Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"In the light of the National Crime Figures, why are we afraid?" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 25th July 2004
I received a notice in the mail a fortnight ago, asking me if I wanted insurance against breakdowns in my car, and if I paid enough money my warranty would be extended another 12 months. Then I received another notice letting me know that if I wanted to extend the warranty on the washing machine for another year, for fifty quid or so, I could be assured of having it repaired if it broke down. This of course, is added to similar approaches to do with the toaster, the TV, the VCR, the plumbing, personal liability, accidental injury, cycling, work disruption, retrenchment, illness, disability, and so the list goes on.
There are a lot of people cashing in on our desire for security. I received a visit from the constabulary the other day, offering involvement in comnet, a system of early warning when there is a spate of church burglaries happening, and I'm now on the automated warning system. Sales of security cameras is increasing exponentially and I saw in a catalogue you can buy a fake security camera that follows movement, so for a fraction of the cost of a real camera, anyone who walks in believes they are being videoed. There is a huge market in helping people address their insecurity.
The odd thing about it all is that this is probably one of the most safe countries in the world in which to live. We don't have America's huge gun culture or its burgeoning crimes by shooting rate. The Irish terror problem is almost non-existent now and road rage is less prevalent than in most developed cultures. We have the most stable government system there is. We don't have our Government heads assassinated. There is no insurgent army, not a hint of political armed rebellion, a very stable government, and now I hear that the British Crime Survey has established that the crime rate has been officially reduced in the last nine years by 39%.
I realize that some police figures rate the recorded crime level as increased by 11% but that's because many things that were not recorded before are now recorded. That is, since 2002, if a person reports a crime, it is now recorded in the official statistics, even if it's a matter of someone being shoved, it now gets recorded as assault. George Galloway's indiscretions have been registered as an incident of treason, because the allegation was made. In reality, the crime rate is decreasing.
According to one article, readers of Red Top and Middle Market newspapers like The Mail, have an inflated sense of fear from crime. The reason; like the insurers, these newspapers make trade off people's fear of insecurity. They blaze across the headlines "Another Murder in Middlesex" implying there's been hundreds before this one, and they trade on the image of fear and insecurity. The reality is that we are probably more secure than just about any other place in the world. If you don't believe me, read Bill Bryson's "Down Under." It's a miracle any of us Aussies survive into adolescence.
What's going on, that we are so insecure, given that nearly all of us are assured of a warm and solid house to go to, a full stomach and a safe bed to sleep in. Most of the world don't have anywhere near what we have in terms of shelter, food, security or stability. Even weather wise, England is one of the most reliable and stable climates in the world.
The centre of our fear lies in the nature of our culture. We are an acquisitive society. We own many things and are constantly bombarded with literature encouraging us to own more, and to make sure no-one can take away what we have. Everything about western life encourages us to place our priority upon acquiring and having things, as our own. This is what we are programmed to regard as our treasure. It is the basket where we are, in thousands of unnoticed ways, involuntarily seduced into putting all of our chickens. And the more this becomes our focus, the more our psyche is attuned to these acquisitions as symbols of our identity, our status and our security, the more we will need to put fences, cameras, insurances and locks around it.
But that isn't a problem. If we want to spend most of our energy and time and income securing the things we have purchased, that's just another purchase. The danger I perceive, as a Christian, is that this becomes our focus and that we buy the illusion that this is the most important thing there is. When we focus on this, we reduce our focus on other things that are important.
When I say danger, I see this in two aspects.
The first is that it takes up an inordinate amount of our God given time, time that might be spent on other things, things like God, relationships, care, communication and love. The more we have focussed on products and acquisition, the more dysfunctional our collective family life has become, the more we have become less and less a community. The more we have to protect, the higher the barriers we raise around it and the more isolated we become from each other and from the environment. The resources that we pour into acquisition and protection of our acquisitions, come from a limited resource of years and energy. It takes our focus off other things that our Christian faith puts a very high priority on.
The second danger is that this same acquisitiveness permeates our spirituality.
I read a piece of scripture from Luke for years, from when I was a child, and wondered why when I asked God for things, I didn't get them. I grew up, reading this as though God was a sort of Santa Claus, even if I saw his gifts not so much as getting things as giving me circumstances that would make me happy. It is a similar process. You can see the sort of imagery that my culture had given me. It is not surprising that some of our young people decide during adolescence, that faith is a furphy.
It wasn't until I'd done a bit of real Bible Study that I suddenly realized that what Jesus was talking about hadn't anything to do with the types of prayer that God wasn't answering, and it is so simple. In verse 13 Jesus ends up saying "How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?"
Now why wasn't it made clear to me as a child that when we pray to God we aren't writing God a wish list, we are opening our hearts to the movement of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus, to be at work in us so that our lives will be as God wants, that our lives will participate in exactly what the disciples have just been taught to pray for, "Your kingdom come." The only acquisitiveness in this whole passage is for "Our daily bread." in other words, enough to live through the day, and even that, I'm sure, should not be seen in a simple, literal and only physical way. Jesus usually had a lot more depth than that.
The reason that this wasn't made clear to me as a child is twofold. Firstly we tend to enculturate the gospel, to make it like ourselves, concerned with property. Most of what children see around them is about getting and children easily slip into that mould if we allow it in our faith teaching.
Secondly, we assume that children take things literally and cannot understand things of the spirit, so we teach a literal and concrete version of faith to children, and then wonder why they don't believe it when they grow up. Children can be very spiritually aware, if we give them a chance.
According to one article, readers of Red Top and Middle Market newspapers like The Mail, have an inflated sense of fear from crime. The reason; like the insurers, these newspapers make trade off people's fear of insecurity. They blaze across the headlines "Another Murder in Middlesex" implying there's been hundreds before this one, and they trade on the image of fear and insecurity. The reality is that we are probably more secure than just about any other place in the world. If you don't believe me, read Bill Bryson's "Down Under." It's a miracle any of us Aussies survive into adolescence.
In closing, I want to simply read again to you, the advice given to Timothy that we heard 12 minutes ago.
There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called.