One little known feature of the writing of Kingsley Amis is his musical criticism. He poses as a bluff amateur who doesn’t know much about music but who knows what he likes, but in fact what he says is often unusually perceptive. Here he is, describing a theme from Handel’s organ concerto in F major – a striding, contemptuous, arrogant theme of ‘superb masculinity.’  And Amis says, ‘Oh, if only one could behave like that!’ And, quite unusually for a writer who usually relies on the words to do the work, Amis allows himself an exclamation mark. ‘Oh, if only one could behave like that!’

You know the feeling he’s describing, but it occurs only too rarely. Just this once, you are sure of yourself, sure of your ground and you just behave in character. You are being yourself. You are integrated.

Unfortunately, these moments are rare. But there is a group of people or rather of beings who always have that feeling. They always behave with this ‘superb masculinity’ or at least with this perfect integration – and I’m not talking about the England cricket team. I’m talking about the gods and goddesses of classical antiquity.

Now, straight away let me make it clear that I’m not trying to say these personalities exist or existed. But I do say that they exercise a great appeal on our imagination because of their simplicity. Simplicity here means that these deities are  just one thing. But unlike our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus Christ they are not One encompassing all things. Instead, they simply embody one thing. They are not above all, in all, through all, they simply body forth one truth.

Here for instance is Mars, the Roman god of war. He can only behave like the god of war. He delights in slaughter and promotes it. Here is Neptune the Roman god of the sea. He only needs to worry about one domain. The conflicts of the gods are not in their heads but between themselves. On the terrain they each control.

Now, you and I are not like that. We are all lacking in integrity. I’m not suggesting that we’ve all got our hand in the till or that we are all inveterate liers. Instead, I’m saying we’re not together as human beings. In the sixties people talked about trying to get their heads together – they knew they weren’t integrated. Pop groups talked about getting it together in the country but they didn’t always succeed and there were many casualties. Those who made it through are often seen today extolling the joys of rehab.

And though we sneer at Kate Moss and Pete Doherty, we’re not together, either. We talk about keeping body and soul together. We have to pay the mortgage. And keep the family ticking over. We might have a Christian faith. But what’s it got to do with your family? Or your job?

Now our disintegration is perfectly well described in the early chapters of Genesis: the chapters which are the account of the Fall. These people whose creation is described a couple of times in Genesis 1 and 2 have a  perfect integration. They are naked and they don’t mind it. They are in communication with God and it’s unbroken and  unmediated. They are in communication with the natural world. They have work but it’s satisfying. Above all, God’s blessing is on the whole picture. The creatures are blessed in 1:22, the people are blessed in 1:28, the Sabbath is blessed in 2:3.

But then the Event happens and it all goes pearshaped. They are at a zero moment. From now on there is blood, toil, tears and sweat. In the field and the delivery room. Uncertainty and disappointment. Breakdown of relationship. Even earthquake and hurricane says the apostle Paul. But most subtly of all, in the words of James Thwaites, there is a force more destructive of human life than Katrina and Rita combined. There is  no longer fulfillment in creation but a striving after the unattainable ideal. The ideal, job, spouse, holiday, house. Or in the words of Bob Dylan, ‘There’s not even room enough to be anywhere.’

Let me introduce you to Henry David Thoreau. Now far be it from me to sit in judgement on Thoreau. I think he’s unusually interesting for us at this time in our history because of some of his thinking and some of his practice. But I want to share with you just one line of his writings. Thoreau is a naturalist – a taxonomist who enjoyed doing that. But ‘I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together.’ Thoreau was an environmentalist and a dietician. But ‘I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together.’ Thoreau was an abolitionist who knew and pleaded for the life of John Brown. But ‘I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together.’ Thoreau was an advocate of non-violent protest – civil disobedience is one of his ideas. But ‘I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together.’

Nothing is integrated. Not me. No church. No community. No country. Not the world. Again in the words of Bob Dylan, ‘Everything is broken.’

Now, this is the first in a series I’d like to preach on integrity. I will have good news about the integrity of God. The integrity of Jesus. The integrity of the Church. The integrity of the new person in Christ. The integrity of Christian behaviour. The integrity of the world as it will be when God has finished with it.

But first of all, ‘I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together.’ Scott Peck says we must know the first step towards forgiveness or wholeness. Shalom. Soteria. What is it?

Scott Peck in ‘The Road Less Travelled’ tells the story in Greek mythology this time of Orestes. He killed his mother Clytemnestra. And the circumstances were so complex and ambiguous that even the gods admitted that it wasn’t really his fault. It was a tale of mistaken identity and hidden information that could have happened to anyone. And they came to him and told him as much. But Orestes chose to carry the responsibility. The gods were amazed – a human being admitting responsibility?! Unheard of. Well, for Orestes it was the door to restoration.