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.

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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.

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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

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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’.