Crime, instability, uncertainty, confusion: the list goes on, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. For some, it is the system, so change the system and the rest will follow. Of course, we need to say what we mean by ‘The System’ and then how it should be reformed or replaced. But then we must ask, ‘What with?’
It may be a cry of despair or contempt, but it is common enough for all that. It is easy to point to others and say what they need to do in order to put things right. We can point to institutions, rules of law and of legal procedure: ‘technicalities’. We can point to faults in the economy and the way it rewards some skills and aptitudes, but not others. The ability to make money which takes precedence over kindness and generosity. The ability to run faster or manoeuvre a ball on a pitch of some kind which takes precedence over the ability to care for the most needy in society.
But then the fault-finding in others has to stop and we have to start looking at ourselves. This means going far beyond finding explanations or excuses for our failures. It is about something central to our present human identity. It is that tendency to seek our own needs and satisfactions before those of others. Our own appetites, desires, ambitions; even our own memories and resentments which can mould and define us. And then others are expected to fit into the cracks left between them and into the occasional spaces that we may have left unfilled and unguarded.
This is what we have become and it is a long way from the intimacy with God that Adam and Eve had enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. But this is the intimacy that Jesus came to restore, but now on a far greater scale. Instead of one garden it is the whole world. Instead of one couple, it is the whole of humanity. Instead of the skills and dedication of the gardener, it is all skills in art, design and research, innovation and manufacturing of all of humanity.
That is now the vision of Jesus as He contemplated the cross and as He rose from the dead. It is His vision for humanity as He bestowed the Holy Spirit on His disciples on the Day of Pentecost. For the message of sins forgiven and of new life in Him is only the beginning. It is the starting point of a new kind of living. Relationships and priorities transformed. Loyalties refocussed. Memories healed and new ways of engaging with the world embraced. When Jesus rose from the dead, He did so personally but also for the sake of the whole human race.
For many contemplating the institutional church, it is a figure of ridicule and an organization of the absurd. But then Jesus never came to establish the church: He came to redeem the world and to reconcile the whole of humanity with the utter and total love of God. Nothing less. The church is the outworking of that life on earth, and not the cause of it. So it too must be renewed in its faith can faithfulness in every generation. That means renewing its confidence in the resurrection of Jesus, generation by generation.
But then Jesus had a lot to say about His purposes: ‘If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed’ (John 8: 36). ‘I have come that they may have life, and life in its fulness.’ (John 10: 10). ‘Having lived His own, He loved them to the end’ (John 13: 1). ‘Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you.’ (John 14: 27). ‘These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full.’ (John 15: 11). Exclude His resurrection and we exclude all of this.
He never wanted us to have anything less than a full measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. The issue was never His ability or desire to give – it was always about our readiness to receive. Part of that readiness to receive is shown by our readiness to give (Luke 6: 38). But part of it is also our willingness to trust in the Lord to meet us according to His mercy rather than our (self-selected and self-evaluated) works. ‘Open wide your mouth and I will fill it’. (Psalm 81: 10).
Every blessing this Eastertide.
Sydney Maitland
