Easter 5 Election 2nd May 2010

We stand at an important junction in national life so let’s take guidance from the word of God as we prepare to play our part in the events of the coming week.

Today’s scripture was in place before Gordon Brown set 6th May. What do the lectionary readings for the fifth Sunday of Easter have to say to us?

The first reading from Acts has a hidden warning against putting our historic party allegiances too high on our agenda as we prepare to vote. Peter, a devout Jew, is taken to task in Acts 11 for associating with another party, the ‘uncircumcised’. The Jewish believers had picked up on how the Holy Spirit had fallen on Cornelius’ household as described in the previous chapter of Acts. Peter defends himself by describing a wondrous vision in which three times he’s pressed by God to eat what he saw as unclean food. The vision connected with a word from God that came to the centurion Cornelius. It seems Cornelius’ household was simultaneously prepared by God to welcome Peter’s visit and with it the good news of Jesus and empowerment in the Holy Spirit.

This passage shows God as utterly non-tribal. The God and Father of Jesus isn’t God of the Jews alone but God of the whole world. He’s God of St Giles and The Green Man to put it Horsted Keynes terms. The Holy Spirit is in principle just as available in the village as in church. Sometimes, as in the blessing of The Crown, there’s been opportunity to demonstrate that.

The Christian vision of God’s inclusivity is a challenge to the politics that defends an elite. It is refreshing to have our main political parties speaking so inclusively today. On paper none support second class citizenship in terms of race, sex, or sexual orientation. Nor an economic underclass – in principle! All main parties have strategies to foster both the creation and just distribution of wealth. All would subscribe to Britain’s global role in redressing past colonial exploitation but with different emphases. Policies on immigration make interesting reading! Some political groups are fuelling a base sort of nationalism hiding racist agendas under the national flag. The election campaign has a lot to teach us about a degree of demoralisation through pockets of poverty in our nation. When people are demoralised they’ll very readily turn to false saviours. This is what happened in Germany between the World Wars.

30 years ago I was priest in a mining village in Doncaster. It disturbs me to see the neglect of the former coal fields and how it has bred civic unrest there. Social ills have now led to an investigation of the Mayor and Council in Doncaster. Civic life depends on good citizenship. We get the leaders we deserve. It’s also true we can never dream up a political system that escapes the flaw of having to be delivered by sinful human beings. As T.S.Eliot wrote we dream of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. Eliot may have been referring to Stalinist Russia but we might apply it to the demise of the western economy – Goldman Sachs – allied to naive, foolhardy or maybe wicked politics.

What’s the root of such political corruption? The real challenge in our society has been described as the transformation of consumers into citizens. People resist the call to public service through a self interest unconcerned about the common good beyond making sure they have the consumables they want and the neighbourhood watch functions in case others want to take these from them. The lack of readiness among people to take responsibility for civic life and the common good is quite alarming. Many of us live in the mini world of our household and the mega world of Facebook, Twitter and MSN leaving out the midi world of the local community.

Thursday’s election is a call for us to take responsibility afresh for our village, county and nation as the citizens we are.

Let’s move on to the second reading from the book of Revelation chapter 21. John the visionary speaks there of a new earth and heaven and a new Jerusalem. These new things are to be found already in the church on earth inasmuch as the resurrection of Jesus thrills through her life. That’s why we read Revelation in Eastertide. God does indeed dwell with men and women through Jesus veiled in word and sacrament. We’ve got his life in the Christian community. This life is a foretaste, a preview of forthcoming attractions, where mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Oh yes there’s mourning and crying and pain in the life of the Christian church as much as outside it - but it’s mourning, crying and pain sweetened by the Lord we know who’s with us. Jesus has drawn the sting of death and suffering for all who turn to him.

The vision of St John, the vision of the Christian scripture, is a now and then vision. What is then to be in a transformed universe is now present – this is the gospel.

I always take heart when I receive Holy Communion at the coronation altar in Westminster Abbey. Above it there’s a quotation from Revelation Chapter 11 verse 15: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

When we think about who should serve us in Westminster or in the local council the vision thing’s as important as their personal integrity. One of the frequently heard complaints about this election campaign is the lack of vision for the transformation of society. And yet the electorate has been made suspicious of visionaries after the failure of both state socialism and laissez faire capitalism evidenced in their foul consequences.

What does it mean to seek that the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ?

Certainly the Christian vision is a robust vision of inclusion. As I have written in the P&P and this week’s news sheet, as we vote we have a responsibility to think about the common good in our community, nation and world. We have a duty to ensure the each and every person has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. If society is to change should it not benefit those who are hardest pressed?

The kingdom of God is nothing less than his reign. That’s not just for the new heaven and earth but for now. God reigns now where folk will let him in. I am praying that among our new MPs we might have a Wilberforce or two or three! It says in Proverbs 29 verse 18 that where there’s no vision the people perish. Away from God’s reign there’s mourning and crying and pain without consolation. Those who promote a vision of God help keep us faithful to enduring values that pave the way to a heavenly Jerusalem.

Lastly let’s see what we can glean from today’s Gospel from St John chapter 13.
A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you. John 13.34

Love makes the world and the church go round. Last week we heard the diocesan missioner say to us that he thought the best sort of evangelism was a community that intrigued people with the love of Jesus.The vision thing centres in Christianity on loving God and your neighbour as yourself. It’s resourced by God’s love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit as St Paul writes in Romans 5 verse 5.

As I have loved you – as God loves us – we’re to love one another. This is the Christian call and when it’s applied it brings transformation.

Wise politicians know their need of the voluntary sector. Communities can’t be built and neither can citizens be formed without people who’re prepared to put themselves out for others.

What’s the answer to the abortion rate? To family breakdown? To care for the elderly? To those who wish to legalise mercy killing?

The answer doesn’t lie so much in policies as in a spiritual revival bringing a fresh outpouring of love. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you.

Just to take one of my list, isn’t the problem of people wishing they were dead and not suffering linked not just to low pain tolerances but also to the lack of compassion around in our families? If people know they’re loved they can brave pain. You can cope with no end of hardship if you know you are loved.

Values come from vision and we need vision in our society. May Thursday bring some visionaries into public office, some of Christian conviction with a yearning for the new heaven and the new earth where righteousness dwells.

May the kingdom of this world advance a little towards becoming the kingdom of our God and of his Christ through this eucharist, through our prayer, through our voting on Thursday and through a new wave of the Holy Spirit pouring his love upon our village, county, nation and world. Amen.