TWO FRIENDS, ONE SOUL

'Two friends, one soul' (Euripides)

My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them. And you are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This, then, is what I command you: love one another.

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. .. We love because God first loved us. If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. For he cannot love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother, whom he has seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love his brother also.

We were God's enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God's friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ's life! But that is not all; we rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has now made us God's friends

.

(John 15: 12-17; 1 John 4: 7-9, 19-21; Romans 5:10 and 11 -all GNB)

Friendship with God is the ultimate friendship. In Jesus Christ, he reveals his nature as 'full of grace and truth'; by his Spirit, he awakens our desire to know him and respond to his love.

One of the fruits of the divine friendship is a new intimacy with our brothers and sisters. Like pieces of metal attracted to a magnet, we find that as we are drawn closer to God, we are simultaneously drawn closer to each other. As our barriers of fear and mistrust are gradually broken down, we find that we want to reach out to others and offer them our gifts.

We offer ourselves to each other in a spirit of servanthood, aware that each one is sent to us by God and reveals a different aspect of God's nature. The one may wash our dusty feet, another may allow us to pour the ointment of our tenderness on his wounds. There will be times of laughter and sharing, times of silence when together we adore our mutual friend.

During his earthly ministry, Jesus loved his friends deeply and regarded them as gifts from God. They, in turn, comforted him with their love and encouraged him by their growth toward maturity. At the most crucial times of his life, he desired their company and support -- on the mountain of transfiguration, in the garden of Gethsemane, at Calvary. His final prayer was that his friends would be one with each other and with God.

Committing ourselves to our friends in a covenant relationship will be costly: genuine Christian love, according to Morton Kelsey, is 'forged against the anvil of our selfishness and possessiveness, of our anger and our fear'. To be true friends we may have to confront others with the way they hurt us, and with the way we perceive they could be hurting themselves.

As long as we have the intention to love, God will take our faltering attempts and transform them, using the process as a means towards union with himself. As we rest in our friend of friends, we will find that it is the Lord himself who is loving through us.

The intimate relationships in my life have been the source of the revelation of the mystery of Jesus. Through relationship I came to experience incarnation -- goodness and transcendence enfleshed in human form.

Teresa M. Boernig, Prayer and Relationship

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace...

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth;
and only the unprofitable is caught...
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds
its morning and is refreshed.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

I have described the goal of life as a deep and lasting relationship to God. But this relationship cannot be understood apart from two other relationships which are bound up with it: with other people and with ourselves. Indeed, the relationship to God, to other people and to ourselves forms a trinity in unity. Each relationship requires and depends upon the others, so that if one is defective the others will be defective too. It is through other people's love that God's love is first mediated to us.

Christopher Bryant, The Search for God in Depth

When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.

Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

The real cure for loneliness is the healing interaction of two personalities.

Katie E Wiebe, Alone: A Search for Joy

While each of us has a personal journey to complete, there is no need for us to travel alone. If we travel together we are able to encourage each other. Our journeying involves us offering heart hospitality to others... It is ours to provide a free and empty space without evoking a sense of owing, a space uncluttered with personal furniture... Providing a free and empty space for others, we commit ourselves to accepting the strangeness of strangers. Each brings a gift, themselves. In our openness, we are challenged by each guest, changed by them unpredictably... It is thus that we entertain angels unawares, even Christ himself. We are most aware of his presence when the Christ in others reaches through to and engages the Christ in us.

Graeme L. Chapman, Being Together in the World

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few... We can have a surfeit of treasures -an excess of shells, where one or two would be significant.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

One of the critical problems in society is the absence of trust. Men and women cannot trust because they do not have enough friendship in their life. If there were more friendships in the world there would be more trust, and the level of tension in societal relationships would decrease almost automatically.

Andrew M. Greeley, The Friendship Game

Sometimes I wonder ff it is wise to work directly at relationship. What matters is to be centred oneself, always ready for the moments or hours of meeting when they come. Then the relationship can be trusted to take care of itself... Meeting is of course always something of a miracle, and cannot be planned nor explained. Mercifully, real, vibrant meetings which always entail the presence of the mysterious 'third'... befall us as a grace, and stand out like beacons, and no forceful removal of barriers will, of its own accord, bring them about.

Irene Claremont de Castillejo, Knowing Woman

Every time I am given this unexpected awareness towards some other creature and feel this current of communication between us, I am touched and activated by something that comes from the fiery heart of the divine love, the eternal gaze of the Father towards the Son, of the Son towards the Father.

John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God

Community is that place where we enter into the presence of each other and the Lord who called us there, as fully and totally as we do in the engagements with ourselves and God. It is a place that calls me to abandon myself to you, for in so doing I discover myself. It is a place where I am available to you as I have learned to be with God and, because of my availability with you, I learn to be available to God. It is a place where I am totally present to you, aware of you and listening to you with the totality of my being. It is a coming together because Christ has called us to be committed to him and to each other through his gift of koinonia.

William Clemmons, Discovering the Depth

No friendless man... can be truly himself;
What a man looketh for in his friend and findeth... is his own better self.

Author unknown

Self-revelation is both the indispensable core of personality expansion and the essential gift-giving of friendship. We become fuller, richer, warmer, more humane human beings precisely to the extent that we are able to enter into friendship relationships. The more we permit the lover to know us, the more worthy of his love we become; as his searching gaze probes even deeper into our personality, he discovers riches of which no-one else was ever aware and in which we scarcely dare to believe. But, because he sees within us, we actually become the good that he sees. By reinforcing the very tentative inclinations of the beloved, the lover actually creates his beloved. We become that which the lover wants us to be, and he becomes that which we want him to be. When he reacts positively to our tentative, fragile, yet courageous self-revelation, with warmth and affection and encouragement, we discover resources in ourselves of which we had always dreamed but whose reality we could not believe. The lover, in other words, is a person who makes our dreams about ourselves come true.

Andrew M. Greeley, The Friendship Game

No matter how much we love a person, accept him, give him support, have a warmth and affection for him; no matter how much we help him in so many ways, unless we can actually call him forth so that he is himself exercising the uniqueness God gave him, then the love is incomplete; he is not free; he is less than fully human.

Gordon Cosby, from a sermon, ‘The Calling Forth of the Charisma'

Lord, I need friends...
to ease my loneliness;
to speak peace to me when I am distressed;
to walk with me when I am unsure of the way;
to provide a safe place where I can discover my true self.

I need friends...
who will laugh with me as well as pray with me;
who will embrace me without wanting to possess me;
who will explore their truth with me as it is continually revealed.

I need friends...
who will reflect you, Lord, as you reflect your Father;
who will recognise and call forth the Christ in me
as I do the same for them,
so that in mutual giving we may become
the persons you have always seen us to be. Amen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Benediction

May God who gives patience, steadiness and encouragement help you to live in complete harmony with each other -- each with the attitude of Christ toward the other. And then all of us can praise the Lord together with one voice, giving glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Romans 15: 5-6, LB)

High Mountains, Deep Valleys ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 82-88

THE HEAVENLY VISION...

... for the people of earth

Stop dwelling on past events
and brooding over days gone by.
I am about to do something new;
this moment it will unfold.
Can you not perceive it?
Even through the wilderness I shall make a way,
and paths in the barren desert.
The wild beast will do me honour,
the wolf and the desert-owl,
for I shall provide water in the wilderness
and rivers in the barren desert,
where my chosen people may drink,
this people I have formed for myself,
and they will proclaim my praises.

Isaiah 43: 18-21, REB


The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, 'Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shah be very great.' But Abram said, 'O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless... ?' [The Lord] brought him outside and said, 'Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number.' Then he said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.' And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.

God spoke to Israel in visions of the night. '... do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will there make of you a great nation.'

The Lord said, '...while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.' Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

In those days there was no frequent vision. Where there is no vision the people perish. Her prophets obtain no vision from the Lord.

In accordance with all... this vision, Nathan spoke to David. Of old thou didst speak in a vision to thy faithful one.

The vision of Obadiah. The vision of Nahum of Elkosh. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz. A stern vision is told to me.

They seek a vision from the prophet... they shall eat their bread with fearfulness, and drink water in dismay... on account of the violence of all those who dwell in [the land]. The days are at hand, and the fulfilment of every vision.

Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. 'Your dream and the visions of your head... are these: To you, O King, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be hereafter.' 'I saw in the visions of my head... a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.' 'I saw in the night vision... there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.'

I spoke to the prophets, it was I who multiplied visions.

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it.

They perceived that [Zechariah] had seen a vision in the temple.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, 'Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead.'

They came back saying they had even seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.

The Lord said to him in a vision, 'Ananias'... Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision which he had seen might mean... A vision appeared to Paul in the night: 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' The Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, 'Do not be afraid, but speak... for I have many people in this city...' 'King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.'

(Genesis 15: 1-2, 5-6; 46: 2-3; Exodus 33: 22; 34: 29; I Samuel 3: 1 -- all RSV; Proverbs 29: 18, AV; Lamentations 2: 9; I Chronicles 17: 15; Psalm 89: 19; Obadiah 1: 1; Nahum 1: 1; Isaiah 1: 1; 21: 2; Ezekiel 7: 26; 12: 19-23b; Daniel 1: 17b; 2: 28b-29; 4: 13; 7: 13; Hosea 12: 10; Joel 2: 28; Habakkuk 2: 2; Luke 1: 22; Matthew 17: 9; Luke 24: 23; Acts 9: 10; 10: 17; 16: 9; 18: 9-10; 26:19 -- all RSV)


We have always wanted to know the future. From the gypsy with her crystal, or tarot cards, or reading the lines in your palm, or the astrologer with his stars, we long to know what will happen to the world in general, and to our world in particular. And visions undoubtedly do sometimes relate to the future, as the Bible makes clear. Daniel's explanation of Nebuchadnezzar's vision of a mighty statue with its head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet a mixture of iron and clay meant it would take centuries before its meaning was outworked. John's vision on the isle of Patmos is taking millennia to reach its fulfilment.

But the scriptures also describe some visions that are for the here and now. Israel needs to know whether it is right to take the promised people into Egypt, away from the promised land. David is told that his idea of a temple is magnificent, but not for him to build. Paul is directed to go to Macedonia, or to stay in Corinth. Clearly not every decision we take is communicated through a vision, but some major turning points in the history of Israel and the church certainly have been.

Whilst other people's visions are urgent and important, they make us realise that we need a vision, too -- something that we will follow, give our lives to undertaking, work for with all our heart. Peter Block suggests a vision should be both strategic and lofty. But your vision will be precisely that -- your vision. The scriptures show only Joseph and Pharaoh, and Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar had the same dreams or visions -- and both for the purpose of explanation. Your vision will be unique to you, just as God has made you unique, brought you specially to himself, and commissioned you to labour in his vineyard. Jesus says to his disciples, 'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you' (John 15: 16).

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my Light.

High King of heaven, after victory won,
May I reach heav'n's joys, O bright heaven's Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Ancient Irish Hymn

This is no war of domination or imperial aggrandisement or material gain; no war to shut any country out of the sunlight and means of progress. It is a war, viewed in its inherent quality to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual, and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man.

Winston Churchill, on the day Britain declared war in 1939

The real problem is in defining reality. In my mind, reality is the market, the numbers, the comparisons with others. The first two or three months, I had many, many meetings - probably fifteen a day -- where we discussed facts. Not opinions, just facts. This was a company used to discussing ideas and opinions. My contribution was to transform this thinking to our way of behaving, from concepts to numbers. I am a great believer in the power of numbers. Of course you have to understand and interpret them. They are a good starting point for any plan, any action.

Lee Iacocca

If you are planning for one year, plant rice. If you are planning for ten years, plant trees. If you are planning for 100 years, plant people.

Indian proverb

The vision was to establish a workshop on the estate providing employment, help and outreach to the local community. It became a reality after much prayer and planning by the committee when a grant was given, premises became available in the school on the estate, and a workshop manager was appointed. By early February, the workshop began to function in the way that had been foreseen three years earlier, much to the excitement and encouragement of those who had worked for it.

Information Sheet, The Carpenters' Shop

This very remarkable man
Commends a most remarkable plan.
You can do what you want
If you don't think you can't,
So don't think you can't; think you can.

Charles Inge

Let your vision be your commission.

WEC motto

Go ahead and do it; you can always apologise later.

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

The first ingredient in [renewal] is a powerful vision -- a whole new sense of where a company [church, society or organisation] is going and how to get there. It is important to understand trends... but it is not enough. You must also discover the special way that your company fits into the business environment. The company's vision becomes a catalytic force, an organising principle for everything that the people in the corporation do.

John Naisbitt, Re-inventing the Corporation

One minister pointed out that there were no more jobs left for his people. Apparently some churches only need a third of the membership to keep the church ticking over. We are back again to the vision of the leadership. What are we here for? Visions that stop at the church door offer little challenge. Perhaps we should stop berating the 'less committed' and begin to ask the more committed what they are committed to.

Peter Neilson, 'Life and Work'

The creation of humankind crowns the work [of God in Genesis 1 and 2], but the sabbath is its supreme goal. Now, what is the meaning of the sabbath that was given to Israel? It relativises the works of humankind, the contents of the six working days. It protects us from total absorption by the task of subduing the earth. It anticipates the distortion which makes work the sum and purpose of human life. And it informs us that we will not fulfil our humanity in our relation to the world which we are transforming [unless] we raise Our eyes above, in the blessed holy hour of communion with the Creator. With this meaning it would be no exaggeration to state that the sabbath sums up the difference between the biblical and the Marxist visions. The essence of humankind is not work!

Henri Blocher, In the Beginning

Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass tackles the problem of attempting the impossible. The White Queen is speaking to Alice.

'I can't believe that,' said Alice.

'Can't you?' the Queen said, in a pitying tone. 'Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes.'

Alice laughed: 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

Most of us follow Alice- we don't believe in the impossible. The disciples felt that it was impossible for Jesus to have risen from the dead on the third day. No-one had ever done that before. Who would believe in blue snow? But that's what the scientists found on Jupiter's moon Io as Voyager, the spacecraft, took coloured photographs as it swept past -- a kind of volcanic precipitate.

The seven last words of the church are said to be. 'We have always done it this way.' Change? Impossible! But we follow an impossible God who can give us a vision to do the impossible.

Peter Brierley, Vision Building

I am what I am becoming.

Anonymous

You see things as they are and ask 'Why?' But I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'

George Bernard Shaw

Vision is imaginative insight, statesmanlike foresight, sagacity in planning.

Concise Oxford Dictionary

Vision is not a fragile thing. It is the heart of corporate strategy and purpose; an integrating force; it helps overcome barriers to change; it channels energies by enabling everyone to point in the same direction.

Lyndon Bowring

The Alpine climber who is trying to reach a summit can, on the upward path, scarcely see his goal except at certain fortunate moments. What he does see is the strong path that must be trodden, the rocks and precipices to be avoided, the unbending slopes that become even steeper. He feels the growing weakness, the solitude and the burden. And yet, the inspiration of the climber is the sight of the goal. Because of it, all the hardships of the journey count for naught.

Samuel Zwemer, Call to Prayer


Lead me, Heavenly Father, into your creative purpose for my gifts, skills and knowledge of your ways, limited though they are. Give direction not just for today but for the next five years, or ten years, or my lifetime. Then I will see more clearly what I must do more of this week in order to begin to fulfil your long-term desires for me.

Oh, Lord Jesus, help me to be willing to go where I am led. Forgive my fears at being given a task that seems too long. Forgive my reluctance to move from my security. Forgive my complacency with the needs of a sinful world all round me. Help me to be conscious of your presence, grateful for your power, guided by your peace.

Holy Spirit, thank you for making me what I have been becoming. Take me as I am, and continue to break me and mould me into becoming what you would have me to be. I do not ask for my sake, but for the glory of him who died for me, chose me and appointed me, that my life might bear fruit, even Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

Almighty God,
whose chosen servant Abraham
faithfully obeyed your call
and rejoiced in your promise
that, in him, all the families of the earth should be blessed;
give us a faith like his,
that, in us, your promises may be fulfilled;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Almighty and everlasting God,
increase this gift of faith;
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Alternative Service Book

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Benediction

May God give us light to guide us, courage to support us and love to unite us, now and evermore. Amen.


Rivers in the Desert ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 109-116

HONEY FROM DEAD LIONS

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, 'Let me go for the day is breaking.' But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go, unless you bless me...' And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place 'The face of God', ... 'for I have seen God face to face and yet my life has been preserved.'

We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Why, we felt that we had received the sentence of death; but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead; he delivered us from so deadly a peril, and he will deliver us; on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

Yet it was the Lord's good plan to bruise him and fill him with grief. But when his soul has been made an offering for sin, then he shall have a multitude of children, many heirs. He shall live again and God's programme shall prosper in his hands. And when he sees all that is accomplished by the anguish of his soul, he shall be satisfied; and because of what he has experienced, my righteous Servant shall make many to be accounted righteous before God, for he shall bear all their sins. Blows and bruises tell for good; they go deep into the very soul.

But I have this treasure (i.e. this shining light) in a mere earthen jar, to show that its amazing power belongs to God and not to me. I am hard pressed on every side, but never cut off: perplexed, but not driven to despair; routed, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; never free from the danger of being put to death like Jesus, so that in my body the life of Jesus may also be seen. For every day I live, I am being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be visible in my mortal nature.

For us it is plain justice; we are paying the price for our misdeeds; but this man has done nothing wrong... Jesus, remember me...

(Genesis 32:24-26, 29-30, RSV; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, RSV; Isaiah 53:10-11, LB; Proverbs 20:30, Moffatt; 2 Corinthians 4:7-11, Goodspeed; Luke 23:41-42, NEB)


We wrestle, in our service for God, with the failures we have in changing people. We know that this is the work of the Holy Spirit, that our contribution, though it take every part of us, is a modest one. Yet our hearts are hungry for such a valued seal of God's approval. Looking within, our hearts show that we are not much changed, either. This compounds our dissatisfaction. So much that we know sits on us cumbrously like Saul's armour.

In God's economy, self-knowledge comes mostly through adversity. When we fall and break the pretty image we have of ourselves, we see through to God. The process is usually a lengthy one, even though the failure, shame, collapse and dismay may seem to come in a matter of a few days, or a few hours. We experience something like the desolation of Jeremiah when fair Zion was 'eaten by uglies'. People who imagined that we were immune, impregnable, incorruptible are saddened -- though some may breathe more freely. In our darkness, in our brokenness we taste the bitterness of being wholly wrong, only to find the consolation of God's love at a deeper level. We have become one of the poor and learn that we are blessed: When Christians become poor, they acquire a new respect for the poor everywhere. They begin to perceive people as they are: lost, dismayed, flawed, much as they see themselves to have been -- but also loved by the same patient, waiting Father. They learn not to make judgments upon other people's wretchedness, but to look within to the creatureliness that is God's handiwork. And, having themselves found hope in darkness, sweetness in the taste of defeat, joy in being wholly in the wrong with God, they become hopeful for others, for all the others whom God sends to cross their path.

The poor are with us, everywhere -- sent by God in all the images of their plight. They become neighbours. ('Neighhours are nearby and far away. ') They may appear as intruders upon our contented domesticity, with their silent cry that they too are human, creatures of God, who have known the joy of family. The sacred indignity of their dying puts us in their debt. They have claims on our caring, upon the churches' and nations' resources and the whole family of man. In them does not God seek to make another breaking of our self-image, as persons and as communities of the Spirit? We are those who are caught up in a worldwide movement of living well upon the poverty of the poor. We look often to the crucified, for pardon and orientation; so are we to look upon the poor.


But 'tis the poor who make the loving words.
Slowly they stoop; it is a sacrament:
The poor can feed the birds.
The feat of love, the love that is the cure
For all indignities -- it reigns, it calls,
It chains us to the pure.

Shaw Neilson, 'The Poor Can Feed the Birds'

At some point early in his life Watchman had learned the lesson of 'brokenness', whereby the Christian, being once touched by God as to his own strength and permanently crippled there (as was Jacob at Jabbok) discovers in that experience the ever new strength of God.

Angus Kinnear commenting on Watchman Nee's life in Against the Tide

The ease with which the Adversary wounded Jacob makes us suspect that he could have won the struggle at any time. The meaning of the encounter was to change and test Jacob, not to destroy him. The wound Jacob received is the mark a person carries who encounters spiritual reality as deeply as did Jacob... The experience is indelible and changes us forever. It becomes like a wound, constantly reminding us of the spiritual reality we have known...

John A. Sanford, The Man who wrestled with God

The cross is the one totally realistic dialogue between the man God made us and the man we make ourselves.

Sebastian Moore, The Crucified is No Stranger

We shall always be learners, but at some point we shall learn that fundamental lesson, after which nothing can be the same again. There is now no way of not being a cripple. From that point begins a knowledge of God beyond anything we have ever dreamed... To what are we consecrated?. Not to Christian work, but to the will of God, to be and to do whatever he pleases.

Watchman Nee, Against the Tide

While the Saviour of the world is moaning 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?.' -- at the same time the thief is preaching by the Saviour's side, as becomes a preacher, first and foremost to his own edification... 'It is as a guilty man I suffer'.

Soren Kierkegaard, The Gospel of Sufferings

The greater the grief the greater the creative energy to which it gives rise. I am sure that is so in my own case. (Since my wife's death seven years ago) I am nearer to those who suffer and I understand them better.

Paul Tournier, Creative Suffering

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But I am betroth'd unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

John Donne, Holy Sonnet 14

When a man before God always suffers as a guilty one (Luke 23:41) then at every moment, no matter what may happen, it is guaranteed that God is love, or to be more precise, at every moment he is prevented from entering into doubt, by the sense of guilt asserting itself upon him...

The thought that God is love holds within itself all joy.

Soren Kierkegaard, The Gospel of Sufferings



Father, I have many things in my past life to be embarrassed about, to be ashamed of. And perhaps tomorrow... I fed myself on egotism and folly and I mixed it with religion. To give to others I preached the cross yet wished desperately to live, to succeed in the esteem of others, my peers. But now, Father, now that your blessing has come to me in the struggling darkness, I know the light. You are without shadow!

Father, I observe that now it is easier to be with people, it is very often a joy, this labour of loving. I'm pleased and grateful to be hopeful for them and encouraging to them. So much bread comes back! I feel I belong to them -- though it sounds grand to say it -- to this whole human race, especially those you send across my path and heart. You have certainly blessed my way with many angels, threatening to make me richer than I could have understood. Because I've been thus humbled I have to pray: keep me in that place, take me along the road of your choosing. You have my full permission, even though I'm occasionally surprised that you take me so literally and respond so speedily.

Thank you for the gifts of all the Christian women and men I know. Prosper them. Thank you that we may do something for the poor whose gift it is often to be so generous as to make us appear unspontaneous, calculating, Bless all those who encourage others, who serve the poor. Blessed are the poor in spirit...



A Benediction

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise;
thou mine inheritance, now and always;
thou and thou only the first in my heart;
high King of heaven my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, after victory won,
may I reach heaven's joys, O bright Heaven's sun;
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, 0 ruler of all.

(Irish, about eighth century)



Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 218-223

THE COMPASSIONATE LIFE

The Lord has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned.

You have a permanent place in my heart, and God knows how much I miss you all, loving you as Christ Jesus loves you.

You are God's chosen race, his saints; he loves you and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same. Over all these clothes, to keep them together and complete them, put on love.

Your life in Christ makes you strong, and his love comforts you. You have fellowship with the Spirit, and you have kindness and compassion for one another... The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had...

'Which of these three, do you think, proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the brigands’ hands?’ The one who took pit on him,’ he replied.

Jesus said to him, 'Go and do the same yourself.'

We love because God first loved us. If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. For he cannot love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother, whom he has seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love his brother also.

(Micah 6: 8, GNB; Matthew 9: 35-36, NIV; Luke 6: 36-37, JB; Philippians 1: 7-8, JB; Colossians 3: 12-14, JB; Philippians 2:1 and 5, GNB; Luke 10: 36-37, JB; 1 John 4: 19-21, GNB)



Compassion is an 'okay' kind of word isn't it? We like to think of ourselves as a compassionate people who really are mostly good, gentle and understanding. We should like to think that the compassionate life was simply the human way of living. But being human and being compassionate are not the same. All the conflict, war, hatred, injustice and oppression in the world remind us that authentic compassion is not a response natural to every human.

True compassion is tragically rare. Competition and not compassion seems to be the rule of life.

As followers of Jesus we need to hear his call: 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.' This is a radical dimension of Christ's call to us. It goes against our competitive nature. Indeed, we only begin to understand compassion when we understand that our Father has first loved us. Because he is compassionate towards us, we may grow in compassion and reach out to others.

Christian compassion must be more than an emotional 'gut' reaction. It is often appropriate that we feel a deep anger at the sin, cruelty and injustice in our world. But true compassion will always move from emotion to action, in the spirit of the obedient and suffering Servant of God.

Compassion must involve action, and yet prayer is central to authentic compassion for others. Prayer will lead us into the mysteries of suffering and enable us to reach out even to our enemies in compassion. Prayer calls us to be aware of the world in which we live and present it with all its horrors, violence, needs and pain to a God who is Compassion.

Yet we are always aware that the evil, failure and hurt needing to be confronted by compassion has an echo in our own hearts. Our own sin, hurt and overwhelming need constitute a painful reminder of how we, too, need to receive from lives full of compassion.



One day, the three of us visited the late Senator Hubert Humphrey to ask him about compassion in politics... The Senator, who had just finished talking with the ambassador of Bangladesh and obviously expected a complaint, a demand or a compliment, was visibly caught off guard when asked how he felt about compassion in politics... But then, after having adapted himself to the somewhat unusual situation, Senator Humphrey walked back to his desk, picked up a long pencil with a small eraser at its end, and said in his famous high-pitched voice: 'Gentlemen, look at this pencil. Just as the eraser is only a very small part of this pencil and is used only when you make a mistake, so compassion is only called upon when things get out of hand. The main part of life is competition; only the eraser is compassion... in politics compassion is just part of the competition.'

H.J.M. Nouwen, D.P. McNeill, D.A. Morrison, Compassion

The life of Jesus illustrates the three vital elements of compassion in action. The first element is true understanding...

Compassion is born from true understanding. Matthew noted that Jesus had compassion on the crowds because 'they were like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless'... Compassion means that we have two cross hairs in the sights of our understanding: the fact that people are beings created by God in the image of God and the fact that people have fallen and live in a fallen world. Where the two lines cross is the centre of the sphere of compassion.

The second element of Christian compassion is outrage. If we see what is wrong as God sees it, we will feel about it as God feels... to be moved with compassion denotes a gut reaction, an intense visceral emotion; and suggests strong anger at the situation which has reduced people to their present circumstances...

The third element of Christian compassion is identification. The Latin root for 'compassion' is parallel to the Greek root for sympathy; both refer to deep fellow feelings 'with' or 'alongside' someone. Identification is at the heart of the incarnation.

Os Guinness, The Dust of Death

Just as our neighbour is in need and lacks that in which we abound, so we were in need before God and lacked his mercy. Hence, as our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbour through our body and its works, and each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all; that is, that we may be truly Christians.

Martin Luther, Christian Freedom

I quoted something I had heard a preacher say to Len, a Canning Town Christian. The preacher had said, 'What we want in this country is a voice.' I asked Len what his comments were. 'You'd have to have lips and a mouth and a body as well, wouldn't you?' he said.

David Sheppard, Built as a City

The bowels of compassion: a wonderful old phrase. They ought to be kept open.

Norman Douglas, An Almanac

If you think of your fellow creatures, then you only want to cry; you could really cry the whole day long. The only thing to do is to pray that God will perform a miracle and save some of them. And I hope I am doing that enough.

Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

The great news we have received is that God is a compassionate God. in Jesus Christ the obedient servant, who did not cling to his divinity, but emptied himself and became as we are, God has revealed the fullness of his compassion. He is Immanuel, God-with-us. The great call we have heard is to live a compassionate life. In the community formed in displacement and leading to a new way of being together, we can become disciples - living manifestations of God's presence in this world. The great task we have been given is to walk the compassionate way. Through the discipline of patience, practised in prayer and action, the life of discipleship becomes real and fruitful.

H.J.M. Nouwen, D.P. McNeill, D.A. Morrison, Compassion



Father, I confess my great need of your compassion. My failures, doubts, temptations and fears threaten to overwhelm me. Life seems to be a never-ending competition and I often feel as though I don't even know the rules. You understand and love me as you do all your children. Reach out to me so that in the depths of my being I may know your compassion. Thankyou that in the life, teaching and suffering of your Son I learn that you are a God of compassion.

In my mind I know that to follow you means that I must live a life of compassion. But my heart is often so hard and my body so slow to help others, even when I become indignant over their plight. Show me that it is precisely because of my poverty and pain that I may be able to help others. Just as you love me, so may I love others. Amen.



A Benediction

May the Father who is Compassion, the Son who is still moved by the sight of the wounded people and the Spirit who is the Comforter transform our competitive souls into compassionate lives. Amen.

High Mountains, Deep Valleys ed. Rowland Croucher pp. 71-75

THE DESERT IN THE HEART

As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, 0 God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. So I have looked upon thee in the sanctuary, beholding thy power and glory.

I stretch out my hands to thee; my soul thirsts for thee like a parched land.

'All my springs are in you.'

With joy you will. draw water from the wells of salvation.

I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fall, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.

Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

(Psalm 42: 1-2; Psalm 63: 1-2; Psalm 143: 6; Psalm 87: 7; Isaiah 12: 3; Isaiah 41:18 -- all RSV; Isaiah 55: 1, NRSV; Isaiah 35: 6b-7a; Ezekiel 47: 12; Revelation 22:1-2 -- all RSV)


The full text for this chapter heading comes from the English poet W.H. Auden:

In the desert of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

The first and third lines express complementary Interpretations of the human predicament. The second and fourth lines tell of the solution.

There is more than one desert in the heart, and the poet of Psalm 84 speaks (probably from his own experience) of a vale of misery which the God-blessed person finds to be a well, with pools of water to refresh the journey. ,

The most famous well in Palestine is Jacob's well near Nablus, several miles from biblical Samaria. The well is deep: a coin dropped into it takes several seconds before one hears the splash. The water is cold and clear, and visitors are invited to drink a small glassful by the guardian monk. The well is associated with the world's loveliest love story, that of Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29), and even earlier with that of Abraham's steward sent to find a bride for Isaac (Genesis 24).

For Christians there is the more heart-touching account of Jesus sitting tired by the well, and his request to the Samaritan woman to draw water for him to drink, followed by the conversation about the water of life which Christ supplies: 'Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will never thirst... it will become a spring of water, welling up to eternal life', a spring from which others may drink (John 4).

C.H. Dodd, one of the greatest New Testament scholars of the twentieth century, quotes a poem from Longfellow's Songs of King Olaf, the meaning of which I have witnessed in my own visits to the Abrahamic country of the Negev:

As torrents in summer,
Half-dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, tho' the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been failing
Far off at their fountains –
So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining.

Where there is water, trees will ultimately grow, and a passage from Isaiah gives a list of them drawing their nourishment from open rivers on the heights, previously rocky -- cedar, acacia, myrtle, olive, cypress, plane and pine. This may refer to God's control of national history: Israel may be as weak as a worm, but God will make it strong and great, so that all its people will rejoice in the Lord, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 41: 16-20).

The poet who wrote the first psalm in the psalter makes this insight personal. The Jerusalem Bible makes verse 1 dear: 'How blessed is anyone who rejects the advice of the wicked and does not take a stand in the path that sinners tread, nor a seat in company with cynics, but who delights in the Law of Yahweh and murmurs -- reads meditatively -- his law day and night.' The godly person is like a tree growing near a stream, putting its roots down into the moist earth, so that the life-giving sap rises to every part of the tree -- branches, twigs, leaves and fruit.

Ezekiel's vision and that of the seer in Revelation may have relevance to the task of restoring the decay of our inner cities, where towering office blocks and rejected beehives of slum flats, the lack of social amenities and inadequate family homes breed poverty, despair and greed for quick profits, as well as un-neighbourly relationships. We who care for the good life can thank God that we are becoming aware of our failure and the crying need of so many of our fellow humans.

As we go further in our social and moral audit, there are other kinds of deserts in the heart. There is a desert of loneliness, with so many old people living alone and often spending a whole day without a visit or even a word from another human. The dialled telephone would seem a God-given gift for such a desert.

There is the desert of language in our prayer life, trying to find a word to describe the Indescribable, the Inexpressible. That need not be too difficult practically, for God knows the silent feeling of the heart, and to him all hearts are open, all desires known and from that Eternal Wisdom and Love no secrets are hidden.

And there is the desert of suffering that comes to disabled people or to those troubled by the diminishments and irritations of old age. When ill or in pain, or through failing eyesight or increasing deafness, it is difficult to pray. I often wish that our Lord had lived on into old age, so that he could have shown us a pattern for accepting such limitations.

Two thoughts have helped me in my desert. The first is to make an immediate act of trust in God, shooting up an arrow of prayer to him. The second is to remember Paul's words, when his unspecified and unhealed 'thorn in the flesh' was hurting him -- 'I can do (or bear) all things through Christ, who strengthens me' (Philippians 4: 13).

So in conclusion, I come back to Auden's verse from which I began, with a slight amendment to cheer the occasional stretches of depression in my own old age:

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start;
In any prison of my days
Teach me freedom how to praise.


Many people as they grow older fear the coming of old age. They regret the failing of physical and mental powers, the withdrawal from active life, posts of leadership and the satisfaction of being used creatively. These increasing diminishments can be seen as a hollowing-out of the material and the temporal, in order to be ready to be filled with the spiritual and the eternal.

George Appleton, Journey for a Soul

There are credits as well as debits in the aging process -but the debits gain greater prominence. Each stage of life brings its own rewards, and old age is no exception. The happy people are those who accept their age and major on the credits rather than the debits.

Blind optimism is not warranted, however, for growing old is not all fun! The handicaps and limitations are not easy to take. Declining health, decreasing mobility, the waning of one's powers are, for many, too painfully real to be ignored.

With his accustomed realism, Paul recognised this when he wrote, 'Outwardly we are wasting away' (2 Corinthians 4: 16). His own sufferings -- see 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 -- must have taken a heavy toll of his physical frame, so ,-he is speaking from painful experience. But he did not stop there; instead, he added the secret of his staying power: 'Yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.'

Indeed, he shared something else he had learned over the years: 'I have learned the secret of being content in any and every circumstance... I can do everything through him who gives me strength' (Philippians 4: 12-13). His secret? A daily appropriation of Christ's strength to meet his weakness.

J.O. Sanders, 'Age is in Attitudes -- not Arteries'

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. .People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. In the central place of every heart, there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old.

Douglas MacArthur

The wisdom of the heart is its growing old in experience, recollected in tranquillity, and digested in grace, humility and love. What other wisdom is worth seeking and having? If people are rightly aging, they are showing in that wisdom and, as their years increase, so does this wisdom.

Carroll E. Simcox, The Gift of Aging

I love looking at you, hundred-year-old tree, loaded with shoots and boughs as though you were a stripling. Teach me the secret of growing old like you, open to life, to youth, to dreams, as somebody aware that youth and age are merely steps towards eternity.

Dom Helder Camara, A Thousand Reasons for Living

Old people are approaching a new frontier. Some will have a quiet faith in the God and Father of Jesus and will live each day as it comes, taking the crossing into the new dimension in their stride. Others will want to explore, experiencing the spiritual dimension within their own being, learning from those who left insights before they crossed, living now in the values of the beyond, recognising that the only currency they can take with them is love.

George Appleton, Journey for a Soul

Through all the changing scenes of life,
in trouble and in joy,
the praises of my God shall still
my heart and tongue employ.

Of his deliverance I will boast,
till all that are distressed,
when learning this, will comfort take
and calm their griefs to rest.

O make but trial of his love;
experience will decide
how blest are they, and only they,
who in his truth confide.

Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady

When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more when they touch my mind); when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all at that last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me; in all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself.

Teilhard de Chardin

Thank you, Lord!

When trees are stripped, bent, bowed and torn
In howling gale, torrential rain;
For every wind which leaves forlorn,
Produces stronger growth through pain;
Though rain's sharp needles wound perchance,
They bring life-giving sustenance.
Thank you, Lord!

For flames which purify life's dross,
Shifting all sediment and dross,
Till dear, bright purity can hold
Sure image of the Master's cross:
Praise for the fire; the icy blast;
Thank you, Lord, that your hold is fast.
Thank you, Lord!

When powerful forces wrench a soul;
When sore heart's praise comes haltingly,
That shattered lives can be made whole
If handed to you willingly.
Then every stumbling 'Thank you, Lord!'
Will lift, expand, proclaim your word.

Betty Stevens


Grant, O Lord, that the years that are left may be the holiest, the most loving, the most mature. I thank you for the past and especially that you have kept the good wine until now. Help me to accept diminishing powers as the opportunity to prepare my soul for the full and free life to come in the state prepared by your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

George Appleton, Journey for a Soul


A Benediction

May the ever-present God, the source of living water, open rivers and streams before you in the deserts of your heart. May he be your life in times of spiritual barrenness, your companion in times of loneliness, your strength in times of weakness, and your provider of fruitfulness in your years of old age. Amen.

Rivers in the Desert ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 237-244

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN

Bless the Lord, all his angels, creatures of might who do his bidding. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who serve his will. Bless the Lord, all created things, in every place where he has dominion. Bless the Lord, my soul.

And God gave Solomon depth of wisdom and insight, and understanding as wide as the sand on the sea-shore, so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed that of all the men of the east and of all Egypt.

The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered. He lived in the house of his Egyptian master, who saw that the Lord was with him and was giving him success in all that he undertook.

But the Almighty we cannot find; his power is beyond our ken, and his righteousness not slow to do justice. Therefore mortal men pay him reverence, and all who are wise look to him.

O Lord our sovereign, how glorious is thy name in all the earth!

O Lord, who savest man and beast, how precious is thy unfailing love!

You are, I know, eager for gifts of the Spirit; then aspire above all to excel in those which build up the church.

And now I will show you the best way of all. I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

(Psalm 103: 20-23; 1 Kings 4: 29-30; Genesis 39: 2-3; Job 37: 23-24; Psalm 8: 1; Psalm 36: 7; 1 Corinthians 14: 12; 1 Corinthians 12: 31b - 13:1 -- all NEB)

~~~

Excellence, in the biblical sense, is possible. It is not to be confused with the worldly notion of 'success', which can so easily and uncritically be adopted by Christians, both individually and corporately.

It is a perversion of the gospel to interpret this excellence in terms of the status symbols of worldly success, which include in our culture such things as wealth, positions of responsibility and status (induding in the church) size (of buildings, cars etc.), popularity numbers within the groups we lead, and so on. Rather, the gospel stands against the so-called wisdom which decrees that 'life' is to be found in achieving a perceived elevation in power. The gospel offers fulfilment and joy in the conscious reversal of the values of the world by calling us to engage in the gracious handing over of power and the symbols of power.

The call of God is for us to climb the mountain of true excellence with him. This is the path of self-denial which is saturated in his love, and ours. How different is this call! We are not called to a competition based on frantic ego-activity whereby 'success' is measured in terms of self-fulfilment, no matter who else is hurt in the en deavour. We are called to embrace the 'higher way' of love.

This call of God is also to be embraced by his people corporately. It is hardly the intention of God that we should adopt the destructive strategies of the world in determining how we relate to other groups of Christian people. Our group -- congregation, assembly, denomination -- has no mandate to engage in self-promotion, or to gloat over the difficulties experienced by other groups of Christians, or to have glib feelings of Pharisaic selfrighteousness about doctrine or practice. How can a Christian group ever think it has reached the top of the pile, when 'the pile' is steeped in humility? If the Kingdom of God is the sphere of loving service, of delighting in preferring others above one's own self or group, what place is there for feelings of superiority, or for the practice of undermining others who are God's people?

We are the people of the rainbow, the children of promise. We live in the tension of the 'not yet'. We have not arrived. Our dream takes our acting, our loving, our praying and our witnessing beyond the tinsel of this present time into the reality of God's future. We dream of a new heaven and of a new earth, and we devote ourselves without reserve to that dream.

~~~

If I had my life to live over again, I'd try to make more mistakes next time... I would be crazier, I would be less hygienic. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets...

Source unknown

Success is a shining city, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We dream of it as children, we strive for it through our adult lives, and we suffer melancholy in old age if we have not reached it.

Success is the place of happiness. And the anxieties we suffer at the thought 'of not arriving there give us ulcers, heart attacks and nervous disorders. If our reach exceeds our grasp, and we fail to achieve what we want, life seems meaningless and we feel emotionally dead.

Anthony Campolo, The Success Fantasy

Success focusses its attention on the external -- becoming the taskmaster for the insatiable appetites of the conspicuous consumer.

Excellence beams its spotlight on the internal spirit, becoming the quiet, but persuasive, conscience of the conscientious who yearn for integrity.

Success engenders fantasy and a compulsive groping for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Excellence brings us to reality, and a deep gratitude for the affirming promise of the rainbow.

Success encourages expedience and compromise, which prompt us to treat people as means to our ends.

Excellence cultivates principles and consistency, which ensure that we will treat all persons as intrinsically valuable ends -- the apex of our heavenly Father's creation... Success pales in the brilliance of excellence.

Jon Johnston, Christian Excellence- An Alternative to Success

Success exposes us to the pressure of people and thus tempts us to hold onto his gains by means of fleshly methods and practices, and to let ourselves be ruled wholly by the dictatorial demands of incessant expansion.

Success can go to our heads... unless we remember that it is God who accomplished the work, that he can continue to do so without our help whenever he wants to cut us out.

Charles Spurgeon

The highest offices of State and Church resemble a pyramid whose top is accessible to only two sorts of animals -- eagles and reptiles.

John Wesley

The famous conductor Leonard Bernstein was once asked, 'What is the most difficult instrument to play?' Without hesitation he replied, 'Second fiddle.' Then he explained, 'I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm or second French horn or second flute, now that's a problem. And yet if no-one plays second, we have no harmony.'

Charles Swindoll, Improving Your Serve

I will seek elegance rather than luxury, refinement rather than fashion. I will seek to be worthy more than respectable, wealthy and not rich. I will study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly. I will listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with an open heart. I will bear all things cheerfully, do all things bravely await occasions and hurry never. In a word I will let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common.

William Ellery Channing, 'My Symphony'

~~~

Lord, I find it difficult to accept that you accept me without reserve in Christ, and that you delight to embrace me as a father welcomes his prodigal child. Help me to experience that acceptance deep within, and to relish your presence. Deliver me from thinking that I have to prove myself, whether to you, or to others, or to myself.

Grant me an openness of spirit so that I can be freed of the shackles of self-expectation and take whatever risks you desire for me today.

I confess that self-promotion is a sin which clings so closely, and I claim your forgiveness and the gift of your self-giving Spirit.

Be pleased to renew us with a fresh compassion for others in need, and a new desire and ability to share our wealth, power and status symbols. Hear my cry for a deeper love for you and for my neighbour.

~~~

A Benediction

Lord, enable us to show a deeply generous attitude to all we meet, serve, love and listen to, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rowland Croucher, ed., High Mountains Deep Valleys (Albatross/Lion) chapter 49

ON VOCATION

The angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush... When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, 'Moses! Moses!' And Moses said, 'Here I am.' ...the Lord said... 'So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.'

'When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.'

The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, 'Samuel! Samuel!' Then Samuel said, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple... Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fish for people.' At once they left their nets and followed him.

Jesus looked at him and said, 'You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas...'

But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any one...

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God... To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...

Each one should remain in the situation which they were in when the Lord called them.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to lead a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit -- just as you were called to one hope when you were called -- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it... It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up... attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

(Exodus 3: 2,4,10; Hosea 11: 1; 1 Samuel 3: 10; Isaiah 6:1,8 -- all NIV; Mark 1: 17-18, NIV/NRSV; John 1: 42; Galatians 1: 15-16; 1 Corinthians 1: 1-2; 1 Corinthians 7: 20; Ephesians 4:1-7,11-13 -all NIV)

The notion of vocation or calling is one that has almost dropped out of our vocabulary. And we are all the poorer for its absence. Its biblical and Reformation roots hold together our sense of identity, history and community. Without a providential sense of vocation for the church and the individual, identity becomes individualistic, history becomes atomistic, and community becomes conformity.

The biblical view of vocation exclaims vive la difference to our created diversity, enables us to breathe the fresh air of Christian freedom without fear of others' judgment because our calling is different to theirs, and exhorts us to find and develop our character and biography based on the prominent lines of God's providence in our lives, personally and corporately.

In a day when managerial and therapeutic models of ministry are dominant (and they have many useful things to say), we must still ask ourselves what our distinctive calling or vocation in ministry is. In a schizophrenic world, the distinction between the real or whole self and the role (or work) self has become axiomatic.

As a prescription to counter burnout, we are often rightly counselled to distinguish ourselves from our ministry, but we need to remember that we cannot completely separate real self and role self without losing our integrity and even our sanity. The notion of vocation enables us to see ourselves as more than just our ministry and the current preacher's popularity rating, and yet integrate ministry and identity.

The nervous modern pursuit of personal identity, the search for one's self, is in considerable contrast to the situation of someone like Paul. Like Peter, even his name was changed because of his call. In fact, on countless occasions in scripture what you were named or called was directly related to your calling by God. In Galatians 1, it is clear that Paul found his person in the light of the purpose God had called him to as apostle to the Gentiles. Indeed, the sin he regularly refers to is his opposition to that purpose in his persecution of the church.

In the call narratives of figures like Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and Paul, there is a rough pattern of vision -- of God in his glory; of admission -- of human unworthiness; of passion -- a single-mindedness that is not easily separated from who you are as a person; and mission -that gets you going and keeps you going into the world.

Many of us today want the vision and experience of God without the mission or passion, and we cannot have it. God demands all our attention to the point of what many moderns would regard as obsession. To distinguish whether we have a divine or personal obsession is a difficult task. It is the distinction between being driven or called, the difference between being a Saul or a David.

God's call, as distinct from a personal obsession, has a number of characteristics: it is a gift that flees us to be who we were made to be; it calls us out into Christian community, the ekklesia, the gathered people of God; and it calls us into the world as part of the scattered people of God; it calls us appropriately at different ages and stages of life, with partner and children or in singleness with friends; and above all it calls us to Christlike character where we find our role and real self in his story and are led in the direction of the kingdom.

With such a sense of calling(s), discerned in direct relationship to God, and indirectly through his people, we find a balance that saves us from the imperialism of an individualistic, subjective sense of call that carries everyone else along with us, and yet enables us to maintain a critical sense of distance from those we serve, so that we and they know that God and not they are our master.


The great social and cultural maladies of the modern age all have this common characteristic: that they deny personal vocation.

Denis de Rougemont, The Christian Opportunity

Here lies the body of Thomas Jones, born a man, died a grocer.

Alleged Scottish gravestone

What is he?

- A man, of course.

Yes, but what does he do?

- He lives and is a man.

Oh quite! but he must work. He must have a job of some

- Why?

Because obviously he's not one of the leisured classes.

- I don't know. He has a lot of leisure. And he makes quite beautiful chairs.

There you are then! He's a cabinetmaker. - No, no!

Anyhow a carpenter and joiner. - Not at all. But you said so. - What did I say?

That he made chairs, and was a joiner and carpenter.

- I said he made chairs, but I did not say he was a carpenter.

All right then, he's an amateur.

- Perhaps! Would you say that a thrush was a professional flautist, or just an amateur?

I'd say it was just a bird.

- And I say he is just a man.

All right! You always did quibble.

D.H. Lawrence, 'What is he?'

No elaborate argument is required to justify the Christian doctrine of vocation. It follows indisputably from two propositions. The first, that God is everywhere active in human affairs and his will operative at all times. The second, that he is a rational God, fully aware that the world needs farmers and miners as well as priests and nuns... The doctrine of Providence stresses the ceaseless and ubiquitous intrusion of God into human affairs. The doctrine of Vocation defines a prime mode of that intrusion.

Henry Blamires, The Will and the Way

For [God] knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for everyone... and has named these various kinds of living 'callings'... Accordingly, your life will be best ordered to this goal... each... will bear and swallow discomforts, vexations, weariness and anxieties... From this will arise a singular consolation; that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned precious in God's sight.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

If we are rightly disposed, like Samuel, to respond to all legitimate calls from the Lord, whether they come directly or indirectly, even if we repeatedly seem to make mistakes or actually do make them in the process of discernment and turn even repeatedly in the wrong directions, an untiring God will keep calling until we find our way. God called Samuel four times! This passage also highlights the importance of the role of the spiritual father. Even such an obtuse and poor man of God as the priest Eli was, in the end, by God's grace given in response to the humble faith of his disciple, able to help Samuel to discern and respond to his call.

Basil Pennington, Called

Who of us knows ourselves... as God knows us and therefore as we really are? Who can say with absolute certainty... that we are this or that, that our nature is thus, that these are the limits which even God must ob serve if he wishes to call us? An authoritative and reliable light is shed... only by the calling in which we are authentically addressed and claimed by our Creator and Lord... And in the light of this calling we will not merely find ourselves summoned to be what we are; we will also find ourselves summoned as the one we are to new existence and action.

Saul as the one he is and has been is to become Paul. This means that the previous state of his vocation has to undergo an expansion. He must not become hopelessly enamoured of what he was. He must let himself be wrested from any passion for his previous existence. He is invited to a journey to new harbours in which he will again be himself... in a new form, perhaps becoming a source of astonishment not only to others but even to himself...

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics

The external limitation of every human vocation has a corresponding internal limit. This consists in the personal aptitude... we must not wish to jump out of our own skin. It is just as we are that we may come, when the command of God calls us to meet the new thing which we are to be in the strength of this call... we must not ask why this is the point of departure. We must not compare it with that of others. We must not envy or despise others because theirs is different. We must not waste time considering how fine it would be if ours were like theirs. If it is good enough for God to begin dealings with us at this point, then it ought to be good enough for us to begin dealings with God at this point.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics

Christ appears to have begun with the distinction between the called and the driven. Somehow he separated people out on the basis of their tendency to be driven or their willingness to be called. He dealt with their motives, the basis of their spiritual energy, and the sorts of gratification in which they were interested. He called those who were drawn to him and avoided those who were driven and wanted to use him.

Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World

Can driven people be spotted? Yes, of course. There are many symptoms that suggest a person is driven...

1. A driven person is most often gratified only by accomplishment...

2. A driven person is preoccupied with the symbols of accomplishment...

3. A driven person is usually caught in the uncontrolled pursuit of expansion...

4. Driven people tend to have a limited regard for integrity...

5. Driven people often possess limited or undeveloped people skills.

6. Driven people tend to be highly competitive...

7. A driven person often possesses a volcanic force of anger...

8. Driven people are usually abnormally busy...

Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World

Any of us can look within and suddenly discover that drivenness is our way of life. We can be driven toward a superior Christian reputation, toward a desire for some dramatic spiritual experience, or toward a form of leadership that is really more a quest for domination of people than servanthood. A homemaker can be a driven person; so can a student. A driven person can be any of us...

Can the driven person be changed? Most certainly. It begins when such a person faces up to operating according to drives and not calls. That discovery is usually made in the blinding, searching light of an encounter with Christ. As the twelve disciples discovered, an audience with Jesus over a period of time exposes all the roots and expressions of drivenness.

To deal with drivenness, one must begin to ruthlessly appraise one's motives and values just as Peter was forced to do in his periodic confrontations with Jesus. The person seeking relief from drivenness will find it wise to listen to mentors and critics who speak Christ's words to us today. We may have some humbling acts of renunciation, some disciplined gestures of surrender of things -- things that are not necessarily bad, but that have been important for all the wrong reasons...

Paul the apostle in his pre-Christian days was driven. As a driven man he studied, he joined, he attained, he defended, and he was applauded. The pace at which he was operating shortly before his conversion was almost manic. He was driven toward some illusive goal and, later, when he could look back at that lifestyle with all of its compulsions, he would say, 'It was all worthless.'

Paul was driven until Christ called him. One gets the feeling that when Paul fell to his knees before the Lord while on the road to Damascus, there was an explosion of relief within his private world. What a change from the drivenness that had pushed him toward Damascus in an attempt to stamp out Christianity to that dramatic moment when, in complete submission, he asked Jesus Christ, 'What shall I do, Lord?' A driven man was con verted into a called one.

Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

God of the burning bush, grant me a vision of your throne filling this earthly temple, meet me in the midst of my daily routine as you met the disciples mending their nets, encounter me on the Damascus roads running through my life, call me and woo me away from my own desperate drivenness.

Lord, I admit that so often my desires and drives become demands, compulsions that can never be met. And yet I hunger, I crave for Christ, I have a passion that burns in my bones, to be your person, to find myself and my ministry in your purpose, to go out today caught up in your mission to the world. Take my passion up within your passionate concern, my person within your purpose, and my ministry within your mission for the world.

God who calls irresistibly in earthquake, wind and fire, and in the still, small voice: sensitise my hearing to the tone of your voice through your word. Give me discernment to hear your call in the midst of a myriad of calls and demands. Telephone calls, pastoral calls, call committees or nominators, job advertisements, my needs and the needs of my family and my church. Never ending needs! And yet I know, Lord, the need isn't necessarily the call. In the midst of all my activity like Martha, help me to take time for the luxury, the necessity to sit at your feet like Mary, and discover the one thing needful.

Lord of my history and personality, give me wisdom to discern between my desire for change, my search for stability, my wanting recognition and fulfilment, and my longing to be my best for you, myself, my loved ones, your people, your world. Through these diverse demands and desires, plant in me, Lord, those deeper, enduring desires that delight in you and are promised fulfilment in your kingdom.

I was all hot for honours, money, marriage: and you made mock of my hotness. In my pursuit of these, I suffered most bitter disappointment, but in this you were good to me since I was thus prevented from taking delight in anything not yourself.

Look now into my heart, Lord, by whose will I remember all this and confess it to you. Let my soul cleave to you now that you have freed it from the tenacious hold of death.

Augustine of Hippo

Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go, My daily labour to pursue;
Thee, only thee, resolved to know, In all I think, or speak, or do.
The task thy wisdom hath assigned, O let me cheerfully fulfil;
In all my works thy presence find, And prove thine acceptable will.

Charles Wesley

God has called [name];

he will not fail [him/her].

God has called [name];

he will not fail [him/her].

God has called [name];

he will not fail [him/her].

So trust in God and obey him.

God has called you, he will not fail you.

So trust in God and obey him.

God has called us, we will not fail him.

So trust in God and obey him.

Diane Davis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Benediction

May the God of Abraham, Moses and Paul,
the God who irresistibly calls,
give you an assured sense of purpose,
a quiet confidence about who you are,
sensitive discernment of his will,
and decisiveness in following his direction for your life,
as you step out faithfully in the footsteps of Christ and with the Spirit at your side. Amen.

Rivers in the Desert ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 142-151