Advertisers and politicians – for whom I have to say, I have due respect – sometimes find themselves offering jam tomorrow. It is an occupational hazard. To talk of future benefits is easier than to solve present problems.
It is not only those people who work in the engine-room of the economy that fall into this trap. Church strategists do so as well. Aspirations about rejuvenating the Church, worship-songs suggesting overcoming enemies, changing society by changing individuals: all have their place in church speak today. Those in positions of leadership are obliged to Think Big. That too readily becomes Think Glib. Knotty problems about national expenditure priorities, children’s education and level playing-fields do not get solved by persuading one individual after another to undergo a change of mind.
But jam tomorrow beckons. For some an economic cornucopia is round the corner. We just have to tighten our belts, live on a starvation diet until the ship comes in. Adherence to the present five-year plan or whatever has over-riding priority. A present generation may have to suffer to gain these long-term benefits. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. An economic ideology is more or less bound to think in these terms. In the UK we are beginning to see ourselves as joining the Pacific rim, an economy of the future.
There is nothing wrong, of course, in thinking long-term. There is nothing dubious about putting right the present ills of society. But that is not the same thing as following the Teacher from Nazareth. We have to balance two responsibilities. It is fiendishly difficult. There is no simple answer, no magic bullet, no all-time antidote.
We find that the Teacher from Nazareth was altogether committed to the here and now. His Sermon on the Mount was about day-to-day choices in the present world. When he spoke about the future, as in the Great Confession or Mark 8, his tone was sombre rather than gung-ho.
Here and now rather than jam tomorrow is what we as Christian believers are about. We are, it is to be hoped, responsible citizens who vote, attend to social reform and support those who are moving society into better realms. But important as these things are, they are second on this list. The first priority is exalting our Creator and Redeemer. That means here and now.
Archbishop William Temple put it in a nutshell: ‘If we have to choose between making men Christian and making the social order more Christian, we must choose the former.’ We must, however, do both.
WOODBINE WILLIE
Studdert Kennedy was an army chaplain during WW1 who gained his nickname by his habit of carrying Woodbines for the troops he ministered to. His verses, published as ‘The Unutterable Beauty’, may not be the greatest of the war poems but they struck a popular chord with lines like these, from ‘Indifference’:
When Jesus came to Golgotha they hanged him on a tree…
When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed him by…
And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.
WHERE BLOODSTOCK ONCE PERFORMED
Perhaps St Michael’s, Galleywood, Essex is unique in the country. It was built 140 years ago inside what used to be a race-course. It is now one of five churches in the South West Chelmsford Churches group. The Vicar is David Cattle.
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