Uncovering illusions...

Here's the third of my Lent reflections:

‘After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets,”’
(Luke 5:4-5)

I think Simon-Peter grudgingly obeys, humouring the carpenter who thinks he knows better than the fisherman, perhaps meaning to show him up, or make him look foolish. Was their sarcasm in his tone? Whatever the case, Siom-Peter soon realises there’s more going on here than meets the eye. This is not just a fortuitous catch of fish and neither is it a lucky guess on the part of Jesus.
All of a sudden Simon knows that Jesus isn’t just a good man, a wise teacher, a dispenser of ideas or a kindly friend. Face to face with the full reality of all that Jesus is, he becomes all too aware of who really is too. In that moment, Peter feels ashamed, like Adam and Eve when they realised they were naked: “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid” (Genesis 3:10). Or like Isaiah in his vision in the heavenly throne room: ‘“woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips…”’ (Isaiah 6:5). Peter, a little more bluntly, simply blurts out, ‘“Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man’” (Luke 5:8).
When we truly encounter Christ we cannot maintain our facades of holiness, our vain attempts at charity, our continuing shortcomings. Any true encounter with Christ in his righteousness strips away the masks and illusions we put on to allow us to have our own way whilst keeping our consciences sufficiently distanced from the scrutiny of God and others.
The problem, of course, is that we desperately want these illusions about ourselves to be true. That’s why W.H. Auden can write:

We would rather be ruined than changed.

We would rather die in our dread

than climb the cross of the moment

and see our illusions die.

But as we encounter Christ, our illusions of ourselves cannot survive.
The French painter Georges Rouault was walking past a circus caravan one evening and saw an old clown repairing his costume. What struck him was the contrast between the costume and make-up worn by the clown and the ‘infinite sadness’ that rested just below the paint. Rouault wrote, “I have seen clearly that the clown was I, was us, almost all of us… That sumptuous sequin covered costume is given to us by life, we are all clowns to a greater or lesser extent, we all wear a ‘sequin covered costume.’ But if someone surprises us as I have surprised the old clown, oh! Who would then dare say that he has not been overwhelmed, down to the pit of his stomach, by an immense pity?”
Christ surprised Simon-Peter on the shore of Lake Galilee that day and Simon-Peter was ‘overwhelmed , down to the pit of his stomach, by an immense pity.’ And he was right to be, as we all should be when face to face with Christ in his glory. But the amazing truth to hold onto this Lent is the word Jesus speaks into Simon-Peter’s moment of agonising self-awareness: “Don’t be afraid” (Luke 5:10).
In our world of illusions, masks and make-up, only Jesus has the authority to say those words at the moment of our unmasking, because he alone knows us as we really are, and yet loves us anyway! And only Christ’s love can redeem the poverty that we so desperately seek to hide. No wonder Simon-Peter ‘left everything and followed him’ (Luke 5:11).

‘Because of your all-embracing, wonderful plan

which you have carried out in our regard,

we give you thanks and glorify you ceaselessly

in your church which you have redeemed

through the precious blood of your Christ.

With open mouths and faces unveiled

we present you with praise and honour,

gratitude and adoration,

to your living, holy, and life-giving name,

now and always

and forever and ever.

Amen.

The Anaphoras of Addai and Mari

 

Jonathan

Pancakes with a purpose...

Pancakes with a purpose, Hilton Church, Saturday morning, 10:00-12:00. £2 gets you a large pancake, toppings of your choice and a tea, coffee or juice - and it helps get the youth mission team to Romania to run a summer camp for some of Europe's most disadvantaged children. There are crafts for the children too. It'd be good to see you there.
Jonathan

The desert of temptation...

So here's the second of my Lent reflections:

 

‘The desert and the parched land will be glad;

the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;

it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,

the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;

they will see the glory of the Lord,

the splendour of our God.’

Isaiah 35:1-2

When we begin to follow Jesus we inevitable end up in the desert. Jesus, of course, went straight from his baptism into the physical desert of the Judean wilderness. Many people have followed him into literal deserts too, the desert fathers of the 4th century being the most obvious example. More often, though, disciples find themselves in spiritual deserts and often against their will.
But why does the journey of dsicipleship involve a journey into the desert? Many of us were taught to believe that when we decided to follow Jesus all out troubles would be over. Yet, if we want to walk in his footsteps over during Lent and beyond, they lead deep into the wilderness. You see, the desert exposes and lays bare; it exposes our vulnerability and lays bare our weakness in the face of temptation. The desert reveals the harsh reality that we are sinful but, in so doing, it also reveals our absolute dependency on God’s grace.
There are dangers in the desert… we can quickly start to dehydrate and despair can overtake us. If we’re not careful, soon we’ll dry out and allow the evil one to overcome us. Equally, we can take mercy for granted and ignore the harsh lessons that the desert teaches us. If we cheapen grace then we risk being duped by the devil who wears the ‘deceitful face of hope,’ as T.S. Eliot put it. But, if in the desert we sense our own poverty and guilt, all the while keeping the vision of Christ before us, then the desert experience will strengthen us for the journey ahead. The desert represents an encounter between our misery and God’s mercy, our guilt and his forgiveness.
Self-sufficiency is all the rage at the moment – in food, energy, finance and so on. The temptations of Christ in the desert were all designed to lure him out of his relationship with God and into a self-sufficient life. The temptation to turn stones into bread was about exercising power on his own behalf rather than trusting himself to his Father’s care. The temptation to fling himself from the pinnacle of the temple was about making use of God rather than serving him. The tempatation to rule over all the nations of the earth was about setting himself up as an idol. Each temptation is an appeal to self-sufficiency: to rely on his own devices for securing power, pleasure and position.
Each of Christ’s responses, all from the Scriptures, show that he remians faithful to his relationship with his Father. You see, sin is not just breaking a moral code but – first and foremost – the fracturing of a relationship. All temptation is a call to selfishness. If we remain faithful and obedient, as Christ did, we acknowledge that are lives are fundamentally relational. Self-sufficiency should not be all the rage for the Christian. In the desert of temptation we live either obediently within relationship to the Trinity, or alientated in the hell of our own disobedience.
In the desert we can give up or we can embrace our emptiness, vulnerability and guilt with complete trust… and find God. And in finding God we find ourselves and the strength to journey on.
Jonathan

The Invitation

I thought I might share some of my reading and reflection through Lent this year. I plan to post seven reflections using the same headings Steven D. Purcell uses in his Lenten Book, Even Among these Rocks, namely:

1. The invitation
2. The desert of temptation
3. Uncovering illusions
4. The abiding presence
5. The abundance of joy
6. The movement outward
7. The final act

So here goes...

'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am gentle and humble in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'

Matthew 11:28-30

 

As a Scottish presyterian I probably shouldn't admit that I'm strangely fascinated by icons, and none more so that Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity. Jesus, the Son, is seated in the centre, with the Father on the left and the Holy Spirit on the right. The more you look at it, from the point of perspective, it seems wrong. It subverts the commonly held convention that the vanishing point should be in the distance. Here, quite the opposite is the case: the vanishing point appears to be placed where we are, almost piercing our innermost being. And before us is an empty place at the table of God.
The thing is, whatever you think of icons, this one was never meant as a lovely decoration for a place of worship or as a helpful explanation of a difficult doctrine... this icon is an invitation. It is an invitation out of ourselves and into the house of God; an invitation out of fear and into love. And, with the vansihing point located in us, the perspective opens before us. What Rublev is trying to say is that, as we accept God's invitation, our life opens beyond us into the ever-widening life of the Trintiy
Lent - and, for that matter, the Christian life - begins with an invitation. It begins with the call of Christ to leave ourselves behind and follow him. George MacDonald once worte, 'Christ is the way out, and the way in: the way from slavery, conscious or unconscious, into liberty; the way from the unhomliness of things to the home we desire but do not know; the way from the stormy skirts of the Father's garments to the peace of his bosom.'
The problem is that such an invitation seems almost too good to be true and, as such, is difficult to accept. We become all too aware, like the invited guest in George Herbert's Love Bade Me Welcome, that we are 'guilty of dust and sin.' The truth is this, though, that Love does bid us welcome... he draws near to us... he takes us by the hand... he implores us to sit at his table.
The invitation is there. All we have to do is make a movement towards Christ. And every step taken toward him confirms the mystery that our journey into the community of the triune God is our journey home. My prayer, as Lent unfolds before us and as we contemplate Rublev's icon, echoes that of Steven D. Purcell: 'that we might move beyond the confines of ourselves into the life and infinite possibility of the triune God.'

Jonathan.