Hinde street 6 Oct 2019 11am - Giles Wilson

What people want A question for you: how does this question end?

This isn’t a game of Pointless or Family Fortunes, but it is a game - it’s called Google Autocomplete Roulette. As you type your answer into Google, it already knows how you - probably - will finish your question, simply because it knows what other people around the world have already been asking.

It also knows who you are, or at least some of your characteristics, which in the modern world is pretty much the same thing. It knows your age, your gender, your interests, your search history, your location, your buying history - LOTS of things that might help it give you a more accurate answer (and - incidentally - what adverts to show you).

So it knows, for instance, that there is little point in suggesting to me that I’m about to ask What is going to happen with the Premier League because it knows I’ve never once expressed any interest about football in my entire life.

Your challenge then is to suggest what comes next… what, if you were just an average computer user, would you be most likely to ask for… Any suggestions?

——- Look at some of the answers.

It’s a fact of life that we know more about what people want than we have ever done. Even if they kept all their internet searches private, the world of market research and opinion polls and focus groups means decision-makers whether in the worlds of commerce, media, politics or any other discipline, know pretty much what people want OR how they would react to things before they happen.

We know that 70% of concert-goers would not consider going to a gig if the performer was a hologram rather than a live human.

We know that 66% of people think women’s sport should have equal TV coverage to men’s sport (not that they would want to watch it themselves).

We even know that 40% of people would be more willing to date someone if they had a cat, whereas only 11% would if they owned a miniature pig.

And we also know that opinions and beliefs change over time. Attitudes towards the treatment of animals, for instance. When Donald Soper talked here about the abomination of cruelty to animals, he was somewhat ahead of his time. Now it’s mainstream, both out of respect for God’s creation and as a reflection of our own humanity.

What is the right thing for a Christian to do when the values of the society around them do not match the values they hold dear, or values which they have been brought up to have?

This poses one set of challenges in an environment which is oppressive or repressive or corrupt, which celebrated cruelty or persecutes minorities. I don’t think anyone here would feel uncomfortable in stating that the role of the Christian would be to stand up for love, forgiveness and freedom. In some ways it’s become the default mindset of Christians to campaign for more justice, more peace.

But it’s a fascinatingly different set of challenges where the world around us (or at least parts of it ) aspires to be more open, more liberal and more generous than those who profess to love Jesus. Younger people are ever more socially liberal in their beliefs, and at the same time are more disciplined than the generations before them - drinking less, certainly taking fewer drugs, working harder. They are open-minded, tolerant, understanding, they celebrate kindness.

What is the response of the Christian when the values of the society around him or her shift? There are I suppose two choices: one is to recognise that the church has some catching up to do. The other is to hold the line, to dig in. This may feel like a contemporary dilemma but it’s really not.

Just look at the today’s Gospel, the second half of which makes uncomfortable reading. Jesus, discussing the duty of “worthless slaves”. *We* can see it as simply a contemporary reference he was making, but this and other NT passages were used by slave owners here and elsewhere to justify keeping people enslaved. As far back as Wesley himself, the flaws in this position were highlighted by the evidence of people’s own eyes: Wesley detailed the violence with which slaves were treated in the West Indies and US, and implicitly highlighted this disconnect between the position a Christian should hold and a secular viewpoint - slavery was not defensible “on even the principles of heathen honesty”.

So the context in which the author of today’s epistle, the Second letter to Timothy - let’s call him Paul - writes is somewhat revelant.

“Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord…. I am not ashamed for I know the one in whom I have put my trust…”

The word “ashamed” is rather a tough one to get hold of. In Paul’s context it perhaps makes more sense. He had been become notorious, jailed because of his faith, and he’d refused to be quiet about it even though that would have given him an easier life. That *inconvenience of faith* was not going to make him comply - he was not going to be ashamed to associate with people beyond the reach of polite society.

For us, though, being ashamed of being a Christian is not quite the same thing. It’s perfectly conceivable to think of things that could make you ashamed of being a member of a church - when fellow Christians behave in ways that feel as if they detract from our own beliefs, then, yes, I am sometimes ashamed. Often when you see the news you are, sadly.

Alternatively the idea of being embarrassed by our faith is all too familiar. We feel uncomfortable with public displays of religious affection - we are as a society much happier if people “DON’T DO GOD” in public but keep their beliefs to themselves. Hiding their beliefs is something which Christians have become very good at doing in today’s society - not giving up on them, but just keeping them so tightly personal that even people who know us pretty well would have no idea of our beliefs. Perhaps it’s just not cool, it’s a bit unworldly, maybe it makes us look unsophisticated or naive. And if the subject of beliefs ever comes up, it’s easier to identify as a Methodist or a Catholic or a member of a St Mary’s rather than to say the word Christian.

But it’s neither being ashamed of *other* Christians nor being *embarrassed* about our own beliefs that I think Paul is talking about here. It’s about trusting Christ both in the religious sphere and in the secular, it’s about NOT feeling that one set of values is relevant to one context and a different set to another. And could it be perhaps that if we do feel ashamed of our Christian beliefs in the light of what we know about the world, maybe we should be examining our faith, discerning what it is that God wants of us.

In the Times yesterday the president of conference, Barbara Glasson, wrote an article touching on exactly this challenge, in the context of the Methodist church’s long process of rethinking its position on human sexuality. “By definition,” she writes, “we believe things because we think they are right.”

What we think is right though cannot help but be influenced by the standards of the people we live among.

We have Dr Glasson in one ear. There is CS Lewis in the other. “A man who first tried to guess “what the public wants,” and then preached that as Christianity *because* the public wants it, would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave,” he wrote.

There is Paul too. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, he says, *with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.*

Jesus may be the same yesterday, today and forever, as it says in Hebrews, but the way we must interpret our calling to follow him changes as often as the world changes around us.

And the world has indeed changed in some dramatic ways.

Ironically the biggest change our own country is going through is the result of an unusually direct form of asking the people what they want.

There was however, just a slight problem with the plan: the people (if you adopt the construct of the people being like an individual) didn’t really know what it wanted. It was, and still is, in two minds, two distinct mutually exclusive positions with hardly any middle ground between them.

And the more these two minds think about the issues, the more they are convinced they were right in the first place - none of it is good for the nation’s mental health. It’s set London against the north, Scotland against England, young against old, Tory against Tory and Labour against Labour. Having the power to make decisions for ourselves as a country is one of the many privileges we enjoy in this age, but this quagmire we’re in has got to count as as an example of when it can go wrong.

It really is the most spectacular humbling for a country which, even after redefining its role after the end of Empire, saw itself as being sensible stolid and phlegmatic. Some people think that once the issue is sorted, one way or the other, that we will just put it behind us and revert to the

way things were. That may be right, but it feels a bit optimistic to me. How long did the divisions caused by the miner’s strike last? 10, 20, 30 years? Are they fully healed yet?

The next two weeks will be full of activity. Parliament will be prorogued this week. The Queen’s Speech next week. Negotiations will go on with the European Commission. The European Council meets next week. There’s going to be a big demonstration a week on Saturday, and the PM has to write requesting an extension, though perhaps is plotting with an autocratic Hungarian prime minister to veto our own request.

The Supreme Court is on standby. It’s going to be a rocky time and to make matters worse there’s really no end in sight. What a situation. It almost feels as if the lament for the deserted city we heard in the reading from Lamentations - Jeremiah (let’s call him) mourning the downfall of Jerusalem - might be speaking to us.

How lonely sits the city that was once full of people, how like a widow she has become she that was great among the nations.

The point of lamenting is to bring a sadness before God. Not necessarily to ask for, or expect, answers, but simply to express the grief and stress and even anger to God. The angst our country is going through is real and deeply felt and seems intractable. We should bring that before God.

And how, once that is done, and once we have a decision one way or the other, will we move ahead in the future. How will we once again become a nation that talks about the NHS or the weather or EastEnders, where people in the Question Time audience don’t rage at each other with real anger?

Increase our faith, said the apostles. If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, said Jesus, you could tell this mulberry bush to be uprooted and planted in the sea. It will take faith - and it will take people of faith - to find opportunities to heal divisions, to find a way through (just like was found in Northern Ireland) which doesn’t make either side feel as if it has won or lost.

What’s going to happen? Neither Google nor the wisdom of the crowds has any idea of what the answer to that question is. For our part, perhaps the best thing we can do is to ask the Lord to increase our faith too.