Two strangers end up sharing the same space. Could be a doctors surgery, could be a train carriage, could be a social occasion, could be a church pew.
What happens next?
Well that depends almost entirely on who the two people are.
Let me engage in some outrageous racial stereotyping.
If they’re Americans or Africans, chances are they’ll break the ice almost immediately. The Africans will be laughing and sharing stories within five minutes, the Americans swapping business cards by the end of the conversation.
If they’re Irish they’ll soon be planning to have a drink somewhere and working out what family or friends they have in common. If they’re Northern Irish they’ll be trying to work out which side the other person belongs to. If they’re English they’ll smile politely before hiding in a book or a newspaper.
If, by nature, they’re reserved folk, it’s quite possible that they’ll play the game we all play now and again of pretending the other person doesn’t exist. They’ll read or fidgit, or daydream, but they wouldn’t dream of breaking the silence. The potential for social transgression feels much too great.
In those circumstances, God bless the one who takes the initiative and asks the first question, because it’s that brave step into the unknown which opens up the rich possibilities of human intercourse. The other may choose to barricade that avenue straight away, but at least the effort was made.
This is how it goes. When you meet someone for the first time, it’s the questions you ask which allow the other to disclose something of who they really are. Where they’re from, what they do, who they belong to.
Your questions create a space into which the other can choose to step, and as they’re answered and reciprocated, lo and behold, a relationship begins to form. It might last mere moments, it might last for decades. But it’s there in embryo. And it all begins with your questioning. Your willingness to engage.
And where there are no questions, there’s no engagement, and by default, no relationship. Just awkward silence and polite distance. And we were made for more than that, I think.
Now with that in mind, I want to challenge a myth this morning. It’s the myth that if we have difficult questions about God we should just keep them to ourselves. The really devout person, this myth suggests, keeps a lid on it. Sweeps their doubts under the carpet. Refuses to rock the boat.
And I want to tell you this morning that that’s unbiblical nonsense.
You don’t find that view in Scripture. You find the complete reverse of it.
God is more than able to deal with our questions. What he can’t abide is folk looking at the way the world is and not caring enough to have questions.
A question, even an angry one or a misguided one, is a sign of a mind and heart that are engaged. That’s far better, in God’s eyes, than a mind that hides in awkward silences and polite distances.
Children have something to teach us here. They are always asking questions.
I came across a wee book a while ago called “Children’s Letters To God” and there were a few real gems of questions in there:
Dear God. Are you really invisible or is that just a trick?
Dear God. How come you did all the miracles in the old days and you don’t do any now?
Dear God: Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?
Dear God: What does it mean that you are a Jealous God? I thought you had everything.
Dear God: Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You just keep the ones You have now?
Out of the mouth of babes…..
Lovely, innocent questions. But in adulthood the stakes are raised because it tends to be in the hardest times that we frame our questions to God.
In that sense, Job speaks for all of us because his woes were about the very same things we tend to get stressed about – family, health and material things.
It’s a large book, the book of Job. It runs to 42 chapters. And the story begins with Job, a wealthy and successful man, losing all that he has – his family, his flocks and his fields; even his health. The author presents this as a form of testing, sanctioned by God but enacted by one called the Accuser, or Satan in the Hebrew. God wants to prove to Satan that Job will remain faithful to him, even if all that he has is taken away. So Satan is allowed to test him.
Now we might balk at the idea of God treating people so capriciously – I know I do – but even though the author of Job presents the story in a way that sounds crudely mythic to our ears, his logic is faultless. When bad things happen – as they regularly do – believers have to reckon with the fact that our omnipotent God has allowed them to happen. And that should raise questions in anyone’s mind.
It certainly raises questions for Job. According to the wisdom of his day, if you lived a godly life you would prosper in the here and now, and if you lived a godless life you would suffer in the here and now. That’s how everyone would have thought. That’s how they understood the world.
But Job, first hand, discovers that that’s just not true. He’s lived a good life – he’s done everything he was asked to do – and calamity still comes. It feels utterly unjust. And although he stops short of cursing God, or abandoning him, he rails at him for the next 35 chapters – flinging a barrage of woes and questions at the Almighty.
To add insult to injury, three of his friends pitch up, supposedly to comfort him, but all they do is rub salt into his wounds. They represent the worldview of Job’s day – which says ‘if bad things are happening to you, you must have done something wrong to deserve it”. Come on, Job, they keep saying. What have you done to deserve all this? You know how things work. Innocent people don’t get this kind of treatment. What have you done to make God angry?
But Job maintains his innocence. And in the final few chapters of the book, his complaints are silenced when he has a powerful personal encounter with God. Significantly, he gets no answer to the question of his suffering, but the question itself pales into insignificance alongside the awesome mystery of his God. Job, in the end, is justified and restored, while his friends are rebuked and only spared because Job prays to God on their behalf
Commentators differ on whether Job was a real person, or whether this book has been written as a parable to illustrate truth. I sat and read it through again this week, and I have to say it struck me more as story than history – great swathes of it are carefully constructed poetry rather than the kind of dialogue which would readily fall from someone’s lips.
But whatever the truth of that, there’s a clear purpose to the story. The author’s using the example of Job to show us that there’s no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of trouble we experience in life. It’s not that simple.
Job is right to defend his innocence, but he’s wrong to assume that innocence will guarantee him a trouble-free existence. That’s his main line of argument. God, why have you done this to me when I’ve done nothing wrong?
But life isn’t a vending machine. It isn’t the case that if we put the right coins in the slot, the right product will come out. It doesn’t work that way. We might wish it did, but it doesn’t.
We know there are times when the good die young, and the wicked go down to their graves in peace. When the honest get taken for a ride, while the greedy and selfish prosper. When the feckless get everything they want and decent folk have even their small hopes dashed. We know these things happen, and when they do, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t question God’s justice. It seems desperately unfair, in a universe that’s supposed to be governed by a good God.
We’ll leave that discussion for another day. All I want you to see and understand this morning is that God has patience with our questions – because, as the Psalmist puts it, he knows how we are formed: he remembers that we are dust.
Now when we first hear God’s response to Job in the last few chapters, he seems to be anything but patient with his questioning. “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” he says.
He’s definitely angry here – but he’s not angry with Job for questioning. He’s angry because of this worldview that Job and his comforters have been arguing about. A worldview that tries to conform and constrain the mystery of God into categories we can manage and domesticate. If I do X, God must do Y.
It’s like trying to put a collar with a bell on it onto a lion. You cannot domesticate God. You cannot assume that your insight and understanding are the whole picture or the last word because they never are. God has lived longer, and sees further than any of us.
“Where were you when I laid the earths foundation? Tell me if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
Or who laid its cornerstone
While the morning stars sang together
And all the angels shouted for joy?”
Three chapters of this kind of stuff, and Job knows he needs a different way of thinking. He needs a new model of how things work. One that doesn’t reduce the universe to mere cause and effect, but allows room for God to be God in everything; even in our sufferings.
When our model of how things work breaks down, we are bound to question things. When the redundancy notice lands on your desk, or the x-ray comes back with worrying shadows, or that person you love goes through something that seems desperately unfair, we’re given permission to question.
We’re given permission by a Biblical record that is literally full of faithful people pouring out their complaint to God. Asking questions of him.
From the Psalmist crying out “Why, O Lord do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble”
To Christ on the cross, whispering “My God, My God, why have you deserted me”.
When the going gets tough, the faithful ask questions. And perhaps it’s in this that their faithfulness is made most evident. It would be easier to walk away, sometimes. To lose faith. And many do, when things go wrong in their lives. But the story of Job shows us that a faithful man or woman who stays engaged with God despite the pain and confusion, and gives voice to their questions, will earn God’s respect and in the end be vindicated.
We may not get the kind of answer we are looking for to our questions, but we will get an answer. Very often the answer is that God in his mysterious presence draws close and holds us in our pain. Reminding us that despite how things seem, there is life and hope beyond our pain.
It’s good to ask questions, because our questions open up a space where relationships can form and grow and deepen. And that’s as true of God as it is of other people.
But one last word in closing. It works both ways. God has questions he wants to ask of us. But more about that in the weeks to come.
Sunday 23 January 2011
Sunday 9 January 2011
Blessed are the Pure in Heart
We begin the New Year by ending our series in the Beatitudes, and the blessing we’re looking at today is one that really caught my imagination earlier in the week when I sat down to think about it.
Jesus said: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Now we’ll get to the question of purity in a minute, but before then there’s a tangent I want us to follow, because it leads us into some really important truth.
Listen to that beatitude again.
Blessed are the pure in heart, says Jesus, for they will see God.
There’s something here so obvious that we’d easily miss it, but it’s so significant that we daren’t miss it. What he’s highlighting is that there’s a profound link between what goes on in our heart, and what goes on with our eyes.
And when I realised that, it was like someone took the cork out of the bottle. All these insights and images came fizzing up from nowhere.
I remembered a scene from the Silence of the Lambs where Dr Hannibal Lecter is helping an FBI agent called Clarice Starling catch a serial killer.
“He covets, Clarice, That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet? Do we seek out things to covet? No, we begin by coveting what we see every day.” – The eyes influencing the heart.
I remembered King David, hanging around listlessly on the roof of his palace when he should have been leading his troops in battle, and catching a glimpse of his neighbour’s wife as she undressed for her evening bath. The seed of an idea took root, and he let it grow. The eyes influencing the heart.
I remember a certain 4 year old I live with, who will remain nameless, who until fairly recently didn’t know how to work the remote control on the telly and was therefore limited to whatever channel we chose for her. And we always chose CBeeBees, for two reasons – 1) it’s educational and 2) there are no commercials.
Now the self-same 4 year old has worked out how to use the remote control, and even though we police things quite carefully, she’s coming under the irresistible influence of the advertising agencies who want to sell her things and seem desperate to get her parents to consolidate all their debts into one manageable monthly repayment. They are getting to her little heart through her little eyes.
And on a more serious note, I remembered a piece I read recently about how both teenage boys and girls are being affected by the ready availability of pornography over the internet. The average age at which boys have their first exposure to online pornography is 11, and there’s growing raft of evidence that teenage boys’ treatment and evaluation of girls is becoming conditioned by what they’ve been watching online.
Girls are affected too, because they’re feeling more pressure than ever to look like these pneumatic models the boys are lusting after, and, worse still, to be as sexually accommodating as them. Another example of the profound connection between the eyes and the heart.
“The eyes” says Jesus “are like a lamp for the body. If your eyes are sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are no good, your body will be in darkness”.
What we feed our eyes on, we feed our hearts on. What we behold, develops a hold over us, for good or for ill.
But that isn’t the whole story in the eyes/heart relationship. Because the lines of action aren’t one way. How we are in our hearts also determines what we choose to see; maybe even what we’re able to see.
18 days after the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963, white supremacists planted a bomb in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama, and four children were killed.
Connie Lynch, a member of the local Ku Klux Klan was interviewed after the bombing and she was given a hard time because innocent children had been killed. Her response was staggering. “They weren’t children. Children are little people. Little human beings, and that means white people…. They’re just niggers…. and if there’s four less niggers tonight, then I say “good for whoever planted the bomb”
Contrast that with Mother Teresa, who was once asked how she could minister with such kindness among folk whose bodies were rotting away with illness. “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise” she said.
One woman couldn't even recognise the humanity in another human being. The other was able to see the image of God in even the most deformed human being. The condition of our hearts determines what we’re able to see.
And we can bring that idea much closer to home. We all know that there are folk we find it hard to think badly of because we love them, and others we find it hard to see any good in because we dislike them. And the thing is, those judgments, however strongly felt, may not be sound. Our heart is dictating what we’re able to see and others might see the same people in a very different light.
So instead of a one way street from eye to heart, it’s more like a roundabout. What I take in through my eyes affects my heart, but it's equally true that how my heart is determines how I see things.
So now that we’ve followed our tangent, let’s digress back to the beatitude.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
But what does it mean to be pure in heart?
Is he talking about folk who are naturally guileless and straightforward? Is he talking about the super-holy? The goody-two shoes? The spiritual high-achievers?
Come to think of it, can anyone ever really be pure in heart?
I don’t think there’s even one of us here who would dare to claim that title. We know our pitfalls and our weaknesses only too well.
So whatever this is about, I don’t think it’s an expectation of perfection. Christ knows that’s beyond us.
I’ve thought long and hard about that this week, and what helped was when I picked up that word ‘pure’ and ran with it for a while.
It’s important to remember that anything that we call pure doesn’t start out pure. It has to become pure. Even the platinum in Kate Middleton’s engagement ring had to be dug up and refined several times to get rid of all the dross.
Purification is a process – something that takes time and effort. But what we’re aiming for at the end of it is one thing, whether it’s a metal, or a chemical, or a liquid or whatever. When we get down to that one thing, we can say we’ve reached a state of purity.
So what does it mean to be pure in heart?
I think it means that you’re the kind of person whose heart and eyes are focused on the one thing. On God himself.
You’re still a real person. You get up, wash, have breakfast, go to work, love your family, pay your bills. You don’t walk around in a holy trance! But God’s at the centre of it all. He’s the canvas you paint your life on. The field your sow your life in. The sun at the centre of the universe which is you. He gets the priority he warrants, as God. He gets your time and attention.
Are any of us there yet? No.
Should we be discouraged by that? No.
I’m fond of quoting a verse from the book of Hebrews that’s stayed with me since the first time I heard it. Hebrews 10:14 which says that through his sacrifice Jesus has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. What that tells us is that in eternity, it’s a done deal! Our future with God is certain. But for now, we are being made holy. We’re being purified. And that can be a messy process.
So this is not about never messing up. It’s about keeping going with singleness of mind and purpose, even when you do mess up.
How set are you on God? It’s an important question for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, there are several places in the Scriptures that suggest that how we approach God will determine what we find in him.
Psalm 18 is typical: the Psalmist says
25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
26 to the pure you show yourself pure,
but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
If we’re lax or lukewarm in our dealings with God, do we expect him to be otherwise with us?
Every now and again, folk say to me that they wish God would make it easier to know him – that he’d come alongside and overwhelm them with some profound experience. And THEN they’d be able to believe.
It happens for some that way. But for most of us, it’s not like that. For most of us, I think God keeps a perfect distance to see just how serious we are about going after him. Any woman who’s ever courted the affections of a man will know the sense in that! It’s called playing hard to get! And it sorts out those who are really interested from the timewasters.
It’s the pure in heart, says Jesus, who will see God. Not the perfect or the faultless, but those who genuinely set their heart and mind on knowing him. They’ll stumble, they’ll fall, they’ll mess up. But they’ll keep going because they’ve come to believe that the answers they’re looking for aren’t to be found in anyone or anything else.
Whether you’re just beginning your pursuit of God, or you’ve been at it for years, today’s beatitude is an encouragement to keep going. It’s a promise that those who seek earnestly will find.
I’ll finish with some words from the book of Proverbs that I love, written a thousand years before our Gospel reading today. I’ve always heard them as a word from God directly to me, and you should hear them that way too.
My child, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you
turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding
and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
It’s all there – everything we’ve been thinking about this morning. Searching, learning, looking, understanding, finding.
Eyes and heart, focused on the one thing, bringing blessing.
Amen
Jesus said: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Now we’ll get to the question of purity in a minute, but before then there’s a tangent I want us to follow, because it leads us into some really important truth.
Listen to that beatitude again.
Blessed are the pure in heart, says Jesus, for they will see God.
There’s something here so obvious that we’d easily miss it, but it’s so significant that we daren’t miss it. What he’s highlighting is that there’s a profound link between what goes on in our heart, and what goes on with our eyes.
And when I realised that, it was like someone took the cork out of the bottle. All these insights and images came fizzing up from nowhere.
I remembered a scene from the Silence of the Lambs where Dr Hannibal Lecter is helping an FBI agent called Clarice Starling catch a serial killer.
“He covets, Clarice, That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet? Do we seek out things to covet? No, we begin by coveting what we see every day.” – The eyes influencing the heart.
I remembered King David, hanging around listlessly on the roof of his palace when he should have been leading his troops in battle, and catching a glimpse of his neighbour’s wife as she undressed for her evening bath. The seed of an idea took root, and he let it grow. The eyes influencing the heart.
I remember a certain 4 year old I live with, who will remain nameless, who until fairly recently didn’t know how to work the remote control on the telly and was therefore limited to whatever channel we chose for her. And we always chose CBeeBees, for two reasons – 1) it’s educational and 2) there are no commercials.
Now the self-same 4 year old has worked out how to use the remote control, and even though we police things quite carefully, she’s coming under the irresistible influence of the advertising agencies who want to sell her things and seem desperate to get her parents to consolidate all their debts into one manageable monthly repayment. They are getting to her little heart through her little eyes.
And on a more serious note, I remembered a piece I read recently about how both teenage boys and girls are being affected by the ready availability of pornography over the internet. The average age at which boys have their first exposure to online pornography is 11, and there’s growing raft of evidence that teenage boys’ treatment and evaluation of girls is becoming conditioned by what they’ve been watching online.
Girls are affected too, because they’re feeling more pressure than ever to look like these pneumatic models the boys are lusting after, and, worse still, to be as sexually accommodating as them. Another example of the profound connection between the eyes and the heart.
“The eyes” says Jesus “are like a lamp for the body. If your eyes are sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are no good, your body will be in darkness”.
What we feed our eyes on, we feed our hearts on. What we behold, develops a hold over us, for good or for ill.
But that isn’t the whole story in the eyes/heart relationship. Because the lines of action aren’t one way. How we are in our hearts also determines what we choose to see; maybe even what we’re able to see.
18 days after the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963, white supremacists planted a bomb in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama, and four children were killed.
Connie Lynch, a member of the local Ku Klux Klan was interviewed after the bombing and she was given a hard time because innocent children had been killed. Her response was staggering. “They weren’t children. Children are little people. Little human beings, and that means white people…. They’re just niggers…. and if there’s four less niggers tonight, then I say “good for whoever planted the bomb”
Contrast that with Mother Teresa, who was once asked how she could minister with such kindness among folk whose bodies were rotting away with illness. “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise” she said.
One woman couldn't even recognise the humanity in another human being. The other was able to see the image of God in even the most deformed human being. The condition of our hearts determines what we’re able to see.
And we can bring that idea much closer to home. We all know that there are folk we find it hard to think badly of because we love them, and others we find it hard to see any good in because we dislike them. And the thing is, those judgments, however strongly felt, may not be sound. Our heart is dictating what we’re able to see and others might see the same people in a very different light.
So instead of a one way street from eye to heart, it’s more like a roundabout. What I take in through my eyes affects my heart, but it's equally true that how my heart is determines how I see things.
So now that we’ve followed our tangent, let’s digress back to the beatitude.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
But what does it mean to be pure in heart?
Is he talking about folk who are naturally guileless and straightforward? Is he talking about the super-holy? The goody-two shoes? The spiritual high-achievers?
Come to think of it, can anyone ever really be pure in heart?
I don’t think there’s even one of us here who would dare to claim that title. We know our pitfalls and our weaknesses only too well.
So whatever this is about, I don’t think it’s an expectation of perfection. Christ knows that’s beyond us.
I’ve thought long and hard about that this week, and what helped was when I picked up that word ‘pure’ and ran with it for a while.
It’s important to remember that anything that we call pure doesn’t start out pure. It has to become pure. Even the platinum in Kate Middleton’s engagement ring had to be dug up and refined several times to get rid of all the dross.
Purification is a process – something that takes time and effort. But what we’re aiming for at the end of it is one thing, whether it’s a metal, or a chemical, or a liquid or whatever. When we get down to that one thing, we can say we’ve reached a state of purity.
So what does it mean to be pure in heart?
I think it means that you’re the kind of person whose heart and eyes are focused on the one thing. On God himself.
You’re still a real person. You get up, wash, have breakfast, go to work, love your family, pay your bills. You don’t walk around in a holy trance! But God’s at the centre of it all. He’s the canvas you paint your life on. The field your sow your life in. The sun at the centre of the universe which is you. He gets the priority he warrants, as God. He gets your time and attention.
Are any of us there yet? No.
Should we be discouraged by that? No.
I’m fond of quoting a verse from the book of Hebrews that’s stayed with me since the first time I heard it. Hebrews 10:14 which says that through his sacrifice Jesus has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. What that tells us is that in eternity, it’s a done deal! Our future with God is certain. But for now, we are being made holy. We’re being purified. And that can be a messy process.
So this is not about never messing up. It’s about keeping going with singleness of mind and purpose, even when you do mess up.
How set are you on God? It’s an important question for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, there are several places in the Scriptures that suggest that how we approach God will determine what we find in him.
Psalm 18 is typical: the Psalmist says
25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
26 to the pure you show yourself pure,
but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
If we’re lax or lukewarm in our dealings with God, do we expect him to be otherwise with us?
Every now and again, folk say to me that they wish God would make it easier to know him – that he’d come alongside and overwhelm them with some profound experience. And THEN they’d be able to believe.
It happens for some that way. But for most of us, it’s not like that. For most of us, I think God keeps a perfect distance to see just how serious we are about going after him. Any woman who’s ever courted the affections of a man will know the sense in that! It’s called playing hard to get! And it sorts out those who are really interested from the timewasters.
It’s the pure in heart, says Jesus, who will see God. Not the perfect or the faultless, but those who genuinely set their heart and mind on knowing him. They’ll stumble, they’ll fall, they’ll mess up. But they’ll keep going because they’ve come to believe that the answers they’re looking for aren’t to be found in anyone or anything else.
Whether you’re just beginning your pursuit of God, or you’ve been at it for years, today’s beatitude is an encouragement to keep going. It’s a promise that those who seek earnestly will find.
I’ll finish with some words from the book of Proverbs that I love, written a thousand years before our Gospel reading today. I’ve always heard them as a word from God directly to me, and you should hear them that way too.
My child, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you
turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding
and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
It’s all there – everything we’ve been thinking about this morning. Searching, learning, looking, understanding, finding.
Eyes and heart, focused on the one thing, bringing blessing.
Amen
Wednesday 5 January 2011
Watchnight Service - Christmas Eve 2010
The Nativity – John O’Donohue
No man reaches where the moon touches a woman.
Even the moon leaves her when she opens
Deeper into the ripple in her womb
That encircles dark to become flesh and bone.
Someone is coming ashore inside her.
A face deciphers itself from water
And she curves around the gathering wave
Opening to offer the life it craves.
In a corner stall of pilgrim strangers,
She falls and heaves
Holding a tide of tears
A red wire of pain feeds through every vein
Until night unweaves and the child reaches dawn.
Outside each other now, she sees him first.
Flesh of her flesh,
Her dreamt son
Safe on earth.
It must have been about 11 o’clock when I got Rhona into the maternity hospital. Our two older kids had arrived in the world after long labours through the wee small hours, and number three had decided she would keep up the family tradition.
I took Rhona through to the midwives unit and then I had to come back to speak to the wee man on the door because – as always – there were forms to be filled in. Even when you stand on the cusp of something as momentous as the birth of a child, officialdom never sleeps.
I rattled off name, DOB and address but had to smile to myself when he asked “will she be wanting a visit from the Parish Minister”, to which I replied “Aye – in fact, he’s going to be at the birth!”.
And so it began.
Now as a man, I know better than to romanticise when it comes to those agonising hours of a woman’s labour. But let me say this – anyone who’s been present at a birth knows that there is something profound going on in that room. The ancient Celts used to speak of ‘thin places’ – places where the physical and the spiritual realms are so close they merge into one another. Birth is such a place. Maybe Watchnight Service is another.
The Jews have a saying that there are three people present at every birth. The mother, the child and the Spirit of God. In those wee small hours of watching and waiting and encouraging, it felt like I was on holy ground – privileged to be there.
And when our daughter was finally born, she was whisked away for a quick wash, plonked on mum’s breast and cosied in a fresh blanket.
O’Donohue puts it this way, with Mary in mind:
Outside each other now, she sees him first.
Flesh of her flesh,
Her dreamt son
Safe on earth.
And there’s the image I want you to hold in your minds this evening. The archetypal image of mother and newborn child. Some of you have lived it. Some of us have witnessed it. And it might help those who haven’t, to remember that at one time your mother, or maybe some other loving woman, held you in exactly that way.
What’s in that mother’s gaze as she looks? Hope, wonder, delight, a little fear maybe?
Because through her becoming a mother, she knows that her destiny, her happiness is now tied to the fate of that child, for good or for ill. And though, in the natural course of things, the child will grow and learn and mature and finally leave, she will always carry her, or him, in her heart. Sharing their happiness and their hurts if they remain close. Pining for that closeness if they don’t.
Tied destinies. Mother and child. Creator and created.
And what I want you to understand this evening, is that when God looks at the world, it’s with those same eyes. That same gaze.
In creating, he has chosen to tie his destiny to ours, his happiness to ours. He birthed a world, nurtured it and set it free; he gave us space and time in which to grow and mature, always yearning for a free response of love but never manipulating it; never co-ercing it. Never forgetting us, even when we forget him.
God put it this way, through the prophet Isaiah.
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
Whoever we are, whatever we’ve done, however much we overlook or ignore the call of God on our lives, we are not forgotten. We are etched into God’s memory.
And that’s the image I want you to remember from this evening. The image of mother and child. Creator and created.
Will you let yourself be held and owned and loved by your creator this Christmas? Will you return God’s gaze? Or will you turn your eyes away to lesser things?
Whatever our choice, God has made his. We are not forgotten. He has come to us in Christ. And in words that prefigure the destiny of that child in Mary’s arms, we are engraved on the palms of his hands.
No man reaches where the moon touches a woman.
Even the moon leaves her when she opens
Deeper into the ripple in her womb
That encircles dark to become flesh and bone.
Someone is coming ashore inside her.
A face deciphers itself from water
And she curves around the gathering wave
Opening to offer the life it craves.
In a corner stall of pilgrim strangers,
She falls and heaves
Holding a tide of tears
A red wire of pain feeds through every vein
Until night unweaves and the child reaches dawn.
Outside each other now, she sees him first.
Flesh of her flesh,
Her dreamt son
Safe on earth.
It must have been about 11 o’clock when I got Rhona into the maternity hospital. Our two older kids had arrived in the world after long labours through the wee small hours, and number three had decided she would keep up the family tradition.
I took Rhona through to the midwives unit and then I had to come back to speak to the wee man on the door because – as always – there were forms to be filled in. Even when you stand on the cusp of something as momentous as the birth of a child, officialdom never sleeps.
I rattled off name, DOB and address but had to smile to myself when he asked “will she be wanting a visit from the Parish Minister”, to which I replied “Aye – in fact, he’s going to be at the birth!”.
And so it began.
Now as a man, I know better than to romanticise when it comes to those agonising hours of a woman’s labour. But let me say this – anyone who’s been present at a birth knows that there is something profound going on in that room. The ancient Celts used to speak of ‘thin places’ – places where the physical and the spiritual realms are so close they merge into one another. Birth is such a place. Maybe Watchnight Service is another.
The Jews have a saying that there are three people present at every birth. The mother, the child and the Spirit of God. In those wee small hours of watching and waiting and encouraging, it felt like I was on holy ground – privileged to be there.
And when our daughter was finally born, she was whisked away for a quick wash, plonked on mum’s breast and cosied in a fresh blanket.
O’Donohue puts it this way, with Mary in mind:
Outside each other now, she sees him first.
Flesh of her flesh,
Her dreamt son
Safe on earth.
And there’s the image I want you to hold in your minds this evening. The archetypal image of mother and newborn child. Some of you have lived it. Some of us have witnessed it. And it might help those who haven’t, to remember that at one time your mother, or maybe some other loving woman, held you in exactly that way.
What’s in that mother’s gaze as she looks? Hope, wonder, delight, a little fear maybe?
Because through her becoming a mother, she knows that her destiny, her happiness is now tied to the fate of that child, for good or for ill. And though, in the natural course of things, the child will grow and learn and mature and finally leave, she will always carry her, or him, in her heart. Sharing their happiness and their hurts if they remain close. Pining for that closeness if they don’t.
Tied destinies. Mother and child. Creator and created.
And what I want you to understand this evening, is that when God looks at the world, it’s with those same eyes. That same gaze.
In creating, he has chosen to tie his destiny to ours, his happiness to ours. He birthed a world, nurtured it and set it free; he gave us space and time in which to grow and mature, always yearning for a free response of love but never manipulating it; never co-ercing it. Never forgetting us, even when we forget him.
God put it this way, through the prophet Isaiah.
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
Whoever we are, whatever we’ve done, however much we overlook or ignore the call of God on our lives, we are not forgotten. We are etched into God’s memory.
And that’s the image I want you to remember from this evening. The image of mother and child. Creator and created.
Will you let yourself be held and owned and loved by your creator this Christmas? Will you return God’s gaze? Or will you turn your eyes away to lesser things?
Whatever our choice, God has made his. We are not forgotten. He has come to us in Christ. And in words that prefigure the destiny of that child in Mary’s arms, we are engraved on the palms of his hands.
Blessed Are Those Who Are Persecuted for the Sake of Righteousness
Today we come to the penultimate beatitude in this series of eight we’ve been looking at in the build up to Christmas:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires – the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as them”.
It might seem like a strange topic for the season of goodwill: but given that this is a communion service where the cost of following God to the end is shown graphically in the elements of bread and wine, perhaps it’s not so strange.
Now there are two obvious Sermons to preach today and I don’t intend to preach either.
The first is to hold up examples of Christians who are persecuted in today’s world and say “there you go, folks. That puts whatever problems you’re facing because of your faith into perspective”.
It would be very easy to do.
If you Google “Christian Persecution”, you’ll quickly find several websites that spell out the reality of life for an estimated 100 million Christians across the world. I lifted these headlines at random from one website, but there were pages and pages of other stories I could have chosen.
“Europe urged to halt death sentence of Iranian pastor”
“Pakistani teenage Christian nearly stoned to death in prison”
“Hindu militants attack Punjabi Church”
“Gunmen break into Iraqui Christian home and kill 2”.
“Chinese house churches raided – two pastors missing”.
And they’re just headlines, but behind every one there are people being denied basic human rights, and families worried sick for their loved ones and for themselves.
And though it has to be said that people of all creeds (and none) face persecution in different parts of the world, the fate of Christians, particularly in Islamic and Communist countries, is especially precarious in today’s world.
And it would be easy to use their stories to flagellate ourselves for how little we suffer for our faith; but that’s not a sermon I want to preach.
And nor do I want to put on my Daily Mail hat and rail against the so-called persecution of Christians in Britain today. You know the kind of thing – the Airport worker who’s told she can’t wear a crucifix round her neck at work. The healthcare worker who’s struck off for offering to pray with a patient.
These kinds of small-scale persecution are cropping up with regularity now because we live in a culture of overcautious political correctness. But although stories like that are saddening and maddening, they’re hardly surprising.
Minorities often suffer at the hands of the majority, and we live in an age when only 15% of the UK population attend church at least once a month. We’re a minority now. And instead of spluttering our outrage about it, we’re going to have to learn all over again what it means to live creatively at the margins.
But I digress.
So those are the two sermons I’m not going to preach this morning.
Instead, let me tell you four things the Bible says about persecution and leave it at that.
Firstly – Anyone who’s trying to live a Christian life will come up against persecution of one form or another. That’s guaranteed. If you choose not to follow the crowd, don’t be surprised if the crowd turns on you now and again.
Now some folk bring it on themselves – the Dot Cottons of this world with their moany self-righteousness. But there are many good souls, doing nobody any harm and plenty of folk good, who still find themselves at the sharp end of criticism.
As Jesus spoke with the disciples on the night he was betrayed, he warned them that the going ahead would be tough “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also”.
Expect it, he said. Do your best to live at peace with everyone, but don’t expect that it will always be successful. If you choose to live the way of the kingdom you won’t always fit in. And you know what the world does to people who don’t fit in. It kicks them until they’re the right shape, or it pushes them to the margins where they can safely be ignored. Don’t be surprised when it happens.
Don’t be surprised when you don’t get the invitation; or they pass you over for promotion because you’re not ruthless enough or you prioritise your family and your church life over your career.
Don’t be surprised when tongues wag, or emails fly because you choose to live differently. Don’t be surprised when some take great delight in misrepresenting you.
Persecution of one sort or another will come. Expect it, says Jesus.
But remember, secondly, that you’re not alone in it. Christ is with you in your suffering. Expect God’s presence.
Some of you will know the story of how Saul became the apostle Paul. As one of the most devout Jews of his day, Saul was tearing about the country persecuting the newborn church; presiding over the execution of some of its key members.
And then on the road to Damascus, he was blinded by a shining light from heaven. And he heard the voice of Jesus saying “Saul, Saul . Why do you persecute me?”. Not “Why do you persecute my church? Why do you persecute those poor believers? Why do you persecute ME”.
Now by this stage, Jesus was long gone. Saul never laid eyes on him except in this encounter. But for Jesus, persecuting his church was the same as persecuting his very self. He is with us in our suffering.
Much, much later in life, after he’d struggled long and hard in the service of the gospel, Saul – now Paul - set down these words in his letter to the Romans, and they’re words that are born out of experience:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
We are not alone when we suffer for his sake. God is present with us.
And that is hugely important, because the next thing he asks us to do, we couldn’t do without him
Jesus asks us to pray for those who persecute us. We need to Express Prayer for them.
Nothing represents the whole upside-down, counter-intuitive philosophy of Jesus’ kingdom way, better than this command.
Just a few verses on from where we read this morning, Jesus says these words:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven".
Martin Luther King, who had more enemies than most of us, put it this way: “He who would change someone must first love them”.
How will our enemies, our persecutors, ever change if we refuse to love them and return hate for hate?
Desmond Tutu tells a story from the work of the Truth and Reconciliation committee’s work in South Africa. A black woman whose son and husband had both been brutally killed by security police officers found herself in the same room as the man who had orchestrated their killings. After he’d finished giving his testimony, the commissioners asked the widow how she wanted justice to be done.
“I want three things” she said.
“I want to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned, so I can gather the dust there and give his remains a decent burial”.
“My husband and my son were my only family, so the second thing I want is for Mr Van Broek to become my son. I want him to come twice a month to the ghetto where I live so I can pour out on him whatever love I still have within me.”
“And thirdly, I want someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so I can take Mr Van Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven”.
"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse”, says Jesus. Why? Because it’s the only way to break the cycle of hate. It’s the only way that love can triumph.
Expect persecution. Expect God’s Presence. Express Prayer, and lastly, Embrace Powerlessness.
One of the worst things about persecution of any kind, is the feeling of powerlessness that goes with it. But in the kingdom, that powerlessness needn’t be a hindrance. It can be an opportunity.
In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes about an especially difficult time in his ministry where he felt utterly powerless. But in that situation he heard God say these words which have been a comfort to many suffering Christians:“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
When we come to the end of our own strength, there’s nothing left for us but to rely on God’s strength. And when accept that, we find the power to endure.
Mother Julian of Norwich was a 14th century mystic who lived in a time of great turmoil and uncertainty with the land ravaged by plague and warfare. And in the midst of it all, she had several intense spiritual revelations from God which she wrote down, and they can still be read today. There are her words:
'You will not be overcome, ' were said very insistently and strongly, He did not say, 'You will not be laboured, you will not be disquieted; but he did say: 'You will not be overcome'.
Persecutions will come. We can expect them. But we can also expect God’s presence in the midst of them. And when we express prayer for those who seek to wound us, and embrace our powerlessness, we will find the strength to get through, even in our weakness.
There’s the blessing. Thanks be to God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires – the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as them”.
It might seem like a strange topic for the season of goodwill: but given that this is a communion service where the cost of following God to the end is shown graphically in the elements of bread and wine, perhaps it’s not so strange.
Now there are two obvious Sermons to preach today and I don’t intend to preach either.
The first is to hold up examples of Christians who are persecuted in today’s world and say “there you go, folks. That puts whatever problems you’re facing because of your faith into perspective”.
It would be very easy to do.
If you Google “Christian Persecution”, you’ll quickly find several websites that spell out the reality of life for an estimated 100 million Christians across the world. I lifted these headlines at random from one website, but there were pages and pages of other stories I could have chosen.
“Europe urged to halt death sentence of Iranian pastor”
“Pakistani teenage Christian nearly stoned to death in prison”
“Hindu militants attack Punjabi Church”
“Gunmen break into Iraqui Christian home and kill 2”.
“Chinese house churches raided – two pastors missing”.
And they’re just headlines, but behind every one there are people being denied basic human rights, and families worried sick for their loved ones and for themselves.
And though it has to be said that people of all creeds (and none) face persecution in different parts of the world, the fate of Christians, particularly in Islamic and Communist countries, is especially precarious in today’s world.
And it would be easy to use their stories to flagellate ourselves for how little we suffer for our faith; but that’s not a sermon I want to preach.
And nor do I want to put on my Daily Mail hat and rail against the so-called persecution of Christians in Britain today. You know the kind of thing – the Airport worker who’s told she can’t wear a crucifix round her neck at work. The healthcare worker who’s struck off for offering to pray with a patient.
These kinds of small-scale persecution are cropping up with regularity now because we live in a culture of overcautious political correctness. But although stories like that are saddening and maddening, they’re hardly surprising.
Minorities often suffer at the hands of the majority, and we live in an age when only 15% of the UK population attend church at least once a month. We’re a minority now. And instead of spluttering our outrage about it, we’re going to have to learn all over again what it means to live creatively at the margins.
But I digress.
So those are the two sermons I’m not going to preach this morning.
Instead, let me tell you four things the Bible says about persecution and leave it at that.
Firstly – Anyone who’s trying to live a Christian life will come up against persecution of one form or another. That’s guaranteed. If you choose not to follow the crowd, don’t be surprised if the crowd turns on you now and again.
Now some folk bring it on themselves – the Dot Cottons of this world with their moany self-righteousness. But there are many good souls, doing nobody any harm and plenty of folk good, who still find themselves at the sharp end of criticism.
As Jesus spoke with the disciples on the night he was betrayed, he warned them that the going ahead would be tough “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also”.
Expect it, he said. Do your best to live at peace with everyone, but don’t expect that it will always be successful. If you choose to live the way of the kingdom you won’t always fit in. And you know what the world does to people who don’t fit in. It kicks them until they’re the right shape, or it pushes them to the margins where they can safely be ignored. Don’t be surprised when it happens.
Don’t be surprised when you don’t get the invitation; or they pass you over for promotion because you’re not ruthless enough or you prioritise your family and your church life over your career.
Don’t be surprised when tongues wag, or emails fly because you choose to live differently. Don’t be surprised when some take great delight in misrepresenting you.
Persecution of one sort or another will come. Expect it, says Jesus.
But remember, secondly, that you’re not alone in it. Christ is with you in your suffering. Expect God’s presence.
Some of you will know the story of how Saul became the apostle Paul. As one of the most devout Jews of his day, Saul was tearing about the country persecuting the newborn church; presiding over the execution of some of its key members.
And then on the road to Damascus, he was blinded by a shining light from heaven. And he heard the voice of Jesus saying “Saul, Saul . Why do you persecute me?”. Not “Why do you persecute my church? Why do you persecute those poor believers? Why do you persecute ME”.
Now by this stage, Jesus was long gone. Saul never laid eyes on him except in this encounter. But for Jesus, persecuting his church was the same as persecuting his very self. He is with us in our suffering.
Much, much later in life, after he’d struggled long and hard in the service of the gospel, Saul – now Paul - set down these words in his letter to the Romans, and they’re words that are born out of experience:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
We are not alone when we suffer for his sake. God is present with us.
And that is hugely important, because the next thing he asks us to do, we couldn’t do without him
Jesus asks us to pray for those who persecute us. We need to Express Prayer for them.
Nothing represents the whole upside-down, counter-intuitive philosophy of Jesus’ kingdom way, better than this command.
Just a few verses on from where we read this morning, Jesus says these words:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven".
Martin Luther King, who had more enemies than most of us, put it this way: “He who would change someone must first love them”.
How will our enemies, our persecutors, ever change if we refuse to love them and return hate for hate?
Desmond Tutu tells a story from the work of the Truth and Reconciliation committee’s work in South Africa. A black woman whose son and husband had both been brutally killed by security police officers found herself in the same room as the man who had orchestrated their killings. After he’d finished giving his testimony, the commissioners asked the widow how she wanted justice to be done.
“I want three things” she said.
“I want to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned, so I can gather the dust there and give his remains a decent burial”.
“My husband and my son were my only family, so the second thing I want is for Mr Van Broek to become my son. I want him to come twice a month to the ghetto where I live so I can pour out on him whatever love I still have within me.”
“And thirdly, I want someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so I can take Mr Van Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven”.
"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse”, says Jesus. Why? Because it’s the only way to break the cycle of hate. It’s the only way that love can triumph.
Expect persecution. Expect God’s Presence. Express Prayer, and lastly, Embrace Powerlessness.
One of the worst things about persecution of any kind, is the feeling of powerlessness that goes with it. But in the kingdom, that powerlessness needn’t be a hindrance. It can be an opportunity.
In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes about an especially difficult time in his ministry where he felt utterly powerless. But in that situation he heard God say these words which have been a comfort to many suffering Christians:“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
When we come to the end of our own strength, there’s nothing left for us but to rely on God’s strength. And when accept that, we find the power to endure.
Mother Julian of Norwich was a 14th century mystic who lived in a time of great turmoil and uncertainty with the land ravaged by plague and warfare. And in the midst of it all, she had several intense spiritual revelations from God which she wrote down, and they can still be read today. There are her words:
'You will not be overcome, ' were said very insistently and strongly, He did not say, 'You will not be laboured, you will not be disquieted; but he did say: 'You will not be overcome'.
Persecutions will come. We can expect them. But we can also expect God’s presence in the midst of them. And when we express prayer for those who seek to wound us, and embrace our powerlessness, we will find the strength to get through, even in our weakness.
There’s the blessing. Thanks be to God.
Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
Maybe it’s the snow, or having the kids around the house more this week, or the imminent arrival of Christmas and all that goes with it, I’m not sure. But I’ve found it harder than usual getting going with the sermon this week.
I did my reading, took notes, tried to shape them, tried to put things down on paper, but somehow nothing seemed to be clicking into place. Five years in, I’ve learned that this is one of the challenges of the job – being creative is one thing; being creative to order is something entirely different.
I watched a documentary on the artist Peter Howson this week - a really interesting and complex man. He’s had a difficult and tortuous life, Howson – spells of homelessness, mental illness and alcoholism are some of the things he’s had to contend with. But his work is exceptional, and since the year 2000 when he had a profound spiritual experience, his paintings have often had religious themes.
In 2008 he was given a commission by the Archdoicese of Glasgow to do a painting of St John Ogilvie, a priest who was tried and hanged for treason after the Scottish Reformation.
He spent eight months working on an execution scene which had something like 600 individual figures – and we watched this magnificent painting emerge from his imagination and evolve over time. But one day, having stood back and surveyed it all, he took a great black brush, painted over almost everything he’d done and started again. It just wasn’t right, he said.
On a far smaller scale, I had my own mini-Howson moment this week – a sermon which was most of the way there, but which ended up in the bin. Why? Because it just wasn’t right.
And that, I realised, was my way into a better sermon.
It got me thinking about ‘rightness’.
If I say that something’s not right, that’s a loaded statement. It means that out there, somewhere, whether in reality or in my brain, there’s a way that things should be. And the success of what I create is measured by the extent to which it captures what I’m trying to describe.
If I paint a picture of John Ogilvie’s execution which doesn’t capture my sense of how things were for him in that moment, then it’s not right.
If I cut two piece of wood at 45 degrees and they don’t make a right angle when I join them, then it isn’t right. Literally.
If I write a sermon which doesn’t get to the heart of what I think God wants us to understand from the text that week, then it’s not right either.
Two of my three kids are learning piano at the moment and one of the joys of that – when you’re not trying to write a sermon – is hearing how the pieces they’re learning improve over time.
At first there are just the plain mistakes. A crotchet rest instead of a minim. A black key instead of a white key.
But in time those mistakes get ironed out. And as they practice, the piece begins to take on more fluidity and character. It even begins to take on some of their own personality. They get it about as right as any child of their age could, and it’s lovely to hear.
There’s something in us that loves rightness. Rightness matters. It matters whether we’re talking about an objective fact like two plus two equals four, or a subjective aspiration like painting the best picture or writing the best sermon you can. There’s something in us that wants to get things right.
Now, with that excursus behind us, we’re in a better place to look at the beatitude that falls to us today, the sixth in our journey up to Christmas.
Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they shall be filled”.
So what’s he saying here? What is this righteousness that Jesus is talking about?
Well, some hold that this beatitude’s about those who are hungry to be made right with God.
And although that’s true, I don’t think it’s the whole story. And the reason I say that is when you dive into the Bible and spend some time looking at the 200 or so uses of that word righteousness, you begin to get a feel for that word in all its richness.
And one of the most significant insights that emerges is that on more than 30 occasions, righteousness and justice are linked together. They’re linked together in the prophesy we heard earlier on from Isaiah, looking forward 700 years to the birth of the Messiah:
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and for ever.
Justice and righteousness go together like salt and pepper in the Biblical story. And what that points to, I believe, is that this word righteousness is about more than individual salvation. It’s about the rightness God wants for his world. Righteousness is the rightness God wants for his world. Right relationships with God, with one another, with the planet. It’s cosmic in scope.
Instinctively, we know that Rightness matters. Howson wanted his painting to be right. I wanted my sermon to be right. And God wants his world to be right.
But the world is far from right. I don’t mean to be a pessimist – just a realist. Read the papers. Watch the telly. You don’t need me to spell it out for you.
There is a rightness – a way the world should be. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks about the kingdom. But the world is very far from right. And it breaks God’s heart. Because the one thing he will never do is force our hand. The price of making creatures who could freely choose to love him, was the risk that they would choose not to love him. We chose badly, and the world became what it now is.
But all of us are haunted by the idea that this is not the way things should be. That there’s someone or something who can bring rightness. And there are times when we ache for that rightness. We wouldn’t put it in those terms, maybe, but we ache for it.
We see a relationship going to pieces; battle-lines hardening; friends taking sides. And we ache for a resolution.
We see someone we love suffering in ways we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy. And we ache for it to come to an end.
We see some tragedy or some staggering evil unfolding before us on the TV news, and we ache for the victims and the survivors.
We long for things to be made right. We may not know what that rightness looks like: we may not know where it will come from; we may not consider ourselves religious people, but we still find ourselves hungering and thirsting for rightness. And the Bible tells us there’s only one place we’ll find it – and that’s in God himself.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” says Jesus. “For they shall be filled”.
This beatitude isn’t a pat on the back for the religiously devoted. It’s an encouragement for every single person with a tender conscience; everyone who finds themselves yearning in some way for a world made right.
It’s a promise that the king whose humble birth we celebrate at this time of year, is bringing in his Kingdom; and when it comes there will be, in John’s memorable words in Revelation, no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away.
The Rev Martin Luther King put it this way: I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship.
There is a rightness. And one day it will dawn in all its glory. And all that mars and spoils will melt away like winter snow in sunshine. The Sun of righteousness, says Malachi, will rise with healing in his wings.
Until then, we play our part in the story by doing our best to live aright with God, with one another, with the planet and with ourselves. And we let out hunger pangs remind us that in this struggle for rightness and righteousness, we are not alone.
I did my reading, took notes, tried to shape them, tried to put things down on paper, but somehow nothing seemed to be clicking into place. Five years in, I’ve learned that this is one of the challenges of the job – being creative is one thing; being creative to order is something entirely different.
I watched a documentary on the artist Peter Howson this week - a really interesting and complex man. He’s had a difficult and tortuous life, Howson – spells of homelessness, mental illness and alcoholism are some of the things he’s had to contend with. But his work is exceptional, and since the year 2000 when he had a profound spiritual experience, his paintings have often had religious themes.
In 2008 he was given a commission by the Archdoicese of Glasgow to do a painting of St John Ogilvie, a priest who was tried and hanged for treason after the Scottish Reformation.
He spent eight months working on an execution scene which had something like 600 individual figures – and we watched this magnificent painting emerge from his imagination and evolve over time. But one day, having stood back and surveyed it all, he took a great black brush, painted over almost everything he’d done and started again. It just wasn’t right, he said.
On a far smaller scale, I had my own mini-Howson moment this week – a sermon which was most of the way there, but which ended up in the bin. Why? Because it just wasn’t right.
And that, I realised, was my way into a better sermon.
It got me thinking about ‘rightness’.
If I say that something’s not right, that’s a loaded statement. It means that out there, somewhere, whether in reality or in my brain, there’s a way that things should be. And the success of what I create is measured by the extent to which it captures what I’m trying to describe.
If I paint a picture of John Ogilvie’s execution which doesn’t capture my sense of how things were for him in that moment, then it’s not right.
If I cut two piece of wood at 45 degrees and they don’t make a right angle when I join them, then it isn’t right. Literally.
If I write a sermon which doesn’t get to the heart of what I think God wants us to understand from the text that week, then it’s not right either.
Two of my three kids are learning piano at the moment and one of the joys of that – when you’re not trying to write a sermon – is hearing how the pieces they’re learning improve over time.
At first there are just the plain mistakes. A crotchet rest instead of a minim. A black key instead of a white key.
But in time those mistakes get ironed out. And as they practice, the piece begins to take on more fluidity and character. It even begins to take on some of their own personality. They get it about as right as any child of their age could, and it’s lovely to hear.
There’s something in us that loves rightness. Rightness matters. It matters whether we’re talking about an objective fact like two plus two equals four, or a subjective aspiration like painting the best picture or writing the best sermon you can. There’s something in us that wants to get things right.
Now, with that excursus behind us, we’re in a better place to look at the beatitude that falls to us today, the sixth in our journey up to Christmas.
Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they shall be filled”.
So what’s he saying here? What is this righteousness that Jesus is talking about?
Well, some hold that this beatitude’s about those who are hungry to be made right with God.
And although that’s true, I don’t think it’s the whole story. And the reason I say that is when you dive into the Bible and spend some time looking at the 200 or so uses of that word righteousness, you begin to get a feel for that word in all its richness.
And one of the most significant insights that emerges is that on more than 30 occasions, righteousness and justice are linked together. They’re linked together in the prophesy we heard earlier on from Isaiah, looking forward 700 years to the birth of the Messiah:
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and for ever.
Justice and righteousness go together like salt and pepper in the Biblical story. And what that points to, I believe, is that this word righteousness is about more than individual salvation. It’s about the rightness God wants for his world. Righteousness is the rightness God wants for his world. Right relationships with God, with one another, with the planet. It’s cosmic in scope.
Instinctively, we know that Rightness matters. Howson wanted his painting to be right. I wanted my sermon to be right. And God wants his world to be right.
But the world is far from right. I don’t mean to be a pessimist – just a realist. Read the papers. Watch the telly. You don’t need me to spell it out for you.
There is a rightness – a way the world should be. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks about the kingdom. But the world is very far from right. And it breaks God’s heart. Because the one thing he will never do is force our hand. The price of making creatures who could freely choose to love him, was the risk that they would choose not to love him. We chose badly, and the world became what it now is.
But all of us are haunted by the idea that this is not the way things should be. That there’s someone or something who can bring rightness. And there are times when we ache for that rightness. We wouldn’t put it in those terms, maybe, but we ache for it.
We see a relationship going to pieces; battle-lines hardening; friends taking sides. And we ache for a resolution.
We see someone we love suffering in ways we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy. And we ache for it to come to an end.
We see some tragedy or some staggering evil unfolding before us on the TV news, and we ache for the victims and the survivors.
We long for things to be made right. We may not know what that rightness looks like: we may not know where it will come from; we may not consider ourselves religious people, but we still find ourselves hungering and thirsting for rightness. And the Bible tells us there’s only one place we’ll find it – and that’s in God himself.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” says Jesus. “For they shall be filled”.
This beatitude isn’t a pat on the back for the religiously devoted. It’s an encouragement for every single person with a tender conscience; everyone who finds themselves yearning in some way for a world made right.
It’s a promise that the king whose humble birth we celebrate at this time of year, is bringing in his Kingdom; and when it comes there will be, in John’s memorable words in Revelation, no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away.
The Rev Martin Luther King put it this way: I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship.
There is a rightness. And one day it will dawn in all its glory. And all that mars and spoils will melt away like winter snow in sunshine. The Sun of righteousness, says Malachi, will rise with healing in his wings.
Until then, we play our part in the story by doing our best to live aright with God, with one another, with the planet and with ourselves. And we let out hunger pangs remind us that in this struggle for rightness and righteousness, we are not alone.
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