Choral Matins yesterday at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. Members of the Corps of Royal Engineers were present ensuring a full house.
In what can be a formulaic service recited from childhood there was much to ponder. On Saturday that servant of Mammon, FTWeekend, had this front page headline: “Torrid week puts bull run in peril – sell-off threatens long winning streak”. Yesterday morning Lt Col Nicky Mott read the Lesson: Mark 10, verses 17 – 31, part of which is familiar:
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
However, I had forgotten the McGuffin, namely that a stranger came running and kneeling before Christ asked Him what he must do to inherit eternal life. He was abjured to keep the commandments and he replied he jolly well had, since he was a boy. “Then Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.”
I think we may take lots of the Old Testament with a pinch of artery-clogging salt but Christians should surely take on board what is as near as we have to Christ’s own words in the Gospels? My interpretation is that one should be philanthropic. A more rigorous interpretation is that I should liquidate my portfolio, give the proceeds to the poor, and preach the word of the Lord in a string-vest on Oxford Street.
When the Church of England serves up troubling guidance from the Scriptures it sugars it with some splendid music. The Introit was Psalm 90, verses 13 and 14, Turn Thee Again, set to music by Arthur Sullivan. The Anthem was Hear My Prayer, another Psalm, music by Felix Mendelssohn. To finish off we stood to attention for the National Anthem and Wings, the quick march of the Royal Engineers. Then we sat down for an organ Voluntary, again by Mendelssohn, to contemplate the complexities and nuances of being Christian. Perhaps eternal life is not that desirable?
It is difficult to reason with the authors final question on desiring eternal life. For a Christian the greatest gift is eternal life, that is the ultimate point of following Christ, as Jesus claimed ‘I came that they may have life’. Those of us who have studied the scriptures, and take God at his word know that everyone will spend eternity somewhere, and the alternative to an eternity in God’s presence doesn’t sound that appealing.
The author is correct in recognising the complexities of Christian discipleship, but the passage in the Mark should not be accepted in such simple philanthropic terms. Christ does not claim that the materially wealthy cannot inherit eternal life, he states that wealth can hold us back and get in the way. The road to eternal life is not paved with munificent gold, but requires us all to become less self centred and walk the path of faith and service. None will ever be able to boast that they have earned or deserved the gift of eternal life because of their charitable deeds; salvation is God’s gift, not ours to demand.
Eternal life for the believer is the glorious, endless experience of the inheritance we share with Jesus Christ. There is surely nothing more desirable than that.
In our village church we did not have the pleasure of a choral matins, but we of course did have the uncomfortable Mark gospel about the young man. I contented myself smugly that there are many, many far richer than I to take the rap, but our ex-schoolmaster preacher swept away such comforting thoughts by pointing out that all of us in our church had amenities such as water, food and electricity, so all of us were rich – unlike those who have so, so much less than us. However there was a leavening at the end of the sermon with the story of a rich man who pleaded for dispensation to take a suitcase, for his most precious things, with him to heaven. On reaching the pearly gates St. Peter ascertained permission had been granted then opened the case and asked with some puzzlement, ‘Why was it so important to bring paving stones ?’
I don’t get it. Did he bring the Ten Commandments?