REYNOLDS RAP
November 6, 2010
ROLLING OUT THE RAP
On this coming Thursday, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, those of us who live in Canada will once again wear our poppies and perhaps we will gather at a local monument. We will remember those who died in the wars of the past and present. We will do this, I trust, not to glorify war but to remember the horrors of war and to pray for a time when war shall be no more, when humanity will indeed “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sward against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).
In Canada, we call it “Remembrance Day.”
THE MYSTERY OF MEMORY
Many years ago, James Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, was elected “Lord Rector” of the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland. The office was purely honourary. The only responsibility was the delivery of the Convocation Address. Associated with the address was a tradition of student heckling which made its delivery a real challenge for even the ablest of orators.
The day Barrie delivered the addres is remembered because, early in his introduction he uttered a sentence which caught the attention of his student audience who then listened intently until he was finished. His words were, “God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.”
“Roses in December” – memory, the human capacity to recall, to call past events into the present, the memory of the summer garden almost as real as the real thing. Have you thought of what a marvelous thing it is, memory? The great Augustine of Hippo, in his Confessions, claimed it was the capacity which made us distinct from other animals, this ability to stand outside of time. We have the ability to be conscious of ourselves living within the flow of time so that we are therefore not simply creatures living in time but are able to transcend time, and so also to transcend our selves. I possess the capacity to be an object of my own regard.
To quote my favourite theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr,
As a creature who is involved in flux (in the flow of time) but who is also conscious of the fact that he (sic) is so involved, he cannot be totally involved. A spirit who can set time, nature, the world into juxtaposition to himself and inquire after the meaning of these things, proves that in some sense he stands outside of and beyond them (Human Nature, p. 133).
As a result, we human beings can never be only creatures of time. We have intimations of the eternal, that which is beyond time. We can never be completely satisfied with a philosophy of “eat, drink and be merry” for we know that “tomorrow we die” (note Luke 12:16-21). We seek the eternal, for “God has placed eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
No doubt this is the reason the Bible lays so much stress upon remembering. Look up the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. Again and again – “You shall remember.” Remembering is central to Judaism. The Passover remembers the deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery. The “festival of the booths,” when devote Jews, in or about their homes, build rough temporary shelters, reminds the people of Israel of the time they spent in the wilderness, a time to recall, to call into the present, an event from the past. The intimation is that in the act of remembering, the past again becomes alive, real, a reality of our present consciousness.
And in Christian tradition, when we share together the Lord’s supper, Holy Communion or the Eucharist, it is not just to remind ourselves of an ancient event, but in the breaking of bread and sharing of the cup, Jesus Christ is in fact really present. “This do in remembrance of Me,” He said, “for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim my love until I come again” (I Corinthians 11:23f.). It is as though time is somehow caught up into eternity, and events of the past are no longer dead and buried, but living and vital, and the past becomes very, very real.
Isn’t this one reason why people attend their place of worship week after week? That place has a kind of sacredness, it is crowded with memories. You can remember so many things you might have thought were dead and gone – the baptism of your child, or your marriage, or the funeral of someone you loved. It is the place, perhaps more than any other place, where you think your long, long thoughts, where you may be most conscious of God’s presence, most conscious of the awesome mystery of life and eternity, where we have the courage to ask and face the great eternal questions of our existence.
On November 11th, it is fitting that we should remember.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon)
AFTER WORDS
This is a good tme to give credit to the editor of the Rap, my wife, Brenda. I produce and publish, but Brenda is the one whose sharp eye for detail spots the typos and grammatical snafues. She also does a good job of keeping it to a reasonable length, and her good judgment has saved me from many a foolish notion. We celebrate forty-eight years of marriage on November 10th, the day before November 11th.
For personal reasons, there will no Rap for the next two weeks. Yes, I know I said I would send it regularly every Saturday, and for one who is consistently inconsistent, I think I have done pretty well. God willing, the Rap will be back November 27, the day before the first Sunday of Advent.
LAST GASP
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a famous preacher about the beginning of the twentieth century. He was training a class of student preachers to preach “on the spot,” to deliver a sermon immediately on a text he gave them. One student, a short guy, was given the story of Zachaeus (Luke 19:1-10); a passage some of you would have heard read and perhaps preached last Sunday.
In this supposedly true story, the student got up to the pulpit and said, “Zachaeus was a short man. So am I. Zachaeus was up a tree. So am I. Zachaeus made haste and came down. So do I.”
It is not recorded what Spurgeon said.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Reynolds Rap
May 1, 2010
Addendum (add-end-um, meaning somethng you add on after you have finished, something you say after you’ve said what you’re saying):
Further to last week’s Rap on Psalm 23, Laurenda Daniells, of UHill Coongregation in Vancouver, forwarded me the following poem by her late husband, Roy Daniells, noted Canadian poet.
My enemies were certain I was starving,
It must have given them a fearful shock
Through the binoculars to see me carving
A roast of beef up on the barren rock.
And when I moved upon them down a byway,
Bathed and anointed, sweet with oil of rose,
They blanched for they had left me on the highway
Covered with blood and with a broken nose.
The landlord, in the arbour where I'm seated,
Has brimmed the bowl with wine, the bubbles wink.
It's time my grasping enemies were treated,
Do tell them to come in and have a drink.
And any day they like they may appear;
Thanks to the landlord, I'll be living here.
( From The Chequered Shade, by Roy Daniells)
THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS!
Back in the '60's, there was a song we loved to sing. It hasn't stuck, but it was very popular at the time:
We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord,
We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord,
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored!
And they'll know we are Christians by our love,
By our love!
Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love!
We will work with each other; we will work side by side,
We will work with each other; we will work side by side,
And we’ll guard each one's dignity, and save each one's pride.
And they'll know we are Christians by our love!
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all peoples will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. (John 13:34-35)
The church, His followers, has been too often not an A-1 exhibit of love, of caring and concern of the members one for another. The reality is that personal vindictiveness, doctrinal disputes, pettiness and backbiting have often obscured the message and clouded the witness of the church. Even in the early centuries, Tertullian, one of the “Church Fathers,” could note the sarcastic remark of non-Christians as they looked at Christians embroiled in controversy: "See how these Christians love one another."
Someone said that the church is like Noah's ark -- you couldn't stand the smell inside if it wasn't for the storm outside!
I know that there is something pretty wonderful, pretty special about much or most of our fellowship in the church. But let's face it. We have high expectations of the church, and should have. And because we have such high hopes, there is a lot of hurt and disappointment when the life of the church doesn't live up to our expectations. There's hardly anything in community life as hurtful as a "church fight."
So let us think what it means to "love one another" in the sense Christ meant.
There are, it seems to me, three pre-conditions, that are necessary if we are "to love one another." These are: honesty, humility, and forgiveness.
Honesty!
If we are to love one another, we must first of all be honest with one another.
We seem to forget this so often. We seem to understand "loving one another" as being nice to one another. It's not necessarily the same thing. In fact, there may be more love in honest anger than in insincere politeness. Think of family life -- probably one of the few places where we feel we can be honest about our anger and yet where there is, in spite of our spats, the most constant love.
Honesty in human relationships is not an easy thing. It's difficult.
So often, when someone does something which hurts or annoys us, we tend to avoid making it an issue in the name of peace. And then, we often go and talk about it not to the person who has offended us, but to someone else. (I don't know about you, of course, but I will admit that I tend to do this.)
For me, and I think for most of us, honesty is a continual struggle. We don't like disagreement or confrontation. It seems much easier to let something pass. And yet, when we are angry with someone, a friend, a co-worker, or someone in our church fellowship, and are not honest and direct in dealing with our feelings, when we try to swallow our anger and contain it, we seem to turn it in upon ourselves. And there it festers and boils until it comes out in indirect and much more destructive ways.
Sometimes, in fact, it attacks others who have done nothing to deserve it. You've experienced this, I'm sure. Perhaps it's a husband who has taken abuse from his boss all day at work, and then comes home and takes it out on his wife and children. Perhaps it's someone who's angry at life, with a deep-seated anger going back to childhood relationships, and who down through the succeeding years takes this ancient anger out not only on spouse and children, but also on neighbours and others with whom he or she lives or works -- or worships.
Surely this is one of the most destructive forms of dishonesty. It's better, is it not, to be open and direct with our anger than to bottle it up inside and then to have it explode upon the innocent or those who are merely by-standers.
But our anger must be expressed in a way that is not destructive of others. There is with honesty the necessity of kindness. Honesty itself can be a form of hostility. It's hard, sometimes very hard, to straddle that fence -- to be honest and kind at the same time. Robert Frost wrote, shortly before he died,
How can we be just in a world that need mercy, and be merciful in a world that needs justice! ("Last Letter")
Remember the definition of "tact" -- the ability to stand on your own two feet without stepping on the other person's toes? To express anger honestly and directly, but not violently and destructively, that is surely a mark of grace.
But undoubtedly the most difficult area of all in which to practice honesty is in honesty with oneself!
And this, of course, is the honesty which leads to humility!
Humility
People often seem to have difficulty in calling themselves "Christian." They hesitate, perhaps out of a sense of embarrassment -- but also I think, when we call someone a Christian, we usually mean someone who doesn't do wrong, who is especially kind, loving and thoughtful. "Now there's someone who really is a Christian!" we say.
The trouble is that we have the understanding that a Christian is someone who is better than other people -- kinder, more patient. But then, if you call yourself a Christian, it means you must consider yourself better than other people. Ironically, to call oneself a Christian is to portray self-righteousness -- which is why I suppose that most of us like to be called a Christian by someone else but are reluctant to call ourselves a Christian.
We're not better than others. We do not in fact love one another so much that we can pat ourselves on the back before the eyes of an admiring world -- "See how these Christians love one another."
In fact, when we're honest with ourselves, we end up being pretty humble. We have not loved God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, nor have we loved our neighbour as ourselves. We go to church, not because we're such good, upright and respectable citizens, but because we know too well that we stand in constant need of heaven's help and mercy.
It’s not because we have such a glorious and harmonious community, but because we often have trouble getting along together in our own families let alone in our church family! We should never think we're better than other people, we know in living life today we need all the help we can get.
Have you ever stopped to realize that the two things Jesus most condemned were hypocrisy (that is, dishonesty in human affections and relations), and self-righteousness (that lack of honesty with oneself which can't admit our own weakness and guilt, and so -- in humility -- our own need for grace, for forgiveness).
With honesty must go humility -- the recognition that we too share the sin and guilt of our time, that we too must seek forgiveness. And of course, in seeking forgiveness for ourselves, we must be ready to forgive others who have sinned against us.
For if you forgive those who sin against you, so also will your heavenly Father forgive you. But if you forgive not those who sin against you, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you (Matthew 6:13-14)
Honesty leads to humility, and humility must lead us to forgiveness.
Forgiveness
If indeed we do wish to have love amongst ourselves, don't we need to forgive each other as we ourselves have been forgiven?
Forgiveness seems like such an easy thing. But it isn't. Perhaps there are some reading this who have had to struggle with that deep bitterness of the heart which has wanted to strike out in retaliation against some wrong, some deep and grievous hurt -- a marriage full of pain or a career full of disappointments.
I remember one woman told me of the break-up of her marriage and the bitterness she felt. She carried that load of bitterness with her for several years; she just could not find it in herself to forgive her husband for what he had done to her and to their children. And then she read Catherine Marshall's little book BEYOND OURSELVES, and she was given what she called "the gift of forgiveness," the power to forgive -- and in forgiving was released from the terrible burden of bitterness she had carried so long.
Those who have known the struggle and have found the power to forgive also know that it is not simply a matter of will-power, but rather a matter of grace and prayer, of power coming from "beyond ourselves" to overcome the dark anger within.
We talk in the church about "free grace." Let us always remember -- free grace is never cheap. Forgiveness costs, sometimes unbelievably! Remember the cross.
But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed,
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through
E'er He found His sheep that was lost.
Conclusion
Do you see how it all fits together? If we would love one another, we must be honest with one another -- and with ourselves! We must acknowledge that we do not love one another as we should, that our fellowship is fractured by thoughtless words and hurtful actions.
If we are honest with ourselves, we will in humility acknowledge our own shortcomings, knowing that today, as yesterday and tomorrow, we stand in constant need of the mercy of Almighty God, and of others.
And if we stand in need of mercy, we must be ready to show mercy. If we would seek forgiveness, we must be ready to forgive, to accept each other as we are and as we in grace have been forgiven and received.
We have been talking as if these thoughts apply only to human relationships. But do you see also how they apply to our relationship with God?
To know God, we must be honest, especially we must be honest with ourselves.
But to be honest with ourselves before God means that we stand before God in humility! And in humility, we seek God's mercy.
And as we ask God's forgiveness, we enter into a saving and liberating relationship with the One who has come to forgive us in our failure, to accept us in His grace, to set us free from guilt, and to make us what we were meant to be.
Thought for the day –
My friend and helper, Mark Perry, casually made this remark yesterday, while we were working in the garden: “You may forget what is in your head, but you never forget what is in your heart.”
I thought it worth sharing.
It’s a rap. Grace and peace to all. Alan
May 1, 2010
Addendum (add-end-um, meaning somethng you add on after you have finished, something you say after you’ve said what you’re saying):
Further to last week’s Rap on Psalm 23, Laurenda Daniells, of UHill Coongregation in Vancouver, forwarded me the following poem by her late husband, Roy Daniells, noted Canadian poet.
My enemies were certain I was starving,
It must have given them a fearful shock
Through the binoculars to see me carving
A roast of beef up on the barren rock.
And when I moved upon them down a byway,
Bathed and anointed, sweet with oil of rose,
They blanched for they had left me on the highway
Covered with blood and with a broken nose.
The landlord, in the arbour where I'm seated,
Has brimmed the bowl with wine, the bubbles wink.
It's time my grasping enemies were treated,
Do tell them to come in and have a drink.
And any day they like they may appear;
Thanks to the landlord, I'll be living here.
( From The Chequered Shade, by Roy Daniells)
THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS!
Back in the '60's, there was a song we loved to sing. It hasn't stuck, but it was very popular at the time:
We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord,
We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord,
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored!
And they'll know we are Christians by our love,
By our love!
Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love!
We will work with each other; we will work side by side,
We will work with each other; we will work side by side,
And we’ll guard each one's dignity, and save each one's pride.
And they'll know we are Christians by our love!
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all peoples will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. (John 13:34-35)
The church, His followers, has been too often not an A-1 exhibit of love, of caring and concern of the members one for another. The reality is that personal vindictiveness, doctrinal disputes, pettiness and backbiting have often obscured the message and clouded the witness of the church. Even in the early centuries, Tertullian, one of the “Church Fathers,” could note the sarcastic remark of non-Christians as they looked at Christians embroiled in controversy: "See how these Christians love one another."
Someone said that the church is like Noah's ark -- you couldn't stand the smell inside if it wasn't for the storm outside!
I know that there is something pretty wonderful, pretty special about much or most of our fellowship in the church. But let's face it. We have high expectations of the church, and should have. And because we have such high hopes, there is a lot of hurt and disappointment when the life of the church doesn't live up to our expectations. There's hardly anything in community life as hurtful as a "church fight."
So let us think what it means to "love one another" in the sense Christ meant.
There are, it seems to me, three pre-conditions, that are necessary if we are "to love one another." These are: honesty, humility, and forgiveness.
Honesty!
If we are to love one another, we must first of all be honest with one another.
We seem to forget this so often. We seem to understand "loving one another" as being nice to one another. It's not necessarily the same thing. In fact, there may be more love in honest anger than in insincere politeness. Think of family life -- probably one of the few places where we feel we can be honest about our anger and yet where there is, in spite of our spats, the most constant love.
Honesty in human relationships is not an easy thing. It's difficult.
So often, when someone does something which hurts or annoys us, we tend to avoid making it an issue in the name of peace. And then, we often go and talk about it not to the person who has offended us, but to someone else. (I don't know about you, of course, but I will admit that I tend to do this.)
For me, and I think for most of us, honesty is a continual struggle. We don't like disagreement or confrontation. It seems much easier to let something pass. And yet, when we are angry with someone, a friend, a co-worker, or someone in our church fellowship, and are not honest and direct in dealing with our feelings, when we try to swallow our anger and contain it, we seem to turn it in upon ourselves. And there it festers and boils until it comes out in indirect and much more destructive ways.
Sometimes, in fact, it attacks others who have done nothing to deserve it. You've experienced this, I'm sure. Perhaps it's a husband who has taken abuse from his boss all day at work, and then comes home and takes it out on his wife and children. Perhaps it's someone who's angry at life, with a deep-seated anger going back to childhood relationships, and who down through the succeeding years takes this ancient anger out not only on spouse and children, but also on neighbours and others with whom he or she lives or works -- or worships.
Surely this is one of the most destructive forms of dishonesty. It's better, is it not, to be open and direct with our anger than to bottle it up inside and then to have it explode upon the innocent or those who are merely by-standers.
But our anger must be expressed in a way that is not destructive of others. There is with honesty the necessity of kindness. Honesty itself can be a form of hostility. It's hard, sometimes very hard, to straddle that fence -- to be honest and kind at the same time. Robert Frost wrote, shortly before he died,
How can we be just in a world that need mercy, and be merciful in a world that needs justice! ("Last Letter")
Remember the definition of "tact" -- the ability to stand on your own two feet without stepping on the other person's toes? To express anger honestly and directly, but not violently and destructively, that is surely a mark of grace.
But undoubtedly the most difficult area of all in which to practice honesty is in honesty with oneself!
And this, of course, is the honesty which leads to humility!
Humility
People often seem to have difficulty in calling themselves "Christian." They hesitate, perhaps out of a sense of embarrassment -- but also I think, when we call someone a Christian, we usually mean someone who doesn't do wrong, who is especially kind, loving and thoughtful. "Now there's someone who really is a Christian!" we say.
The trouble is that we have the understanding that a Christian is someone who is better than other people -- kinder, more patient. But then, if you call yourself a Christian, it means you must consider yourself better than other people. Ironically, to call oneself a Christian is to portray self-righteousness -- which is why I suppose that most of us like to be called a Christian by someone else but are reluctant to call ourselves a Christian.
We're not better than others. We do not in fact love one another so much that we can pat ourselves on the back before the eyes of an admiring world -- "See how these Christians love one another."
In fact, when we're honest with ourselves, we end up being pretty humble. We have not loved God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, nor have we loved our neighbour as ourselves. We go to church, not because we're such good, upright and respectable citizens, but because we know too well that we stand in constant need of heaven's help and mercy.
It’s not because we have such a glorious and harmonious community, but because we often have trouble getting along together in our own families let alone in our church family! We should never think we're better than other people, we know in living life today we need all the help we can get.
Have you ever stopped to realize that the two things Jesus most condemned were hypocrisy (that is, dishonesty in human affections and relations), and self-righteousness (that lack of honesty with oneself which can't admit our own weakness and guilt, and so -- in humility -- our own need for grace, for forgiveness).
With honesty must go humility -- the recognition that we too share the sin and guilt of our time, that we too must seek forgiveness. And of course, in seeking forgiveness for ourselves, we must be ready to forgive others who have sinned against us.
For if you forgive those who sin against you, so also will your heavenly Father forgive you. But if you forgive not those who sin against you, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you (Matthew 6:13-14)
Honesty leads to humility, and humility must lead us to forgiveness.
Forgiveness
If indeed we do wish to have love amongst ourselves, don't we need to forgive each other as we ourselves have been forgiven?
Forgiveness seems like such an easy thing. But it isn't. Perhaps there are some reading this who have had to struggle with that deep bitterness of the heart which has wanted to strike out in retaliation against some wrong, some deep and grievous hurt -- a marriage full of pain or a career full of disappointments.
I remember one woman told me of the break-up of her marriage and the bitterness she felt. She carried that load of bitterness with her for several years; she just could not find it in herself to forgive her husband for what he had done to her and to their children. And then she read Catherine Marshall's little book BEYOND OURSELVES, and she was given what she called "the gift of forgiveness," the power to forgive -- and in forgiving was released from the terrible burden of bitterness she had carried so long.
Those who have known the struggle and have found the power to forgive also know that it is not simply a matter of will-power, but rather a matter of grace and prayer, of power coming from "beyond ourselves" to overcome the dark anger within.
We talk in the church about "free grace." Let us always remember -- free grace is never cheap. Forgiveness costs, sometimes unbelievably! Remember the cross.
But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed,
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through
E'er He found His sheep that was lost.
Conclusion
Do you see how it all fits together? If we would love one another, we must be honest with one another -- and with ourselves! We must acknowledge that we do not love one another as we should, that our fellowship is fractured by thoughtless words and hurtful actions.
If we are honest with ourselves, we will in humility acknowledge our own shortcomings, knowing that today, as yesterday and tomorrow, we stand in constant need of the mercy of Almighty God, and of others.
And if we stand in need of mercy, we must be ready to show mercy. If we would seek forgiveness, we must be ready to forgive, to accept each other as we are and as we in grace have been forgiven and received.
We have been talking as if these thoughts apply only to human relationships. But do you see also how they apply to our relationship with God?
To know God, we must be honest, especially we must be honest with ourselves.
But to be honest with ourselves before God means that we stand before God in humility! And in humility, we seek God's mercy.
And as we ask God's forgiveness, we enter into a saving and liberating relationship with the One who has come to forgive us in our failure, to accept us in His grace, to set us free from guilt, and to make us what we were meant to be.
Thought for the day –
My friend and helper, Mark Perry, casually made this remark yesterday, while we were working in the garden: “You may forget what is in your head, but you never forget what is in your heart.”
I thought it worth sharing.
It’s a rap. Grace and peace to all. Alan
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