Living Wittily

"Tikkun Olam" - To Repair the World. World Peace day, 2024.

"Tikkun Olam" -"To repair or mend the world." This tapestry is a response to the brokenness of the world, an affirmation of faith in the redemptive purposes of God, and a trust born of the experience of God's love, in the Spirit of God who broods over chaos and works creatively throughout God's creation.

 

Today is World Peace Day. I'm neither sentimentally naïve nor an optimistic idealist. Nor am I a hopeless cynic nor a resigned pessimist. I'm a Christian for whom faith, hope and love imply life commitments. Faith in God's purposes for all of his creation; hope that the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea: and love as that which has given me life and as that to which I am called to commit my life.

 

The tapestry was designed around God's Grandeur, that potent poem of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and especially focuses on the last two lines. I offer again the poem, and the tapestry, and the prayer, "Dona Nobis Pacem."

 

God's Grandeur

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

 

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

A Sermon, "On Thinking Bigly."

There are many who mock Donald Trump for his improvised vocabulary, for example his use of the unusual adverb 'bigly'. There's even a satirical poetry book titled 'Bigly' in tribute to Donald Trump.

 

I was recently reading a published sermon by A M Hunter, a highly respected and much loved Scottish former New Testament Professor here in Aberdeen. It was published in 1963 in a collection of his sermons and essays Teaching and Preaching the New Testament. I was mainly interested in the three lectures of P. T. Forsyth (another Aberdonian theologian of a previous age) but I've always enjoyed A M Hunter's writing. His wee book on the Sermon on the Mount, Design for Life is still one of my favourite books on that text.

 

Anyway I read several of the sermons. And, well, one of the sermons in said book has the title 'On Thinking Bigly'! He was preaching on the Magnificat, using the New English Bible translation just released the previous year of 1961: "Tell out my soul, the greatness of the Lord..." Hunter wonders if 'Christians think bigly enough', about God, about Jesus, about human potential when touched by grace. The sermon is a call for a new vision of God. Sixty years later the Aberdeen Professor's urging of Christians to think bigly could not be more relevant.

 

Incidentally, in the same book, Hunter published his essay review of The New English Bible. It's mainly positive, at times admiring, admits there were lapses, but he is impatient with those who dismissed it because it wasn't the King James Version.

 

I happen to agree that the NEB largely got it right in its updating of language. Dated now, of course, and replaced 30 years later by the Revised English Bible which I use alongside RSV, NRSV and NIV which, speaking personally, has never been my favourite Bible version. I still remember my College Principal's comment that a translation should be neither evangelical nor liberal - it should be as accurate as the text and the translator can render it.

 

I wonder if Paul might ever have added the handy adverb 'bigly' to his impressive collection of superlatives, as in Ephesians chapter 1

Are Gates Obstacles in Our Path or Opportunities to Grow?

I love gates. Iron, wooden, old, not so much new. My first 15 years were spent on farms where my dad was the dairyman. I came to understand gates. Gates are for closing, they are for letting animals out and letting animals in. A gate is both a safety mechanism and a convenient point of access for tractors - once upon a time, and I remember that far back, it was for working horses!

Gates are visible and tangible metaphors, but are they obstacles or opportunities? Are they there to keep us out, or to invite us to open up the next stage of the path, and walk on? To open a gate, and close it behind us, is one of those actions that is both intentional and purposeful. I doubt if opening and closing a gate is ever thoughtless or careless. 

In my own growth and development into the person I now am, or am becoming, I've walked through many a gate. There are those life experiences when you know that you have gone through a definite point of transition, the landscape has changed and so have you. The day I came to faith in Jesus, and decided to surrender my life to the loving service of "the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me", a gate was opened by God into a new future, and that same gate closed on a life to which I could never go back.

The words of that Billy Graham anthem, "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back" are life-changing testimony, accompanied by the clicking shut of a gate on what was, and moving into a new future and a different path.

The moment of discovered vocation is also a gate, a hinge point that swings open to the next field of the life we are to live. For me that call to be a minister of the Gospel, and to spend my life as servant of the community of Christ's people was another gate opened and closed behind me. And since then many other gates, each requiring a decision of whether to open and move on, after closing that gate behind us.

I've been wondering about how and why we make the decisions we do, why we go through some gates and not others. Discerning what is good for us, and trying to fit that with where we believe God is calling us is one of the more scary and risk-laden tensions of the spiritual life. 

God's voice is of the heart.

I do not therefore say all voices of the heart are God's,

And to discern his voice amongst the voices

Is that hard task to which we each are born.

I came across that anonymous verse in an old devotional long since lost. But these lines have given me significant wisdom in the big decisions. They, along with mind and heart open to Scripture, guidance from trusted friends, prayer to tell the ego to pipe down, and trying to read and understand our own life story, - these are what significantly shape our decisions when we come to another gate.

All of this perhaps explains my need to take a photo of a good gate! Obstacle or opportunity, there to halt me or give me access; but often enough, a challenge to see if I'm ready to walk another path through another field and into a wider landscape. Or so it seems to me.   

TFTD September 16-22: John Newton and the Name of Jesus.

Monday

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear!
It soothes his sorrow, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear.

John Newton based this hymn on references to fragrant ointment in the Song of Solomon. ‘Sweet’ evokes love, devotion and comfort, a familiar reassuring voice ‘in a believer’s ear.’ The power of the name of Jesus to make sorrow bearable, to be as ointment in wounds, as assurance in danger, gathers so many biblical texts from the Psalms to the Gospels. Newton could be deeply affected emotionally when thinking of the mercy of God and the grace of Christ, ever wondering about that ‘amazing grace’ which for the believer distils into the name above all names, ‘Jesus.’ 

Tuesday

It makes the wounded spirit whole and calms the troubled breast;
'tis manna to the hungry soul, and to the weary, rest.

The wounded spirit, troubled breast, hungry soul, and weary body all find their answers in wholeness, calm, manna and rest. Newton ransacks the Bible for metaphors of how the name of Jesus is medicine, consolation, food and a Sabbath for the whole person. Down the centuries many Christians have not only prayed in the name of Jesus, but at times simply speaking his name becomes all that need be said to the One who knows the deepest realities of the heart.

Wednesday

Dear Name! the Rock on which I build; my shield and hiding-place;
My never-failing treasury, fill'd with boundless stores of grace.

“Jesus is a rock in a weary land” is a line from another hymn that alludes to the Psalms, and God is the Rock on which life can be safely built. Newton may well have been thinking of the house built on the rock of obedience to Jesus’ teaching, as in Matthew 7. Not content with three images, the name of Jesus is also the key to ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ None of the variations of contemporary worship should over-indulge our experience nor over-emphasise what we feel – the focus of worship is beyond ourselves, a bowing before the name that is above every name, and an acknowledgement of our indebtedness to God’s boundless stores of grace in Christ.

Thursday

By Thee my prayers acceptance gain, although with sin defil'd;
Satan accuses me in vain, and I am own'd a child.

Yes. I know. We don’t usually sing that verse, and no modern hymn book includes it. But John Newton was deeply conscious of the power of sin and Satan, and the hold of guilt and shame on his heart and conscience. His own personal history as a slave ship captain was a guilt-burden he carried all his life. Our prayers for forgiveness and grace will never become redundant; our gratitude for the grace that saves us is a lifelong hymn of the heart. And despite all Satan’s subterfuges, we remain, securely, children of God, our every prayer accepted in the name of Jesus.

Friday

Jesus, my Shepherd, Husband, Friend, my Prophet, Priest, and King,
my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring.

This could be a worship and prayer list, a prayer list of contemplative images that, like Mary, can be pondered and kept in the heart. That might be quite enough as a Thought for the Day – or a whole week. Modern versions change ‘husband’ to ‘brother.’ They shouldn’t be so quick to ‘improve’ Newton! When he used the word ‘husband’ in the late 18^th Century, it could also mean ‘one who attends to a ship’s stores and provisions.’ (Oxford English Dictionary) And that makes perfect sense to Newton the retired seaman!

Saturday  

Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought;
but when I see Thee as Thou art, I'll praise Thee as I ought.

John Newton, evangelical Church of England vicar, anti-slavery convert, pastor of immense sensitivity and spiritual affection, looks forward to the beatific vision, the full gaze of the redeemed soul on Jesus the Saviour. Like each of us, Newton could be strict with his own heart, critical of his changeable love and unreliable inner climate. But it will be all right, and all will be made right, when he sees the beauty and the glory, the grace and the mercy of redeeming Love. Then, and perhaps not until then, he will be enabled to praise Jesus as he ought, and as freely and fully as throughout his life he longed to do

Sunday

Till then I would Thy love proclaim with every fleeting breath;
and may the music of Thy name refresh my soul in death.

Another hymn written a century later, echoes this verse: “There is a name I love to hear, I love to sing its worth; it sounds like music in my ear, the sweetest name on earth.”  Newton and Cowper between them wrote The Olney Hymns, originally for the weekly prayer meeting in Olney. That the name of Jesus was music in Newton’s ears is no surprise, nor is his desire to use every fleeting breath to proclaim, make known, and convince others to receive and be owned by the Love that had saved a wretch like him! Towards the end of his life he wrote: “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things; that I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Saviour.” Rest in peace, and rise in glory, John Newton.

Reading Brunner While Recovering from Covid!

 

Yesterday I spent a while reading some Emil Brunner. I'm not sure how many are now able to see behind Barth to his contemporary whose Dogmatics are in three medium sized volumes of around 1000 pages.

 

Brunner's Dogmatics Vol. 1, Chapters 14-16 are on The Holy, God is Love, and The Triune God. For me they are theological gold, and amongst the best of Brunner's writing. If reading good theology helps in the recovery from Covid, then I did myself a lot of good yesterday!

 

Sometime I'll write a blog post about why I've kept Brunner as valued friend ever since I first read him in 1978. For now, here he is in doxological mode:

 

"The most wonderful testimony to this final unity between Holiness and reconciling Love is found indeed, at the close of the farewell discourses of Jesus in the Gospel of John: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are. . .The whole passage is a symphony in which the themes of Holiness, Glory, Communion and Love constantly recur and blend in perfect harmony. The 'gratia' is fulfilled in the 'gloria', and the 'gloria' itself is simply perfect communion."

 

I think the photo belongs to I John Hesselink, who arranged a meeting between Barth and Brunner in 1960, the last meeting of these two Professors of Dogmatics. You can read about Hesselink the bridge-builder in this delightful article mainly about Heselink's friendship with Brunner.

TFTD Sep 9-15: The Solidity of a Life Founded on Integrity

Monday

Psalm 15.1 “Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?”

Sacred. Holy. Two words you don’t hear every day. I wonder if the church’s anxiety to downplay the distinction between sacred and secular has back-fired? We need words like reverence and awe. They describe our recognition that life has boundaries. The word ‘holy’ lies at the heart of Christian worship: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, bow down before him, his glory proclaim.” I wonder too if we have become too self-important to feel the need to bow down. We could do with recovering at least some of the Psalm poet’s sense of the holiness, majesty and glory of God.

Tuesday

Psalm 15.2a “The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart.”

Blameless and righteous living has to do with behaviour and action, what we do and why we do it. Righteousness is strongly flavoured with justice, fairness and mercy. To use a phrase too tritely used by politicians – Righteousness is “to do the right thing.” And for the right reasons. The blameless walk is about a way of life, the settled disposition of someone for whom doing what God approves is sufficient reason.

Wednesday

Psalm 15.2b “The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart.”

A blameless walk and righteous action are complemented by speech that can be trusted, and words that can be believed. Now more than ever, in a culture of devalued truth and easily distorted words, integrity in our speech is an important sign of those who take truth seriously, because we take God seriously. The complaint “Nothing is sacred anymore,” suggests that deep down we know that such things as truth, goodness, beauty, God and God’s ways, have a claim on us. God requires integrity, a close match between our words, our heart and the world we live in.  

Thursday
Psalm 15.3 “Whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbour, and casts no slur on others.”

Words wound. Words spoil reputations. Words ignite conflicts. No wonder the Bible repeatedly warns against words that are false, malicious, trouble-making, forged in anger and spoken in spite. “The tongue is a fire”, says James. “Every word you speak must be accounted for”, warned Jesus. It isn’t possible to come into God’s presence to pray and praise, if much of our speaking elsewhere causes damage, hurt and misunderstanding. We get to enjoy God’s presence when our daily conversations at home, work and wherever, are consistent with what we say in our worship and prayers; when our words are also blameless and righteous.  

Friday
Psalm 15.4 “Who despises a vile person but honours those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind.”

The Psalm-poet warns about bad company. We can be a bit self-righteous if we baulk at ‘despising a vile person.’ To fear the Lord is to put the values and ways of God first in our relationships. So if we make promises we keep them, however inconvenient it turns out to be. In a society like that of our Psalm-poet, doing business depended on keeping your word, being trusted on the strength of a promise. Indeed the steadfast love of the Lord is a belief embedded in a culture where the word was a bond. God doesn’t change his mind about what he has promised – nor should those who come into God’s presence on the strength of those promises. Our word should be as dependable as God’s promises to us. There’s a thought!

Saturday
Psalm 15.5 “Who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.”

What we do with our money, and what we allow our money to do to us, is absolutely central to a life of practical obedience to God, and faithful Christian discipleship. Luther said property is fellowship through created things. Money is a sacrament, a means of grace, a means to the end of loving our neighbour. In a consumerist and competitive world, how we as Christians use our money becomes counter-cultural, subversive of barcodes and Q8 scan codes. Banksy’s newest art says: “When you give to the poor leave the camera at home.” Aye. That!

Sunday

Psalm 15.6 “Whoever does these things will never be shaken.”

Living with integrity is a present continuous process. Integrity is the outcome of habits of thought and action, countless choices for good, so that such behaviour becomes characteristic of the doer. They are predictably trustworthy. That’s a big ask. But the good character of a Christian is a powerful statement, a persuasive argument, a recurring witness to our faith in a faithful God.

This whole Psalm is about how we behave outside the church affecting the quality and sincerity of what we do inside God’s house. Doing righteousness, speaking truth, blameless walk, making our money talk the language of compassion – do these things and life is well founded.

TFTD Sep 2-8: The Faith of a Christian and the Face of a Christian

Monday

I Thess. 3.10 “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith.”

Paul understands the importance of face to face meetings. Relationships grow by the way we see and behave towards each other. Phone, text, email, WhatsApp are all fine – just as in Paul’s day papyrus and ink could communicate across distance. But to encourage others, build friendship, and deepen affection and understanding nothing substitutes for being present, being there FOR, and being there WITH, each other, face to face. Christian love is embodied and enacted best in each other’s presence.

Tuesday

Galatians 2.11 “When Peter came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.”

This is another kind of face to face meeting altogether! Paul is fighting for the freedom of Gentile converts, saved by grace through faith, not through any other means. Peter refused to eat with these Gentile converts to avoid offending those of a different mind. Paul doesn’t simmer with resentment – he faces Peter, speaks truth, and names what is wrong. Sometimes we have to face up to difficult people and situations. Just remember - in this same letter Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, those built in safeguards of Christian behaviour – and he includes love and self-control! 

Wednesday

Matthew 6.16-17 “When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face…,”

Jesus is insisting that the face we present to the world is truthful, not pretending to be who we are not. There is an honesty required in the words we speak – but also in what we communicate with our faces. There is a Scottish banter question, “What’s up with your face”? Usually a way of calling out someone in a bad mood, made visible by their whole body language. Jesus is talking about not making a show of our piety and pretending we are super-spiritual. A Christian’s face should avoid being a visible and convincing contradiction of the Good News! 

 

Thursday

Acts 6.15 “All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

The first martyr’s face bears witness to his faith as he speaks truth to his accusers. In telling Stephen’s story, Luke describes the face of a man at peace in the midst of a storm that will engulf him. He is a follower of Jesus, and like Jesus, he prays for those who will kill him. The intense and unflinching face of Stephen tells of his faithfulness to Jesus, forgiveness to his executors, and bears witness to the hope of the Gospel – “I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (7.56) The face of this faithful witness, looks up in faith to Jesus risen and enthroned.

Friday

Matthew 17.2&6 “Jesus was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light…”

When God said “This is my Beloved Son”, the disciples “fell face down to the ground.” The face of Jesus’ ablaze with glory, and the hidden faces of disciples awed into silence by the voice from heaven, each tell a story. Awe, wonder, the fear of God – I wonder if we are losing that sense of the Holy? Are we less attuned to reverence in the presence of Almighty God? The Transfiguration reminds us that God is not our pal, and we have no right to take liberties in God’s presence. Should we really need to be reminded that Jesus is the Christ, the Beloved Son, and Lord as well as Saviour?

Saturday

1 Corinthians 13.12 “Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.”

 At the end of the Love chapter, come these words about the vision of God in Christ that awaits all whose faith and love pull the heart towards heaven. The Bible is quite clear that we cannot look on the face of God and live. But if it is the face of God in Christ, the human face of God, the Word made flesh and now glorified, then we will look on Jesus face to face, and we shall know even as we are fully known. Heaven is this personal meeting, face to face, in which our relationship to God in Christ comes to fulfilment. That’s why the greatest of these three, faith, hope and love, is Love.

Sunday

2 Corinthians 4.6 “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

The light that glowed at the Transfiguration on the face of Jesus, now shines in Christian hearts. This light is what we know, in our experience, in the deeper life of our mind, in those hidden places of the heart only God sees and understands. “The light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Christ” is the light of life, the energy source of all that we are and hope to be in Christ, the presence in all our living of the risen Christ. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.  

Paintings used above:

Icon of The Holy Trinity, Rublev - the interchange of the three faces expressing the life and love of the Triune God. 

Jesus in the Home of Martha and Mary, Vermeer - this painting is in the National Galleries of Scotland, and is the only known biblical subject Vermeer painted.

The Head of the Virgin, Rogier van der Weyden - a rare silverpoint sketch, and for me, the loveliest face of Mary I have seen as artistic representation. 

The Harvest of Doing Good and Making a Difference.

Just over the hill, a granite built cottage with the date above the door, 1958. The tracks through the barley, green against gold, tyre tracks toward home. Distilleries throughout Grampian depend on the hundreds of barley fields ripening now to be harvested soon.

 

What the photograph misses is the visible movement of the breeze across the field, the symphonic dance of millions of seeds sown four months ago, now multiplied ten fold or twenty-fold, even a hundredfold. Harvest thanksgiving will come once the harvest is in, which always seems to suggest a certain lack of faith, a hard-headed wait and see rather than that hopeful risk that trusts the rhythms of nature and the one to whom we pray "Give us this day our daily bread."

 

And then my mind turns to another harvest, the fruitfulness of a life careful of the good, alert to moments when kindness is called for, sensitive to injustice and the wounds of others, so that we will neither be complicit by silence, nor ever think such occasions are 'not our concern.'

 

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6.9. I would like to leave my tyre tracks in the harvest fields of our world.

Ambushed by Bach and Classic FM.

On a recent Sunday journey to Montrose, at the Stonehaven peripheral junction and roundabout, the driver on the outside ignored lane discipline and changed lanes, forcing me off the designated lane for turning right. In a burst of self-righteousness I chose not to be angry, and moved back into position after the offending driver had passed. After all, I was heading to a church to preach about Jesus as the inspiration and model for our lives.

Going through Inverbervie a car was waiting to join the traffic at the junction near the Co-op, and he waited till I was much nearer then slowly pulled out in front of me forcing me to brake. Once again I tried, I really tried, not to be annoyed. At which point Classic FM started playing 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring.' Including the following words:

Jesu, joy of man's desiring,
Holy wisdom, love most bright;
Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring
Soar to uncreated light.

 I defy anyone to sustain annoyance and keep muttering angrily under their breath while listening to that piece of heaven anticipated. Like an all-knowing back seat driver, the Holy Spirit knows just how to tell us to slow down, and grow up! Over the years I've come to recognise that driving is one of those fast track training grounds for the fruit of the Spirit which Paul tells us is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

That morning I was having a road test of at least three areas with room for improvement: patience, goodness and self-control! Learn these and we grow in maturity, and the roads will be safer.

What do we think we are doing when we say 'The Grace' to one another?

Monday

2 Corinthians 13.14: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

These words, often used as a closing blessing at the end of worship, were the last words Paul wrote in the letter that caused him most personal pain. Misunderstood, misrepresented, his heart open and vulnerable to the Corinthians, many of whom had closed their hearts to him. And he writes this! These are not words that say “Everything in this church is fine!” Rather, they are written to remind them, and us, that it is the grace, love and communion of the Triune God that holds us together, nourishes our shared life, and guides and guards our relationships with each other.

Tuesday

2 Cor. 13.11a: “Finally brothers and sisters, rejoice! Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace.”

When we say the Grace together, it helps to look at what Paul wrote just before writing this benediction. “Rejoice” is the Christian attitude that contradicts all the other self-indulgent nonsense we get up to! Whatever the problems they (and we) have with each other, God is at work to bring reconciliation. Aim for perfection more literally means, “Mend your ways.” Paul’s prayer and hope for each of the churches shines through these two phrases, “be of one mind, live in peace.” When we close a service with the Grace, that is what we are saying, and praying, and working towards.

Wednesday

2 Cor. 12.11b: “And the God of love and peace will be with you.”

Before we get to the Benediction, which is a wish prayer, we have a promise prayer. It follows from all Paul’s urgings to sort things out that he mentions earlier in this verse. When we work at love as agape, as “indefatigable good-will”, God who is love is with us. Where we seek peace and reconciliation, the God of peace will be with us. To say the Grace to each other, then, is to acknowledge and renew our commitment to all that those words of grace, love and communion bestow on our life together. 

Thursday

2 Cor. 13.12-13: “Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send their greetings.”

What is intended here is the exchange of a visible sign of fellowship, forgiveness, an open recognition that we are all guests in God’s house, entitled to be here, each of us equally honoured by our host, the Triune God of grace, love and communion. The modern practice of ‘exchanging the peace’ is our cultural version of this. It’s worth remembering that the kiss of peace lies at the heart of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The Father’s kiss is the public sign of reconciliation, love and acceptance. “All the saints” send their blessing; not those who felt like it, but all the saints, share in this practice of demonstrating the holy grace and love that infuses Holy Communion.

Friday

2 Cor. 13.14a “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”

And so, against the background of a troubled church emerging from self-inflicted wounds of hurt and blame, we come to each of the three elements of a Christian Benediction. “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor…” “By grace you are saved, through faith.” “My grace is sufficient for you.” At the heart of our own heart’s experience is the grace that loves us, found us, saved us, and keeps us. To say the Grace as we look around at each other is an act of wondering praise for the amazing grace of God in Christ. Inexhaustible grace pushes us towards greater maturity as Christ’s Body.

Saturday

2 Cor. 13.14b “May the love of God be with you all.”

God’s love for each of us doesn’t depend on us just wishing it were so for each of us. God’s love is already “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”. John the Apostle of love went on and on about the love of God in his letter: “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God.” When we look into the faces of our brothers and sisters at the close of worship, we are wishing them, and ourselves, a deeper sense of ‘the love that drew salvation’s plan’. Together we are making a shared response that we will love God more, and love each other more, because he first loved us.

Sunday

2 Cor. 13.14c “May the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

‘Communion’, or ‘fellowship’, only capture some of Paul’s meaning. Spelled out more carefully; “Your common participation in the life and power of the Holy Spirit.”[1] Fellowship can sound a cosy word. Not in Paul’s dictionary! This is about partnership, sleeves rolled up, the whole self in and shaken all about! In other words to say the Grace to each other is to commit ourselves to working together, supporting each other, being good colleagues and dependable co-workers in the Kingdom of God.

 

[1] Murray Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, page 962. Harris has spent a lifetime in the Greek New Testament, and is a leading scholar on 2 Corinthians. I don’t usually do footnotes in TFTD, but this one is a worthy exception, to pay tribute to a man whose academic work and meticulous scholarship have always been in the service of the church and its ministries. Like many ministers, I thank God for such vocational excellence.