Portsmouth Cathedral

Third Sunday of Advent 2022

Angela Tilby,
Canon of Honour

‘Isaiah 5.8-end

Acts 13.13-31

When I looked up the first reading for this Sunday evening I was struck by the way each cluster of verses begins with the exclamation: ‘Ah’. A fairly meaningless word in English, but here it replaces older translations which give the word ‘Woe’. This is closer to the original Hebrew which implies a mixture of a curse and a lament. So, some examples:

‘Woe to you who join house to house who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land.

And then: ‘Woe to you who rise early in the morning to drink strong drink and are inflamed by wine in the evening’. ‘Woe to you who drag iniquity behind you, who drag sin with cart rope’s, ‘Woe to you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness….!’

These ‘woes’, laments, or curses, are portents of disaster. There will be judgment, punishment, exile. The early chapters of Isaiah are full of the threat of military defeat and exile. 

Looking at the ‘woes’ more closely there are parallels with today. ‘Woe to you who join house to house who add field to field…’ Think property and the abuse of economic power, the lack of housing, tenants driven out, flats breeding black mould. The second ‘woe’, being drunk at all hours is pitched at those who live lives of such luxury that their judgment is  clouded and they fail in their responsibilities. Pandemic parties anyone? Then the ‘woe’ directed at those whose lives are so frivolous that they drag their own destruction behind them like horses dragging carts. And then there is the ‘woe’ that belongs to those who read light for darkness, darkness for light, good for evil and evil for good, those who manipulate information for their own gain.

With each succeeding ‘woe’ the prophet dissects a society that is about to collapse. God’s people are no longer fit to live in the land that God has given them. And, just as Isaiah prophesied, defeat followed and the people were deported into exile.

A few weeks ago the latest census showed that Christians were no longer a majority in this country and that a rising number described themselves as having no religion. Humanists and secularists saw good news in this, and church leaders agonised a bit and said how important it was to increase our efforts at mission. I found myself reflecting not on the number of Christians, but the effect of something I think just as serious, the loss of Christian values in society as a whole. The prayer of the Church has been a minority pursuit for a long time, what is more devastating is the gradual loss of honesty, decency and integrity in public life. We are all implicated in the way the race for profits damages the poor, we see how individuals and businesses prey on the lonely and the addicted, selling cheap thrills through the internet, we all suffer when legislation intended to protect the vulnerable is watered down in the interests of the providers, as in the recent Online Safety Bill.

I have to say that over the last couple of years I have come to feel an almost overwhelming sense of grief for the society we have become. And an anger that goes with that grief. What we have lost is what our Christian roots tried to hold us to – and what any faith community tries to hold its people to - Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and that is respect and consideration for one another. We owe each other respect because God is God. This is not to say we are all the same or that we ought to pursue equality in all things. But without the bonds of respect and consideration society falls apart. Respect from old to young and young to old. Respect between rich and poor. Respect for truth from those elected to represent us in Parliament and those who preside over our public institutions. Respect for our own bodies and minds, and for the bodies and minds of others.

It does seem very odd to me in this post-Christian age that so much of our daily lives are controlled by a very few, very rich, very clever and often very peculiar men; the tech giants who have transformed life in less than thirty years. Move Fast and Break Things was Mark Zuckerberg’s motto when he ran Facebook – I think he has changed his mind since Facebook became Meta and his vision of our future has been of us all wandering around in an alternative reality provided via headsets. If that’s not an exile from reality and one another and from God I don’t know what is. But tech giants are not the only reason we face a moral and spiritual crisis in the Western world. What’s wrong with us is the replacement of the living God by that greediest of God substitutes, Mammon, and the way Mammon turns us all into consumers, driven by private desire and the cultivation of our particular identities. Now this may sound like an anti-capitalist rant. But I am not as it happens an anti-capitalist. I accept that enterprise, wealth creation, inventiveness has lifted millions out of poverty and has often driven forward progress, education, opportunity all over the world.

But capitalism is an incomplete system which can only be truly productive if it is attached to values which goes beyond the acquisition of private wealth. The consistent message of scripture is that, in the end, we either love one another or we die. And we are to love one another because in God’s eyes we are of equal worth. The worship of God is the ground  of social justice. It was Selfishness and complacency that led Israel into exile. Here, in our once Christian society, the ambition and naked power of the few are barely checked while money, power and celebrity are the longed for goals of so many.

As we reflect on the judgment of scripture we should bear in mind that judgment is also spoken against the Church. A church which is often secretive in its processes, a church in denial of its own abuses, a church which has been at one and the same time highly condemnatory of some sins, casual and lax about others. I don’t think we should blame ourselves entirely for the fact that Christians are no longer in the majority, but we have hardly modelled a form of Christianity which is as generous, intelligent, or as wise as it could have been.

The scriptures which we heard tonight on this Third Sunday of Advent come with a weight of grief and anger. Grief at our own lack of humanity, lack of honesty, greed and faithlessness. And anger that people like me, the ‘ministers and stewards of God’s mysteries’, as our Collect puts it, spend so little of our time trying to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. Instead we just hope to hang on to what we have and not embarrass people by mentioning God too often. I cannot tell you how deep is the disillusion among many of the serving clergy.

Sometimes we are tempted to think we have to choose between a loving God and a judging God. But that is not a choice for us to make, God is consistent. What scripture shows us again and again is that his love is his judgment and his judgment is his love. We are the ones that are inconsistent. And God will be for us what he will be. Love and judgment, judgment and love.

Judgement waits for us all. Whether God comes to us as heaven or hell is not a decision God makes, but a decision we have already made about where we truly belong, where we are most ‘comfortable’, a hard message for those of us who have spent our lives pursuing comfort. But the way we live determines our destiny. There is a ‘woe’ that hangs over our heads and it is real. But, greater than all the woes, there is the call to repent, to turn our lives round, and welcome our salvation. Repentance and rejoicing belong together. For that on this Gaudete Sunday, we rejoice.