repeat after me.....

There have been all sorts of rumblings about the Archbishop of Canterbury’ lack of response to the riots. In his blog, the Bishop of Bradford, Nick Baines, points out that Rowan has said it all before….and he has (link).

This has been nagging at me, because there is a lot to be said for repetition. All preachers know (or will learn soon enough) that preaching is in some ways a repetative art – if you look at the messages you give and the words you say – it does seem like a lot of repetition. But there is a Logos aspect to preaching. The Logos in the Bible is the Living Word of God. This is why it makes sense that when we read the same passages over the years they mean different things to us – God interacts with us through the words and their proclamation.

I do not, for one moment, want to say that our sermons are suddenly that same as Holy Scripture, but we all know that there is a sort of triangle of interaction between God, people and preacher – we ask God to inspire our words, to set hearts on fire and this is what I mean by the Logos element – God graciously reveals Godself through our words.

In the aftermath of violence and tragedy there is nothing to say that has not been said before – but does that mean that we should say nothing. I had the experience recently of doing two funerals within a couple of weeks for people who had lived at the same Care Home. The families in both cases did the eulogy and all that was left to me was to put things into a properly Christian context. I found myself acutely aware at the second funeral that the Care Home workers had heard this before – not because I have a set script for funerals but because the truth of hope in eternal life is what it is….nothing will seperate us from the love of Christ.

Rowan Williams may have a good reason for not speaking but I hope that that reason is not fear of repetition. People want to hear something and they are listening very differently than a few days ago. The role of the prophet, is to speak for God – and by implication to shut-up when God has nothing to say. But God repeats Godself day in and day out with simple messages of love, love, love.