Still Quarrying: Emmanuel.

 

My first Christmas as the minister of St Paul’s took place in the shadow of the Lockerbie bombing.  On 21 December 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted with the loss of 270 lives on board and on the ground.   It affected our congregation since we had a number of police officers whose Christmas leave was cancelled as every resource available was channelled to the stricken town.   

As I was preparing for the Watchnight service I was sure that the atrocity would be much in the minds of those who gathered.  In those days we could depend on a pack-out.  The challenge then was to speak some Biblical truth into the horror that had cast such a shadow on our Christmas preparations.  The cry was often heard that this was just the worst time of year for something like this to happen.  But if we focus on the truth that lies at the heart of Christmas then there is encouragement and hope.  People celebrate Christmas in their own way and they should be free to do so.  But if it is a celebration of the birth of the Son of God then that powerful truth can speak to us in the midst of our worst experiences.  

We need to take time to revisit this devotionally.  If Christmas is to mean anything to me then it is an opportunity to reflect on a God who became one of us and in His human life and death experienced physical pain as well as psychological disturbance, spiritual abandonment and the annihilation of death.  His life among us is the fulfilment of the ancient prophesy which said that he would be ‘Emmanuel’, God is with us.   With us to the end.  Not that it was the end.  His resurrection showed that the darkness of pain and death does not have the last word.   Paul was to say that the resurrection is ‘the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.’  (1 Corinthians 15: 20 GNB).   It is in light of the resurrection that we have to view everything in our experience that threatens to take us apart physically, psychologically and spiritually.   In that light we can view the birth of Jesus as a new beginning for humanity, showing that God is with us, and even in the midst of the worst human tragedy is working towards the day when nothing that has ever made us cry will be part of our experience.  

This is not an easy message to preach.  I have always been conscious of the view that it is easy to stand in a pulpit and say things but not so easy to live it out.  (Actually, it is never easy to stand in a pulpit!)   But in the end a preacher has to preach the God he or she knows, the God the apostles knew, the God who was not defeated by the worst that humanity could throw at Him, but continued to move towards the final redemption of Creation, evacuated of everything that was an affront to Him and a source of pain to the humankind He loved.  

This is what Paul was given to understand as he unpacked the truth of God with us.  In Romans 8: 31-37 he reflects on the worst things that could ever break into human experience, much of it he himself had gone through.  He recognises the power of these worst things.  They threaten to separate us from the love of Christ.  But the reality of his coming amongst us, God in a human personality, is the ultimate assurance that his love is not extinguished by ‘trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or  danger or sword.’  (Romans 8: 35).   

It was a tradition in the St Paul’s Watchnight service that the lights were dimmed before the Word was preached.  That in itself was a powerful symbol on Christmas Eve 1988.  Light in the darkness.  And a spotlight lit up the cross behind the Lord’s Table.  A reminder of the purpose of Jesus’ coming, to give Himself to show that in the eyes of God humankind had a future where sins could be forgiven, where lives could be shaped according to the pattern of His life, where a Kingdom awaited its time when the Risen Jesus would announce ‘I am making everything new!’  (Revelation 21: 5). 

There is hope that can be preached in the face of every human tragedy if we preach the reality of God with us.  But it doesn’t stop there.  The apostles held out the love of Christ as a comfort, encouragement and inspiration but also as a human aspiration.   As we reflect on the meaning of the Season it falls to every believer to reach out in compassion to those who feel consumed by the darkness of human experience.  Paul’s hymn of praise to the Son of God ‘who made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant’ and became ‘obedient to death - even death on a cross’  - begins with the challenge: ‘In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.’  (Philippians 2: 5-11.). 

‘O holy Child of Bethlehem

 Descend to us we pray.  

 Cast out our sin and enter in,

 Be born in us today.

 We hear the Christmas angels

 The great glad tidings tell;

 O come to us, abide with us.

 Our Lord Immanuel.’ 

Still Quarrying: When Faith Wobbles.

Reading Christian biographies can sometimes be an intimidating experience.  The impression can be given that there is a group of people within he Church for whom spiritual weakness and moral failure are alien experiences.  Their depth of faith highlights our shallowness.  Their use of time exposes how much we waste.  Their patience, kindness, compassion and tolerance reveals how far we fall short.  There are exceptions to this.  There are Christian biographies  that are honest enough to show that in the life of their subject there were struggles, failure, perhaps even loss of faith but in the grace of God the burden was carried and the cause of the Kingdom progressed.  An example of this is Winn Collier’s biography of Eugene Petersen,  A Burning In My Bones.  But we don’t have to look too far in the Bible to see that even the best witnesses to the faith have their worst of times.  

The third Sunday in Advent is traditionally a time to focus on the life and ministry of John the Baptist.  His whole life was geared towards preparing Israel for the coming of the Messiah.  As he baptised Jesus he was given insight into His life and ministry.  (John 1: 32-34).  He proclaimed Jesus as the ‘lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’  (John 1: 29).  He encouraged his own followers to become part of the community that was gathering around Jesus.  (John 3: 27-31).  And yet there was a moment when spiritually John the Baptist hit the wall.  

John was imprisoned for criticising King Herod and his departure from God’s ways. The future looked bad for him so it would not be going too far to say that a darkness may have decended on his soul.  In the loneliness of his cell with all the opportunity for reflection this afforded he began to have doubts.  Was this the way things were meant to be when the Messiah came?  The Messiah was supposed to bring in the Kingdom of God as the ancient prophets foretold.  It was difficult to see this in the low moral temperature of the nation and the way he was being treated for standing up for the values of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom seemed as far away as ever.  Was Jesus really the Messiah? John had to know so a group of his followers were sent to confront Jesus and to ask him: ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’  (Matthew 11: 3)

Jesus reply is reassuring to John but also challenging.  There may be moral darkness in the land.  Good people are being made to suffer for living according to God’s values but:

‘The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.’   (Matthew 11: 4-5)

To paraphrase Karl Barth,  little lights are reflecting the Great Light.  There is evidence of the Kingdom in the ministry of Jesus.  The Kingdom is happening.  But Jesus doesn’t leave it there.  His final word to John is:

‘Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.’  (Matthew 11: 6)

Jesus takes time to reassure John but makes it clear that the way forward for him is not doubt but faith.  This was always Jesus emphasis to those who would follow Him.  They are called to believe in Him.  Doubt may come but it is not an end in itself.  This is why Jesus does not give up on John as his faith shows the strain.  Indeed Jesus uses this moment to declare John the model citizen of the Kingdom to whose humility we are all called to aspire:

‘Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’  (Matthew 11: 11)

John’s story tells us that while faith has its wobbles that should never be the end.   Advent, if it has any meaning, is a time for self-reflection.  As Jesus once came to the earth as a baby so in God’s plan He will come again as the Lord of the Universe.  It will be a day of judgement when all will be called to account for their lives.  That inevitably drives us to consider the many ways that we have fallen short of the pattern of Jesus’ life.  But what the Gospels reveal is that more than anything else the life of the believer is shaped by how deeply he/she trusts in Him.  Is He who He claimed to be?  What is the effect on my life of His death on the cross?  Is His resurrection the guarantee that all those who sleep in death will also be raised?  Do we believe that despite the pains that wrack the Universe Jesus will come again to deliver a New Creation?

Let our prayer be that by the end of Advent 2022 there will be a people renewed in their faith, closer to Jesus, confident in His promises, clear with regard to our destiny in Him.

Still Quarrying: Sharing The Word.

People are called ‘prophets’  these days when they speak out about things they believe are wrong and need to be changed.  Stand-up comedians are sometimes draped with the mantel and so you will find people like Russell Brand appearing on ‘Question Time.’   In his latest book Keep Talking David Dimbleby, former chairman of QT,  avers that this in general is a good thing because it shows that significant opinion does not belong exclusively to an elite group of politicians, economists and pundits.   

Fair enough.  But this term ‘prophet’ as popularly  used is a bit different from the prophets we encounter in Scripture.  They were people who in times of crisis in the nation of Israel received a message from God which they in turn shared with the nation.  This was based on God’s blueprint for living as received in the Law supremely revealed in the Ten Commandments, the departure from which had caused crisis in the nation.   There can be no turning away from eternal values and expect no consequences.  The prophets received the Word of God in different circumstances but were confident enough of the message to introduce it with the words: ‘Thus says the Lord . . .’  What follows is not something dreamed up by the prophet or the offering of an opinion.  This was a message from God.

It is these people we remember in the second Sunday in Advent and the days following.  We began Advent remembering the community of Israel and their faithful waiting for the Messiah to be revealed.  Emerging from that community the prophets pointed forward to that day and the impact this would have on Israel and the world.  The apostles experienced signs of the Kingdom in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus They preached  His promise of the fulfilment of His Kingdom when he came again, not this time as a baby in a small town in a small nation but as the Lord of the Universe.  

Advent is a reminder to us that what sets the Church apart is not philanthropy or political engagement but her message.  The Word faithfully preached has Jesus at the centre, the Way, the Truth and the Life, who was, and is, and is to come.

Still Quarrying: LivingThe Hope

An early start to the Beatson yesterday for ‘bloods’ to be taken.  This happens every month in preparation for a consultation 3 days later.  They have to keep in touch with the level of paraprotein in my blood.  This is what I call the ‘bad stuff’ which can cause all kinds of problems in other areas of my body.  I already have bone lesions, not catastrophic,  but worth the watching.  And there is always a concern that the kidneys might be affected.  To keep things as stable as possible I am on management chemotherapy but will be undergoing more intensive treatment at the end of the year.

It’s disappointing having undergone a Stem Cell Transplant.  Many myeloma people have enjoyed 10 years remission before the ‘bad stuff’ begins to significantly make its presence known again.  I had only 18 months or so.  But we press on and I know that in the Beatson I am in the best of hands.  

Back to yesterday.  There were a few people in front of me in the clinic.   I’ve written about the waiting experience before.  It tends to be quiet, sometimes tense.   In the beginning, yesterday it was no different.  Heads were down looking at magazines, newspapers and books,  eyes were gazing into the middle-distance, the inevitable phones were out and fingers were busy.  I don’t know exactly what happened but gradually folk began to talk.  About where they had come from, what time they had set out, what their past experiences had been at clinics.  Then we went deeper.  What kind of cancer do you have?  It was amazing the variety although there was one other myeloma person.  In thinking about it, we never got round to exchanging names but when when our numbers were called, the bloods were taken, and we set off back home, we carried with us a sense of other people how they were coping, how we were not alone.

Different people, different generations, different experiences but bound together by this disease which we are are told affects one in every two people.   This is a kind of community.  On Saturday I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for a long time.  You expect the kind of routine catch-up conversation.  But then he told me he had been treated for cancer last year.  Immediately the conversation was at a different level and the relationship was deepened.  Once again, community.

This week in Advent community is very much on our minds as we reflect on the people of Israel who lived in hope of the coming of the Messiah and also the Church which lives in hope of a Second Coming when the whole of creation will be united in Him.  Living in this hope is not easy.  Scripture tells that from the earliest days the foundations upon which the Christian faith were established were being questioned even within the Church.  Scripture tells us that the moral priorities within the Church were confused and sometimes scandalous.  People were leaving churches where they were receiving apostolic teaching looking for something more exciting and more in tune with the moral and spiritual climate of the time.  

In face of this the apostles fought hard to sustain authentic Christian community around what had been revealed to them concerning Jesus and what implications there were for individuals in believing in Him.  This is why Advent is traditionally regarded as a penitential season, a time for self-examination and commitment to a more faithful walk with Christ.  That’s not easy when you see the emphasis on party and payment on the run up to Christmas.  But there must be quiet times for us all to consider where we stand with the One who has promised to return and how well we will reflect His glory when in His presence one day we will stand.   Scary thought perhaps?  But remember His project in coming into our lives is to make us more like Him.   And with His Word in our hands and His Spirit in our hearts we can as a community press on in hope.  

Still Quarrying: A Community Of Hope.

 The first Sunday in Advent is traditionally an opportunity to remember the ancient people of Israel and the great hope that sustained them through many a day of darkness.  They believed that God was in control of their destiny, that one day He would be revealed to the whole of creation, that all things in heaven and on earth would be united in Him.  

That is why the ministry of Jesus produced so much excitement.   There was power in His preaching and in the miracles He performed.  Was He the One appointed to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth?  It became clear, however, after His death, resurrection and ascension, that that moment lay further in the future when Jesus would return to the earth.  Then all the painful shadows of human existence would be scattered in the light of His presence.  

The community of Jesus’ followers generation after generation lived in this hope.  It was kept alive in their worship where the Word was preached, where Scripture was studied, where bread was broken and wine shared in memory of Jesus.   The apostles give much attention in their writings to the importance of believers meeting together and encouraging one another.  This is how faith is sustained, how it grows and is made strong for the challenges of life.  

I always enjoyed Advent as a parish minister.  Exploring the traditional themes clarified the role of the people of God in our day and kept the flame of hope burning.  I will not be leading worship in this Advent season but it’s a blessing to know that I will be part of a believing community in Renfrew grateful for what God has done for us in Christ and looking forward to the completion of His great project when Christ will reign throughout creation.  

In his latest book Faith Undaunted Donald Macleod reflects on Hebrews 11: 1: ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.’  He writes:

‘I am sure of the Invisible, sure of what He has done, and sure that what He has promised will one day be done.’  

Still Quarrying: Fitba' Crazy!

 1978 was a big year.  I graduated MA(hons), started my studies for the ministry, was married.  And there was the World Cup.  Scotland had qualified and those of us smitten by football fever had high expectations.   The problem for me was that it was taking place in Argentina where a democratically elected government had been overthrown by a military junta and those who dared oppose were being imprisoned, tortured, executed or joined the ever increasing number of the ‘missing’, people who just disappeared.  To make matters worse Scotland played a warm-up match with Chile in a stadium that had been used by the government as a concentration camp.  The folk-singer and activist Victor Jara was tortured, murdered and his body displayed at the entrance to the stadium for all the other prisoners to see.  In an interview the Scotland goalkeeper Alan Rough recalled his shock when he saw the dressing room riddled with bullet holes.  But the game went on.  

At the time I believed that Scotland should withdraw from the World Cup and certainly should never have played in the Santiago Stadium.  I wasn’t alone.   There was a campaign with the slogan ‘Football Yes!  Torture No!’   I wore the badge and was amazed at the hostility it provoked.  Apparently there came a time when all this stuff about human rights had to be set aside and the football enjoyed for the ‘beautiful game’ that it is.  No one enjoyed football more than I but there comes a time when it has to be put into perspective.

One of my favourite books is Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch.  He lays out his obsession with Arsenal FC and how in many ways it has been an enhancement to his life.  But he is also honest enough to admit how much football fandom can mess with your head.  How your life is organised around fixtures, the stupid arguments you get drawn into and your tolerance of the worst kind of behaviour demonstrated by fellow fans.  When I first read the book it was as if a mirror was being help up to a dark area of my soul.   I’ve often wondered if football makes you daft or if you are daft in the first place and football makes you worse.   Remember the old song:

‘Oh he’s fitba’ crazy, he’s fitba’ mad

 And the fitba’ it has robbed him of the wee bit sense he had.

 And it would take a dozen skivvies, his claes to wash and scrub

 Since our Jock became a member of that terrible fitba’ club.’  

It can happen.  Rob us of the ‘wee bit sense’ we have.  I could give you personal examples but frankly I would be too embarrassed.  

And now we have Qatar.  A country with no great tradition of football, an unforgiving climate for football, and that is apart from the dark shadow of her human rights record which has received much attention in the media recently.  Gay rights and the treatment of immigrant workers involved in the construction of stadiums has been highlighted but it should also be said that Christians are only allowed to worship under certain restrictions and missionary organisations are not allowed to operate.  But we are expected to set all of that aside and enjoy the football.   Sorry but I can’t do that.  I have always looked forward to the World Cup.  Most football fans will have powerful memories of the best players on top of their form.  But Bill Shankly was wrong when he said, however tongue in cheek,  that football was more important than life and death.   

Set the darkness aside and enjoy the football?  The fact is, football is not the priority in this World Cup.  It’s another example of the power of money and how in the end it calls the tune.  It will be hard to avoid it completely but I will not be making a point of watching a single game. 

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.