communion with God, and so as the salvation open to the whole world? Will it be pleased by this gift of this body, or will it turn away?

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2. Each Christian is the liturgy

When Christians gather and give thanks we call it the eucharist. They gather around Christ and where he is, there is the whole company of heaven. When any single Christian prays, that company prays with him, so each Christian is the whole worshipping assembly and the uninterrupted service of God in miniature. When a Church service ends, each member of the congregation takes that worship out into the world. The worshipping assembly can divide into as many little assemblies as there are Christians, each of whom takes the whole church service, and the whole service of Christ, with them wherever they go. Each of us was given a candle at our baptism, and receive a candle on Easter morning, to remind us that each of us is a lamp that burns with the Spirit. We, the Church, are the sacrifice that is both burning away, outwardly being consumed, and burning and shining undying, forever. Christ offers the Church to the world as this sacrifice, through which the world can be purified and redeemed, made visible. The Lord is that fire: what does not belong to it is being painfully and publicly burned off. The world can see this process, and to some it looks like the destruction, even the well-deserved destruction, of the Church.

3. Man on the cross

Even when no crucified Christ is explicitly portrayed there, the cross stands for Christ. The cross on that altar is so pared down that we could overlook it. But it is not only over there, at a safe distance, but we are also in it, for this building, like every church building, is a cross. And that cross is also in us, bashing and scraping away at us from inside, doing its renovation work. And we should not be amazed if that cross now undertakes some more substantial renovation work in us, in the Church in this country in the next few years. Imagine that we are looking at a lurid representation of Christ in agony, of this body pinned here and twisting against this pain. Christ is there, but he is there as us. That pain is ours: we are the ones squirming in the grip of our passions and being slowly consumed by them. We inflict this conflict on ourselves and on each other. Man is tormented by his own fear and rage. By denying himself the love that comes from God, and bunching himself up in refusal of it, man puts himself upon the rack and walls himself into his prison cell. Each of us confines

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ourselves by our denial that we are also inflicting this pain on our own fellows: as long as we intend to escape this confinement, while inflicting this same pain on our fellow, we take our prison cell with us. But man is not left there alone. Christ is with him. Christ abides and withstands what we inflict. He takes on the full force and weight of this process of dissolution and lifts it from man. The whole violence of man is directed finally against Christ, and he alone is able to suffer it until it is over. The violence that we released and that was coming back to us, he suffered, and he overcame. He has taken our conflict and destruction, lifted it and taken it away from us.

4. Christ overcomes our cross

The eucharist is our Passover. It is our passage out of Egypt, the House of Death, and into the Promised Land. Christ has overcome great resistance of Pharaoh and broken out. Who is Pharaoh? We are Pharaoh. Christ has undergone our fury and resistance. Christ has walked through the whole mob of frightened and furious mankind and has taken what it meted out to him. He was pummelled and battered by us; those were our blows raining down: we are the storm through which he has walked. Then finally we could lash out no more and our fury was over: he has simply outlasted us. He is the immoveable force, against which all the forces of death have shattered. We were unable to hold him and to make this crucifixion stick. He has escaped us and risen. We are in captivity, captives of our own violence and passions, and then captives of one another. Christ leads our breakout. In the hours before, we eat together for one last time, to gather strength for the escape, and as an anticipation of the feast we will enjoy once we reach our freedom in the new country. And then with Christ and all Israel, we break out and escape. For Christ has torn a hole in the side of the world we know, and now leads us out into the vastly bigger world that we had no previous knowledge of. The wall that held us in is torn down. The bread of the eucharist is torn as Christ tears open the world that has been captive to death: he is our passage through the two halves of this bread, and our way out of this captivity and into that everlasting communion. 5. Society on the cross

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Yet when we look around, at London, we see man crucifying man. A slow disintegration and dissolution is taking place all around us. Our society is afraid to receive the love of God, to whom all love belongs and to whom all love returns. It wants to be loved, but it also fears and wants to remain in control, ready to withdraw from love. Our society is that figure on the cross, squirming there, trapped by our own anxiety. As long as we are unable to see this pain is not merely inflicted on us by others, but comes from us, and that we inflict it on one another and so on ourselves, we are caught and we remain the source of our own misery. This disaster is sustained by our denial and failure to take responsibility, our inability to say that we sin against one another. Each of us is a battleground on which our passions fight for possession of us: as we pass on our fear, rage and resentment we are slowly engulfed by them. That body on the cross is an entire culture. The passion of Christ gives the Church its viewfinder, and only so it is able to discern the suffering that our society puts itself through. The Church can see that our society is on the rack. And when the Church looks at London it also sees the crucifixion of man lifted and removed. Christ’s passion is the human passion taken and suffered, well and fully, to the end, and all human fear mastered and rage overcome. Christ now leads his people, away from their captivity to all passions and powers. In Christ man receives the love of God: in that love all may uncurl and turn outwards, to receive all men in confidence. 6. Body of Christ on the cross The Church, the body of Christ, travels through the world. It shows the world the world’s own misery, and it experiences the world’s resistance to seeing that misery and recognising its source. It takes the sin of the world and bears it. The Church is purified through these travels, so they represent its Passover. In the body of Christ, and therefore inseparably with Christ, we are able to undergo whatever the world inflicts on us. By this passion the Church is stripped of all that is partial and false. Christ allows the world to take from us everything that others cling onto. And he clothes us again in the garments that are invested with the whole indissoluble glory of creation redeemed. To some the Church appears loaded with sin, its appearance apparently entirely compromised. But bearing the blame and taking the scorn is part of the priestly calling of the Church. 4

The Spirit enables us to take what we are given, so that we do not kick back and pass the violence on; in this way the Lord now makes our suffering purposeful so that it forms us into those who now bring the love of God into the world. The body of Christ is the entrance opened for the world and the passageway through which the world may proceed into its redemption. Christ leads his people through this public passion so that the world can see and decide in all freedom, either to shun them or to join this people. For Christ sees the world as his own, his own people and his own body. He identifies their suffering as his own, for he entirely identifies himself with the world. The world is the body that belongs to Christ, but which, since it does not yet recognise itself as Christ recognises it, refuses to believe itself loved and wounds itself pointlessly. So the Church sees London, inflicting this cross on itself, but sees also Christ refusing to leave London alone with it, but standing there, with London and taking all that London metes out instead of London. And where Christ is, there must his people be. So here you are, you people of St Stephen Walbrook, in the middle of the City but, because you have not recognised that this is your priestly calling, still so shame-faced. As in many of these City churches, here in St Stephen Walbrook we see a splendid set of wooden panels, the reredos, behind the altar. On panels on either side are the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. And on the dark panels next to them are two rather dark portraits, of Moses, who having received these commandments for us is now handing them on to us, and of Aaron the priest, who having received forgiveness, now announces that forgiveness to us. Here in these two images, is the gospel, as law and forgiveness. Moses and Aaron are refractions of Christ for us. If overlaid these two portraits, an image of Christ is what we would get. All day long people wander into this building to have a look, and you are here to greet them and tell them what they are looking at. Tell them, you welcomers, that this building is a visible gospel. As you point out Moses you will say that there is judgment and truth here for you, and as you point to Aaron you will say there is forgiveness and release for you here in Christ. You can tell them that they may kneel at that altar rail, and read the Lord’s prayer. They can drop their sins over that rail and walk away from them. Tell them that that this building is an open gospel because our predecessors built it so for us. They served us, and in just the same way we may serve those who come to us. 5

If you are coy or mealy-mouthed or ironic or self-defensive about this, their sins will remain with them, and you with yours. When you drop your Englishness and you speak as Christians, in the name of the Lord, this Church ceases to be a cultural artefact, and starts to form in us the culture of Christians. You are the Church, and the custodians of the Church and the communicators of Christ. You are to hand on what you have received and to strengthen your brothers. You are the body of Christ. Do you not recognise yourselves yet?

7. The Church goes through the City The Church travels through London. It does so inconspicuously as each Christian criss-crosses the city, working and serving in every part of it. And the Church does so formally and publicly in its services and processions. As the Church processes it sings and prays and intercedes to God for the city, and it also sings to the city and offers its intercessions for each one of us to all. The Church is watching the world in pain, cut off from God and dying. By processing through the city, singing and praying, the Church displays this dying in order that the resurrection-life of Christ also be made visible. The Church does this together on public feast days, and does so in a less visible way every day. The Church carries this cross through the streets of every city, as though it were a large exclamation mark or question-mark raised over everything that it passes. The cross is the straight line held up against all our undertakings and agendas. So in our public intercessions we ask each person, each business and institution whether humankind may truly receive the love and grace of God through them, or whether humankind is denying and being denied this love and so being hurt and broken here. The Church asks whether we are building a culture that can receive its judgment and correction and so be renewed and confident, or whether in a spirit of self-disgust, mutual estrangement, resentment and victimhood, we are simply dismantling the culture we received. The Church invites people to judge themselves. As the Church travels through its streets, we tell the city that mankind belongs to God. But that this body is presently alienated from Christ, divided, preyed upon and the home of other spirits. But we insist, to anyone, no matter how resistant to this they are, that they carry this image, and belong to this body. We look at their faces and we see Christ there, and we

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tell them so. We tell them that they are the hidden body of Christ, and the lost body of Christ, scattered and demoralised, contorting themselves to escape and hold out against this realisation. And when they prevent others from coming to this conversion and salvation, we tell them that we see Christ hidden, tortured and buried in them. We see every man wrestling with the question of his own identity and trying to be alone with a burden too big to bear. However determined they are to fight off all comfort, Christ is with them, and like it or lump it, we tell them that we, his people, are with them. Christ gives the world his body, and that we, his people, are that body. So when the world looks at us, they may see Christ. They may see Christ in us, if they desire to. The Church must always be preparing for its this passion. We must not think it unchristian to identify dangers and enemies. There are many in the world who are such enemies to themselves, that they also make themselves enemies to their culture, and they are so when they set themselves of the gospel and the body of Christ. The Church must know how to name the powers ranged against it, so that the Christians who tell the world about the peace of Christ do not range themselves against the Christians who tell the world about the truth of Christ. Has the Church asked the questions that would have prepared our society to live well and to give good account of itself? Has the Church clearly set the truth out before the world and told it about the generosity and justice of God? But there is no Church here but us. When we stop blaming other Christians or the hierarchy of the Church, we may beginning to act like the Church and the witnesses of Christ. Have we laid out the possibility and inevitably of repentance, and our absolute need to seek forgiveness, from one another and from God? Have we shown the world how to examine itself and to weep? Let us examine ourselves and weep. I have to repent. Some of this is my fault. I have not spoken clearly enough. Like any Christian, I can only point to what the whole Church says, but I must not do any less. The Church now receives a cool reception. This should tell us that something is not right: it suggests that the violence and fury has been festering inside this society of ours for a while. That rage has not been identified and forgiven: when the middle classes, from which our public servants come, think that they are above asking for forgiveness, they become prey to the same rage as anyone else, and turn that rage into 7

ideological projects that do not serve the whole nation. Of course we all want to keep the temperature down as much as possible, but the Church is foolish whenever it tries to make itself less offensive, for there is no escaping the odium attached to Christ. We Christians are on public display, we have become a spectacle to the world, says St Paul (1 Corinthians 4.9). It is up to the world to decide whether it is death or life that they see.

7. The Church sings to the city

The Christian community lives and work in London also meets here publicly and travels through it. As it travels across the city, and in particular at its public feasts, prays and sings its songs. Lent is the way of the cross. It is only the resurrection and Easter that makes it possible for us to undergo this way of the cross, by which the Church bears with Christ the sins that the world cannot bear. In the first two talks I said that there are two things to see in Church – the people, and Christ on the cross. I said that the cross is the way we see Christ in glory, and that that in glory is represented for us by the company around Christ. This company first comes to us as the people around us in Church. They reflect that glory. We learn to see them so and to tell them so. When we see those in the Church in this new way, we may begin to see the people outside the Church, both as this same glory and also as in denial about this glory, fighting it and so hurting. The Church follows Christ around the year, and do so with closer attention through Lent and even more from Palm Sunday. All Lent we been travelling through a valley, which has got steeper until by Holy Week it has become a narrow defile and we can no longer see how we will get through. Yet as we walk we give thanks that God has joined man to himself so that man is not alone. We celebrate every act and every institution of civil society, which reconciles and heals the body of our society and which creates the social capital by which our society can prosper, and we pray and mourn, celebrating simultaneously the resurrection and the passion. So the Church sings and prays its way through the streets of its city, in those songs telling our contemporaries that they are loved, for God loves man. And that is just what we are telling them when we say on Easter morning ‘Christ has risen’.

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