Church and community

Well, our Consultancy Weekend has come and gone. Quite a lot of preparation and- hopefully - quite a lot of prayer. The prayer will need to continue as we reflect on what we learned, and towards receiving the report, some time in the Spring. The Gospel reading for the Sunday of the Weekend was from Luke 13, Jesus - being warned by the Pharisees of Herod’s opposition - weeps over the city of Jerusalem, and indeed Herod, the Pharisees and the Temple as well. An appropriate reading for Lent.

Jesus weeps over the oppressors. He was unhappy with both the Pharisees and with Herod. King Herod would have wanted Him out of the way as a threat to the secular power, but in this case Pharisees would have had the same interests. Things were getting dangerous. In the consultancy a cartoon that amused us showed a relaxed young man, feet up, saying "I’m a Christian, but I don’t let it get out of hand". That young man would not have had the faith or discipline to stand up to the oppressors, to weep tears of rage over inequality, to challenge the foxes who exploit the poor. Jesus still weeps as we fail to eradicate oppression.

He also weeps over the city or our community. Our area, from Loughborough Junction to Dulwich Village, and Herne Hill Station to King’s College Hospital is about 16,000, not much less than the 25,000 of Jerusalem of Jesus’s day. Within our area there is much inequality in housing, income, the schools and the environment people live in. With six churches and around 800 regular worshippers only 5% often go to church. There seems little sense of community and little time for God. We might weep a tear or two over that, and then decide what - together with our fellow Christians - we might try to do about it.

And Jesus wept over the Temple "forsaken by God". Many of us are unhappy about the decline in church life. We would like to go back to how things were. However it isn’t possible, and as one member reminded us, it’s not so much individual denominations under threat as the Christian faith. Jesus told the Pharisees the Temple was dead. The old ways of doing things were over, their rituals were only for themselves. We need to be a living church, changing to meet the needs of each new generation.

Let us pray for our consultant, Kerry Thorpe, as he writes our report. Let us pray for ourselves as we prepare ourselves to receive it, and plan together the future of our church. We do not want Jesus weeping over us.

David Haslam

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