Still Quarrying: New Home, New Study.

We were not at all sure that the removal men would manage to get my desk up a narrow winding stair and into the space that is my new study.  But without a scratch or a bump or any noticeable extra effort it was in and placed just where I wanted it.  A lot of stuff had to be given away or junked prior to the removal, some of it with regret.  But I wanted my desk.  It was surplus to requirements at Ibrox Parish Church where I was Student Assistant  from 1978 until 1980 and when it was offered I responded with covetous haste.   I remember lugging it across Paisley Road West to the flat we were renting on Copland Road with a little help from a friend and not counting the cost in energy or what passing citizens might have been thinking.

So it’s be with me a long time this desk.  Through student days, Cathedral days, Ardeer days, Milngavie days and now installed and ready for Renfrew days.   I was showing a retired colleague round the new house and proudly opened the door to the new study.  ‘Why do you need it?’ he said.   There’s nothing like a good pal to deflate you.  But I suppose it’s a good question.  I mean, I’m retired.  But I’ve just got so used to a place where I can focus on God’s Word and seek to learn from the written wisdom of Christian men and women down through the centuries.   And I don’t like to think that my preaching days are over.  I’m praying that health and treatment allowing I might be available to colleagues who need an old guy to come off the bench and give them a break.  

When we first came to Milngavie I was showing a friend round the Manse and eventually came to the study.  He said: ‘So this is where it all happens.’   I’ve never forgotten that.  Preaching needs work and sometimes it is hard but along with that something needs to happen.  There has to be a meaningful connection with the truth beneath the text of the Bible and that is the work of the Holy Spirit.  That needs to happen.  And it doesn’t end there.  After the quarrying comes the delivery to be done no matter how the preacher is feeling, no matter how low he may be within himself, no matter the temperature of his faith and what burdens he may be carrying - and for that something needs to happen.   The Spirit needs to take what has been revealed in the study to the minds and hearts of God’s people.  

The apostle Paul was conscious of this.  Towards the end of his letter to the Ephesians he made this plea to God’s people:

‘Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel . . .’  

Paul may have been one of the foremost intellectuals of his day but he recognised that if he was to truly preach, something needed to be given, something needed to happen.  It wasn’t just one person ‘six feet above contradiction’ as preaching has been described.  It is a communal event.  Preacher, people and the Spirit.   And there is nothing like that experience.   E.M. Bounds wrote in 1890:

‘The preacher’s vocation will not end while a single soul remains to be ripened for heaven or while warfare against sin is to be waged.  Not till the angel, with one foot on sea and one on land, with uplifted hand and oath, arrests time and dissolves it into eternity, shall the preacher’s vocation end, his commission be cancelled.  Preaching can have no substitute or rivals; to discount or retire it is to discount and retire God.’  

With that vision before me I’m praying that the old desk will see the beginnings of future service for the Kingdom.  

Still Quarrying: Living.

Set in the early 1950s, a local authority civil servant played  by Bill Nighy is given a cancer diagnosis and faces the challenge of how to live out his remaining months.  There are hints that there was once vitality and hope in his life but all this has diminished to the extent that he merits the nickname ‘Mr Zombie’ given to him by one of his younger colleagues.  I’ve been guilty in the past of wandering into plot spoiler territory when speaking of movies and television programmes so there I will stop.  Except to say you will do yourself a favour if you take this one in and absorb its life affirming message.  

Mind you, with what I have given you that might not seem to be the most enticing prospect.    The storyline is not exactly unfamiliar, a man facing his mortality and how he responds.  But Kazuo Ishiguro’s script shows that there is still much to be gathered in this well trodden path.  Many people in communities all over the world are waking up today with Mr Williams’ challenge before them.  And there comes a point for all of us when  circumstances bring us to consider how we will live out what remains of our lives.  

Perhaps that’s what motivated the man who approached us after the screening and asked what we made of it.  That doesn’t happen very often and it was good to spend some time with this stranger and to listen as he shared the effect the film had made on him.    But it’s a film that you want to talk about because in the end Mr Williams’ challenge is one we all face.  As each day brings us closer to death how can we make the most of our lives?  Can it be said that we are truly living?  

Jesus once told a story about a man who would never be nicknamed ‘Mr Zombie’.  A rich landowner, he had worked hard to produce a spectacular crop which would enable him to take early retirement.  He now looked forward to many years in which in his own words he could ‘Take life easy; eat drink and be merry.’   But in the providence of God hours after he made this resolution his life came to an end.  Where now were his plans?  

Jesus’ comment on the story cuts deep.  ‘This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God.’  (Luke 12: 21).  I like the way Eugene Petersen paraphrases this: ‘That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.’  

I’m glad they still make films like this.  I hope it will be well viewed and just as importantly well discussed.  

Still Quarrying: Home.

After 34 years of living in the same house you have to expect some spasms of sadness when you finally leave it.  The Manse of St Paul's will always have the happiest of associations which will be with us through whatever years lie ahead.  The new house in Renfrew, however is taking shape and perhaps surprisingly quickly has taken on the ambience of 'home.'   Just this week we spent a very pleasant morning hanging pictures on the walls of the sitting room.  And they don't just have a decorative value.  Most of them were painted by friends and their creativity has brought a new warmth to the room.

One of the most enduring images of the life to come is of a 'going home.'  The apostle Peter speaks of believers being 'aliens and strangers in the world.'  (1 Peter 2: 11).  We are in the world and we are called to engage with it, to bring men and women to a knowledge of Jesus, but we can never allow ourselves to be shaped by the world in its resistance to God.  In that respect believers will always be 'aliens and strangers' in their values and priorities, never completely at home in the world. 

I personally feel the challenge of this more and more as I get older.  Having reached a place of institutional eminence in the West, in many ways the Church has become indistinctive from the ‘world’.  Someone once said that in the beginning the Church invaded the world, now the world has invaded the Church.   As a consequence people of many Christian traditions are feeling more and more uncomfortable in the place that they should feel is their spiritual home.  

Certainly everything that involves human beings will always fall short.  The apostolic letters were written to sort out problems that had arisen in first century Christian communities.  We also have to be careful of idealisation.  For many people the place called home has associations of disturbance and abuse.  Horrific examples of cruelty to children in the place where you would expect them to be cherished and protected continue to come to light.   This is a corrective to being over sentimental about the idea of ‘home’ but it is no reason to soft-pedal on our hope that we can be more faithful to the values and the truths that will dominate creation when the Kingdom of God is fully established.   Scripture holds before us an image of Christian communities where seekers can learn he truth about God and where those who have experienced the worst in life can find a place of healing.  

The pictures in our new home are not just decorative.  They speak to us of valued relationships, of people who have supported us in times of challenge and joined with us in our days of celebration.  They speak to us of the wider community of Christ which will sustain us in our journey to the ultimate home that Jesus has promised.

‘In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you.  I am going    there to prepare place for you.’   (John 14: 2)

  

Still Quarrying: Understanding The Man Who Is Cold.

It was in my Ardeer days and it was getting near the turn of the year.   I was contacted by a local funeral director.  Was I free to conduct a funeral on Hogmanay?  There were few details about the deceased.   Although he had family there had been no meaningful contact for many years.   He had been found dead in his home.  The Social Work Department were responsible for all the arrangements.   It would be one service at the local cemetery.

The day when it arrived was cold and grey.  The only people present at the grave-side were social workers who took the cords and lowered the coffin into the grave, and a young couple who were neighbours of the deceased.  The service over I asked the funeral director if any more details had come to light about this man and the circumstances of his death.  With a pained expression not far from anger Ian said: ‘How can you expect a man who is warm to understand a man who is cold.  Hypothermia.’   

So many things went through my mind as I made my way home from that cemetery.  A lonely death in the cold.  How can that happen in a generally warm-hearted community?  There may be reasons why people become detached from their families and become socially isolated but does anyone deserve an end of life like this?  

It comes back to me now after all these years when I hear so much talk about fuel costs and the dangers many people will be facing in this coming Winter.   It is anticipated that heating an average house will become so much of a financial burden for some that the choice will have to be made whether to heat or eat.   This in twenty-first century Western society.  

Getting back to the words of the funeral director.  They come from Alexander Solzhenitzyn’s novel ‘One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich’ which tells of one man’s experience of a Soviet labour camp in the early 1950s.  Among many hardships the prisoners have to endure fierce cold.   The words which are spoken by a prisoner are essentially about compassion or rather the lack of it.   True compassion is when we can meaningfully identify with someone’s suffering and thereby seek to alleviate it.   And very often that can only happen when we ourselves experience the pain or deprivation of the other.  

In my time in the parish ministry I had known so many people who had received a cancer diagnosis and who went through demanding treatment.   I felt deeply for them but I cannot say that I really understood until I went through the same experience.   Until I was diagnosed I had no experience as a patient and had never spent a single night in hospital.  I would plead that I was not unsympathetic to cancer sufferers.  There were times when I wept with them.  But that is not the same as understanding.   Some people may have that gift without the experience but some of us need the shock of the experience.  

I have often wondered how much of a shock it was for Jesus, the eternal Son of God,  to take on a human personality, body, mind and spirit.  I once heard Donald Macleod speaking of Jesus’ terror in  Gethsemene as he contemplated appearing before God as the sin of the world and receiving His judgement.  He could have no conception as to what that would be like and explains that heart rending cry on the cross: ‘Why have you forsaken me?’  In that moment Jesus experienced His Father turning His face away.   Jesus no longer felt the Father near.  

There is much that in the end we must consign to the category of ‘mystery’.   But however dark that moment of abandonment on the cross, it brings Jesus closer to us.   I have often given thought to Hebrews 4: 14-16.  Jesus shown to be sympathetic to our weaknesses, who has been tempted or tested in every way, ‘just as we are’.   The cross shows us that He even understands the loss of God, to feel abandoned, to have the eternal communion  between Father and Son disrupted.  But in that very cry - ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ - he shows us the way through these times.  These words come from Psalm 21.  The Psalms are the heart’s response to God in the varying circumstances of life not least the darkest and most challenging.   In His worst of experiences Jesus still turns His heart to God.  He is still connected to the ancient Scriptures.  The question why is on his lips but He is still crying to God.  

So we can say that with the true understanding Jesus brings to the human condition He also shows us that the way through our worst of times is to persevere with prayer and the Word.   ‘How can you expect a man who is warm to understand a man who is cold?’  We have a Saviour who understands completely and has passed through the darkest valley into the light and peace of His Father’s presence which is His will for those He died for.  

Still Quarrying - 'Held!'

It has only been four days since I officially retired but already people are asking me how it feels.  That is not easy to say since time is being filled with preparations for the Big Move.  There has not been a lot of opportunity for reflection.   But you take for granted that this will be one feature of the days ahead: more time for reflection.  And then there are the  things people have been suggesting to me:  more time for the family,  opportunity too enjoy a slower pace of life, writing that book that many seem to think is bursting to get out.   The thing is, I am tentative about making too many plans.  I cannot help thinking about colleagues who were not given much of a retirement before they were overwhelmed by what George Mackay Brown called ‘death’s slow weatherings and sudden bolts’.  Plans were made, projects started, the future seemingly brimmed with new opportunity,  but the shadow fell.  

There is a voice within telling me that I should not be thinking this way but reality has to be faced.  Jesus once told a story about a man whose elaborate plans for retirement were scarcely made before the curtain was brought down on his life.  (Luke 12: 16-21).  And  I suppose living with long-term cancer tends to colour your perspective.  

This is not to say that plans should never be made but in facing the future your priority has always to be the God who promises to be with His people in every circumstance and no matter how deep the darkness promises to be working out His good and loving purpose.  His plans may be different.  This is where faith is given an opportunity.  Faith in the God who is revealed in the experience of the ancient people of Israel and supremely in the ministry of Jesus.  Faith that is expressed in Scripture in deeply personal terms.  

There is a song which says:

‘Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water

 Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea.’

This sort of thing does not appeal to everyone, tends to engender a spiritual queasiness.   But you do not go far in Scripture to find faith expressed in such terms.  The Psalms reflect the worst of human experiences: persecution, disease, unbearable pain, depression, fear of death.  In Psalm 73 there is a reflection of a time of deep spiritual darkness when the Psalmist’s heart ‘was grieved and my spirit embittered.’  (v. 21).   Yet faith survives:

‘Yet I am always with you ;

 you hold me by my right hand.’  

 You guide me with your counsel,

 and afterwards you will take me into glory.’  (Vv. 23-24.)

This is what Eugene Petersen describes as ‘earthy spirituality’, recognising the brokenness of human existence and how it stretches all our inner resources but still believing that God is in the midst as our Companion, directing us forward according to His good and loving purpose.  The supreme assurance of this is in the life and ministry of Jesus.  We need to reflect more on John 1: 14: ‘The Word became flesh and lived amongst us.’  Flesh with all its frailties, physical, psychological and spiritual.  So we can face the future with confidence that whoever circumstances fall to us God is present holding us by the hand.  

Psalm 73 ends with one of the most complete statements of faith in Scripture:

‘My flesh and my heart may fail,

 But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.’  (v. 26.)

The plans will formulate I have no doubt.  But more than anything else I pray that this faith will dominate.  

Retirement Looming

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It's been a while since my last blog but you don't want to hear about  a number of excuses.  I thought however, that it would be good to let you see the substance of my penultimate  pastoral letter in the Church magazine.   Here goes:

In the big clear-out I came across the notes I made for the first sermon I preached in a service.  I think I was seventeen at the time.  The Youth Fellowship had been given the opportunity to lead evening worship.  Afterwards people were encouraging and there then began a dawning that this was what I was meant to do.  Shadows were to fall in the years ahead.  Uncertainty, disillusionment, doubt, perhaps even resistance.  But the call was strong and eventually I came to the place where I could not imagine a fulfilled life apart from the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. 

 

People around me expressed doubts.  Was this really what I wanted to do?  But I had enough insight and experience to know that God did not call a ‘type’.  In fact, in the early 1970s when I entered a fuller Christian commitment people were emerging as preachers and evangelists who in style and presentation were a long way from what had come to be seen as the norm.  When I saw Nigel Goodwin standing in the pulpit of St George’s Tron in his floral shirt and knee length purple suede boots, I began to think that maybe I could fit in!  In then end you accept that God knew what he was doing when He put this pressure on your will.

 

It has never been anything less that than challenging.  When I was inducted to Stevenston: Ardeer a senior minister gave the ‘charges’ at the Service of Induction.  He was generally encouraging but he said that in the end there was one thing I could be sure of: ‘You’ll never win!’   I had enough experience of Church life to know what he meant but as I face the prospect of retirement the sense of incompleteness, even failure, is far outweighed by the privilege of having the opportunity to serve as a parish minister.  To be with people in their most heart-breaking and vulnerable times is never easy but it has been an inspiration to see God’s people finding a way forward in the promises of Christ.  This is not to mention days of celebration when Gabrielle and I have been included as part of the family.  Baptisms and marriages come with a sense of new hope and ministers experience this more than most.  

 

It all comes together to make a final parting very hard.  Especially at this time in the Church of Scotland when the future of many congregations is in doubt.  It would be less than honest to say this does not weigh heavily on me.  But as there was a sense of beginning all those years ago so there comes a sense of major change.  I can’t bring myself to say, ‘the end’.  I am not convinced that 25 September will see the end of ministry for me.  I continue to hope and pray that I will have the health and strength to be available to serve in some capacity however limited.  Whatever else has to be set aside I’ll be holding on to a couple of clerical collars.  And maybe the blogs will be more frequent!

 

‘You’ll never win,’ he said.  Well, we don’t in this life.  Not completely.  But Paul said: ‘I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 3: 14). Whatever the future holds for us we are united in this faith that we are part of the Great Project to bring heaven and earth together, a renewed creation in which God’s people see the fulfilment of all His promises.  Nothing more to cry over and greater opportunities for service.  

 

Yours pressing on,  

Fergus.  

Still Quarrying: Ouch!

 I cannot say that I revere Robert Burns to the extent that many do.  He got it right, however, when he declared toothache to be ‘the hell o’ a’ diseases.’   There were stories during lockdown of poor souls who were pulled into this hell and were driven to hair-raising cures because no appointment was possible with their dentist.   Last week I could sympathise.  The pain came and went but when it came it went completely up the left side of my face and rendered me more doolally than normal.  I once heard someone say that when you have it you are completely turned in on yourself.  You are thinking only of two people: yourself and the dentist.  Thankfully appointments were available and relief eventually came.

It has been one of the blessings of the last two years that while there have been some low days I have never actually experienced any significant pain.  But it has been known for multiple myeloma sufferers to have problems with their teeth so the imagination goes into overdrive.  As with anything to do with illness, however, perspective is important.  The pain came in waves.  It was not constant.  So I could get  on with things that needed to be done.   Furthermore, I knew that the problem would be solved.  My dentist is one of many carers whose interest and expertise has been a blessing over the last two years.  

It was just another indication of how vulnerable, fragile and unreliable is the human body.  We take great care clothing it, shaping it and protecting it from mishap but its destiny through the years  is diminution and ultimately death.  No one was more conscious of this that Paul.  It would appear from his letters that he was not physically strong.   There are various theories as to what was his particular problem but there are enough references to indicate occasional weakness.  In his letter to the churches in Galatia he expresses appreciation of the care he received when he came among them not in the best of health.  In his second letter to the Christians in Corinth he refers to what seems be be a continuing problem which he refers to as ‘a thorn in my flesh.’  (2 Corinthians 12: 7)

It’s no wonder that he took great comfort and encouragement from the hope that flowed from the Resurrection of Jesus and the promise of complete renewal in body, mind and spirit.  In 2 Corinthians 4 he paints a picture of the Christian as a jar of clay which nonetheless holds a ‘treasure’ which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  A jar of clay is fragile and such is every Christian but in that Paul sees a purpose.  Our fragility highlights the fact that any power seen in our lives is by the grace of God.  The weaker we are the stronger is the power of God in our lives.  

This comes through in Paul’s teaching time and again.  There is no reason to lose heart when our physical strength is stripped back because God is still working in our lives and can reveal His glory.  How often have we seen this in lives that have been physical compromised or diminished and yet have remained a powerful witness.  

But Paul’s eyes are not just on faithful service here and now.  He writes;

‘For we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’  (2 Corinthians 4: 18)

He see the human body as a tent which is subject to destruction but ‘we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.’  (2 Corinthians 5: 1)  It is not easy inhabiting the ‘tent’.   Says Paul: ‘we groan and are burdened’ but we have this hope that ‘what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.’  (2 Corinthians 5: 4).  Our mortal bodies are destined to be renewed according to the guarantee we receive in the resurrected body of Jesus.  

A friend of mine with history of health problems phoned one Saturday morning.  I was working on a sermon which was majoring on the resurrection of the body.  ‘Any thoughts on the resurrection of the body?’ I asked.   He replied: ‘Only that I am longing for it.’  Paul would sympathise but in the meantime his attitude was that as long as he was the ‘earthly tent’ he would make it his goal to serve to his utmost in anticipation of the ‘eternal house in heaven.’  At our best or worst we continue to serve while holding in our hearts the fulfilment of all His promises to us.