Category: To be pondered

What are we afraid of?

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I very clearly remember my father’s 40th birthday

I remember how old he seemed

I also vividly remember an incident from his 51st year, when he was just a few months younger than I am now. It was a family holiday and, as was our custom, we’d spent a week in a caravan on the coast of North Wales. One day, I guess the weather was clement, we decided to climb Yr Wydffa [Snowdon to the uninitiates – the highest mountain in England and Wales, and yes it is a mountain – Edmund Hillary trained there for his ascent of Everest, and I’ve sat several times in the bar where he and the rest of the team relaxed after a day testing themselves on the ice clad cliffs of Cloggy]

My memory was of how my dad stopped at the Gladstone Rock, not because he was pausing, he just couldn’t go any further.

The other week, I ‘celebrated’ my 51st birthday by climbing Ben Lomond above Queenstown: as straightforward a climb as it’s namesake just north of Glasgow; as much climbing as ‘The Ben’; and with views from the summit every bit as good as the latter. I whipped up and down in 5 hrs and remembered my dad, and thought of how I’d been trained to stay alive longer. (My father died at 63 from advanced heart disease. Of course we weren’t as alert to, (or troubled by??), such things in those days, we just thought he couldn’t get up the hill because he was old . . . as did he)

It strikes me that by and large the people of my dads generation were the last that weren’t obsessed with ‘keeping fit’, ‘cardiac health’, etc. The last that were in some sense accepting of ‘three score and ten’. They were also in my experience the last generation for whom Christian life was in some sense ‘the norm’

Even at 51, I’m a bit of an anomaly in seeking to be a disciple of Jesus, my children may as well be from Mars.

It also strikes me that these two facts are not unrelated.

Jesus calls us to an act of profound self forgetfulness, to live as though dead. Put another way, to get our dying out of the way ahead of time, to put aside our desires to live forever, in order that we might Live.

Perhaps my birthday ascent of Ben Lomond wasn’t the feat I’d so complimented myself on. I realised I’d been taught by the world that the real thing was to avoid death, thus making discipleship impossible.

Faith in the margins

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In the Acts of the Apostles (ch6, v3) there are only two qualifications for being a Deacon, not three (or four)

They were to be full of the Spirit, and Wisdom (indeed, that might be one qualification, but that’s another matter. There are no Oxford commas in the Greek)

Missing? The Necessary qualification of enough discretionary time for this work . . .!!! Not reported but quite clearly a textual omission

Unless a) these folk had loads of ‘free’ time on their hands, or b) their understanding of church and faith and ‘The Kingdom of God’ was radically different to ours

So obviously either Luke must have failed to mention it, or they must have had loads of free time on their hands . . . Obviously

(Oh, and of course Dr Luke also failed to mention that they enquired as to the candidates’ own sense of call. . .)

Convalescence

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When I were a wee lad. . .

I went to hospital for a ‘minor op’

It took two weeks

A week leading up the surgery

And a week’s convalescence

We have forgotten much – nowadays, UK at least I’d be in and out inside two or three days

Fixed

Productive once more

Able to ‘function’ and take my allotted place in ‘the bigger scheme of things’

Back then life was undeniably harder in some regards

It was also gentler

Wiser

The modern world is a hard task master and some of us are more than hard enough on ourselves

We need to convalesce

To get to that point where we are Utterly Frustrated with being kept in bed, by those who are Wiser than we. To be Well

It is like the walk of faith
We think we’ve ‘got it!’, but we’re not yet well

We need to convalesce

After all, God is at work

We’re not really all that necessary . . .

We ‘need to concentrate on getting well’

And That is a parable of sorts

You have to laugh . . .

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As some of you may be aware, I am on retreat at present and largely withdrawn from the ‘interweb’ until Easter, but I couldn’t resist sharing the following

Sat in the sun with a light Sunday lunch, I was once more falling prey to ceaseless internal dialogue – when as occasionally happens, I came to my senses and realised what I was doing.

Choosing to spend the time rather being consciously in God’s presence, I unthinkingly put down my beer . . .

Funny how we are unconsciously conditioned about what is right and proper when we are in God’s presence – I laughed long and hard and raised my glass in the presence of the one who not only loves me but likes me and wasn’t in the slightest bit bothered that I was enjoying a beer with him.

Radio Free Babylon have a regular feature, ‘Coffee with Jesus’ – well, I’ve just had a beer with Him – and it was OK

[Actually the beer was pretty rubbish, but I couldn’t fault the Company 🙂 ]

Cheers!

We are Very Bold to say . . .

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One of the prefaces to the Lord’s prayer in the Anglican tradition, says “As our Saviour Christ has both commanded and taught us, we are very bold to say . . .”

As Stanley Hauerwas noted, it is good that we say this – and I must admit that as I pray it, it is a prayer that finds us out – it exposes us

We pray ‘Our Father’ – we make the dangerous presumption of belonging to those called into familial relationship to the One who has brought all things into being.

And we pray “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us” – We are so bold as to say to the one we call Father – ‘use the measure of forgiveness we use towards others, as you forgive us’.

Both the initial address and this call for forgiveness are intimately related. It is only in being like him in being vessels of Grace and mercy that the truth or otherwise of the initial address are revealed – that we are shown to be God’s children.

Jesus twice makes a similar point – “Blessed are the merciful, he says – They [the Greek is very strong at this point – THEY] will receive mercy” Forgive us, as we forgive

and again “the measure you use, will be the measure that is dealt to you” Forgive us as we forgive.

In my readings of Orthodox Christians, I am frequently utterly challenged by their frequent call to complete and utter forgiveness. Their understanding of theosis, that we are being renewed in the image of God, leads them inevitably to this point

Can I so forgive? Dare I pray that prayer?

‘ I don’t want to be a burden . . . ‘

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These are perhaps the most desperately sad words I ever hear

I remember once rebuking my Grandmother for saying them. I rebuked her gently . . . but it was from the pulpit, at my mother’s memorial service . . .
[and I’m not bragging about it, I was a lot younger and a lot more insensitive than I am now, and those who know me well will indeed be saying ‘not possible’ . . .]

To be human is to be a burden to others

To be human is Not to be independent, but interdependent

Not to allow ourselves to be a burden, nay burdensome, is to deny that Life that is in us

The Father depends on the faithfulness of the Son, and the Life of the Spirit to save the world
We are made in the Image of that God

To say, I do not need you, is to say, ‘I don’t need God’

To say ‘I don’t want to be a burden’ is to deny Life itself

The Son of Man comes to serve

‘If I do not wash your feet, you have no fellowship with me’

Allow yourself to be loved

This is Life

‘but they are like the Angels . . .’

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Angel, coming into Being . . . ‘Now and not yet’ . . .

In the encounter of Jesus with the Saducees, He is told a story about a woman who had seven husbands, and then is asked,’at the resurrection of the dead, whose wife will she be?’.

Jesus tells them that they have no idea of the significance of the resurrection, or indeed marriage . . . but another time

What must be understood, is that the Kingdom IS amongst us. In and through the risen Christ it already is and also shall be, and that here and there we see signs of ‘heaven’. Put another way, there are those who live amongst us as angels – sometimes. That is, we may not know such people amongst us, and/or they live thus only for brief moments – their lives giving us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

What triggered this post is a story I have spoken about told in the Orthodox tradition. In it, a woman is in Hell. The Angels, whose every desire is to pull her out of Hell search the record of her life for just One act of love. Finally, they discover that once a passing stranger called at her door, hungry and asking her for food. She, rather grumpily it must be said, went to her cupboard, found an old onion and threw it to him, telling him to be gone.

There in that, the smallest of acts, with only the faintest echo of grace, the angels found their chance. And so took the onion which had a long stalk, and lowered it down into Hell, so to rescue the woman and save her . . . Well the rest of the rather sorry story can be found here

But what has come home to me these past days, is how Unlike the angels we are as yet. THEY anxiously seek for ONE flicker of light and life, ONE sign of Grace, ONE echo of the life of God and latch onto it. ‘Yes!’ they say ‘There!!’ There is a sign that the Goodness of God is present in that person, and so gently and carefully summon it further into Life, as they so carefully sought to draw the woman out of Hell.

So often we are NOT at all like the angels. Our view is So distorted that all we can see is their faults – to the point where we, utterly perversely Deny any goodness, any attempt to live in the Light. We see the splinter in the eye – it becomes our entire focus. We are not desperate that they should be drawn out of Hell. We are not like them, we are not searching anxiously for ONE sign of grace, however weak, however is comes from the wrong place. How unlike children of God, who will go to any length to save us.

He waits, He Watches, and he Runs for the Prodigal who has blown it all – who in human terms has no way back and he knows it – who comes crawling back because he is hungry, who is even now trying to manipulate the Father, who knowing this full well, doesn’t merely accede to his request to be a hired hand, he throws a party for him. In this the feeblest of returns home, the Grace of the Father is Overwhelming

Jesus, continually heals our sight, would we allow it. He teaches us to see as He sees, as the angels see, as the Father sees – constantly on the look out for signs of Life – anxious and ready to Save at the smallest flicker. Let us pray for that same grace, that we might truly be children of our heavenly father, ‘who desirest not the death of a sinner’. Let us be on the look out Night And Day for signs of Grace. And let us eagerly greet and encourage them, even the smallest Hint of Life, even from the very Worst of motives, like those angels with the woman, Like the Father with the child.

And let us pray that the Lord, who will not put out a smouldering wick, will also grant those around US, Grace to see us likewise.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain Mercy’

Amen