Sermon Archive
Frozen in long term rigidity?
Sermon preached by Kenneth Boyd at Holy Communion on 18 February 2007
Exodus 34:29-35 ; 2 Corinthians 3:12–4:2 ; Luke 9:28-36
"All religions are initiated by highly creative individuals but are soon taken over by the most conservative elements in society. They become frozen in long term rigidity.” I was reminded of that remark, by a friend who is rather sceptical of organised religion, as I heard a debate last week on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme. The politician Robert Kilroy-Silk was arguing, rather aggressively, that many mosques in Britain are attended only by men, and that they should be forced by law to open their doors to women. Muslim women, he said, had a right to be equal under the law. A spokeswoman for a Muslim women's group, when Mr Kilroy-Silk allowed her a word in edgeways, disagreed. It was not that she was against women being allowed into mosques. But this was not a matter for the law. It was an issue for Muslims themselves to debate and solve.
Listening to that debate, I couldn't help sympathising with the Muslim spokeswoman. Perhaps all- male mosques are an example of religion becoming 'frozen in long term rigidity'. But surely that was an issue for Muslims themselves to debate and solve; and the Muslim spokeswoman suggested that this was best done by persuasion and an appeal to Islam's own values. Using the law to force mosques to open their doors to women, I suspected, would only stiffen the resistance of 'the most conservative elements' in Muslim society.
But then another question occurred to me. Wasn't the Muslim spokeswoman's argument much the same as that of the Roman Catholic Church over adoption? To many people, of course, the Catholic Church's stance on same-sex relationships may seem yet another example of religion becoming 'frozen in long-term rigidity'. And adoption arrangements are a matter of public interest, which Government has a responsibility to regulate. But should that regulatory responsibility extend to what goes on in places of worship? The hygiene of church kitchens perhaps may be inspected by state officials, but hardly who attends and who says what in the liturgy. Yet is not that precisely what has happened, admittedly more so in England than in Scotland, and in the Established than in the Free churches, since the Reformation? Mr Kilroy-Silk's argument has a certain logic to it. If, as the Government has decided in the case of adoption, non-discrimination policies must be upheld, why should religious organisations be exempt? Why shouldn't mosques be forced by law to open their doors to women – or for that matter the Roman Catholic Church forced by law to ordain women priests?
Well, a pragmatic answer to this, of course, is the one I've already mentioned: using the law in such matters may be counterproductive; and it seems highly unlikely that mainstream politicians will risk further inflaming Islamic or Catholic opinion by pressing Mr Kilroy-Silk's argument. But questions of principle as well as pragmatism also are involved in this debate. In essence perhaps it is a debate about the conflict between equality and freedom. The classic way of resolving this conflict in modern secular society has been to say that everyone is entitled to as much freedom as is compatible with everyone else being equally free. You are free to do what you want, as long as in doing so you do not limit my freedom, especially by harming me in some way. That is the basic moral principle which justifies inspecting the hygiene of church kitchens, or banning smoking in enclosed public places, just as it did the 19th century factory acts and many other reforms of the past two centuries. Non-discrimination policies can be seen as the natural evolution of this reforming legislative process, still with a long way to go, of course, as far as the implementation of anti-ageist or, some would say, anti-speciesist policies are concerned. You are free to do what you want, as long as in doing so you do not limit my freedom, especially by harming me in some way.
In a modern secular society which claims to be both egalitarian and democratic, that principle is now widely accepted. But while it may be morally and not just politically correct, it is also very negative, especially if it leaves us as atomised individuals, free to do what we want, but only within limits ever-more closely circumscribed by officials concerned above all to avoid harm. The negative idea of non-discrimination, indeed, runs the same risk of being 'frozen in long term rigidity' as religions do, if it forgets the positive vision on which it depends. It is only when each and every human individual is positively seen as infinitely valuable, that the idea of non-discrimination really makes sense. That is the cultural vision out of which 'highly creative individuals' initiated the idea of non-discrimination; and although now often expressed in secular terms, the roots of that vision are religious. It is no accident that policies of non-discrimination have been advanced and implemented in a society and culture, whose very secularity is saturated with values and ideals once taught by a highly creative individual on the mount and the plain of Palestine.
Perhaps this begins to tell us what religion can contribute to a modern secular society. By its very nature, secular society is concerned with the present age – the word secular literally means 'relating to an age or generation'. But to live only in the present age of the present generation, to be concerned only with what seems important in today's newspapers, business agenda, or work schedule, is to lack a sense of proportion and to run the risk of being ruled, overwhelmed, and perhaps ultimately disappointed, by events. We cannot of course but live in the present, and Jesus himself tells us not to worry about tomorrow. Yet we come from the past and move forward into the future, and without memory or hope, it is difficult if not impossible to make sense of our lives. Where ultimately we come from and are destined for, is what religion can help us understand. Sometimes, no doubt, all we understand is that it makes ultimate sense to address what we do not understand with the words 'Dear God'. But also we are often strengthened by the ways in which religion binds us together as fellow pilgrims on the road.
This ultimate assurance, this sense of community, is what religion can contribute to a modern secular society. But to contribute this, religions themselves need to become unfrozen from long term rigidity and to recapture the vision of the highly creative individuals who initiated them. And that, surely, is the main message which we hear from our three scripture readings today. Let us just briefly remind ourselves of them.
Our Old Testament and Gospel readings each take us to the top of a mountain, the place that symbolises our highest human insights into the ultimate mystery of who we are. In both stories, the faces of the principal characters, Moses and Jesus, are changed, when they come as near as humans can to being face to face with God. Who or what is God? God is who changes you, who makes your face shine. But do you want to be changed? Or is being changed too much for you? Perhaps it was too much for the Israelites: when they saw Moses, they were afraid to come near him. So Moses put a veil on his face. In today's Epistle, St Paul says that this was because 'their minds were hardened' – hardened against the change required of them in order to be set free to shine as a light in the world. Something similar happens also in our Gospel reading. The disciples glimpse the glory, the shining of living truth, but immediately they want to capture and confine the eternal moment in tents or tabernacles – in their own way perhaps, the disciples also want to draw a veil over what is too glorious but also too demanding to behold. Even St Paul in our Epistle may be doing this, when speaking of the unveiled glory that is seen in Christ, he then contrasts this with the veil that is still there when Jews read the scriptures. That unveiling of course was St Paul's own experience, when he was overwhelmed with glory on the Damascus road. But by this 'us-and-them' contrast of Christians and Jews, he was opening the door for his own highly creative insights to be taken over by the most conservative elements in Christian history, for them to draw a veil of prejudiced words over them, 'frozen in long term rigidity'.
What our scripture readings today tell us then, is that to discover who we really are, to be set free to shine, we must be prepared to be changed – to have our hearts and minds changed, which is the literal meaning of metanoia or repentance, the theme of our now rapidly approaching season of Lent. But the whole point and purpose of repentance, of being prepared to change and be changed, is that we may, in the words of the Westminster Catechism, 'glorify God and enjoy him forever'.
Can that vision of 'enjoying God forever' melt what has 'become frozen in long term rigidity' in our religion? That is what we must work and seek the Holy Spirit's help for, as we listen to what scripture and tradition say to us, and as we try to understand how their words should be interpreted today, in a society in which we must also listen attentively to the interpretation of many other traditions, both religious and secular. But in doing this we need the assurance that our lives, past, present and future, make sense, and can shine - in the light of eternity. Our faith teaches us that it is so, because the light of eternity, in the face of Christ transfigured, is the light of unconditional Love. But we must not be so impatient to say this, that our words again veil its meaning. For here below it is by our deeds that we are known. It is in lives that love one another, and enjoy God forever, that the gospel is heard and glory glimpsed again.