Home Mission Sunday: we've forgotten that our lives our our most powerful witness

It was 5 years ago this weekend that the Pope made his visit to Britain and was jubilantly received by British Catholics. Today, it’s Home Mission Sunday – a day to remember the evangelising mission at home in England and Wales. It is my sincere belief that our country is one of the battlegrounds for faith and secularisation, even more than France and other countries you might think of. It’s Britain that is one of the most challenging arenas for the Christian mission.


Pope Benedict, in his visit, tackled it head-on. He argued powerfully against the idea that has continued to gain ground in British political and social life, that religion should be confined to the realm of private thought and should not play a part in public life. I believe that this is why Britain is at the forefront of secularisation, even if it isn’t by any means a secular country or society, because here more than anywhere the role of religion in public life is being contested and debated. His aim was to encourage those of us who do have faith, to speak with conviction and confidence about it, to witness and speak out against attempts to marginalise our beliefs in public life. That message is very understandable, but I believe phrasing it in that way missed both the point, and a real opportunity for all Christians and not just the Catholics who have only in recent years emerged in to the mainstream and shaken off their image as being foreign and in possession of Unbritish loyalties.
I believe the point was missed in the arguments made in the visit, because they never really tried to examine and engage with what lies at the heart of the secular critique of Christianity today, but simply encouraged us to fight it by playing its own game and tackling it on its own terms – and fight it we do. They did not equip the faithful with the tools to do it effectively, because I believe we need to change the framework of debate if there is ever to be a balanced, measured look at Christianity and its importance to society today. It was not explained that our critics have powerfully and persuasively reduced our faith to a collection of extreme ideas and teachings which, when emphasised and ridiculed to a populace who largely disagrees, allows our religion to be dismissed as backwards and even bigoted. I simply groan with dismay every time any discussion is given to the role of faith today, knowing that what should be a rich, multi-facetted discussion will invariably end up being a debate about gays and condoms. We are not able to explain, let alone defend our faith and its compatibility with being a decent, civilised human being, until we understand that what we need to show people is that faith is not a set of ideas, but is about relationships – a relationship with God and each other. We must invite people to see that a faith that teaches love of one’s neighbour, support to the poor and that encourages us not to lie, steal, commit adultery or kill isn’t all that bad really. Ultimately, our faith provides a sobering reminder to us that, whatever our worldly greatness or insignificance, no human being is made truly worthy by their own efforts but can only be so by the help of God. In that profound sense, we are all equal. In that realisation, we find every reason to behave with humility and see clearly the foolishness of arrogance. We also understand that whatever greatness we do have, whether it be our talents, our wealth or our power, we are given them as a grace from God and encouraged to use them in the service of others, rather than for our own ends.

Home Mission Sunday this year, however, reflects what I believe is a vital change of emphasis from Pope Francis. Thoroughly schooled in the Latin American Catholicism that has been so heavily centred on advocacy for the poor and opposition to political injustice, the pope has clearly understood that evangelisation requires bringing the gospels’ message of hope to others as the first duty of anyone seeking to live a life lived in Christ, and that it is through practical demonstration that we bring people to realisation of God’s love for them. As the nun Mother Angelica, foundress of Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) once proclaimed: “The essence of evangelisation is to tell others ‘Jesus loves you.’”
But the loudest and most effective preaching is rarely delivered through fine words. Our lord made it plain to us that we cannot show him love unless we show love to others, and that profession of faith without living one’s life in faith is, to use the biblical analogy, building a house on foundations of sand. That is why the bishops of England and Wales have, in their pastoral letter today, taken to heart the new emphasis of Francis as demonstrated in Evangelii Gaudium, on evangelisation, encouraging us to create “missionary parishes.” Gone is the imploring of us to take up the divisive and increasingly aggressive intellectual debate against what Pope Benedict often termed “the dictatorship of relativism,” and here instead, is an encouragement for every parish to explore practically how it can spread God’s mercy and the news of his saving love to others. They write this: “Pope Francis shows us that the true heart of faith is hugely attractive. He shows us how to let our faith be seen. He does this by making clear the great mercy of God, the mercy that he has received and that he shows to all.
The mercy of God is God's love in action, reaching out to every person, to each one of us in our weakness. Mercy is God's tender embrace in lifting us up and inviting us to start again.” Continuing, they invite us to consider “programmes of action towards those most in need; a loving care for those who have been hurt by life and hurt within the Church, for whom any return to the practice of their faith is particularly difficult.” They go on to speak of “friendship.”

I want Christians of all denominations to remember this message, and to remember that our churches are communities; they plug us in to structures that should be characterised by welcome, respect and openness. As religious we do not, of course, have any monopoly on kindness and charity: indeed I’m often humbled and far more impressed by the goodness of people without faith at all. We do, however, have a joy and peace which the world cannot give, for in the simple choices we make about how we live our lives, we help build up God’s kingdom. A life lived in service to others even if to the point of sacrificing our own good, is a life lived as a witness to a message that has brought hope to billions of people throughout the ages and where, in many parts of the world, it is about the only thing that can bring any hope, or any relief at all from the burdens of grinding poverty, the daily fear of violence, and even in our own society, from the despair of loneliness and feeling like one doesn’t belong to anything. It is therefore our joy and privilege to live this way. So, on mission Sunday, we need to look at our own lives and ask the simple questions: do I put others first? Do I try to show the deep and profound joy that I have even in times of difficulty? What do my choices bring for those who come in to contact with me: an encounter with harsh indifference, or an experience, however slight, of God’s love? And, finally, how does my life enrich the communities in to which I enter, whether at work, in my local area, or whatever?
Home Mission Sunday this year, particularly when it comes so close to a pastoral synod focussing on family life today, should be the moment where Christians choose to re-focus. How we bring God’s message to the world might just be the difference between people opening their hearts to God’s transforming presence in their lives, or turning away. Yes, we have some difficult teachings, which many of us struggle with and sometimes feel distinctly uneasy about, but to lock ourselves in to inward-looking debates about them without trying to explain the full picture has damaged Christianity enormously, and continues to do so. We’ve chosen insular arguments over remembering that our lives are the most powerful witness. Instead, if we show ourselves to be people of decency and integrity to all we encounter, whoever they are, we might just show them that squabbles about gays and condoms are not worth a rejection of God’s love, or walking away from the warm welcome that a community of equals offers them.