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Posts Tagged "new beginning for Church":

A New Moses And A New Exodus?

Pilgrimage

When Christians think about travelling for God, we usually think in terms of individual pilgrimage. Maggi Dawn’s ‘The Accidental Pilgrim‘ describes it in terms of the labyrinth on the book jacket: we travel without being certain that we will ever reach the centre, but different travellers on the same road, and the same travellers at different times, will all find something different. And it is possible to make this journey of discovery, to ‘travel for God’, without leaving one’s room. Pilgrimage is an individual journey, whether or not it is taken in the company of others, like Chaucer’s. And it is also, surely, a voluntary journey: or can you think of anyone going on a pilgrimage because they have been told to do so by another human being?

Exodus

The second book of the Old Testament, on the other hand, tells how the Israelites, led by Moses, left a life of slavery in Egypt to journey together through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh promised them the land of Canaan in return for their faithfulness. There is a sense in which this was a mass pilgrimage, but the exodus (literally ‘going out’) was not a matter of individual prompting by God, but of the whole community together making this arduous journey for the sake of the hive as a whole, not for the sake of the individual bees that went to make up the hive.

Although the clip from ‘The Ten Commandments‘ above is rather toe-curling to us, it does illustrate very well both the scale of the undertaking and the sense of joint effort and belonging.

Moses

While individual pilgrimages do not need authority figures, it is inconceivable that the Israelites would ever have got out of Egypt in exodus without a strong and charismatic leader. Indeed a version of Exodus, written in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) brings a traditional “heroic style” to its biblical subject-matter, with pervasive military imagery and Moses as a general. And Moses must have had the qualities of both a political leader and a military leader. But ultimately it was through his ability to communicate the word of God, and lead the people in God’s name that validated him as a leader: seeing that the people were uncontrollable, Moses went to the entry of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.” (Exodus 32.36)

A New Moses and a New Exodus?

On Monday February 4th, Bishop Justin Welby began work as our new Archbishop of Canterbury. He has expressed dismay at the internal disputes which have threatened to cripple the Church of England in recent years. I would add that the wrangling over the Anglican Covenant nearly did that to the Anglican Communion as a whole. Occasionally abstruse points of theology, combined with an inward-looking emphasis on procedural policy, have at times meant that we have become a Body of Christ determined, rather than spreading the good news of the gospel, to spend our time fussing like an aging valetudinarian over the workings of our own Body.

We need to look outwards and onwards. We need even to remember the Israelites and consider the good of the hive as well as the good of the bee. We need to stop obsessing about gender, remember why we exist as a Church and what it means to be Christian. Bishop Justin said recently to Ruth Gledhill ‘I know I will disappoint a lot of people in this job. The thing about the Church is that we are so human…I’m just a very ordinary Christian‘.

This reminds me strongly, and encouragingly, of Prince Caspian:

“Welcome, Prince,’ said Aslan. ‘Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?’

I – I don’t think I do, Sir,’ said Caspian…

Good,’ said Aslan. ‘If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been proof that you were not.”

― C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia

I am sure Moses felt just the same as Prince Caspian…

Action-Centred Leadership

Those of you who attended management courses in the 1980s will remember ‘Action-Centred Leadership‘. Those of you who did not may, however, remember those Army recruiting advertisements that used to appear in the Sunday newspapers where you were invited to manoeuvre an imaginary barrel over a stream with the help of a couple of sticks and a few men. If you arrived at what was called ‘the Directing Staff Solution’, you were reckoned to be officer material.

Time may prove me wrong but, from the glint in (Arch)bishop Justin’s eye, I think the Church of England may be in for a spot of Action-Centred Leadership.

Mr Bean or Moses

Bishop Justin has been teasingly compared to Mr Bean. I suggest that a more telling comparison may be with Clark Kent. As you will remember, Mr Kent’s alter ego is exactly what the Church may need. I do hope there is a handy telephone kiosk at Lambeth Palace.


This piece is based on a post for Digidisciple, ‘Travelling for God’ of 5 February 2013.

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