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News & Events: Clergy Letter

Jean Paul Sartre, the famous French existentialist philosopher, once described hell as ‘other people.’  For Sartre, hell was to be in the company of other people, with all that goes with it.  The opposite could not be truer for Christians.  Christianity is a relational faith, at its very heart is the belief that God is relationship.  

The Father loves the Son and they both love the Holy Spirit, a community of love and relating, an interplay of love and togetherness, that Christians described as the one true God.  Human beings are made in the image of God, in other words we are made to relate and to be related to. 

This is expressed in the universal norm of monogamous marriage, in the creation and enjoyment of family life and in the coming together of social groups and communities. We ignore and avoid relationships at our peril. 

Statistics seem to suggest that there are more and more of us living on our own in Western societies and more and more people prioritising their own space, needs and company above the needs of a family or a group.  It is not uncommon for families to eat at different times and in different rooms.  

It is not uncommon for children to experience their hobbies and leisure time as something they spend alone, in front of a computer or a play station.  It is certainly true that many voluntary societies which were originally formed to bring people together suffer from declining membership and interest. Perhaps on one level people want and expect different things, and the options in front of us shape our eventual choices.  

Of course the dangerous society we live in makes it very difficult for children to live the free and spontaneous lives that their parents and grandparents lived.  Nevertheless much is said about the value of the individual, our rights, our needs, and the individual life style choices that are absolutely vital if we are to be happy and fulfilled human being.  For Christians hell is not ‘other people’. Christianity is all about other people.  It centres on love and regard for neighbour.  The needs of the individual have to be tempered by the good of the whole, individual space and time need to be complimented with a commitment to community.  

Many of Jesus’ parables and teachings are initiations to reach out to other people, rather than to retreat into critical selfishness.  Jesus himself formed a core of disciples; they went on to give birth to the church by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In this sense what we do and stand for in the Church is ‘counter cultural.’  In other words it goes against the flow of much of modern society.  Yet belonging  is precisely what we need if we could but get in touch with it.  We all need to belong to feel part of something, yet the church is not and should never be just another clique.

A parish church at its best is a worshipping, caring, believing and above all a loving community born of the Spirit and open to all. The very body and mind of Christ alive and active in its community, as Jesus would be.  It doesn’t matter if its members are not imperfect saints. That is to miss the point.  For it is in being together, relating, laughing, crying, knowing, caring, loving that we all have our rough edges smoothed off and we have a foretaste of what the Kingdom of God could look like. 

Belonging is not always easy, for it involves compromise, effort, commitment and a generous giving of ourselves, but the alternative is worse and unhealthy.  Excessive emphasis on the individual leads to narcissism, egotism, isolation and alienation.

Jesus said “I come that you may have life and have it in abundance.” Life always springs from love and love always springs from relationships.  It is through belonging that we truly know ourselves and find our true worth and value.

The great worth of any parish church like our churches of St Giles and St Nicholas is the simple opportunity they afford people to feel connected, related to, known, remembered, prayed for, cared for and loved.  What could be better than that?

Matthew Hughes

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