The disciples were
talking excitedly with one another about a story they had heard that morning. The General Synod was meeting that week, and
various disturbing stories were filtering from the meetings. They had just heard that the Synod had voted
to ‘prioritise the common good of all people.’
One disciple thought that this was good news, especially in light of
examples in recent days where people had put making a profit above the lives of
others.
Another disciple, however,
pointed out that words were like free dancers and had a way of expressing themselves
in any variety of ways unless given more direction. ‘What do you mean?’ asked the first
disciple. ‘Well, if I say that we should
all champion justice, for example, then we will have to say what we mean by ‘justice’,
won’t we? Otherwise, we will all agree to
something but not have any agreement about what we mean!’
Another disciple joined in. ‘Yes, I know exactly what you mean. One person makes the word ‘love’ mean, ‘If I
love you, I will support you in whatever choice you make.’ That person understands love as a form of
freedom. Another person makes the word ‘love’
mean, ‘If I love you, I will tell you what the right thing to do is.’ That person understand love as a form of
truth. And so, while we all agree that we should be loving, we end up disagreeing because we have not defined ‘love’.
'All virtues and values are like this,' said another disciple. 'They are like presents wrapped in colourful paper on Christmas morning. They have to be unwrapped and then openned, otherwise we have very little idea what they are. We all like presents, but we don't always like the present that someone gave us.'
And such was the nature
of the discussion along the way for several miles while the disciples walked
with their master from Kittle to Killay.
As they refreshed themselves in Killay, they received some additional
news about the General Synod. Someone
had proposed that the Synod emend the wording about seeking the common good to read the
common good 'as revealed in the Bible and taught by the Church.’ ‘See,’ said one of the disciples, ‘that is
what we were discussing. We cannot know
the ‘good’ unless we define it, and if we are Christians, we are going to
define the good according to Scripture and the teaching of the Church through
the ages. And our understanding of Good is going to look very different from, say, the 'Good' that ISIS is pursuing--or even the Good as defined by our Parliament.’
‘Wait,’ said the
disciple with the news about Synod. ‘There’s
more,’ he said, reading a bit of online news.[1] ‘The Synod actually rejected the additional
words. The Archbishop of York,
apparently, stood up to challenge the amendment. Apparently, he replied, ‘If you are going to
serve the whole community please don’t limit our language…. The Word became flesh and sadly we are now
making it Word, Word, and Word again.
Resist the amendments.’ The
disciple looked up at his fellow disciples, who sat quietly blinking at him in
shock.
Finally, one of the disciples
said, ‘When John wrote that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, he meant
that God’s revelation of the truth was given through Jesus. The archbishop seems to think—or wants to
imagine—that John meant God passed His work of revelation over to people, as
though they could now generate the truth from their own beliefs without having
anything to do with Scripture, Jesus, or the Church’s convictions through the
centuries. That’s rather like letting
your grade 8 class set their own final exams!’
The disciples’ master
spoke up. ‘This archbishop is like the
moth. The moth flies by the angle of
rays from the sun as they hit its eyes. Because the sun’s rays are parallel,
the moth is able to fly in a straight line by keeping the angle of the rays the same.
But when the moth flies by the light of a candle, the rays of light
spread out in different directions, and they hit the moth's eyes at different angles. That is
why the moth flies in a circle around the light, getting closer and closer
until it burns itself in the fire.’
The
master looked at his disciples, ‘If we do not set our course for what is ‘Good’
by the light that God has given us, we will fly in circles around the light of
human ideas about the Good, who have all sorts of views, and we will meet our end in the fire. Sadly, the archbishop has rejected the straight rays
of light by which we can set our course for what is good, the revelation that
Jesus brought to a world living in darkness.
He seeks to please human beings in all their diversity and, in so doing,
fulfills the rest of what John wrote, that Jesus ‘came to his own, but his own people
did not receive him (John 1.11). Do not live as the moth, who flies by any light, but live as a disciple of Jesus Christ, God's revelation of truth to a world living in darkness.'
[1] 'General Synod: Archbishop of York Rejects Authority of Bible,' Christian Concern (14 July, 2017). See: https://mg.mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/21022
(accessed 15 July, 2017).
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