George Pitcher

This is a transcript of a sermon delivered by The Rev'd George Pitcher at St Bride's, Fleet Street, on Palm Sunday, March 16th, 2008

I'm honoured - though a little intimidated - to conclude this Lent series today, following such a distinguished line-up of theologians. A list, I might add, that is distinguished not just because it was put together by our rector, but because it included him.

David has kindly, but dauntingly, given me what I consider to be pole position - not just because it's the last Sunday of Lent and, therefore, offers me the Last Word, as it were - with all the dangers of temptation that that involves - but also, of course, it's pole position because this is Palm Sunday, the start of a week that commemorates - incomparably - the greatest climax in human history.

When David asked me for my title - and therefore for the answer - to the question "Where do we find authority in today's church?" I very deliberately went for the simplest and the pithiest of answers - "In Christ."

Forgive me if that seems simplistic or unnecessarily obvious. It is hardly going to contradict anything that has gone before in this series - and it may seem unduly general, unhelpful in that it's a truism, offering no practical solutions to the challenges faced by our 21st-century church.

But I offer these two words - in Christ - the most obvious statement of faith, because, as Jesus of Nazareth enters the gates of Roman-held Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed colt, everything else now begins to be stripped away. Over the coming few days, like the disciples who followed him through the gates of Jerusalem, we are going to lose everything to this man - not just our worldly cares, but also our hopes, our faith and our love - as this week leads relentlessly to Calvary.

And, after that, nothing left but the Christ. We know, thank God, what the disciples who followed him into Jerusalem that day could not know, the great paradox of that phrase: Nothing left but the Christ. We know that on the third day after it was finished, after it was all over, that nothing was left but the Christ and that that meant that nothing was left but everything. The resurrected Christ, the Word, the eternal and living truth. The only authority we need.

So we're at the start of a week that sees the decline and fall of Jesus of Nazareth in the Roman Empire and the risen Christ in his place. History replaced by eternity.

We often talk, without making this distinction between history and eternity, of "Jesus Christ", as though Christ is his surname (which would, whimsically, make Jesus his Christian name). As though Mr and Mrs Christ had a son called Jesus. But let us make this distinction - Jesus of Nazareth rides through the gates of Jerusalem this Palm Sunday, on a mission that, within a short week, will reveal the Christ. Quite a climax.

Two weeks ago, I was privileged to attend the premiere of BBC Television's The Passion. The first episode is tonight - and I do commend it to you. I am so struck by it that I'm glad to say that we'll be showing episodes 2 and 3 - dealing with the climactic events from the last supper to the crucifixion - here on Good Friday as part of our Devotions at the Foot of the Cross (and I hope as many of you who can will join us for that, so that we might reflect on it together in the context of our Good Friday music and prayer).

Now, one of the many things that struck me about this production was the way that the writer, Frank Deasy, made the point that Jesus was a relatively unknown, Aramaic-speaking preacher from Galilee when he entered Jerusalem - like someone coming from the northern provinces to London - and, within the week, in Frank Deasy's words, was transformed into " a pivotal figure in western civilisation".

And how does the man, who this week is transformed from preacher to Christ, set about achieving this? Well, he arrives by mule, causes a minor disturbance outside the Temple, washes the feet of some of his followers, has supper with his friends, has brief and unaggressive conversations with the Jewish and Roman authorities (though largely remains silent) and gets himself tortured and crucified for reasons of simple political expedience, his disciples having abandoned him.

Not an impressive week of leadership. And this is the man, I suggest, who this week reveals the Christ, who is the single and absolute authority for our faith. And I say that for this reason: The human who transforms into the triumph of the Christ this week has relatively simple things to tell us. And as well as listening to those listen to what he does not say. Listen in the silences of Gethsemane and in the Christ's silences before the competing worldly authorities of the high priest Caiaphas and Pilate.

Listen to these injunctions, so shocking that the authorities of that time had to do away with him: There are no other laws but these: Love God as much as you can and love your neighbour as yourself. This commandment I leave you: Love each other as I have loved you. Father, forgive. And then, when it was all done: Peter, do you love me? Feed my lambs...

Try as some of us might, we do not hear the voice of the Christ tell us to form committees to decide who and who cannot take the bread and wine at his table. We do not hear, in the silence, rules about who is allowed in our church, but rather "Not my will be done, but yours". We do not hear that only Christian children should be allowed to go to our schools. We do not hear that people are to be shut out because of their religion, sexuality or gender. Thy will be done, indeed.

So our authority in Christ has as much to do with listening to what he doesn't tell us - listening to the silences - as to do with what he does. Believe me, this is not a licence for a privatised faith, an individualism that does away with our church - but it is to say that our church is not an authority in itself, but a household of faith whose members have one authority and that authority is in this Christ. It is a principle, after all, that our forebears established in fighting for a reformation - rejecting church authority in favour of a church itself that is justified by its members' faith in Christ alone.

It's that sole authority that we acknowledge this week, as we listen in the silences in which God does not condemn and bear witness again to the miracle by which an artisan preacher from Galilee came to Jerusalem with a rag-bag of followers, whose hopes were dashed in brutal and abject failure, but whose witness of the Christ changed the course of human history forever. Amen