How can it be wrong when it looks so right
OK - so before we go any further, we need to make sure we understand the name of the town… it is linked to the old-fashioned meaning of ‘vain’, meaningless or futile, rather than the more contemporary sense of self-idolising that thinks of ourselves more highly than we ought.
Although Bunyan would clearly consider such an attitude entirely inappropriate, it isn’t the issue he is exploring here. We get closer to his sense if we remember that the Authorised Version of the Bible launched into the Book of Ecclesiastes with the lament ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ (1:2). The NIV renders the same verse in a more modern parlance as ‘Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!’ We need to make the same shift in vocabulary as we come with Christian and Faithful into the next chapter of their Pilgrimage: Meaningless Market… or perhaps Futility Fair.
But the name we give it is nothing like as important as the reality it conveys. Every fleeting pleasure, every distraction, every entertainment, every indulgence, in short, everything the world has is on offer. The fair stands through all of time, and embraces every culture. Even Christ had been taken from street to street and stall to stall (Heb.4:15). Some of its ware is self-evidently sinful, some seems harmless, some even seems legitimate after a fashion, but all of it is spiritually deadly. It is the world, enamoured with sin, enthralled by frivolity, ensnared by entertainment and distraction. The point is not that everything is ‘depraved’ or obviously evil. It is that ‘this world in its present form is passing away’ (I Cor.7:31), and that those who are engrossed in the things of this world, who live for what this world has to offer, will find their lives count for nothing. It is futile, meaningless… vanity.
Pilgrims must be in the world, and our discipleship must be played out on this stage. As Bunyan puts it (echoing I Cor.5:10), ‘he that will go to the city, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world’. But it is immediately obvious to all that Christian and Faithful do not belong there. And nor do they have any interest in the merchandise. Initially their disengagement provokes nothing more than amusement; but the situation quickly turns sour. When they refuse to purchase anything but truth (which isn’t on sale!), the Fair turns ugly, ‘some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully, and some calling on others to smite them’. These two believers, simply by being there, had almost turned the Fair upside down (Acts 17:6)'. ‘All order was confounded’, and through no fault or provocation of their own, Christian and Faithful found themselves on trial. As they give their statement, they are at first dismissed as ‘bedlams and mad’ or perhaps ‘such as came to put all things into a confusion at the Fair’. They are beaten, imprisoned and left vulnerable to ‘any man’s sport, or malice, or revenge’.
A host of passages lies behind Bunyan’s portrayal of the behaviour of the Towns-folk:
I Peter 4:4, They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you;
Titus 2:7-8, In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
John 15:18-19, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
Bunyan is at pains to show that this is the nature of the world. Christian and Faithful have done nothing to justify their treatment. They have simply acted in a way that is consistent with their confession of Christ as Lord. And yet, that is sufficient to inspire the world’s ire. When Satan is not able to distract us with the ‘fleeting pleasures of sin’, he will just as soon seek to intimidate and bully, imprison and berate. It makes no odds to him. One means is as good as the other in achieving his end of hindering those on the Way.
Many however do not need to be treated so brutally. They are distracted, swallowed up by the Fair, enticed and entrapped, ‘deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures’ (Titus 3:3). Satan has no need to persecute those who are already possessed by a love for all this world has to offer. Those who claim to be pilgrims, but who look and behave no different from those around them in the world, pose him no threat, and cause him no concern.
A Prayer for the Pilgrim in Vanity Fair:
O Lord,
the world is artful to entrap, approaches in fascinating guise, extends many a gilded bait, presents many a charming face.
Let my faith scan every painted trinket, and escape every bewitching snare in a victory that overcomes all things.
In my duties give me firmness, energy, zeal, a devotion to Thy cause, courage in Thy name, love as working grace, and may my life be commensurate with my confession of Christ.
Thy Word is full of promises … May I be rich in its riches, strong in its power, happy in its joy. May I abide in its sweetness, feast on its preciousness, draw vigour from its pages, that I may have no hunger or desire for this world.
O Lord, increase my faith.
…taken from The Valley of Vision, ‘Faith and the world’