‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return….’ These words, spoken at the beginning of Lent 10 days or so ago, echo through the whole season and rightly so. They are amongst the harsher statements in our liturgy. But they are also amongst the deepest and most meaningful.
All are equal before God. The words demand our humility and our repentance.
However, at times there seems a distinct lack of humility at the heart of public life and indeed the Church. The General Synod of the Church of England meets this weekend. Pray for it and for Fiona MacMillan of this church in particular; she is one of our representatives.
Recent Synod gatherings have been marked by vituperative and unseemly debates particularly about the way the church recognises and celebrates (or rather fails to recognise or celebrate) relationships between LGBTQi+ people. Safeguarding arrangements across the church have also become a toxic topic of debate. A lack of trust pervades the debating chamber.
Of course, the same behaviour is seen in parliament which, this week, spectacularly failed to have a proper debate about a ceasefire in Gaza. The church should know better but does not.
We seem to have lost our ability to disagree well and to remove prejudice, homophobia, misogyny and distrust from our discourse.
There is a way out, that Lent and then Easter can teach us. Before God all are equal and all are equally fallen. We do not all have to think the same thing all the time but we are called to love one another in spite of our differences and rejoice in our diversity. Everyone is to be included in the celebration of all that is good. Where answers are hard to find on earth, we are privileged to have been shown another and better way.
Andrew Caspari
