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In touch

Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues

Is the secret out?

Jesus ‘sternly’ orders them to keep a secret (Matthew 16:20).

Context

For good or ill, secrets can be pervasive. Those of us who have enjoyed the novels of John le Carré have relished a world in which secrets are central. The recent arrest of Bulgarians who are alleged to be spying for Russia brought this home; I cannot find the link but I heard one suggestion that the ‘tradecraft’ which permeates le Carré’s books is returning to favour with Russian spies because electronic communications can so easily be intercepted! Secrets are often part of the story in the detective series which I follow on TV, as they were in the Agatha Christie novels which I devoured many years ago.

Some secrets are more important than others. I knew this as for many years I was a civil servant subject to the Official Secrets Act. Some people enjoy making secret plans for celebrating someone’s anniversary or birthday – perhaps these are the most benign secrets. Some people are better at keeping such secrets than others. How did the serial child killer, Lucy Letby (who this week became just the fourth woman to be given a whole life prison term), keep her secrets?

 

Ideas for sermons or interactive talks

Matthew reports that Jesus tells his disciples to keep the ‘messianic secret’, a secret also referenced in Mark and Luke. One can imagine the reasons for keeping quiet in a country with deeply suspicious religious leaders willing, as it turned out, to hand Jesus over to the occupying power. But what secrets can legitimately be kept? Matters of national security at one end of the spectrum and arrangements for a surprise party at the other end might seem appropriate. Yet many churches have been properly challenged over their policies around the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults; is secrecy about such matters ever legitimate? No final decision has yet been announced as to whether the secrecy of the confessional must end following recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

We are not told in the Gospels how Jesus’ disciples responded to the warning to keep the secret. Might they have been reluctant? Might they have wanted to tell everyone? When a great teacher urges silence, would it always be right to comply?

Those who know secrets sometimes use that knowledge as a means of exercising power over others. The disciples do not seem to have used their knowledge in this way. But is it co-incidental that this exchange between Jesus and his disciples takes place in one of the local centres of power, Caesarea Phillippi?

The Letby case also raises the issue of the protection of whistle blowers. Some of those who sought to warn about her were, it seems, criticised and even made to apologise for suspecting her. What would each of us do in a situation where we suspected another person of a serious crime? Keeping quiet can surely also be wrong; breaching secrecy may sometimes be necessary.

 

Questions for discussion

• Had you been one of Jesus’ disciples, would you have been comfortable keeping the ‘messianic secret’?
• Is there ‘a time to keep silence’ as well as ‘a time to speak’ (Ecclesiastes 3:7)?
• When in our everyday life is it right to keep secrets and when might it be right to breach a request for silence?

Dudley Coates is a local preacher in the Yeovil and Blackmore Vale Methodist Circuit and a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference. As you read this, he should be at Greenbelt Festival.

 

Check-in

Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

Who are you?
How would you describe yourself?
Ever wondered how others describe you?

Perhaps your friends would say something different to your teachers, or your family.

With the transitions involved in a new academic year approaching, does the ‘who you are’ description mirror the ‘who you want to be’?

We can often use a new year as a fresh start - perhaps to change some bad habits, make new friends and get the grades we would like. Does that sound like who you are?

Jesus asks his apostles, ‘Who do you think I am?’  They have a long list! But what we can learn from this is that Jesus is the son of God, and he is the rock who we can put our confidence in, and he is the key to learning who we are too!

Isn’t that amazing news?! We don’t have to reinvent ourselves to fit into a new school, college, university or job. We don’t have to change to fit into the culture of this world. Jesus did not change who he was or try to live up to the expectations of the people’s hopes of him over-turning the Roman Empire.

We are surrounded by motivational quotes, Instagram pages and influencers telling us how to get more self-confidence and achieve more. But this school year, try putting your confidence in Jesus - in the confidence in who he is, all he has done for you and all he is yet to accomplish in your life. After all it is he who made you who you are.

Natasia Bullock is the director of Christian theatre company The B Tales.

 

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