We’ve been worshipping in our current church for nearly 2½ years now, and I must have lost count of the number of times I’ve been aware of the elephant in the nave. The huge Thing that may not be named, that has almost never been named, that (presumably, for some reason) no one dares to name.
The elephant is called Brexit.
Surely it would have been possible to mention it at least in the intercessions, when we pray for this country. You wouldn’t have to take sides and pray for a swift and brutal no-deal Brexit, or for no Brexit at all; surely you could pray for ‘a successful outcome to the Brexit negotiations, that would ensure the best and most prosperous outcome for all people in this country, and for Europe’. And people could entwine that neutral form of words with whatever meaning they wanted to attach to it. But no, it has barely had a mention of any kind.
This morning our curate, greatly daring, preached on The Politics of Jesus, from Luke 4.14-21.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
“I’m not talking about party politics,” he says, “I’m not telling you who to vote for.”
And he goes on, “No one gets left out, or left behind, in Jesus’ kind of politics.”
Disingenuous, I call it. If that’s not telling us at least who not to vote for, I don’t know what would be.
Godspelled 