Living Wittily

Prayer for Christian Aid Week, based on Micah's Words 6.8

“He has shown you, every one of you, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6.8

Creator God, thank you for the goodness of your creation,

for the fruit of the earth, human work and skill,

and for food and home, clothes and comfort.

Lord God, when we come to worship you,

what else can we bring but ourselves?

We come not because we are worthy,

but because you are worthy - of our praise.

 

And so we come to praise and pray

and to be changed by your Holy Spirit.

We come to worship,

and then to go out into your world in your peace,

and by your grace, to live the life of Christ within us.

 

God of justice and what is right, help us to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Teach us to care about justice in our world, our country, and our town.

Help us to care enough to do something about it

when people are struggling - and we can help.

 

Lord of compassion, you are merciful and kind,

and you call us to be the same.

Give us eyes that look for and find opportunities

to make a difference in other people’s lives.

 

Lord we have a lot to be humble about,

especially in the place of worship.

In our daily lives we depend on your grace,

and trust in your goodness and mercy.

Keep us humble in heart and mind.

 

God of justice, make us a people hungry for justice for ourselves and for others

God of mercy, so fill us and surprise us with your love that

we cannot contain it and your love overflows in deeds of kindness to others.

God of humble love, who in Christ came amongst us

to live human life as you intended,

humble us in gratitude, love and service.

 

All this we ask, so that our worship may be real and true,

and so become acceptable in your sight.  AMEN

“Where will the call to discipleship lead those who follow it?

This Week's Pastoral Letter for our folk in Montrose.

In Germany in the late 1930’s a young pastor called Dietrich Bonhoeffer became involved in training other young pastors. But this was to be a very different theological seminary, and a very different kind of pastoral training. With the rise of Nazism, the German Church came more and more under the control of the National Socialist Government. The swastika flag was to be hung in churches, an oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer to be sworn, church youth groups were subsumed into the Hitler youth activities and even what was preached was increasingly censored and directed towards pro-Hitler propaganda.

There was an increasing threat to Jewish citizens, and a growing menace towards synagogues, Jewish businesses and families. Those who resisted all of this organised themselves and formed the Confessing Church. They were forbidden to train pastors for their churches, but Bonhoeffer was put in charge of a secret theological seminary in Finkenwalde. It was there that Bonhoeffer wrote one of the most powerful Christian books of the 20^th Century. Translated into English it was called The Cost of Discipleship. It has never been out of print since.

The thing about Bonhoeffer and his book is, his writing still speaks with deep power today. Teaching young pastors in secret, risking his freedom, and ultimately his life, Bonhoeffer understood the importance of formation. Every day he taught the disciplines of Christian living that enable Christian faithfulness: prayers of intercession, deep reading of Scripture, worship together, love as humble service, standing up for justice, and speaking truth to power. Against the Nazi ideology of power, force and divisive prejudice, Bonhoeffer trained pastors in service to Christ, love as generous self-giving and community building centred on Christ.

In a world like our own, those same social forces swirl around us; love of power, hanging loose to the truth, free for all greed to acquire and possess, social divisions of ‘them’ and ‘us’. For Christians seeking to faithfully follow after Jesus, Bonhoeffer’s words still speak. They are worth pondering:

“Where will the call to discipleship lead those who follow it?...Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows where the path will lead. But we know that it will be a path full of mercy beyond measure. Discipleship is joy.”  

Yes, you read that right. Discipleship is joy. What it must have been like to hear such words spoken? For young men in training for ministry, in a secret seminary, knowing that soon they would be pastors of congregations many of which would meet in secret, and under threat of imprisonment, and later for many of them, death. Discipleship is joy.

Over this past year the big theme amongst Christians has been hope. Our need to be a hopeful people, to be communities of faith and love that bring a message of hope to a troubled, anxious world. And that has been right. But there is something deeply subversive about those words of Bonhoeffer, “Discipleship is joy.” Following Jesus might be hard, costly, and at least inconvenient. It will certainly mean that we are out of step with much that is the expected norm in a society fixated on material security and possessions, and where life satisfaction is linked to connectivity, social media presence, even entertainment as escape from the harder truths of life.

But the follower of Jesus, the Christian believer, is a citizen of another world. Our deepest joy is not personal freedom, accumulating money and things, the status and rewards of our job. It is to follow the path of mercy beyond measure. It is to love God who first loved us. Joy is the deep fulfilment of knowing that how we are living our lives is pleasing to God, and in grateful obedience to our Saviour.

The joy of discipleship, of taking up our cross and following Jesus, mirrors what Jesus himself did: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12.2)

The Extraordinary Power of the Lord's Prayer

I found this paragraph remarkably persuasive as a reason to pray the Lord's Prayer, regularly, faithfully, and hopefully.

 

"Therein lies the extraordinary power of the Lord's Prayer for the formation of Christian character: inherently fertile, the Prayer accomplishes that which God purposes. It is impossible for us to pray Jesus' Prayer and remain unreconstructed by the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 2:16).

By its praying, measure by measure grace softens our self-centredness, love enlarges our noblest capacities: trust in the Father, desire that God's name and all creation be sanctified, regarding our fellow creatures with merciful eyes. The Lord's Prayer is nothing other than Christ's own curriculum in the education of human wanting."

(Clifton Black, 'The Education of Human Wanting: Formation by Pater Noster', in Character and Scripture, ed. W P Brown, Eerdmans, 2002, p. 263)

 

The essay was followed in 2018 by a full monograph on the Lord's Prayer which is a satisfyingly rich exposition of scholarly exegesis, reception history, theological reflection and pastoral appropriation of the Lord's Prayer. It sits alongside Nijay Gupta's, The Lord's Prayer as two of the most useful and up to date scholarly treatments of Jesus' prayer.

 

 

Looking at myself looking back at me from a puddle: Reflections on a Photograph

The restrictions of the past year have been a downward drag on much that we often enjoy. Meetings with friends wherever and whenever; not allowed except under strict conditions. Going shopping without a care about who is near us, what we touch or what we wear; now it's face mask, distancing and hand sanitiser. 

We all find our ways to cope. For me it has been walking with a camera. The aim is not to be fussy, or pretend professional, and not to overthink it. Just click, and see what happens. The results are always mixed. I delete more than I keep.

But occasionally an image announces itself. I mean that. When you're not looking around for what to photograph, suddenly you notice, your attention is apprehended, what you hadn't realised was there suddenly speaks. 

The other day walking on a now familiar path, scarred deeply by huge machinery tracks which had filled with rain water, I looked down and saw my own reflection. Then I stepped back far enough to remove my face and looked at the trees and sky reflected with astonishing clarity. The resulting photo is joyfully ambiguous. Is it trees on a steep hillside, or a blue sky reflection of trees in peat dark water? Use your imagination. It's either, or both.

One of the most difficult to process parts of this past year's experience has been relentless sameness. It's the tethered goat syndrome; unless the rope attached to the pole has a loop, the goat eats its way round and the rope gets shorter and shorter. Sometimes it has felt like that, walking the same paths and pavements, unable to travel beyond whatever 'local' is, no shared hospitality in our homes, and we can each add to this list of limited horizons and confined perspectives.

And then a photo reminds me that how we see life might change what we see. Different perspectives - pines on a steep mountainside as a gift from a puddle. A gift from whom? I choose to believe that this wonderful world we walk through is itself a gift, the outflowing love of the Creator God. And every now and again I have been apprehended, arrested in a non-threatening way, by unexpected insight, a glimpse of alternative ways of seeing, a helpfully unsettling nudge that awakens us from boredom and sameness. 

Augustine's words are true enough, as far as they go. "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." But there is that in the ways of God that disturbs a too easy rest, and triggers a healthy discontent with sameness. Sometimes restlessness is the stirring of something new, a gift of urgency to look again and see new possibility. The photo of the pines in the puddle is infinitely more significant for the absence of my face! Looking at myself looking back at me from a puddle is itself a powerful image of self-absorption, and of that niggling thought we all entertain that the world should dance to our tune, serve our personal agenda, and make allowances for my hopes.

Instead, step back, and look again at the world. Those pine trees on a mountainside, that blue sky looking back up at you instead of you looking up at it! In those moments of discovery - can we call them revelation? - I sense the quiet movement of the Spirit of God creating newness, opening eyes, changing perceptions, replenishing hope. "...and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit." Aye, that!