The Faith of the English

How do we spread the good news of the gospel in our own land?
For hundreds of years Christian missionaries have traveled across the seas to distant places, where they learnt local languages and immersed themselves in new cultures so that they could tell the story of Jesus in a way that was meaningful to the people they met. And if you are reading this as a Christian, you have some of those missionaries to thank for bringing the faith to these islands so many years ago.

The best missionaries were experts at understanding the way these cultures worked, and they often spent years observing what it was that lay at the heart of the way people did things in those places – the symbols they used, the key phrases that were said over and over again, their festivals and their habits. All of these things together helped them  to talk about good news in ways that made sense in cultures so different to their own.

But what about us here in England? With culture changing so fast, the church often appears not to understand how ordinary people think. The church seems out of touch with English culture. Has the time come for us to work harder at understanding our own culture, so that we can tell people about Jesus in ways that really make sense in 2011? Do we need to become missionaries to our own people?

A recently published book tries to do that by looking at 9 key characteristics of the English. the book is called ‘The Faith of the English’ by Nigel Rooms, and I am interested to know whether you recognise what he writes.
The characteristics he lists are:

1. Humour – banter, teasing, irony, wit or mockery all play a part in almost every conversation we have.
2. Moderation – we are people of the middle way. People who dislike extremes and favour the middle ground.
3. Hypocrisy – not so much a deliberate attempt to deceive others, but more a pretending that things don’t matter when we know they do and a dislike of confrontation.
4. Pragmatism – we prefer concrete, practical, common sense to philosophical reflection.
5. Eeyorishness – summed up in our tendency to complain and moan, often in a way linked with the first characteristic, humour.
6. Class-consciousness – even at a time when the differences between social class seem to have diminished, they are still there, and we all know it (even if we don’t talk about it)
7. Fair play – summed up in our love of queuing!
8. Courtesy – in an experiment, 80% of people who were deliberately bumped into on the street apologised, even when it wasn’t their fault.
9. Modesty – summed in the phrase ‘Oh, it was nothing’

Now, there is no suggestion that everyone in England has all these characteristics, rather that together they paint a clear picture of our nation, and we’re really like.

So if Nigel Rooms is right, what does that mean for mission in England today? How do we tell people about Jesus and the good news that he is yearning for them to hear if this is our culture?

Any thoughts……?

A little piece of leaven hidden within

This morning I was considering one of the several passages from Matthew where Jesus presents a parable of the Kingdom of heaven: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Matt 13:33 NIV). The implication in the words of the original Greek, is that the yeast was ‘hidden within’ the flour, emphasising the unseen nature of how the kingdom grows and also adding an intriguing sense of mystery. Anyone who has actually made bread using yeast cannot fail to be amazed at the seemingly miraculous change that comes over what appears to be lifeless, stodgy dough as it is transformed, through hard kneading, into a light and almost fully formed loaf ready for baking. It was this little everyday miracle that Jesus used to point us towards an understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom sayings of Jesus are not to be considered as pieces of a jig-saw that, if we can gather all the pieces together, we may construct a clear picture of what the kingdom actually is. His sayings speak more to the intuitive and less intellectual side of our natures. Hard analysis may yield little, whereas having the words of Jesus gently revolving in the mind, allowing the unconscious to work on them, finding connections that your conscious mind may never have considered, can often bring rich rewards.

This particular parable speaks into my personal experience. At an early age I  rejected the Church as a corrupt and controlling institution but I still retained a certain affinity with Jesus. You might say that a little piece of leaven was hidden within me. Where this had come from, I wouldn’t like to say categorically, but I may conjecture that infant Baptism is not without power and influence. Over the twists and turns of my life, Jesus had risen and fallen in importance. But during 2000, it was as if the yeast within had reached a critical mass, causing me to metaphorically leave the place where I lived and worked and return ‘home’ to Jesus and his people, the Church. This was not the end of the journey for me but merely the beginning of a new journey on a different path.

Those who know about bread making will understand that the dough has to be well kneaded to enable the yeast to permeate all parts. This entails pretty strenuous folding and pummelling of the dough. Looking back on my life, as is true of the vast majority of people, there have been many times when I have experienced pummelling! Unpleasant and distressing as these episodes were, it was often those ‘difficult’ times that resulted in positive changes in me or my circumstances. It is said that God only gives us those experiences that we can cope with, sometimes though we have to dig very deeply indeed into our reserves.

Yeast is a living thing. It is in relationship with its environment. Similarly, the yeast of which Jesus speaks, is not isolated. It requires the hard work of the woman and it needs oxygen, sugars and warmth to survive; in living, it transforms that in which it lives. The apostle John records Jesus as declaring that he is the vine and that we are the branches, if we remain in Jesus and he remains in us, then we will bear much fruit (John 15:5). Although this is a different metaphor to the yeast, the suggestion of growth (fruition) occurring due to Jesus being within us strongly connects. In the parable of the yeast, Jesus is causing us to realize that what we allow to live within us, will influence us in profound ways and will be manifest in the lives we lead. But what we allow to live within us will only survive if we ourselves abide in ways and places that are conducive to its survival. Hence, Jesus says in the parable of the vine, that we must remain in him. Outside of him, or disconnected from him, how can Jesus remain within us?

These two parables are fundamentally about formation. The yeast that is God, will cause us to rise to our full potential, as Jesus (God with us)within us will cause us to come to fruition. None of this is forced, none of this is counter to what we naturally are. We live often as pale, dried up and dusty imitations of what we as human beings are created by God to be. This is nothing to despair about but everything to encourage us to open ourselves to being invaded by the secret power of God’s leaven, which will transform us into ourselves, our real selves. The kingdom of heaven is near, it is in the decision we make to turn to God and may be seen in the new life that results from that mutual indwelling. Come Lord Jesus.