BBC Radio 4 2016-01-10

BBC Radio 4 2016-01-10

Good morning. I wonder if there’s somebody you love very much but disagree with profoundly on something that’s deeply important to both of you. That’s the situation the 38 leaders of the global Anglican Communion are in as they begin their week-long meeting in Canterbury this morning.

Some sincerely believe that the church’s historic attitude to Lesbian and Gay people reflects a mixture of ignorance and prejudice, and it’s long overdue time to repent and welcome the blessing God is giving the church in such people. Others sincerely believe the Bible commands that sexual relations can only ever be between a man and a woman in a lifelong marriage, and see any change as the thin end of a disastrous wedge. Introduce a dose of postcolonial angst and culture-war antagonism and you have quite a cocktail.

Jesus’ most famous story is of a prodigal son who squanders his inheritance in a far country, and eventually returns, to be greeted with love by his forgiving father. (Interestingly the prodigal doesn’t return because he’s repentant. He returns because he realises he’d be better off as a hired servant in his father’s house than as a pig herder in the far country.) The story also tells of an older brother who bitterly laments his father’s leniency toward his errant sibling. Right now we have a lot of people on both poles of the debate about love and sexuality calling on the other side to repent.

It’s as if the antagonists are competing to cast their opponents as the prodigal son – headstrong and foolish, a disgrace to the family. But wait: casting your opponent as the prodigal son makes you the elder brother. And it’s the elder brother that comes out worst in the story. The elder brother exaggerates his brother’s misdeeds and misconstrues his father’s generosity as favouritism. The father’s response is to say to the elder brother, ‘It takes both brothers to make a family. There’s a party going on anyway; your choice is whether you want to come.’

All of us get into fights with those we love. All of us, at some stage, play all three roles – of broken-hearted parent, headstrong prodigal, or self-righteous elder sibling. When we play the game so as always to be the righteous elder brother, we end up finding ourselves out in the field, with no friends, no love, and a long way from the party. Our opponents invariably regard us as the self-centred, reckless prodigal. Perhaps what Christians see on the cross is the agony of Jesus stretching his arms wide to embrace both brothers.

Jesus’ question to each brother is the same: ‘Do you want to come to the party?’ The trouble is, there’s one condition: ‘You know who else will be there, don’t you?’