On earth as it is in heaven

Can anyone explain the vesture here?

This morning I went to the University Sermon, where the Rt Rev Dr N. T. Wright was preaching, and he was absolutely superb. He is a gripping preacher and I could listen to him for hours.

He began by mentioning that he seems to come down to Oxford or London only to lament the lack of interest in ministry in the North. His staff in Durham are having a meeting tomorrow about how the needs for the ministry of word and sacrament, and evangelism are going to be met in the diocese. When posts become available, few apply for them. This is in considerable contrast to the situation in Dorset and other such places. Part of the problem is that the church centrally is trying to reduce the number of stipendiary clergy. Rich dioceses can afford to ignore this and pay for however many clergy they want. Poor dioceses, like Durham, have to abide by the rules, otherwise they will go bankrupt. To approach this problem, one has to consider it against the bigger picture of God’s kingdom.

At this point, he identified two kinds of Christians, gospel Christians and epistle Christians. Gospel Christians tend to read the gospels, and see all that Jesus is doing and make that paradigmatic for what the coming of the kingdom should look like. The epistles get neglected. It’s the position of modern liberalism. Wright recounted the story of the time when he was chaplain of Worcester College and the Provost asked him what his DPhil was about. When he replied, “St. Paul,” the Provost answered, “He was a wicked man.” Epistle Christians on the other hand focus on Paul’s letters and treat the gospels as merely illustrative material. Conservative evangelicals tend to occupy that position. They are wary of the gospel Christians because it has the potential to undermine justification by faith. They emphasise those parts of Scripture that supports their system of saving sinners from the world and use the gospels to illustrate those truths. Despite claiming a high view of Scripture, this doesn’t do justice to the Scriptures at all. Evangelicals have had more in common with Bultmann than they realise. With regard to the NT reading, Luke 8.4-15, they would point out that it is the word that is being spread; we have to preach the message about how people can be saved. The gospel Christians would say that Luke 8.4-15 is abot the word of the kingdom, so we need to get on with transforming society. The gospel Christian position is itself inadequate, no better than social work with a pious face. Wright acknowledged that he was generalising and caricaturing here.

It is about time the gospels and the epistles were brought together. To do that, we need to consider the great biblical themes of new creation and covenant. Genesis 1 is programmatic. This fallen world is being redeemed: Luke 8, like Genesis 1-2 are about seed being sown and bearing fruit. The renewal of the covenant is described in creation terms. The Old Testament reading we had - Ruth 2 - points to this - abundance and fruitfulness. Paul’s letters are full of new creation allusions, according to Wright, but to unpack that would take a whole series of lectures. As Wright said, “Another time.” As in the Lord’s Prayer, this reality is to be increasingly known now, on earth as it is in heaven. But it will not come through our own attempts to make the world just a little bit better than it is now. It is new creation, and it comes as people are redeemed and transformed through the gospel message. The doctrine of new creation is like Nelson looking out and keeping the hordes who advocate a two-tier universe (being saved from the earth for heaven) at bay.

The heart of the new creation is the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Evangelicals have tended to have the wrong emphasis on the resurrection - proof that there is life beyond death, or a purely individulised affect on personal outlook and behaviour. Yes, it is about those things, but it is about new creation. Liberals on the other hand, in seeking to demythologise the resurrection, have removed the theological, ontological and epistomological foundation of their own movement.

This has massive implications. It has implications for the poor, for example, those communities with third-generation male unemployment, those scarred by the closure of the pits. The seed must be sown there. As Ruth 2 indicates, the poor and the foreigner find abundance in God’s new creation. Those who hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and patient heart, and bear fruit and serve the Lord do not have to live sixty miles from London! Wright also pointed out implications for third-world debt and climate change. The former I am not certain of the details and the second I am unconvinced about, but the principle that these things matter to God is, I think sound. He left the rest of the application to us. When we sow the word of the kingdom, it will be plucked from some, others will receive it joyfully at first and then fall away, others will be choked by the cares of the world, but in yet others it will bear fruit, and it is through this that the world is renewed.

Overall, I think it was entirely fair. Evangelicals and liberals rightly got beaten up by Wright in his sermon. A couple of things to be concerned about have been highlighted by a learned minister of the word. Wright has a tendency to identify two errors and then present his view as the solution to them. Also, while error is error, the consequences of the liberals’ error, rejecting the gospel of salvation from sin, are different to the consequence of the evangelicals’ error, while they were presented as equivalent. I think that’s a fair representation of what he said. If anyone was there and wants to add or correct something, please do. I’m hoping there’ll be a transcript to which I can link in the near future.

I was very impressed by the good bishop. Now I need to read properly some things he has written on justification so I can get my head around that. But on the new creation and resurrection, he is excellent.