A Tale of Two Churches

Lent is the holiest time for Christians and Palm Sunday leads up to the crucifixion of Christ Jesus and his resurrection, three days later. 

Undeterred by the Church of England’s latest own goals: permitting Manchester Cathedral to be used for a Ramadan Iftar, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, himself  hosting an Iftar meal for Muslim friends at Lambeth Palace Library and the Church having some sort of crisis over God’s pronouns, I made my way on foot to the local Anglican Church for the Palm Sunday service. 

After many days of heavy rain the spring sunshine burst through a cloudless blue sky. The blackbird sang atop a blossoming cherry tree, the sparrows twittered unseen from the thick of the hedgerow and the excited voices of young children could be heard as they played outside.  

There were no outward signs that the powers of darkness, so prevalent in the news and even in the established church, had yet conquered all. 

I walked down the hill, along the old path next to the Medieval leat that leads all the way through the town to the churchyard and up to the studded oak doors of the 15th century St Michael’s Church. 

I was greeted with smiles and a hymn book, three separate service sheets and a palm cross before taking my seat. 

Apart from the large screen allowing remote participation via zoom, I was relieved to see no signs of the progressive liberal wokeification exhorted by the mother church. 

It was a lovely service indeed and told the story of how the people came out to wave palm branches to greet our Lord as he entered Jerusalem. It told how he knew of his impending betrayal and death and how those same people, just a few days later shouted “crucify him”.

In the words of one hymn,

“sometimes they strew his way,

and his sweet praises sing: 

Resounding all the day

Hosannas to their king:

Then ‘Crucify!’ is all their breath , 

and for his death they thirst and cry.’

If you are familiar with modern social media and Twitter you will see precisely how people move from praise to condemnation in the blink of an eye. 

We are no different to our predecessors. We’d like to think ourselves morally and intellectually superior but sadly we are not. 

The service led us through the various hymns, sung by an aged choir, collects and readings; some, which we were enjoined to read aloud the formal responses written in bold font. 

I must confess to getting a bit muddled as to which sheet I was supposed to be reading from at times and when asked to take our palm crosses outside to continue part of the service I forgot to bring them altogether. 

I enjoyed the service though: Its familiarity, its quintessentially stuffy Englishness and it’s solemn sincerity. Its sound doctrine. 

I looked at the golden eagle before the pulpit and the stained glass windows beyond and wondered what had gone so terribly wrong with us that God himself should have to bear the judgment on a cross that was by rights ours to suffer. 

Surely that is the very definition of love. 

I made my way home and marvelled at the crimson blossom that so fleetingly adorns our cherry blossom tree each year. It’s an old tree and I always wonder if this year will be its last. 

I’m reminded of those poetic verses from psalm 103 when I see it in all its splendour. 

‘15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.’

It all sounds rather melancholy but the psalm, taken as a whole, is one of great comfort rather than despair. 

The following Sunday my daughter offered to come to church. I decided that high-Anglican might not be her cup of tea so we went to the free church a couple of towns away.

This was a very different affair, not least because -in this great culmination of the Jesus story -we proclaimed “He is risen!”

A truly diverse congregation sang in unison and united in faith, “Hosannah!”

None of your fake Diversity Inclusion and Equity here, thank goodness. There is an authenticity that should cause all those who espouse the progressive new religion of the Archbishop of Canterbury to blush with shame. The church seems to think that we can choose God’s pronouns and our own. That we may forget God’s framework of justice and right living, given in love and forge our own way towards some kind of totalitarian and trans humanist hell.

Keyboard and drums, electric guitar and a talented group of young people led the singing. Young faces, old faces, black faces, white faces, men and women as different from one another as it is possible to imagine- yet as one in Christ. 

A dramatisation of the Easter story. A courtroom dialogue examining the evidence of Christ’s resurrection and appearance, first to the women, then to the unbelieving apostles and then to a crowd of five hundred. 

Again, sound biblical doctrine underpinned the service. We came away as if leaving a concert, buoyed and enthusiastic. 

Thinking later on those two services, I wondered that that two expressions of faith could be so different, or diverse – all part of the mystery of faith. When Jesus prayed for the unity of all believers, he did not mean uniformity but unity. But neither did he mean that we could make up our own version of truth. He declared, “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

In John chapter 17 Jesus prayer is recorded:

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.’

Our culture is awash with the idea that anything sincerely believed is a valid expression of truth. Of course this relativism leads not to truth but away from it. 

God has defined who we are; we don’t need to recreate ourselves. God is not an idol made in our image to fit in with our truth, but we are made in His image. His word has been made known to us, revealed to us in the Bible through the prophets. Through the miracle of life and the majesty of creation. He is not some petty minded tyrant who demands the use of certain pronouns. He has revealed his character through the ultimate act of sacrificial love for us, despite our sin. He made a way for us to come to him, to be made whole and righteous and to live life to the full. And when our mortal bodies return to dust he offers life everlasting.

Isn’t that a marvellous promise!

Last night strong gales battered the county. I woke this morning to find scarlet blossom petals decorated the car, the glass roof of the conservatory and the paths to the front door and around the house. The tree is now a sorry sight. 

One might say that the wind has blown over it but I am all the richer for having seen it blossom once more.