Living Wittily

"He sowed seeds, of encouragement, accompaniment, kindness, understanding..." A Personal Appreciation of the Rev Robert Gemmell.

There's always likely to be an argument about what matters most, who we are, or what we do. Now and again someone comes along and shows how daft that distinction is. Such people's actions flow directly from who they are; in such people action and being are congruent. Bobby Gemmell was a man like that.

As a young Baptist pastor in High Blantyre from 1967-71, Bobby gathered a large crowd of local lads at the church for games, friendship and a safe place. The clerical collar, polo-neck jumper, jeans and Chelsea boots were his preferred dress code. These were important early statements of Bobby's effectiveness as an approachable and reliable presence in a local community.

When in 1972 he preached at Drumchapel Baptist Church as a possible candidate, his sermon was interrupted by a chip pan thrown through the church window mid-sermon. Thinking there was no chance he would now become their minister, the congregation learned from the start that Bobby sensed God's call as it came through desperate people's calls for help, and for attention and to be heard. The right man in the right place - as he would often be for so many people.

Drumchapel in the 1970's was tougher than almost anywhere else in Scotland. Bobby and Marion, with their three young children moved to Drumchapel, and Bob kept doing what he always did. In the context of a small church community in a large housing estate with huge challenges for those who lived there, he asked how the good news of Jesus could be shown and shared. He quickly realised that the problems of a crowded and socially deprived housing estate couldn't be solved by a wee church just doing its usual thing.

The church gave him permission to go part time and qualify in social work, a move that enabled him to begin tackling the systems and attitudes that made life in his neighbourhood so hard for folk. He took time to learn where the levers were, and what the mechanisms that ground people down no matter how hard they tried. Poverty and addictions, violence and insecurity, truancy and criminality all have root causes, and they have to be understood and confronted, and resources found to start to sort them.

For that to happen someone has to be an advocate for the vulnerable, a voice for the marginalised, and a presence amongst those who need a trusted friend who will be there in the dark places. Bob was what he did, and what he did flowed from a grace often humbly unaware of the way he invited and attracted such trust. Some people talk about speaking truth to power. Oh Bobby could do that, but he could also teach truth to the powerless, the truth of their worth, the truth of God's love, and the truth that keeps hope alive when so much else tries to kill it.

Throughout his ministry, (and Bob was a minister of Christ his whole life from ordination till the day he died), Bobby saw the Gospel as showing the love of Christ to 'the least of these'. For 5 years in Glasgow, Bobby was a pioneer minister in social care, overseeing the Elpis Centre for homeless girls to help them off the street, supervising several flats for people with addictions, and advising on various other expressions of Christian social care within and beyond the Baptist communities in Scotland.

This was a man who heard Jesus parable as the core of his calling - "I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink, sick and in prison and you visited me, naked and you clothed me..." Bobby never spiritualised those words; this text he took with glad and serious literalness, 'forasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it for me." Forget the more sophisticated hermeneutics of suspicion and reduction. He lived by the hermeneutic of trust and compassion and a vision that could see behind a presented persona, a person to be related to, cared for, listened to, understood, helped - and in that person the presence and call of Christ. 

Bob Gemmell loved Scotland, especially the Highlands and Islands. When local authority funding dried up and the Elpis Centre faced closure, Bob found generous and widespread sponsor support for his walk of the West Highland Way, and prolonged the life of the Centre and the provision for its residents. Dozens of men from Glasgow whose lives were a long struggle with addictions, were taken to the beauty and healing quietness of Colonsay to stay in the manse for a week or two. Bob took the island church services, and arranged whatever travel, catering and activities were needed to make a holiday for people whose lives had previously been so restless, and driven, and often despairing.

He returned for some years to Baptist Ministry in Duncan Street Edinburgh, then moved into social care for the elderly. From then on he was bi-vocational, preaching most Sundays, available for pastoral support and spiritual direction, and managing a number of care homes until his retirement about 15 years ago. Even since then, he was regularly preaching, helping out local churches as interim minister, and always, but always, a warm and sensible advisor of those looking for spiritual guidance, common sense, and a friend to walk some hard miles with them. 

Bobby's daughter Fiona shared a lovely and loving tribute about her dad yesterday. Amongst the words she used three seemed to sum up Bobby's way of being: fairness, humility and generosity. These are barcode qualities of Christian service. Justice, the right of each person to have a chance in life, to have support when they're in trouble, to have a friend in the loneliest places. Humility, the capacity to achieve so much without ever thinking they have, the gentleness that doesn't force the issue but persuades, and hopes and stays faithful. Generosity, which is essentially self-giving, that habit of the heart that looks at people and situations and responds with what they have to give, to make it better.  

Bobby's wife Marion, described Bobby as 'a sower of seeds'. Much of his ministry and investment in people was like Jesus' parable of the sower. Like Jesus, throwing seed all around him, not worried about where the seed landed, knowing that some of it would grow and some of it wouldn't. But on he went, sowing, scattering, and believing in the power of the seed. Bobby Gemmell's combination of shrewd realism and non-judgemental acceptance of people where they are, was a gift of the Holy Spirit. He rarely tried to double guess where the good soil was - he sowed seeds, of encouragement, accompaniment, kindness, understanding, and always, a loving respect for 'the least of these.' And he rejoiced every time the green shoots began to show.

Bobby's theology arose out of his lifelong struggle on behalf of those who needed a supporting voice, or a second chance, or someone to believe in them, or a strong advocate who knew what he was talking about and could push back at systems that are seldom designed to fulfil their own purpose of social welfare and supported living. And so for Bobby, theology shaped his political vision, and both arose out of a robust ethic of Christian love and a Christian humanism by which each person is valued because made in the image of God. Bob saw the inherent dignity in people, looked on each person as God-loved and one in whom Christ is to be met - 'inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these...you did it to me.' And undergirding his theology, politics and ethics, his deep love of Christ crucified for the sins of the world, and risen in the triumph of love over hate, hope over despair, and forgiveness over every guilt. Bobby's vocation was to make that Gospel credible by enacting and speaking the love of God.

On a last personal note. Bobby and Marion have been our friends for over 50 years. Bobby married Sheila and I in High Blantyre in 1972. We have stayed good friends, and though years could go past without us seeing them, they have been guiding landmarks in our own ways, as we too have tried to live the Christ-life in the service of the church and beyond. Many people will miss Bobby; but many, many people will also thank God that, by a providence we can never explain or second-guess, Bobby Gemmell touched their lives, and sowed seeds that made life better for them. Bobby was one of very few people I've known who actually lived out Frederick Buechner's definition of vocation: "Vocation is where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need."     

"Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back..."

Today I invite you to read a poem. It was written nearly 400 years ago by the Church of England priest, George Herbert. Not many people read him these days. The language is as old as the King James Bible, and it comes from someone who had served the King and court, but who chose to be a country parson rather than a royal diplomat.

One of my treasured books is an early Victorian edition of the poems of George Herbert (1863). I was given it for my 40^th birthday by my good friend Kate. She was a passionate teacher of English literature to generations of Open University students, adult literacy classes, and anyone within earshot who wanted to learn the beauty and power of our language. I spoke with one of her students the other day, “She never told me I wrote badly; she always told me how to write better.” (The previous post is the Eulogy prepared for Kate's funeral)   

Reading a poem takes time, and patience, and a willingness to be spoken to in the deep places.  Many of our best loved hymns are poems, set to music. Words are one of the important ways that God speaks to us, guides and comforts us, and leads us into truths that change us. So here is Herbert’s poem:

LOVE

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
            Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
            "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
            "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
            So I did sit and eat.

LOVE is the name Herbert gives to the Christ. In this poem Herbert imagines the conversation between Christ and our hearts every time we come to the Communion table. As sinners we don’t feel worthy. Our guilt gets in the way of our joy. We need forgiveness every time. Sin embarrasses us, shame humiliates us, and we wish ourselves away from the One we have wronged.

But, says Herbert, each of us is a guest. 'Quick-eyed Love' sees our reluctance, hears our regret and knows our guilt, and reminds us 'who bore the blame'. That’s why I read this poem from time to time at our Communion services. It's a reminder that we are guests, that Christ is the one who issues the invitations, waits to welcome us, and says who is worthy.

The time will come when we will be able again to hold Communion services in our churches as openly and freely, without the current health restrictions. It matters so much that we aren’t able to sit alongside each other. We can’t fully enact the fellowship we share in Christ by serving each other and passing bread and wine one to the other.

But Herbert’s poem reminds us of the most important thing: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst.” Whatever else does or doesn’t happen, it is Jesus’ table, we are his guests, and the living Christ is present.

When we come to the Communion table to share in the Lord’s Supper, Christ the saviour is there. Love bids us welcome. The same generously open invitation shines from the much loved words of the Communion Order of Service:

Come to this table, not because you must but because you may,
not because you are strong, but because you are weak.

Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come,
but because you need mercy and help.

Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more.

(The book pictured above is one of the best one volume introductions to Herbert and his poetry.) 

Kate Durie 1950-2021: "She looked humanely forth on human life..."

“Kate was realistic, practical, kind, thoughtful, hugely intelligent and quick witted, full of life and cultural interests, funny, & brave in the adversity of the MND which she did not want to define her.” If this was a responsive Eulogy I would expect to hear a congregational Amen.

A woman of words, she chose many of the words to be read, sung and prayed at her funeral service. They express what mattered to her most – of life and literature, of faith and love, of hope and humanity, of God and beauty, of the tears and laughter, of the tragedy and comedy and history that are woven through the story of every human life.

Kate was born in Barnsley in 1950. Rick remembers a happy childhood of a big sister whose initial resentment of the baby brother usurper turned into a lifelong alliance. Kate was always there for Rick, from the times she sat on him to calm him down to helping him pass the Baptist Church SS exam – in which he scored higher than her! The mature Kate of the rapier wit informed by the best of English literature, was entirely evident when in an argument with Rick 8, and Kate 12. He made the mistake of calling her an idiot. Her response, “The devil damn thee black thou cream faced loon. Where got’st thou that goose look” (Macbeth Act 5 Scene 3)  Incidentally, the only recorded time Kate showed any interest in football was in 1997 when Barnsley FC were promoted to the Premier League. It gave her the chance to show off her local history, the club having been founded by the Rev Tivverton Preedy - as she remarked, "such a Dickensian name".    

Kate excelled at school, took a first in English Lit at Kent, graduated M.Phil from Oxford and began her working life at University of Aberdeen. There she met Alastair, they quickly engaged and married – later Kate explained the rush that Alastair wanted to go grouse shooting, a comment without rancour, but with that sardonic humour both warm and forgiving of human foibles and failings, including her own.

 Marriage and the care of her children became a life focus for Kate over the growing up years. I met Kate, Alastair, Ruth and Alex in 1984 when I came to be minister at Crown Terrace Baptist Church in Aberdeen. During those years Kate and Alastair were deacons, both were preachers, and our friendship quickly developed. Kate wrote dramas and skits to go with the theme of the service – she was such a script writer – her portrayal of Laban, the sleazy Del Boy father in law, played in the church by a man of impeccable integrity who relished the hand rubbing, trilby-wearing con-man, outwitting Jacob. Kate looked back on those days as formative when church was fun and a safe place for folk to explore their faith.

When the Duries moved to Stirling Kate immediately began rebuilding her social networks, opened up educational and teaching opportunities, and made new friends. She began her 30 year association with the Open University – teaching courses on Shakespeare (of course) Victorian Literature (ditto), Byzantine Art (What?), The Northern and Italian Renaissance,(Yes these too).

Kate was a lifelong learner, and a lifelong teacher. She believed passionately in education as a doorway to richer life and enlarged opportunities, a pathway to a stronger sense of self and a way of building confidence in others. She was an educational socialist – access, support, opportunity for all who want to learn. She was a consummate teacher. At the OU she was well known as a tutor who believed in her students, no matter where their starting point. One student told me, “She never told me I wrote badly; she always showed me how to write better.” The quality of a teacher is evident in feedback that is informative, formative, and aims to be transformative.

Kate’s warmth and acceptance of people as they are made her an ideal counsellor for Cruise. And "Blessed is the book group that has a Kate Durie; they shall never be boring.” Kate was one of the best listeners I’ve ever known – I remember sending her the well-known words of George Eliot, whose name was near the top of her literary Canon: “A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

Later in life when Alastair and Kate separated, she moved to Edinburgh and quickly established new roots. A church where relationships could be formed towards friendship, and where faith could grow; reading groups, a poetry group and a Shakespeare group and a revelling in the cultural richness of theatre and art galleries, cinema and open doors days. Ruth remembers on one Open Day sixteen visits to various historic and architectural places of interest. She remains astonished at the vast amount of historical scandal Kate carried around in her head, about artists, poets, architects and other notables.

Education, learning and teaching defined Kate’s approach to all of life. She taught more than history, art and literature. She taught her children how to cook; she collected recipes like poems. Her OT Victoria learned a lot about books and literature in those conversations that interweave with all kinds of carers. She loved the animals that shared her home, from Caleb to Zac, and a succession of cats – she loved cats and quoted chunks of Kit Smart’s My Cat Jeffrey. Hospitality took on a warm, broad, welcoming embrace in Kate’s home – home- made soup (carrot her speciality – her friend Phyllis 40 years on still makes that recipe!) baking, conversation and small talk, and a sense of gladness and gratitude oozing from Kate towards those who sought her company. “What do we live for if not to make the world a little less difficult for each other?” (George Eliot)

Kate and I spoke every few weeks on the phone. That always included an oral exam on what I’d been reading, an exchange of family news, and often a two person seminar on things literary, theological and historical. She introduced me to so many fertile furrows, and I gave her pointers for good theological reading. Not sound and safe, but searching and risky. This was a reader who was reading with critical appreciation, Rowan Williams before he became Archbishop. She hadn’t only read C S Lewis – she wrote about him, lectured on him in the United States, and was one of the first people to present C S Lewis as other than an evangelical apologist above contradiction.

When it became clear that Kate was unwell, and she was eventually diagnosed with MND, she set about adjusting her life in order to prepare for a very different future. She wouldn’t call herself brave, more pragmatic, practical, determined to outwit a condition that would gradually diminish her possibilities. All we had known of Kate’s problem solving skills, practical common-sense, inventive mind, and spiritual resilience made her determined to resist the encroachments as long as she was able. For a time she still strode out, this time with a cane. That cane she wielded as a sword against the enemy. Then the mobility scooter and Sheila and I on one of our visits were recruited as her minders as she took it out for a test drive along the obstacle course of Balcarres St pavements.

In one of our recent phone conversations we recalled one of the first literary conversations she and I had. Kate came up after the service and said, “You quoted Robert Browning.” Yes I did. “It was from Paracelsus.” Yes it was. “It was perfect. I’ve always said Browning shouldn’t be quoted by preachers, he’s too dense. You proved me wrong.” Away she walked. The words come back as words of defiant hope, but without denying the pull of despair:  “If I stoop into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, it is but for a time; I press God's lamp close to my breast; its splendour soon or late will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day.”

Kate’s Christian faith was never based on already found answers. Her mind was too sharp, her mood more interrogative than declarative. She had grown beyond the various iterations of Christian faith too ready to settle for certainty, and too impatient of mystery, too worried about not knowing. In the theological sense Kate loved mystery, and refused steadfastly to reduce God to manageable proportions or propositions. She trusted the humanity of Jesus, his tears and his anger, his compassion and patience, the sheer gratuitous fun of turning water into the best ever wine. She could entrust herself to the Lord of all faith, whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe – Christ, the master carpenter, using those tools that shape and form us towards Christlikeness.

Kate had no real interest in Chalcedonian metaphysics. She knew God’s final, definitive Word became flesh and dwelt among us, in Jesus. That she knew. For everything else we see through a glass darkly…beyond that she was certain that faith, hope, and love are essential in every human life – but the greatest of these is love. And Kate loved those she loved deeply, faithfully, with that daring risky combination of realism, passion and self-giving on her own terms.  So much was taken from Kate in these last months. But not her faith. Yet another of my debts to Kate is she introduced me to the poet Denise Levertov. I finish with Levertov’s poem, written when she too was suffering her final illness:

Suspended

I had grasped God's garment in the void
but my hand slipped
on the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight
from falling, even so,
for though I claw at empty air and feel
nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

"A Man Who Loves the Trees": Friendship, Grief and a Walk in the Woods.

"A man who loves the trees..." That's me! I climbed them as a boy oblivious that risk assessment might one day be a thing. But all the time I was strengthening muscles, and every tree climbed, was helping me attain a higher perspective from which to view the world. Trees have always been my friends, and if that sounds a bit sentimental, so be it. 

"A man who loves trees walks among them on a dark day..." Yes, that too. Within four days we received news of three deaths, each of them a loss felt at the heart's core, because each was a friend for 51 years, 48 years and 37 years respectively.

So I was walking among trees on a dark day of sorrow at such loss, of grief known as a wound that slices through the whole being. Several recently acquired sadnesses weighing on the heart, and the feeling that identity-defining stories are now closed books on a shelf that can't be opened again.

Love is never free in the exchanges and gifts of friendship. Every true and enduring friendship has its own inherent and gladly paid costs. Often enough such self-expenditure is informal, given and not demanded, but each encounter is a strand binding us in a covenant to care, to be there for and with, and to share in the happiness and hardship of each mile of our human journeying.

"A man who loves trees walks among them on a dark day for the solace he has taken always..." Solace, the gift of our presence which, when shared, becomes consolation. The verb to console describes a coming alongside to bring solace and comfort. So sometimes what I need is trees not talk, aloneness not company, silence not words. Which is why yesterday I found myself walking among the trees on a dark day, doing the work of inner adjustment to the loss of three friends. 

Wendell Berry has written many poems and essays on trees. This one is less well known than it should be:

A man who walks among the trees

walks among them on a dark day

for the solace he has taken there always

from the company of the elders,

and suddenly he sees

such a grace as in all his going

he is always going toward

though never in his foreknowing:

among duller trunks and branches

a dog-wood flower-white

lighting all the woods.

Now if much of the above seems morose then I've made one of my points. But there is more to be said and Wendell Berry says it in this poem which describes the experience of light on dark days, and the grace we are always going toward. On a dark day, in the woods, suddenly we see such a grace that falls across the paths of our going, lighting all the woods.

Yesterday, looking along an avenue of autumn trees, that "dog-wood flower-white lighting" shafted across my path. (See photo above). And that grace which is gift came as a moment of recognition, an unintended so unexpected encounter with a young deer which lasted several minutes of mutual gazing through the low hanging branches.

The thing about loss, sorrow, and grief, is that like all our strong emotions, it takes something outside of ourselves to interrupt them and help us regain emotional and spiritual equilibrium. That is neither to deny the sadness of loss or tranquilise the reality of our sorrow. Rather such graced interruptions allow us to recover enough presence of mind to know more deeply what we have lost, but without forgetting all that we have gained.

"A man who walks among the trees

walks among them on a dark day

for the solace he has taken there always..."

As one example, that 37 year friendship involved fortnightly phone calls, literary conversations, shared support when life had its dark days for either of us, mutual affection, respect, trust and what can best be called in Hebrew "hesed" by which is meant faithfulness, steadfastness, dependability, personal friendship as unspoken but unmistakable covenant.

In numbering the gifts of such a presence in our lives, we catalogue what is no longer accessible by their presence in our lives. But we also enumerate the blessing and joy of having them in our lives, the privilege and burdens of shared confidences and hopes, the sheer miracle of human commitment which grows into understanding, knowing and caring for this person who has chosen us for friend. 

That's the thing about good friendships. As Berry spells it out, such companions are a dog-wood flower white lighting all the woods - including those where we walk, on dark days.  

William J Abraham 1947-2021: Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory

I have just learned of the passing of William J Abraham, to whom I owe a significant debt in my understanding of what it means to live and think as a Christian. Ever since he published The Logic of Evangelism in 1989, I have read much of what he has written. In due course I'd like to spell out further my indebtedness to this fine scholar, Methodist churchman, and philosopher theologian 

 

But for now I note two things: in 2013 William Abraham's son died. In 2017 he wrote the book Among the Ashes, in which he acknowledged that following Timothy's death, “Nothing by way of comment or explanation brought comfort, relief, or intellectual peace.”

 

Among the Ashes is Abraham's explorations into what, nevertheless, makes life liveable and hopeful again following such life diminishing loss. No false sentimentality, no dogmatic certainties grated through gritted teeth, and no pious cliches like 'everything happens for a reason'. Instead, the reconstruction of hope around the hard rock of grief, loss and sorrow, and these as aspects of love, God's and ours. Here is the last paragraph:

 

" [I]n the Christian life of suffering we walk by faith and not by sight. Given the combined weight of divine revelation, of the experience of the love of God, of the reality of conspicuous sanctity, and of our perception of divine agency in the natural world, we have more than enough to secure the life of discipleship. Moreover, the whole story of creation, freedom, sin, providence, and redemption supplies its own illuminating resources even as it provokes a whole new network of questions and puzzles. We can add to this the inescapable note of victory over suffering and death in the person and work of Christ and the extraordinary promises held forth in the gospel. In the midst of our grief and loss, these considerations are present in our minds, but they do not function as they do when we recover our equilibrium and face a future where the absence is always present. In our grief, we are coming to terms with our loves. These loves are indeed an echo of a greater Love that embraces us all and that is given to us in Christ. Yet these lesser loves have their own inimitable place in our hearts and minds; I, for one, would never want to have it otherwise."

 

Those who know our own family story will understand why we also, "would never want to have it otherwise."

A Week of Thought for the Day - Composing songs of Joy from the Circumstances of Our Lives.

Thought for the Day October 11-17, 2021

Theme: “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

Monday

Psalm 19.8 “The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.”

There is joy in knowing God’s will, and how God wants us to be and to act and behave. Sometimes we worry about how we will know God’s will; this Psalm is telling us to do what we DO know God wills. To live a life close to God, to love God with all we are and have, to care for our neighbour, and to bear witness to Christ.

Tuesday

Psalm 4.7 “You have filled my heart with greater joy, than when their grain and new wine abound.”

Hah! Says the Psalmist. Sure there’s happiness, entertainment and a lot to enjoy in food and drink and parties. That’s not wrong, but it can never be enough. There’s a deeper joy in knowing God, in living a meaningful life of love to God, and service to Christ, who lives in us and through us. And the greater joy in being made new in Christ.

Wednesday

 Psalm 48.1-2 “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God the holy place. It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth.”

We need our minds expanded when we think of God and his purposes for this God-loved world. The whole earth shall see the glory and greatness of God. The good news is to be the bringer of joy to the whole earth. Remember Jesus command: “Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel…and I am with you always and everywhere.” Jesus, the joy of the whole earth!

Thursday

Psalm 92.4 “For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.”

All around us, every day, the clouds and the stars, the trees and the fields, our children and friends, every one of them the work of God’s hands. The blessings we count and the blessings we take for granted, but all the works of God’s hands. And the greatest work of God’s hands are seen in hands nailed to the cross, for love of every one of us – and it is out of that sorrow, sinners like us sing for joy, from grateful and forgiven hearts.

Friday

Psalm 100.1-3 “Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

The New Testament knows nothing of miserable Christians! One of the obvious characteristics of the early church was the joy that was bursting from the seams of these young communities. I’m wondering if one of the ways of recovering from the whole Covid downer, might be heartfelt prayer for a baptism of joy, a rediscovery that we are a resurrection people, the gift of an inner spring of gladness that composes songs of joy from the circumstances of our lives.

Saturday

Psalm 126.5-6 “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.”

We’re only human. Life brings us joy and sadness, peace and worry, health and illness, gain and loss. No, we can’t feel joy all the time. But if we are in Christ, and Christ in us, joy is a deep seated reality because out life is held in the firm grasp of God’s loving purposes. In the whole story of our lives there are tears – of sorrow, and of joy. But our lives will be fulfilled in the harvest of those tears, like the sower carrying sheaves, our lives will bear the fruit of the Spirit, and the harvest of Christ-likeness.

Sunday

Psalm 149.4-5 “For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Let the saints rejoice in this honour and sing for joy on their beds.”

I love this! Lying in bed singing hymns of joy. I’m wondering when any one of us last did that! That’s the thing about the Psalms – emotions are not to be suppressed, but to be either cried or sung, lament or praise, complaint or thanksgiving. It’s about being real before God. These words are about real joy, lying in bed with thoughts of gratitude, praise and the serious joy of knowing the Lord takes delight in us.

…………………………………….

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace

as you trust in Christ Jesus,

that you may overflow with hope

in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Leaves of the Trees

Yesterday I looked at a young tree - it had 237 leaves, not counting those on the ground.

 

I don't remember ever counting the leaves before.

 

Is it a sign I'm I losing it, or finding it? Where did such a strange impulse come from?

 

Is counting leaves on a tree a form of prayer? Perhaps an autumn rosary, the arithmetic of hopefulness?

 

"The trees in the field will clap their hands..." So are leaves the hands that applaud the Creator?

 

"The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations..." A vision of life flourishing because wounds are healed through forgiveness, and peace made possible through reconciliation.

 

I hope so.

Review of The Humility of the Eternal Son. 1. A Daunting Task of Doctrinal Rebuilding.

The best theological writing forces a rethink of our most settled ideas about who God is and how God relates to human history and the existence of all that is not God. What makes such writing even more compelling is when the author takes the reader into his confidence about how his own theological convictions have developed and been rethought, culminating in a book like this.

My reading of McCormack's book has been a three week intensive course in theological re-thinking, and reconstruction around our understanding of the person of Christ. In particular, McCormack seeks to construct a viable model of kenotic Christology, one that adjusts and restates classic Reformed Christology and repairs perceived gaps in the Chalcedonian definition. It's a daunting task of doctrinal rebuilding.  

The Humility of the Eternal Son is the first volume of a projected trilogy which, it is to be dearly hoped, will not be too long in completion. McCormack indicates that much of the work is already done in several previous series of prestigious lectures delivered over recent years. Following this first volume, a second will look at the doctrine of the Triune God founded on the Christology developed in this volume. The third volume will then explore the work of Christ and atonement as these emerge from the previous theological reconstructions of the doctrines of Christology and Trinity, (in volumes one and two).

What has made McCormack's volume such a compelling read for me is that it is the first substantial monograph on kenotic Christology in English since H R Mackintosh's The Doctrine of the Person of Christ (1927), and David Brown's Divine Humanity (2011), the latter oddly unreferenced by McCormack. Though near the end of Brown's book he engages with McCormack's developing thought on kenosis.

The Humility of the Eternal Son has an important introduction, (which will be the focus of the next in this review series). Once the ground is cleared. three main parts follow, in what becomes a cumulative argument of dogmatic Christological reconstruction.

Part one is an overview and critical history of kenotic christologies. This section is a tour de force engagement with Patristic, 19th Century German, Barthian and post-Barthian theologies. In illustration of the richly resourced research on display throughout this book, one chapter presents detailed critique and engagement with the Chalcedonian Definition. This is followed by similarly precise examinations of German Lutherans such as Dorner, Thomasius and Gess; and Scottish kenoticism in the writings of A B Bruce and H R Mackintosh. That's before we reach such names as Barth, Bulgakov and von Balthasar, Jungel, Jenson and Schoonenberg.    

Part two is a focused engagement with specific New Testament texts in Paul, Hebrews and the four Gospels. Here McCormack is concerned to be fair to the text of Scripture, neither forcing them through a pre-constructed dogmatic grid, nor playing down the implications for Christology of the kenotic narrative they tell. I found McCormack's approach a combination of theological exegesis and dogmatic reflection, each in conversation with neither being allowed to dominate the discussion. More on this in a later post.  

Part three is a detailed construction of what McCormack argues is a viable and valid Reformed version of Kenotic Christology that repairs some of the consequences for Christology of Chalcedonian metaphysics. This section I'm about to re-read because it contains a carefully constructed proposal for a Christology that is the foundation of the two forthcoming volumes on Trinity and Atonement. It's not often that reading such high octane theology can be described as thrilling; but by the time McCormack reaches the exposition of his own proposals, I for one found the book a page turner - it's just that the pages still have to be turned slowly, allowing time to assimilate such rich fuel for thought. The later sections of this chapter demonstrate McCormack's achievement, in a summing up of his argument that is generous to his conversation partners but indicates clearly where he has diverged from their conclusions and proposals. 

The bibliography is arranged in sections tied to the chapters, making it user friendly and easily navigated. Much better than pages of small print, listed in an undifferentiated alphabetical continuum. The name index is also helpfully select, noting significant references only. The concept index also significantly enhances the experience of using this book. Such concepts as anhypostasia/enhypostasia, impassibility, ontological receptivity, immutability can clearly be traced through McCormack's discussion.

This, then, is a beautifully produced book in which two decades of research are mediated through a lifetime of dogmatic explorations, culminating in a sustained argument aimed at the twin goals of a Reformed Kenoticism and the repair of Chalcedon.

The next post will focus on McCormack's prologue and the outline of his argument.      

Self emptying love is the essence of what it means to be Christian (John 13.35)

This needed to be written and needs to be heeded:

 

"There will always be any number of men in the churches who will be inclined to regard 'self-emptying' as the proper province of those they see as called to serve, not of those called to lead (a designation they reserve for those of their sex and gender).

 

And so, as a practical matter, I would suggest that any congregation that tries to embody the self-emptying love Paul calls for should begin with those who are currently in positions of authority., with all that they are, do, and say, their entire way of being in the world--and not with those who possess little to no power.

 

Self emptying love is the essence of what it means to be Christian (John 13.35) No one can be exempted."

(Page 292)

 

That, is systematic theology made practical!

"Conversations of heart with heart, when we refuse to assume we are problem solvers."

Do you ever find that verses of the Bible that you know so well you can repeat them word for word, sometimes come back to you and you hear them as if for the first time? That’s when the Holy Spirit takes those same words and brings them home to your heart with a new and strange power. Words we have known by heart, are now known in our hearts to be true and real, because they come straight from the heart of God.

Recently I was talking with someone I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic. He was having a coffee somewhere I go, sitting alone, and his face lit up as our eyes met above the face masks. I took my coffee over and we talked for a while. His wife had been in hospital, very unwell, passing through an episode of severe mental illness. This had happened before, but this time so much harder for her, and for him.

We talked a while, there were silences which felt a bit uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as glib words or false assurances would have created. My friend and his wife are mature and thoughtful Christians, and they had been walking some very tough miles these past months.

Sometimes love for others is more about shared silence than spoken words. In making time to be with someone there we can create a conversation of heart with heart, and refuse to assume we are problem solvers. Instead, we sense God telling us to be quiet and let the Holy Spirit be the fellowship and communion, and the bringer of comfort and hope. Only after such willing presence in someone else’s suffering, can we dare to hope that words we speak will be helpful, hopeful and, pray God, part of the healing and strengthening of those we care for, and those with whom we sit.

As I came away words I know by heart came home to my heart, straight from the heart of God.

“Come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Matt 11.28-29)

There is huge courage and immense struggle and cost involved, for those going through times of mental ill health, both for them and for their carers. However much we sympathise, and mean well, and want others to begin again to flourish and live more fully, there are limits to what we can do. Which brings me back to those most humane and compassionate words of Jesus.

I’ve read these words, quoted those words, learned them by heart, preached on them often enough. As they came into my head they formed themselves into a prayer for my two friends. It goes something like this:

Lord, my friends are weary and heavy laden, and in their hurt and anxiety they feel they are far away from you, and you from them. So whether they feel able to come or not, I bring them to you and before you, that they may find peace, rest, relief and a healing of mind and body.

Lord Jesus you are gentle and humble of heart. Give them strength to carry the weight of life as it is. Help them to find in you One who bears their burdens, and One in whom they can find rest for their souls.  Compassionate Christ, strong and gentle, through my prayers I bring these your children to be held in the strong embrace of your love, Amen

As we move into the next stages of the pandemic, and its impact on our communities and all those who are our neighbours, there will be many people who find every day a hard mile to walk. As Christian light-bearers, we are called to show the compassion of Jesus to those walking in the shadowlands, to sit with them, to be Jesus’ invitation to those who are weary, weighed down and have lost their way.

One way of doing that is to pray for those we know who are suffering in mind and heart, and to bring before the throne of grace those too weary to come themselves. In this way we become the presence of Christ in other people’s lives, “bearing one another’s burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.”