The Question No One Wants to be Asked

[I am on long term sick leave and have been unable to write, but this thought has sprung from my mind and fingers in a way that I can't resist, even if writing it down will exhaust me.]

Preaching and stand up comedy are not exactly the same, but they have a lot in common. One of the greatest compliments ever paid to me was when someone likened my preaching style to Eddie Izzard. But like stand up comedians, preachers can 'die' on 'stage'. Sometimes the preacher and their audience simply don't connect, and everyone just wants it to be over as soon as possible.

One such time I was preaching to around 500 young adults at a big Christian festival. My entire talk was based on the Charles II rap from Horrible Histories (there was a Bible passage too, I promise), which was a huge hit in my house. Unfortunately for me, these young adults were at precisely the age whereby they were too old to have watched Horrible Histories, and too young to have kids who were watching it. 500 people watched the video, no one laughed, or even smiled that I could see, and what I thought would be a great opener turned into a tumbleweed moment. I never preached at that event again.

Not long after, I was speaking to the intern programme of one of the country's biggest megachurches. Being a big church, there were two hundred people there. I told this story from the Desert Fathers:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said: "Abba, as much as I am able I practice a small rule, a little fasting, some prayer and meditation, and remain quiet, and as much as possible I keep my thoughts clean. What else should I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched out his hands toward heaven, and his fingers became like ten torches of flame. And he said: "Why not be turned into fire?"

This was the kind of church in which fire would feature in the name of their conferences; maybe the conference I was speaking at had fire in its name and that's why I chose the story. I definitely chose it because I was confident that it would induce whoops and hollers from this crowd of young adults who were so sold out for Jesus that they had given up a year of their lives to serve him and learn about him. Instead, silence. OK, so maybe they weren't used to stories about 4th century hermits, but surely they got the message? If they did, there was no sign of it. A long hour stretched in front of me.

This story reminds me of another one, about Jesus. The setup is very similar, although the payoff is different, if equally devastating.

Then someone came to him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honour your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these; what do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. (Matt 19:16-22 NRSV)

I've already mentioned in this blog that the word translated here as 'perfect' doesn't mean morally perfect; rather it literally means 'completed', as in completing a goal. A more dynamic translation might be, 'If you want to fulfil your purpose...' Jesus is telling this young man how he can move on from religious observance to 'completeness'. In the same way, Abba Joseph is challenging Abba Lot to move beyond routine into a truly transformative experience of God.

This transformation - let's be honest, it's rarely as exciting as turning into fire - is what I am wanting to study, perhaps even to measure. I knew that certain sectors of the church would be uninterested, because in a rather ham-fisted way I had tried to do this research before. Many years ago I was working in the world of Christian Youth Work and hoping to study what happens to the young people who make commitments at Christian events. I hoped to follow teenagers for 6 years and see whether they found a home in church and maintained their faith into young adulthood. I informally approached colleagues in other Christian organisations and asked if they would like to be part of the study. The response was a polite no. One person was honest enough to say that they couldn't see how the results would be positive and it might affect their support. The study never got off the ground.

Churches that are currently doing well in the numbers game - attenders, income, membership and (less often) converts - have a reason to be OK with current ways of measuring success: they are successful. What has been more surprising has been the realisation that very few Christians want to be asked, 'Why not be turned into fire?' I'm reminded of the Chesterton quote, 'The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.' I just hadn't realised that it applied to Christians too.

I don't want to be asked this question, because the answer never makes me look good. The answer is all the pathetic excuses I make to myself for not following Jesus wholeheartedly and once they are spoken out loud they sound ridiculous. And good Christian people band together to make sure no one asks me the question:

'You're just making people feel guilty'
'Nobody's perfect, what matters is that people are saved'
'We need to address social and systemic sin; people can't thrive until we've confronted injustice.'
'People can't change; you have unrealistic expectations'
'It's unloving to put so much weight on people who are just trying to keep it together'

If Abba Joseph were to ask me, 'Why not be turned into fire?' My answer would be, because I don't want to; because I'm scared of failure; because my life with God is a constant negotiation rather than a wholehearted giving of myself. I don't want this to be exposed, I want to find a church that will identify the problem as being either easy to fix with a prayer or - even better - completely outside of me: Satan, Capitalism, Communism or Secularism.

A quick note on all the ritual, which in both the Abba Joseph and Jesus stories is seen as good, but not enough. It can help. It can also make you a worse person:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’ (Luke 18:9-14 NRSV)

We don't know what Abba Lot said to Abba Joseph when he was asked the question, but he could have done a lot worse than to get on his knees and say, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

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