Letter from Archdeacon of Worcester

A worldly faith?

Sometimes we imagine that our faith is about becoming morereligious. However the French priest and palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin said,We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beingshaving a human experience. Apalaeontologist is someone who studies fossils, and like any scientist is anobserver of things in a search to discover more about them. I think what hemeant was since we are created in the image and likeness of God, as we grow ashumans we grow more and more into God.

He also said, byvirtue of Creation, and still more the Incarnation, nothing here below isprofane for those who know how to see. Our humanity in all itsshapes and sizes is Gods way of fleshing out and manifesting His beauty. Nothing is profane for those who knowhow to see: Heaven isnt very far away, and faith isnt about religious stuff.Indeed common humanity is the home of God: this is what Christmas is all about,when God in Jesus made his home amongst us.

So we shouldtread the earth lightly: We are already walking on holy ground. Perhaps that iswhy Jesus gives us such an earthly prayer as the Lords Prayer: we pray thatGods kingdom will come here on earth as in heaven; we ask God to give us ourdaily bread, just enough for today. In the Gospels Jesus shows us God by theway he looks, listens, speaks and touches. Galilee sees signs of heaven ineveryday life.

This is why theheart and high point of Christian worship is the Eucharist, when we take the rawmaterial of the world, bread and wine, and it is transfigured by Gods HolySpirit and shows us God. The Orthodox Church speaks of the sacrament of theworld. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins writes that the world is charged withthe grandeur of God. And this month wecelebrate the feast of Pentecost: we celebrate when the Church is born, verymuch here on earth, to live the life of Jesus, very much here on earth.

Pentecost isthe moment when the penny drops for the apostles and they begin to see clearlywhat Christmas, Good Friday and Easter Day mean. Pentecost completes the birth,death and resurrection of Jesus as the birthday of incarnate Christianity. Far from taking us out of this world, theSpirit, which brooded over creation from the very beginning, empowers us to seeeverything in a new light: the whole world is charged with the grandeur of God.

So lets notbecome too religious: our faith is world-facing and life-affirming. St Paul evenmakes the great claim that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit: this iswho we really are, spiritual beings having a human experience. The Church isbeing truly faithful when we live out Jesus message to love God, neighbour andself, seeking to encounter him not just in worship but in the faces andconcerns of the people we meet day by day.No wonder the liturgy ends with the words Go in peace to love and servethe Lord. Go where He may be found!

Archdeacon RobertJones