Michaelmas 2008
29 September 2008 at 12:00 am
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose carved image is displayed on the west front of the Abbey Church and who is commemorated as a 20th century martyr was hanged by the Nazi regime just before the end of the war. He spoke of the kind of Christianity that was needed in a “world come of age”. The result he saw of the 18th century Enlightenment was that by the middle of the 20th century people had little sense of the power and glory of God; rather they used an idea of God to fill up the gaps in their understanding of the world. With little sense of a need for God, most modern people, Bonhoeffer said, lacked any sense of what it was radically to follow Christ, in other words to live a life transformed by Christ, a life in Christ.
I have been thinking about the concept of a “world come of age” in the last week or two. We have all watched in greater or lesser bewilderment the credit crunch transformed into a global banking crisis and hundreds of billions of dollars and pounds of government borrowing committed to sorting out the mess. Surely in a “world come of age”, in which men and women are free to live their lives, make their own decisions, follow their own path, such global disasters would never happen. It seems that even the most powerful governments in the world are almost overwhelmed by a series of financial tsunamis or hurricanes. I read in one of the Sunday papers yesterday that one of the most seasoned of financial commentators, an expert economist, was “scared” by what was going on.
“Scared” is such a strong word to use here with its childish connotations: “Daddy, I’m scared!” Putting the light on might drive away most ghoulies and ghosties but is unlikely to make this scare go away. So at Michaelmas, the message is reinforced in a particularly vivid, even terrifying, way that there are powers and forces operating in the universe which we do not fully understand but which can have a direct and destructive impact on our lives. Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac with their homely names; Bradford and Bingley, reassuringly stolid northern towns; the incomprehensible HBOS: all turn into distorted, looming figures of the night.
Is ours truly a “world come of age” or a world in the grip of devastating forces? The question is not of course new. Indeed, throughout the 20th century, the world seemed intent on self-destruction: world wars destroyed whole generations of young men, young women and children, and older men and women too; financial crises threw men and women on to the dole queue; cold war and the nuclear age threatened mutual assured destruction; and, once these fears had receded, excessive carbon emissions and environmental degradation have become a new cause of terror. Whether or not ours is a broken society, it seems clearer than ever to me that human beings on our own are unable to achieve our high ambitions, possessed as we are by greed for wealth and power and the promotion of self-interest over the general good.
“War broke out in heaven”, we heard in the second lesson from the Revelation to St John the Divine. “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.” “That ancient serpent, who is called the Devil or Satan” was cast out of heaven and “thrown down to the earth” where he would deceive the whole world. (Revelation 12: 9)
The world is still deceived. The battle of evil against good, of the powers of darkness against the children of light, of the devil and his angels against Michael the Archangel and all the host of heaven, against God himself, is still engaged. The battle is a real conflict, like any other conflict in the world, where lives are destroyed and blood is spilled and tears are shed – indeed the battle causes every other conflict in the world. What’s more, the battle goes on not only in the community and in the world and in the whole order God has created but within each one of us, and among us. Nor is it a battle we can ignore, or pass by. If we were so lacking in imagination as to suppose that there were no real conflict between good and evil, the battle would already have been lost in us. St Paul saw the battle at work in himself: “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
The battle can be won – in each of us and in the world. Indeed we who trust in the victory of Jesus Christ our Lord over the powers of sin and death, through his crucifixion and glorious resurrection, know that in the end the victory of good over evil has been won. It will finally be seen to have been won.
In the meantime, while the battle is still joined, while we ourselves struggle to be on the side of light and goodness against the destructive forces in us of evil, of selfishness and greed, of sin, the flesh and the devil, we can all rejoice and give thanks that St Michael the Archangel and all the angels of God are joined in the battle on the Lord’s side.
One day, if pray God the war is won in us, we shall hear for ourselves what was revealed to St John the Divine:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Christ.
Rejoice then, you heavens
and those who dwell in them!”