It is considered ill-mannered to discuss religion or politics in polite company.
Yet this morning I chose to do both.
In part this is because in the Labour Party leadership race there’s one candidate whose rise in popularity is so interesting, and because there are parallels to the gospel reading for today (John 6.56-69) that really can’t be ignored.
I would like to point out that I’m not a member of the Labour Party and it doesn’t matter to me who becomes their next leader. At the same time there’s something unusual happening that’s causing a stir. Jeremy Corbyn is a hard-left politician, which means he’s anti-war, pro-welfare state, and very different to the present Conservative Government and a lot of his fellow Labour MPs. But front runner he is, and he’s making a lot of Labour MPs very uncomfortable. With some already saying that if he wins and becomes leader they will have to leave the Labour Party. So, what is it that makes him so unpopular? I’m sure you can see the parallels. Here we have Jesus, who the established church are trying to kill, who the public flock to hear, and whose followers are about to bail on him. “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?”” Now, to be clear, these disciples are not struggling to understand what Jesus is saying, but they are struggling to get to grips with what that actually means for them. They’ve heard him say that they only get eternal life if they eat his flesh and drink his blood, and they don’t like it. That, I believe, is one of the greatest signs of a mature faith: the ability to follow even when we don’t like the message. We can be confident in Jesus, we can have faith in him even if we don’t like what he’s saying, because we know he’s God, we know that he is ultimately for us, and unlike Jeremy Corbyn, he has a plan that will work out and will win more than just an election.
As such, his popularity has taken everyone by surprise, and the Labour Party, who recently said that they wouldn’t oppose the Conservatives because that’s who the people voted for, are now uniting to oppose the popular choice for new leader.
Why are they so dead set against him, to the point where they will bring out Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and even Neil Kinnock to warn of impending doom? And if he is so awful a prospect why did anyone nominate him in the first place?
Apparently, he was nominated purely so that there would be a range of candidates for the post (the other three: Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper are all quite similar in their political view), this would allow for a wider discussion about the big picture. But no-one expected him to be the front runner in the election.
This has prompted Ken Livingston (another left-winger) to ask what they were doing in the Labour Party in the first place.
We’ve been told a few things: Jeremy Corbyn is a long-time rebel, who will struggle to unite the party; he’s associated with terrorists and holocaust deniers; he’s so left wing that he will drag the party to the left, no-one will vote Labour at the next election leaving the Conservatives to run rampant for the next decade.
I suspect that the real reason is simply that people do not like his personal politics — greater spending on the NHS, the police and the schools; a reduced defence budget; and taxation of the rich at above 40%.
These are not the policies of Tony Blair’s Labour Government, but they seem to be making Jeremy Corbyn very popular with ordinary people.
People are leaving the Green Party and UKIP to attend his rallies and hear him speak; there are more members of the Labour Party since before Neil Kinnock; and young people are getting excited about politics for the first time since… well, forever really.
The establishment hate him, ordinary people flock to hear him, and even his own followers are starting to desert him.
And why are they bailing? They don’t like what he’s saying.
Even Jesus’s closest followers — the twelve — aren’t comfortable. After many other disciples desert him, Jesus asks them if they too want to leave, and what does Peter say?
Well he doesn’t say: We don’t want to leave, we are totally okay with your message. No, he actually says “To whom can we go?”
Basically, Peter is saying: Even if we wanted to leave, even if we don’t like what you’re saying, we know that you’re the Messiah and there’s no-one else that is worth following. We can’t go back to our old life after meeting you.
They know he’s the Messiah, and they will keep following him, even if they don’t like what he’s saying.
Consider, as an example, suffering in the world: there are some who will say, I can’t believe in a God who allows suffering. They think that he’s either not powerful enough to stop it, or else not loving enough to care.
For them, this is a deal-breaker.
Now I agree that it’s unfair that some people in this world should go hungry while others are throwing food away; that there are people who will die today of curable diseases; that there are children who aren’t safe in their own homes.
The difference is that it’s not a deal-breaker for me. I know that there is a God, and I believe he shares our pain and weeps when we weep.
I believe he loves us enough to make it so that death is not the end and that while we may suffer now, we will spend an eternity in peace.
Yet this morning I chose to do both.
In part this is because in the Labour Party leadership race there’s one candidate whose rise in popularity is so interesting, and because there are parallels to the gospel reading for today (John 6.56-69) that really can’t be ignored.
I would like to point out that I’m not a member of the Labour Party and it doesn’t matter to me who becomes their next leader. At the same time there’s something unusual happening that’s causing a stir. Jeremy Corbyn is a hard-left politician, which means he’s anti-war, pro-welfare state, and very different to the present Conservative Government and a lot of his fellow Labour MPs. But front runner he is, and he’s making a lot of Labour MPs very uncomfortable. With some already saying that if he wins and becomes leader they will have to leave the Labour Party. So, what is it that makes him so unpopular? I’m sure you can see the parallels. Here we have Jesus, who the established church are trying to kill, who the public flock to hear, and whose followers are about to bail on him. “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?”” Now, to be clear, these disciples are not struggling to understand what Jesus is saying, but they are struggling to get to grips with what that actually means for them. They’ve heard him say that they only get eternal life if they eat his flesh and drink his blood, and they don’t like it. That, I believe, is one of the greatest signs of a mature faith: the ability to follow even when we don’t like the message. We can be confident in Jesus, we can have faith in him even if we don’t like what he’s saying, because we know he’s God, we know that he is ultimately for us, and unlike Jeremy Corbyn, he has a plan that will work out and will win more than just an election.
As such, his popularity has taken everyone by surprise, and the Labour Party, who recently said that they wouldn’t oppose the Conservatives because that’s who the people voted for, are now uniting to oppose the popular choice for new leader.
Why are they so dead set against him, to the point where they will bring out Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and even Neil Kinnock to warn of impending doom? And if he is so awful a prospect why did anyone nominate him in the first place?
Apparently, he was nominated purely so that there would be a range of candidates for the post (the other three: Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper are all quite similar in their political view), this would allow for a wider discussion about the big picture. But no-one expected him to be the front runner in the election.
This has prompted Ken Livingston (another left-winger) to ask what they were doing in the Labour Party in the first place.
We’ve been told a few things: Jeremy Corbyn is a long-time rebel, who will struggle to unite the party; he’s associated with terrorists and holocaust deniers; he’s so left wing that he will drag the party to the left, no-one will vote Labour at the next election leaving the Conservatives to run rampant for the next decade.
I suspect that the real reason is simply that people do not like his personal politics — greater spending on the NHS, the police and the schools; a reduced defence budget; and taxation of the rich at above 40%.
These are not the policies of Tony Blair’s Labour Government, but they seem to be making Jeremy Corbyn very popular with ordinary people.
People are leaving the Green Party and UKIP to attend his rallies and hear him speak; there are more members of the Labour Party since before Neil Kinnock; and young people are getting excited about politics for the first time since… well, forever really.
The establishment hate him, ordinary people flock to hear him, and even his own followers are starting to desert him.
And why are they bailing? They don’t like what he’s saying.
Even Jesus’s closest followers — the twelve — aren’t comfortable. After many other disciples desert him, Jesus asks them if they too want to leave, and what does Peter say?
Well he doesn’t say: We don’t want to leave, we are totally okay with your message. No, he actually says “To whom can we go?”
Basically, Peter is saying: Even if we wanted to leave, even if we don’t like what you’re saying, we know that you’re the Messiah and there’s no-one else that is worth following. We can’t go back to our old life after meeting you.
They know he’s the Messiah, and they will keep following him, even if they don’t like what he’s saying.
Consider, as an example, suffering in the world: there are some who will say, I can’t believe in a God who allows suffering. They think that he’s either not powerful enough to stop it, or else not loving enough to care.
For them, this is a deal-breaker.
Now I agree that it’s unfair that some people in this world should go hungry while others are throwing food away; that there are people who will die today of curable diseases; that there are children who aren’t safe in their own homes.
The difference is that it’s not a deal-breaker for me. I know that there is a God, and I believe he shares our pain and weeps when we weep.
I believe he loves us enough to make it so that death is not the end and that while we may suffer now, we will spend an eternity in peace.
