Seeking Justice: The radical compassion of
Jesus
Keith Hebden
Circle Books £11.99
(978-1-78099-688-2)
Church Times Bookshop £10.80 (Use code
CT448 )
Servant Ministry: A portrait of Christ and a pattern
for his followers
Tony Horsfall
BRF £7.99
(978-0-85746-088-2)
Church Times Bookshop £7.20 (Use code
CT448 )
"JESUS proclaimed the Kingdom of God, but the Church came
instead. Discuss." I don't know if they still set that one in mock
university finals papers these days, but the question haunts me
still. The dilemma is a false one, of course: that Jesus proclaimed
the Kingdom is self-evident from the Gospels, and the Church was
inevitable as soon as more than two or three gathered in his name.
It is not and never was a question of either/or.
And then the problems begin - problems to do with all
institutions, which can so easily become detached from the original
intentions or vision of their founders. I suppose, in their
different ways, both these books try to reconnect things - people -
to what being the Church means.
Keith Hebden's book has as its subtitle The radical
compassion of Jesus, and in it he tries to point to ways in
which the Church is called to build "community" in the deepest
sense, by constantly challenging and transforming what is assumed
to be "the way things are". A large component of this process will
lead to conflict, mainly with those who hold power and money.
Hebden is an advocate of what he calls "compassionate
resistance". This involves the reader in some unexpected and
startling readings of the Gospels, especially the Sermon on the
Mount, and takes him or her to some uncomfortable places: for
instance, the idea that compassion is for the oppressor as well as
the oppressed, and that our building of "community" will involve
solidarity with unexpected and unusual allies. The book is peppered
with practical examples of this. Do what you can, and you will end
up doing more than you might have imagined, Hebden seems to be
telling us.
Tony Horsfall's book grew out of a retreat for staff at an
ecumenical Bible college, and is basically an extended meditation
on the first of the so-called "Servant Songs" of Deutero-Isaiah.
The style is very different from Hebden's, but the intent is
similar: Christian faith and practice can never be just a vertical
relationship between me and God: it is a relationship also with and
for others. Both books contain material in each chapter for group
use, as if to illustrate the point.
Rather too much contemporary religious discourse has been
predic-ated on false opposites, bogus certainties, and the
conviction that I am right - or, at least, that my version of the
gospel is. With this has come an obsession with targets and
planning and growth, which is really no more than being in thrall
to what is just about to stop being the Zeitgeist, or imagining
that "mission" is about getting more and more people to go to
church, preferably my church.
In their different ways, these two books challenge these
obsessions, and return us to a more Pauline (Christian?) view of
diakonia. Life would be much easier if neither of these
authors had put pen to paper. But one cannot help being grateful
that they have.
The Revd Peter McGeary is the Vicar of St Mary's, Cable
Street, in the East End of London, and a Priest Vicar of
Westminster Abbey.