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The Law of Progressive Polarization

32nd Sunday : 10 November 2013  : 2 Maccabees 7: 1-2, 9-14 , Luke 20: 27-38

Christmas Midnight Mass and the Easter Vigil are the two most powerful liturgical proclamations of the message of peace at the heart of the Christian religion. There is an atmosphere of joy and tranquillity about these Services that radiates out what we are on about as Christians. Yet why is it that some of my memories of these Services are of anything but peaceful events?

Midnight Mass at St John’s Rangiora in the late 1960’s acted like a magnet for local hoons who let off firecrackers in the outer porch, and raced Ford Zephyr Mark 2’s up and down the parking areas in close proximity to the Church. At St Mary’s Addington one year I had to strip off my vestments and eject a manipulative drunk who I could see hassling one of the women parishioners at the back of the Church.

As for the Easter Vigil – it used to be my custom at St Peter’s Willis St to celebrate it at midnight, starting in the Church car park within close proximity to one of Wellington’s main thoroughfares. What an adventurous liturgy that could be! One year a drunken student broke right into the inner circle clustered around the Easter fire screaming blasphemous abuse in our faces. I think it was that same year that a young woman spontaneously decided to follow us into the Church for the Vigil readings, and accidentally set fire to her long hair with the candle issued to each worshipper to illuminate their Service sheet in the darkened Church. A pungent smell of burnt protein filled the building.

There are practical reasons why some prominently located churches can invite public disorder incidents, but I think there is more to it than that.

There are parallels with the heroic phase of Anglo Catholicism when the slum pastors of 19th century English industrial cities began to exercise ministries of spiritual vitality amongst the unchurched urban poor. Not a few of their churches had their Sunday Services disrupted by gin soaked urban mobs who were trying to put a stop to liturgical practices that are pretty much the norm here at St Peter’s, Caversham. At one level these were flash point incidents between contending holiness movements trying to define what Anglicanism stood for. Yet I think there was more to it than that.

Churches are always keen to grow in numbers, in spiritual vitality, to develop effective ministries into their surrounding communities, and to become an influence for good in their culture and society. While they may take account of the energy, and the drive, and the ideas, and the resources to bring this about, there is a follow on consequence that they often fail to reckon with. Trouble often comes in the wake of churches that have become spiritually alive, who take their stand on the power of the gospel, and who mean business in spreading abroad the good news of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world we live in has turned away from God, and it doesn’t care to be called back to its creator. The spiritual forces of evil that lurk behind the structures of greed and foolishness in human communities are always prepared to kick back against any community of faith that looks as though it might upset the shabby status quo that suits them. In effect spiritually alive churches have gone looking for trouble, whether they know it or not.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar calls this the law of proportionate or progressive polarization. He points to the fact that when Christianity has been at its most potent and vital it has often been challenged by the rise of religions that deny the sovereignty of Christ, or by the development of philosophical systems that put human rationality and autonomy in the driving seat instead of God. The law of proportionate polarization has an almost inexorable logic to it – the more spiritually switched on you are, and aligned with the mind of Christ, the more there will be a counter prevailing reaction to your newly one spiritual effectiveness, stemming from the hornets nest of surrounding spiritual nullity. It is a reality that works out at the macro, the micro, and the intermediate level. It applies to individual Christians, to local churches, and to worldwide churches and to Christian civilizations.

Jesus, in dispute this morning with the Sadducees, is very close to his own tragic death. The closer he comes to the cross the more the theological and spiritual stakes are raised – in this case the argument is about the most important subject of all, the resurrection of the dead. And the seven brothers suffering excruciating agonies at the hands of the Greek torturers and executioners are taking their stand, relying in their extremity, on the power of God who is so brimming over with life that you only have to brush up against him to receive something of this life.

Both these scenes remind us that suffering is an inescapable part of our Christian walk and witness. And they show why we should rejoice in our sufferings, and jump for joy that God has brought us to this place of spiritual contestation. For what lay on the other side of the seven brothers martyrdom was the Maccabees booting the Seleucids and the Ptolemy’s out of the holy land to establish an independent Jewish nation. And what lay on the other side of Jesus’ dispute with the Sadducees was that final contest with those deadly oppositional creatures the religious people of his own day, who fatally overreached themselves to release into the world that resurrection power that would ensure that nothing would ever be the same again. And that is the point about evil’s trouble making escalation against spiritually potent Christian communities and individuals that are on the move in their midst. It always unmasks itself for what it is, thereby paving the way for its own downfall.

When Oscar Romero became Archbishop of El Salvador, he was a conservative churchman who believed in keeping his head down, and in preserving the social and cultural status of the Church. But prolonged pastoral contact with a society dominated by death squads, warlords, and unchecked militias led him to become a different kind of Christian. Shortly before a death quad shot him dead in his own Cathedral while preaching at Mass he wrote, "A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, What gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone; that’s the way many would like preaching to be. Those people who avoid any thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in." His death was the beginning of the end for the warlords and the death squads, for the immense media interest generated by this event, and the resulting international hue and cry made it difficult for America to go on bankrolling and logistically supplying such a barbarous state.

As we work to build up Christ’s church in this place, it is helpful to make a mental note at the back of our minds that if we do a good job and get good results we may need to be prepared for the law of proportionate and progressive polarization to come into effect. And if that happens let’s not panic, or get upset – for it will be a sign that we are spiritually effective. And let us remember that on the other side of these spiritual showdowns there usually comes a spectacular pratfall for the forces of evil.