As we approach the Church New Year in September, let us recall why we are here and what our mission is.

The sad fact in the Life of Christ is that there were many who refused to accept His greatest and most revolutionary message – that God is Love. We see this refusal in the ‘scribes, pharisees, hypocrites’ to whom Christ said ‘Woe unto you’. The great sin of the people of the Old Testament, constantly denounced by the fool-for-Christ prophets, was idolatry. There were many who preferred to remain in that Old Testament idolatry, with its punishing god, politicking, moralism, judgementalism, sectarianism, ritualism and nationalism, simply hatred for others. To accept Christ’s message of compassion was too much for them.

Let us in this Church New Year leave in the past anything that is not about spreading Love. As the English writer, G. K., Chesterton, wrote a century ago: ‘The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried’. Let us make sure that we are on the side of the prophets and not on the side of the pharisees.

1 September 2021