But the greatest of these is love

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Cor 13: 4-7

A month ago I posed some questions to myself on the topic of Self Denial. Today, whilst looking for something else entirely I stumbled upon the following passage from The Weight of Glory by C S Lewis:

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.

I'm not certain that I agree with Lewis' opening statement - I'm sure most Christians I know would say "the greatest of these is love" - but the essence of what he is saying strikes a chord. While I might say the greatest virtue is love, I act and measure myself as if it were unselfishness and the narrowness of that definition is no substitute for the wide open spaces of real love.

Community

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2: 42-47

Several years ago I had the opportunity to go to Rwanda. I will never forget the first rural church that we visited. We drove in down a long dirt track and parked some way from the church. It was a fairly basic affair, mud brick walls and a tin roof. We could hear the drumming well before we went inside. The volume was phenomenal. On stepping into the gloom I was surprised to see only about forty people inside, mostly women, singing their hearts out. Many of them were widows of the genocide, or with husbands in prison. On Sundays they worshipped together, for five days they worked the fields together and on Saturdays they built a house. Not for themselves, but for people around the village who were in need. They called themselves "The Fellowship of Believers". They welcomed us as honoured guests, but their simple community lifestyle put me to shame.

Last year I had the opportunity to work with a small team all dedicated to the same task. For seven months we worked together, prayed together, shared our hopes and fears, trials and joys together. It was one of the most enjoyable times I have ever had, despite coinciding with one of the most difficult periods of my life.

Last week I reached the section on community in Finding Sanctuary. I haven't really assimilated it yet, but it reminded me of these two incidents. It reawakened the desire in me to return to that close-knit team. Real community is not something that I know very much about. I am still fumbling my way to identify the biblical basis for it. Yet it seems, where it exists, to be such a rich source of support and enjoyment. I must maintain this note to self and explore it further.

Peacemakers

"'Yes we will have peace,' he said now in a clear voice, 'we will have peace, when you and all your works have perished - and the works of your dark master to whom you would deliver us. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanc.'" King Theodon to Saruman(The Lord of the Rings).

Peace, as I am fond of saying, is not the absence of war but the opposite of it. Sometimes the only path to it is through conflict. But what should my role as a Christian be in that? The seventh beatitude says "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God". I doubt somehow that Jesus had in mind the kind of peace-making that Theodon is talking about. Or the cynical attitude that led to the name Peacemaker being given to a handgun or a ballistic missile.

In Finding Sanctuary, Christopher Jamieson says this:

People have to build peace in relationships and they do so by creating relationships founded on fairness and respect. [...] Yet the greatest test of building peace is how we react to unfair treatment at the hands of others. We need to respond to such treatment not only fairly but also compassionately; only then do we really build peace. Hating our enemies, for example, does not build peace. We must resist injustice, but the high calling of peace-building invites us not to hate those who perpetrate it.

Grace

"A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him." Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the Dead.

Over the years I have wondered about the lists of the Bible. The fruit of the spirit for example. Is this an exhaustive list or some examples? Has Paul researched and distilled the fundamental attributes which spirit-filled life results in? Or take the beatitudes. Is Jesus giving a set of exhaustive statements that if you do A then you get B? Is it only the pure in heart who see God? Is it only the meek who inherit the earth?

With a modern mindset it is easy to approach the bible as a user guide for life. A systematic set of instructions with associated punishments and rewards. The style, however, is more poetic than that. Jesus expresses attitudes rather than rules; grace rather than judgement.

The structure of the beatitudes is interesting. Recently I heard a theologian say that the repeated refrain "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" is simply a literary convention of the day to indicate that this is a self-contained section. Possibly. I wonder, however, in parenthesising the statement with the refrain whether Jesus was not saying that all of these things are the kingdom of heaven. Seeing God, being comforted, being shown mercy...

For me the beatitudes represent a flavour of the kind of behaviours which characterise the kingdom. I doubt they are an exclusive set but they are, undoubtedly, a challenging set.

Am I hungry enough?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" Matt 5:6

In his book The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey devotes an entire chapter to the beatitudes. In it he unpacks the concept that the beatitudes represent a "Psychological Reality".

Not only did Jesus offer an ideal for us to strive toward, with appropriate rewards in view; not only did he turn the tables on our success-addicted society; he also set forth a plain formula of psychological truth, the deepest level of truth we can know on earth. The beatitudes reveal that what succeeds in the kingdom of heaven also benefits us most in this life here and now.

He goes on to talk about the hopelessness which sits at the core of so many lives we would consider to be successful - the movie stars who are drug addicts, the comedians who are pathologically lonely - and the blessing which enriches the lives of many who we would look on as servants.

I love the way that The Message puts this beatitude: "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat". So why is it that I so often find myself running after the things which don't fill me up? It takes a concerted effort to stop judging success by the world's standards. Even a daily focus on God has not stopped me straying.

God's megaphone?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the place of conflict in our lives. I think it's pretty fair to say that it is a biblical concept that God uses trials to shape our lives and teach us more about both himself and ourselves. But I've been wondering whether they are a necessary part of discovering God, or whether it is the only way that he can get us to pay attention.

I raised the idea with some colleagues the other day, and the the responses varied. Some thought that trials were inevitable - life is never straightforward and God just uses what comes up to refine us. Others thought that even if we were able to cut straight through and learn directly about God, that we would still struggle but just with more advanced things. To my surprise none of them seemed to feel that we could grow without trials.

The conversation brought to mind the film Shadowlands. In it C S Lewis is depicted as saying

I'm not sure that God particularly wants us to be happy. He wants us to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he makes us the gift of suffering. Or to put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

At least part of this is a quotation from The Problem of Pain although I haven't been able to verify the full statement as being authentic Lewis. Regardless it is a hard statement, and one I find I cannot entirely buy into.

I see that being put in a place where we have run out of our own resources places our dependence on God. I'm just not entirely sure that it follows that such a place is the only place where we can grow...

The long defeat

"Together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat." Galadriel (The Lord of the Rings)

Tolkien's Elves are strange creatures. Jolly yet serious, mischievous yet wise, joyful yet without hope. Over long ages they have witnessed the decline of all they hold dear, and yet still they sing. Treebeard the Ent says this of them. "They always wished to talk to everything , the old Elves did. But then the Great Darkness came, and they passed away over the Sea, or fled into far valleys, and hid themselves and made songs about days that would never come again."

Sometimes life seems like a long defeat. Fighting a battle where no victory is possible but which is still worth fighting. Like the fight to keep the quality of life for a slowly declining patient. I spent this weekend looking after my mother again. It's hard to see her looking so lost. She descends into panic so easily. No matter how much time you invest, she always reverts to it. And yet still I strive for hard-won smiles, even if they are all too soon replaced.

In contrast last week I was encouraged once again upon Romans 8 in the Message:

That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

That sounds more like a "Long Victory" to me. Somehow - I don't know how - I hope Paul is right. That the expectation is valid and all will come good. Maybe it's in those times when things don't seem to work together for good that we need to believe it most.

Create in me a pure heart, O God

"Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart " Psalm 24: 3-4

The sixth beatitude contains a lovely promise. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God". Something to greatly desire. Yet the route to the promise is not an easy one. To see God we must be pure in heart.

In the opening chapter of Finding Sanctuary Christopher Jamieson talks about the doorway to our personal sanctuary as being virtue. Interestingly he defines virtue primarily in terms of our relationships with others, saying: "The basic starting point for entering sanctuary is the quality of your day-to-day dealings with other people". Our dealings with those around us demonstrate the grain of hearts.

It seems to me that the outward demonstration has to be driven by an inner change, and the inner change is not something we can effect in our own strength. In C S Lewis' book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Eustace - who starts off as a nasty piece of work - places a bracelet on his arm and wakes to find himself changed into a dragon. The bracelet which fitted his arm as a boy, is too small for his dragon limbs and is very painful. To ease the pain he wishes to bathe in a pool - but Alsan tells him first he must undress. He makes several attempts to peel off a layer of skin - but all are inadequate. Finally Aslan offers to do it for him.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought he had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I have ever felt. [...] Well, he peeled the beastly stuff off - just as I thought I'd done the other three times only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and as soft as a peeled switch. [...] As soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again.

Eustace's experience reflects my own. My efforts are feeble. My resolutions get broken before the ink is even dry. I need God's help for this. My prayer is the prayer of David from psalm 51: "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow."

Small is beautiful

I'm not quite sure how to approach the beatitudes. They are so counter-intuitive. Are they a promise for the future or a statement of fact? Is Jesus saying that they are ideals or reality? It is easy to see them as being a nice piece of speaker's rhetoric; a poetic statement of contradictions which sounds profound but contains no real substance. Yet somehow I think they are more than that.

Take the third one for example. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. On the surface it seems all wrong. We know it is the rich, the powerful, the ruthless who run things. And yet do they truly inherit the earth? Is anything they create built to last? History is packed with empires which crumble when their founder dies. This is true in the business world too.

In the book Good to Great Jim Collins comes to the surprising conclusion that what sets apart the most successful leaders is "a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will." Humility at the heart of success? Maybe Jesus knew what he was talking about after all.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the establishment of the kingdom is not something which can be franchised. The most successful examples of kingdom life spring from small groups of people engaging with their communities in projects that they are passionate about. As such projects grow there is the temptation to become more professional. To move away from the model of Christ and to take on business principles. The danger of this is that the workers become employees not disciples. It doesn't always happen, of course. There are some excellent Christian charities with dedicated staff. I believe, however, that these are the exception, not the norm. The kingdom is about the insignificant rubbing shoulders with the disenfranchised and both being transformed in the process...