Clearly upset with the Archbishop of Canterbury over his Easter Day sermon in which he criticised the UK government’s plans to send would-be asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda. The prime minister rejected the criticism in the House of Commons, falsely accusing the Church of England of doing nothing for Ukraine. The archbishop responded by pointing out that “Government and Church are not the same, but we must surely all want to put humanity and fairness at the heart of the asylum system.”
Maintaining that distinction between government and church is a continuing challenge, as we see in Russia and Ukraine today. It is not new. In 1934 a small group of Christians in Germany declared their opposition to the German Christian movement which had embraced Nazi ideology in support of Hitler’s regime. In what became known as the Barmen Declaration, the protesters said that the message of the church should not be influenced by current political convictions. “We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” One of the leading opponents to the Nazis was the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had no illusions about the dangers of opposing Hitler. In his book the Cost of Discipleship, he reflected on this reference to discipleship by Jesus: “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Bonhoeffer wrote: “To be called to a life of extraordinary quality, to live up to it, and yet to be unconscious of it is indeed a narrow way. To confess and to testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and at the same time to love the enemies of that truth, his enemies and ours, and to love them with the infinite love of Jesus Christ, is indeed a narrow way. To believe the promise of Jesus that his followers shall possess the earth, and at the same time to face our enemies unarmed and defenceless, preferring to incur injustice rather than to do wrong ourselves is indeed a narrow way.” He was executed by the Nazis in 1945.
Tomorrow’s reading from the book of Acts reminds us that there is bound to be tension when the church, being faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ, engages a world which is self-serving. St Paul is in Philippi where he encounters a troubled slave girl who thinks that the future is ill-fated and predictable. She is being exploited by men (pimps in today’s language) motivated solely by greed. They have no concern for this vulnerable young woman other than what they can make out of her by using her as a soothsayer predicting the future. So, when Paul heals her, they are angry and seize Paul and his companions and drag them before the authorities who seem untroubled by the exploitation of the girl.
Her abusers are shown to be untouchable, while Paul ends up in jail. The exploitation of vulnerable women and girls still happens today and confronting their abusers can be costly and dangerous – witness the scandal of Jeffrey Epstein and the influential friends who protected him.
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Thursday was Ascension Day when we recall the final commission of Jesus to his followers: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses . . .. to the ends of the earth.” The New Testament Greek word for witness, martyr, suggests, it is intrinsically costly, and as Rev Dr Una Kroll points out the cross lies in the path of every Christian: “The cross preceded the resurrection; but the resurrection has not abolished the cross. Suffering, sin, betrayal, cruelty of every kind, continued to exist after the crucifixion and they continue still. This is the failure of the cross. God made failure an instrument of victory.”