Category: Uncategorised

I am not a lawyer. I am a concerned citizen, and someone committed to the common good. Below is a quotation from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a man who expects to be taken seriously as a political leader entrusted with the good governance of our country, the safety of our citizens, the upholding of the laws of the land as passed by Parliament, the stewardship and curatorship of our economy, and to act responsibly as the head of Government on behalf of the people, all the people. And this is what he says to his own Conservative Party members:

“We’re also backing those police up, protecting the public by changing the law to stop the early release of serious sexual and violent offenders and stopping the whole criminal justice system from being hamstrung by what the home secretary would doubtless – and rightly – call the lefty human rights lawyers, and other do-gooders.”

This is dangerous nonsense, and an abuse of the Office of Prime Minister, by the person currently entrusted with that Office. It is worth deconstructing this statement to expose the inner springs of its dangerous rhetoric.

The dog whistle phrases "backing the police up", "protecting the public". These are the rhetorical feel good promises and commendable goals. We all want the police to be supported and the public protected – but no mention of the massive cuts to police resources that have been imposed by this and previous Governments in the past decade. 

The focus on two already recognised categories of crime and their consequent social and legal issues. The public, and the Government recognise that there is a need to review and adjust current legislation and provisions around early release. But such changes require sophisticated and careful review by legal and judicial experts who should be properly resourced and engaged in producing appropriate legislation which addresses legitimate concerns.

"Stopping the whole criminal justice system from being hamstrung..." While these are serious crimes, and the early release of those who commit them must be examined and under constant review and scrutiny, it is not these cases that hamstring the criminal justice system. According to The Law Society it is gross under funding and continuing cuts that make the legal mills grind slowly. 

These are the four rhetorical springs that wind up to an outrageous degradation of the work and professional integrity of lawyers, who are essential components in an efficient, impartial and rights focused criminal justice system. Take time to read the last words as they stand on their own, before the rhetorical smokescreen of pseudo virtue and faux political seriousness: 

"hamstrung by what the home secretary would doubtless – and rightly – call the lefty human rights lawyers, and other do-gooders.” This is the Prime Minister speaking to his Party, overheard by the country. Here is my question – why does the Prime Minister of one of the world's major democratic nations view human rights negatively? And why complain about people who are trying to do good?

"Lefty human rights lawyers and do-gooders" is a phrase loaded with much freight and trundled out as if it were a matter of universal agreement that doing good as a human rights lawyer is a bad thing, and lawyers should all and only be sympathetic to the political ideology of the Right.

It assumes that the law is politically partisan; and clearly the Prime Minister believes it should be, provided it is Right leaning. This is an astonishing betrayal of his Office.

It suggests that those who defend the human rights of the accused by using all legal means are somehow obstructing the law, when in fact they are implementing, upholding and exercising the law as legislatively intended. This betrays astonishing ignorance of the role of defence lawyers.

It suggests that there is something unacceptable about doing good, which in this context means the lawyer, any lawyer, left or right, will do all in their power and within the power of the law to ensure that accused and victim are treated fairly and equitably before the law. This shows an astonishing lack of moral awareness and social perception.

I am not a lawyer. I am a concerned citizen. Here is the response of one QC:

Amanda Pinto QC, the chair of the Bar Council, which represents barristers, said: “It is shocking and troubling that our own prime minister condones and extends attempts to politicise and attack lawyers for simply doing their job in the public interest.

“Lawyers – including those employed by the government itself – are absolutely vital to the running of our grossly under-funded criminal justice system. Their professional duty is to their client and to the court, and not to play political games.

It is indeed shocking and troubling. And yes, it is indeed dangerous nonsense. 

Why do we take the photos we do?

So much of what we see is accidental; it's a matter of when and where we are, whether we look closely enough, and how much attention we pay. 

After heavy rain, walking to the car, I notice one leaf, sprinkled with rainfall, framed against worn tarmac, one of thousands within eyesight scattered along the street, discarded by trees now preparing for winter. 

This particular leaf is worn and torn, even the water drops have black specks which nature has not photoshopped out, and neither will I.

What made me stop, and look more closely, and decide to take a photograph of a fallen leaf on a worn pavement?

I have no idea; except that having seen it I couldn't unsee it, and the close I looked the more I could see.

Is it a wonderful photo? That depends how we are using the word wonder. In one sense wonder is about feelings of awe, being mystified by what is new, or beautiful, or unusual.

But used another way it is a word nearer curiosity, an interest in something for its own sake. This photo, as I pay attention to it, makes me wonder.

I wonder what have been the countless stories of the countless footsteps that have worn away the surface of the pavement? 

I wonder about the transience, fragility and ubiquity of leaves, their role in helping to keep our air filtered, and the functional beauty of their structure.

I wonder about this particular leaf, jewelled with rain or nature's tears, anticipating the autumn of its existence as part of the great cycle of creation, dying and recreation.

I wonder about the contrast between geology and biology, stone and leaf, permanence and transience, road and tree, human construct and natural product, and all the other contrasts between what this world gives us, and what we make of it.

I wonder too, about the inner processes of human perception that sees and draws us in towards such ordinary things which then touch us with extraordinary feelings of wonder.

This photo was an accident of timing, the result of momentary paying attention, pushed further I might say a moment of epiphany, seeing both what is there, and what it signifies. 

Such accidents of timing, moments of attention and gifts of epiphany I choose to believe are the attention-getting whistles of the Holy Spirit, waking us up to the world around us.

And therefore this photo is a sacrament of a particular moment, a reminder of how the gift of wonder and wondering ambushes us and jerks us out of our shoulder shrugging complacency about the miracle of the ordinary and the invasion of the everyday by the extraordinary.     

Thought for the Day Oct 5 – 11

Monday

Luke 11.1 “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ’Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’”

Prayer is a gift, the freedom to come before God and speak out of the heart. Prayer is also an invitation to fellowship with God, to speak with confidence, and in confidence, to the Father who already knows us, understands us, and has promised to receive us as his children. The prayer, “Lord teach us to pray” is the cry of the heart to understand, and to be understood.

Tuesday

Luke 11.2 Jesus said to them, “When you pray say, Father in heaven…”

The Bible has many names and descriptions of God. But Jesus was God’s Son, and naturally called God Father. Perhaps the most telling picture in the Gospels is the father of the prodigal, the waiting father, whose love, patience and mercy can’t wait for the return of the wayward son. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.”

Wednesday

Luke 11.2 Jesus said to them, When you pray say, “Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

The first prayer request is not for our benefit or blessing. It is that God’s name should be hallowed. That old fashioned word has a deep meaning – “may your name be held in reverence.” When we pray we do the exact opposite of taking God’s name in vain. Our most positive thoughts and feelings are tied up with God’s name – worship, love, obedience, praise, thankfulness.

Thursday

Luke 11.1-2  Jesus said to them, When you pray say, “Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.”

Matthew tells us what this prayer means – “Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” By praying this prayer we are learning that the reign of God begins in our own hearts. The love of our neighbour, being merciful as God is merciful, hallowing God’s name by the very way we live, forgiving as we have been forgiven. We are to speak the good news, and be the good news of God’s kingdom of justice and joy.

Friday

Luke 11.3 “Give us each day our daily bread.”

“Be gentle, when you touch bread,
Let it not be uncared for, unwanted.
So often bread is taken for granted.
There is so much beauty in bread,
Beauty of sun and soil,
Beauty of patient toil.
Winds and rain have caressed it,
Christ often blessed it;
Be gentle when you touch bread.”

Saturday

Luke 11.4 “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sin against us.”

The poet Elizabeth Jennings wrote, “Forgiveness, the word by which we live.” We are forgiven sinners, and are called to be forgiven forgivers. The unforgiving heart closes itself off, and as Christians we contradict the very Gospel that saves us if, having been reconciled to God, we refuse reconciliation to others. Jesus is saying a costly and crucial part of our praying is for grace and mercy to forgive.

Sunday

Luke 11.4 “And lead us not into temptation.”

God doesn’t tempt or encourage us to sin. (See James 1.13-14) On our life journey there are countless times when we are tempted, and such temptations test our faith and our faithfulness as Jesus’ disciples. This is a prayer for strength to overcome temptation, and so to hallow God’s name, and act for the coming of God’s kingdom. And remember, Jesus was tempted as we are… and ever lives to pray for us.   

Each week since lock down in March, I have written a Pastoral Letter to our church community in Montrose. This is the one for this week.

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

Dear Friends,

Across our country we and our neighbours face more weeks, perhaps months, of disrupted family life and interrupted community activity. The recent measures to control the Covid 19 virus push back further any return to full social interaction. Being unable to visit another household helps stop the spread of the virus, but it also creates disconnections between us and our family, our friends, and our neighbours. That’s a hard ask, and yet it’s a necessary public health policy.

I’ve been wondering what these continuing situations of disruption and separation mean for us as a church community. One thing’s for sure. As the likelihood of increased loneliness, anxiety and depression increases, human contact becomes more and more important. So in a time like this, what should church communities be about these days? In the absence of regular services, having to stop the usual social coming and going of family life and church life; with restrictions on movement, on the company we can keep and on where we can go, here’s the question. How do we demonstrate our Christian faith in a way that is compassionate, prophetic and expressive of the love of God in Christ?

The biggest disruption the disciples ever faced was when Jesus told them he would be crucified, risen, and return to his Father. During that long last evening, he spoke to the disciples about how they would survive, what their mission would be, of the coming of the Holy Spirit to bring courage, vision and energy to take the good news to the world of their day, and ours. That night Jesus said something that is forever true: “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13.35)

That’s it. Not our welcoming building, not our preached sermons and well sung praise songs, not even our social engagement with community café, support of food banks, and much else that is the practical outworking of our church community. All these are important, some are even crucial to the life and health of every church. But what gives each of them the Jesus quality, the hallmark of the follower of Jesus, is whether all that we do and say and think and plan is energised, motivated and made real by the love of Jesus demonstrated in the shared life of a church like ours.

So, what should the church be about these days? What it has always been about. Making known the love of God, sharing the good news of forgiveness of sins, living as a Kingdom people, open to the pushing and pulling of the Holy Spirit urging us to be the embodied love of God. So the church's mission, in days of lock down and restrictions on social contact, is to look for and discover imaginative, innovative, generous and faithful ways of loving and living for the common good.

And that means loving our neighbour with the love with which God loves us. It means beginning to think how we can look after each other; perhaps especially those mentioned above, those for whom these restrictions increase feelings of loneliness, make troubling anxiety worse, and wear away the supports of hope and happiness.

One of the most thoughtful people around these days is Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. His new book is about restoring the common good in divided times. I was taken with a couple of his sentences, which seem to give us some clues about how to live a faithful life for Jesus in our local communities in these difficult times:

"For most of us it is other people who make the necessary difference to our lives, guiding us, inspiring us, lifting us up and giving us hope. It is the quality of our relationships that more than anything gives us a sense of meaning and fulfilment. Most important of all, it is the ability to love that lifts us beyond the self and its confines. Love is the supreme redemption of solitude."

Remember, way back at the very beginning, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Eve’s creation was God’s gift of company, support, shared life, and yes, love of each human being for the other. Jesus came back to it again and again. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

He even told a parable about sheep and goats, and about how whatever we do or don’t do for other people, we do or don’t do for Jesus himself. People who are hungry, thirsty, lonely, strangers, ill, in prison – it isn’t an exhaustive list, it’s more a wide sample of what we will see if we pay attention. And what we will see as we pay attention to someone in need, is that this person, the least of Jesus brothers and sisters, is one for whom Jesus died, and in whom we are called to serve Jesus.

So as we live through these difficult days, Jesus words can be a guide as to what is asked of each of us. Love your neighbour. Like Jesus, be one who goes about doing good, and bringing goodness into the lives of others. That’s how folk will know we are Jesus’ followers. The phone call and text and email; the card, the flowers and the smile; the cumulative power of compassion, kindness and thoughtfulness; all and each are acts of love, the notes that make up the symphony of the life we live for Jesus. 

In such ways we will look for and discover imaginative, innovative, generous and faithful ways of loving and living for the common good. And in such ways we will discover that “Love is the supreme redemption of solitude.” Early Christians were called followers of The Way. By our love, folk will know we are followers of The Way, and what’s more, every step of that Way Jesus is with us, redeeming our solitude and sending us into the world as witnesses to that redeeming and renewing love of God,

Your friend and pastor

Jim Gordon

My Pastoral Letter shared with our church community this week

Dear Friends,

Many of us first heard the story of Jonah in Sunday School. If you’re older you’ll know the chorus, “Listen to my tale, of Jonah and the whale, way down in the middle of the ocean.” The story of Jonah is so familiar. It’s about the compassion and undeserved grace of God. The very idea that God would forgive Nineveh, the sworn enemy of Jonah’s people, is a scandal. What’s scandalous is that God chooses to have mercy on the world’s worst sinners, and Jonah resents it, and God has to talk him round.

Jonah is usually called the disobedient prophet. But it’s always worth asking why people do what they do. God said go to Nineveh. Jonah went to Tarshish, the exact opposite direction. He’s asleep in the bottom of the boat in the midst of a deadly storm. But he’s found out. He admits to the sailors he’s defying God’s command, and to save themselves they throw Jonah overboard. He’s swallowed by a great fish, prays a Psalm in which he promises to do as he’s told, and is spat out on the shoreline.

Jonah goes to Nineveh, but preaches the worst sermon ever. Nothing about God, repentance or mercy. “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” That’s it. Five Hebrew words. Bad news. No hope. Countdown to the city’s destruction and Jonah has a seat in the front row. Then the whole city repents, from the king to the cows, and call urgently on God, God has compassion, and spared them and their city.

So Jonah goes in the huff. He paid his ticket for the best seat in the theatre of God’s judgement, and finds that the original programme is cancelled and there’s a new production called compassion and forgiveness.

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (4.1-3)

If our view of the world is that everyone should get what they deserve, then we will have trouble understanding forgiveness. If we’ve been hurt time and again, and have come to wish harm on those who harm us, then forgiveness will seem like weakness. And if we think the world should be a place where life is fair, where wrong is always punished and goodness always rewarded, then we’ll be disappointed, and even resentful that life isn’t the way we think it should be.

All of this is the Jonah mind-set. And it still survives whenever God doesn’t do what we want God to do. Imagine giving God a row because he is “a gracious and compassionate God”! It’s OK for God to forgive us our sins, but the idea that forgiveness is God’s gracious decision, and he shows mercy on all who call on his name, sometimes just doesn’t seem fair. Especially when they have done much worse than we have. That too is the Jonah mind-set.

And God’s answer to the angry Jonah, sitting on a hillside in the heat of the noonday sun, is to make a plant grow up to give him shade. The next morning the plant dies and Jonah is exposed to the dehydrating heat and is angry that the plant has died, blames God, and even wishes the precious God-given gift of life should be taken away. That would teach God! Truth is, Jonah would rather die than have Nineveh spared.

At that point this story comes crashing into the world we now live in. Think of the politics of hate. Reflect on how we ourselves, our politicians, and the wider world, view asylum seekers, refugees, migrant and displaced peoples. As we think about what attitude we should have to those ‘others’, whoever they happen to be, what does it mean to have faith in the gracious and compassionate God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? How does my faith in Jesus, and in God’s justice and grace, God’s mercy and forgiveness, His care for all peoples, – how does that way of looking on God’s world, through God’s eyes, change my heart towards others?

The last two verses of Jonah are amongst the most moving words in the whole Bible. Go read them. This is God, God mind you, trying to convert Jonah’s heart from resentment to compassion, from hatred to mercy, from enmity to reconciliation. There’s a lot of hating going on in our world. The divisions are deep, damaging and hard edged. Instead of finding ways to work with and for each other, the style is to be over and against. It’s almost as if, like Jonah, people find their identity in decrying those they hate, oppose, and who disagree with them.

The book of Jonah is a brilliant sermon, preached by God, to closed hearts. For us as Christians, the faithful witness of the Church in our world at this time, will be as witnesses to Christ the Reconciler who heals enmities by the blood of the Cross, to Christ the Prince of Peace whose ambassadors we are, to Christ the preacher of the Kingdom of God whose outstretched arms on the cross welcome all who will come.

We are called to echo the very words of Jonah, not from hearts angry against others, but from hearts that have felt the healing flows of God’s grace, known the touch of God’s compassion and been transformed by the gift of forgiveness: “We know that you are a compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (4.2)

Those words, about compassion, slow to anger and abounding in love; not a bad strap line to guide the way we think about others. They call us to learn to live amongst others as the presence of Christ, and the voice of God’s grace, and in Jesus’ name.

Matthew 25 is a parable that describes and defines how we see people. In this one parable Jesus illustrates the contrast between a lifestyle of compassionate welcome and a lifestyle of uncaring self-concern.

One of the additional losses but necessary consequences of our current situation is that wearing masks obscures faces. For public health reasons, care and consideration of others, and the common good, a face covering in public closed spaces is, in my view, a moral duty and an act of responsible care. But face coverings have a major impact on social interaction – they cover faces. That is, they hide or obscure facial expressions of welcome, smiling, recognition, uncertainty, and much else. They make recognition, interpretation and communication more difficult.

The face is an outward expression of the inner person, and often seeing a facial expression enables us to interpret, communicate and interact with those amongst whom we live and move and have our being. Abraham Joshua Heschel (pictured) wrote with profound understanding about the importance of seeing and interpreting the face. To him the human face is a miracle of meaning, a mirror of the self, a road map of your life, or as Heschel put it, "an incarnation of uniqueness".

As one whose own face was known internationally and was remarkably expressive, he affirmed of all human beings, "no face is a commonplace".

Which brings us back to Matthew 25. Christ's extraordinary words are well known; "Insofar as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me."

Did what? When?

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

If someone is hungry, thirsty, lonely, destitute, sick, in any and every kind of need, what makes it worse is if it is unnoticed, if no one cares, helps or recognises their need. Jesus is illustrating the welcoming mindset of the Kingdom of God, welcome as a worldview, compassion as a lifestyle, care for others as an habituated disposition. And that comes from seeing faces, recognising our shared humanity in every face, and from welcoming the presence of each 'other'. That in turn means caring for the humanity of every 'other' whose face we see, and whose life we encounter as we go about the daily routines of every day.

Welcome is to look at someone’s face and know, here is a God-loved person, one for whom Christ died. Welcome isn’t being in someone’s face; it is to accept, receive and rejoice in a person’s presence, uniqueness and value. “Welcome others as Christ welcomed you…” Welcome means seeing in the face of each person the Christ who was the Eternal Word become flesh. In Jesus, we see God with a human face, and in each person we encounter one who is created in the image of God.

In that powerful and often astringent book, Life Together, Bonhoeffer wrote of prayer for others as a way of recovering an attitude of welcome to those we'd rather weren't around, or at least not around us! 

"I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner." 

I've always been intrigued by the way Bonhoeffer writes this. He clearly understands the importance of facial recognition, seeing Christ in the other person, and also seeing the infinite value of each human being as one for whom Christ died. That puts Jesus' words into even clearer focus – "Insofar as you did it for one of these, you did it for me." Brian Wren's hymn, 'When Christ was lifted from the earth', describes the generous, inclusive and welcoming love of Christ that his followers are called to embody:

1 When Christ was lifted from the earth,
his arms stretched out above
through every culture, every birth,
to draw an answering love.

2 Still east and west his love extends
and always, near or far,
he calls and claims us as his friends
and loves us as we are.

3 Where generation, class, or race
divide us to our shame,
he sees not labels but a face,
a person, and a name.

4 Thus freely loved, though fully known,
may I in Christ be free
to welcome and accept his own
as Christ accepted me.  

There is an inescapable logic in Christians as people of welcome. If you love Christ it’s because you are loved by Christ; we love because he first loved us. We are called to "see not labels but a face, a person and a name. AS those loved by God ourselves, we know that the face of every person is unique and no commonplace, the face of one for whom Christ died. And each time we meet someone, the Lord puts a question to us. In the face of this person I am now encountering, do I see the face of one for whom Christ died, and whom God loves? And will I "welcome and accept his own, as Christ accepted me". 

Sometimes radical Christian discipleship requires us to push routine courtesy beyond the limits opf what is socially acceptable. Jesus shared a table, food and conversation with "the wrong people", those who didn't deserve to have their place at a table reserved for good people. Jesus didn't sit at tables reserved only for those good enough, socially powerful enough, respectable enough. If you wanted to be in Jesus' company, that was enough.

So Paul urged those early Christian house groups to "welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, in order to bring praise to God." Paul was echoing some of Jesus words, and recalling many of Jesus actions. To welcome someone is to rejoice in another’s presence. Welcome carries with it the presumption of friendship. Remember the insult and nickname, "the friend of sinners." 

William Barclay called Christian love indefatigable goodwill; as a West of Scotland voice he could just as easily have said love is not easily scunnered! Welcome is not self-assertion but respectful consideration of others, attentiveness to their presence, care for their welfare, alertness to who they are. And we do this in order to bring praise to God. Welcoming brings praise to God. Who'd have thought it? Not our barriers; not our sound theology that defines who's in or out; not our cherished viewpoints we dare to call biblical, Christian, orthodox, sound, or any other exclusionary mindset; but welcoming others as Christ welcomes us. That brings praise to God.

So. Welcome is Christ-like acceptance. A welcoming community is a gathering of those who seek to embody, faithfully practice and consistently demonstrate the welcome of Christ. Welcome is a habit of the heart, a lifestyle of acceptance of others, respect for persons, indefatigable goodwill. In our personal, out-there, ordinary everyday lives, in our shared life together in the local body of Christ we call the church, there’s us and there’s others – and every person we encounter we welcome as Christ welcomed us. To welcome is to refuse to 'other' the other person.

In Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead the elderly 3^rd generation pastor is trying to make sense of the Gospel, of what God demands in a world changed and strange:

"This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation."

Welcome one another as Christ welcomed you – in the same way as, to the extent that, on the conditions that, with the grace that, Christ welcomed, and welcomes you. Welcome for Christians is rooted in who Christ is, and how Christ welcomed, accepted, received, forgave, made room for.

Some years ago in St Johann on the Austrian Tirol, we discovered a small tea room that served English tea, home baking, and did so from rose garden china cups and saucers. As we entered the shop the lady proprietor with gentle firmness met us. smiling, and asked us to take off our walking boots, as they scratched the furniture and marked the floor. It was done with such grace. Then when we were seated, she asked, "Now. How may I serve you?" 

We were entirely disarmed by the hospitable warmth and obvious pleasure she took in the making and serving of that afternoon cup of tea, turning an encounter into an occasion. Welcome is when someone else feels that meeting us, talking with us, and being in our presence, is an occasion. "So you must think. What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation."

Welcome is a presumption of friendship, enjoyment of another's presence, and is confirmed by words like, "Now. How may I serve you."  

 

Amongst my favourite images is the drystane dyke. As a boy growing up in Ayrshire farms they were as familiar as our own living room. I climbed over them, hid behind them, peeked through the holes, and always, always, replaced any stones that had fallen into the field.

Jimmy Welsh was one of the older farm workers, and to me he was as ancient as some of the drystane dykes he repaired and occasionally built. He had an old and huge bicycle on which I learned to go a bike, by putting a leg through the frame because the seat and the bar were far too high for me to even reach the pedals – let alone the ground.

Jimmy used to work on the dykes around our house and I sometimes helped him. The way he weighed up a stone, visualised its shape, found the right way to position it, then repeat with the next stone, and gradually the dyke was repaired. Ever since I have loved the workmanship and the aesthetic functionality of a wall built without cement, each stone fitting with and supporting the others. Over years the lichen gently invades and in the right places moss creeps across the edges and gaps, and the colours weather and blend.

A well built dyke is like a brushstroke across a landscape; an old and overgrown dyke is for me, a thing of beauty. Walking on the edge of an Aberdeenshire wood I stopped and admired the layers of colour, texture, light and form. The photo is of a retaining wall beside an old estate forest, I guess going back at least to the end of the 19th Cenutry, possibly much earlier. It stands there as evidence of durability in the midst of change. Softened by moss, framed in purple heather and contrasting sunlit green branches, this is a venerable dyke. The word is chosen with some care; 'venerable' means "accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character."

I guess it seems odd and even daft to think of an ancient hand built dyke as embodying wisdom and character. But as old Jimmy Welsh might have said, "Haud oan a meenit!" Think of the wisdom and character of the builder being built into his work. Think of the years of experience, the trained eye, the calloused hands, and the pride in building something that uses what is there to good purpose.

Then consider what the dyke is for, to separate boundaries, as a retaining wall, or to enclose a field for animal grazing. For none of these purposes does it need to look attractive, but a well built dyke is craftsmanship in stone, and is built to last, and over years takes on the look of something that belongs where it has always been. Hence, a venerable dyke.

Allow me to quote one of my favourite poems by Wendell Berry, who sits on the easiest to reach bookshelf of my personal canon:

              Sabbath Poems

                     2002 

                       X

Teach me work that honours thy work,

the true economies of goods and words,

to make my arts compatible

with the songs of the local birds.

 

Teach me patience beyond work –

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest.

What I learned from Jimmy Welsh was the importance of loving the work you do, doing "work that honours work." I learned that lesson by watching it happening; I was a child witness to patient thoughtfulness informed by an experienced eye, and implemented with hands that knew the shape and heft and fittingness of each stone. Coming across this old Aberdeenshire drystane dyke, I felt an inner vindication of such memories. Not so much sentimental nostalgia; more an inner recalling of a lesson I saw performed with quiet contentment and ease of confidence, one I have never forgotten.

When you build the form of your life, as we all have to do, using well what is there, shaping and forming heart and mind by discovering the fittingness of things, honour that work with patience, and love the work. It is an art form, a skill and discipline honed over the years of our living, and a calling to build something that will last. Venerable is not a bad description of a well built dyke, or a well lived life: "accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character." Aye. That.  

Dear Friends

We were on holiday in Exeter, and decided to go to Evensong in the Cathedral. We were shown in and told to sit where we pleased. Since we wanted to be near the Choir we sat in some side seats near the front, facing where we thought the Choir would be.

I put it down to being an uncultured Nonconformist and long term Baptist! The Dean (we learned afterwards) came forward and said, ever so courteously, that these too were choir seats. But we could sit ‘over there’, which meant gathering our bits and pieces and, heads down, relocating to the nave, like everyone else!

Jesus was right. It’s embarrassing to be in the best seats and be told to move. Time and again Jesus’ words teach us about meekness, humility, not always wanting to be first, best and loudest.

Then there was that disciples’ dressing room argument about who was the most important, the one that matters most, or the one that gets to make the big decisions. Mark tells the story in his Gospel. Big argument amongst the disciples; Who would have the honour of sitting on Jesus’ right and left hand in the Kingdom of God?

Jesus’ answer is the first and last word about leadership, the gift of service and the call to mutual care for one another within the community of His followers.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”   (Mark 10. 42-45)

If service is beneath you, leadership is beyond you. That, in a nutshell, is a Christian theology of leadership. Imagine the ill feeling, resentment and division amongst Jesus’ carefully chosen disciples. This was the kind of division that makes people want to walk away. That’s why Mark begins by saying “Jesus called them together.” This isn’t about them. Their individual self-interest is irrelevant, their ambitions are misplaced, and their over-confidence in their own importance are just selfish reasons to argue. So Jesus calls them together.

The way of the world is domination, the way of the Kingdom is service. Authority is all about power and pride, service is all about compassion and humility. Mark makes that point too. “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served…” If we are following Jesus then we follow a Servant King. Unless we serve each other we are not exercising Christ-like leadership. The Christian criterion of all devotion to Jesus is the cross, the hallmark of genuine Christ-like service is the self-giving love of God in Christ. The Christian who wants to be first for Jesus’ sake, will not wait till someone else picks up the basin and the towel. In washing each other’s feet, in that at least, they will be first.

All of this becomes very important to us as a church community during these days of separation. And the longer our time without meeting goes on the more important it is to hear again Jesus words about his ministry, and the ministry to which he calls each of us. We are called together by Jesus, to be with Him, to be with each other, and to discover the joy and the cost and the fulfilment of being His servants.

Graham Kendrick has written a lot of hymns, probably like Charles Wesley, too many hymns. And like Charles Wesley, there are a few masterpieces, quite a lot of good ones, and quite a few that only bear singing now and again and maybe then best forgotten. But The Servant King is one of the great hymns of the past 40 years. The last verse distils into lovely simplicity the essential teaching of Jesus about leadership, service, fellowship and being called together by Jesus, to serve him, and each other:

So let us learn how to serve
And in our lives enthrone Him
Each other's needs to prefer
For it is Christ we're serving.

This is our God, The Servant King,
He calls us now to follow Him;
To bring our lives as a daily offering
Of worship to The Servant King.

Your friend and pastor,

Jim Gordon

By the time we come to Part III, of After Evangelicalism, readers are already aware of the nexus of moral dilemmas and human suffering around three key ethical challenges: Sexuality and Gender, Politics, and Race. Given his own life story, Gushee speaks with considerable authority about the lived experience within and outside evangelicalism, and as one whose track record of ethical reflection and intellectual engagement is recognised and acknowledged far beyond Christian academic circles. Those who have read his previous work will know where Gushee is coming from, and going to. 

On sexuality and gender his previous books Changing Our Mind, and Still Christian, give a clear exposition of Gushee’s theology and ecclesiology of inclusion and welcome of LGBTQ people. This book reaffirms that conviction, while also offering a critique of the attitudes and assumptions of white and patriarchal evangelicalism which underlie rejection of, and moral judgement of LGBTQ people. There are no easy answers, neither an ethic of sexual perfectionism, nor an ethic of libertinism. Instead Gushee urges a humble discerning of what human love is, and the call on Christian communities to search for ways in which all humans can flourish in a covenanted community called together in the name of Jesus.

The chapter on Politics is an unsparing exposé of white evangelicalism’s embrace of Trumpism. The writer tells of the watershed moment when Trump’s election was confirmed, aided by 81 per cent of white evangelical voters. His own words are unsparing: “The worst parts of Trumpism track closely with the worst parts of the long evangelical heritage: racism, sexism, nationalism, xenophobia, and indifference to ecology and the poor.” (144). Gushee urges a Christian faithfulness that maintains a critical distance  from all earthly powers, an ethical discipline provided by Christian social teaching tradition, a global perspective on concerns for the poor, the ecology of the planet, and peace issues, and a thoroughgoing repentance of racism, xenophobia or nationalism.

The closing chapter on race and racism is a cry of the heart. Rooted in a history of slavery and slave ownership in America, Gushee argues that enculturated and institutionalised racism are powerful strains in the DNA of American evangelicalism, and that racism is, in fact, doctrinal heresy. Racism in attitude, action and social structures is a doctrinal aberration that denies the imago dei, and rejects the full consequences of Jesus as the Word made human flesh, for our understanding of both humanity and God.

A painful section recounts the missed opportunities for evangelicalism to repent, to own the wrong and to change direction. Perhaps Gushee will have to write another book, devoted to the deconstruction of white supremacy, and challenging cultural and institutional racism with the full force of the Kingdom ethics of Jesus. Such a book would require a theology strong and wide and deep enough to make possible reconciliation and peaceful racial healing. In turn, such a theology would also require to be substantial and durable, radical and prophetic, sacrificially repentant and costly, if it is to awaken hope for an end to systemic racism. Gushee has no time for virtue signalling; as a theologian and ethicist he is calling exvangelicals to form communities which in their performative practices, ethical activism and public rhetoric of reconciliation and welcome are the living contradiction of racism, exclusion and discrimination.

I finished this book with a heavy heart; not because it was finished but because it had to be written, and has to be read. On my reading, it is a sustained effort at two things. An honest and personal critique of the white evangelical tradition in the United States, and a courageous attempt at reconstructing a basis for Christian obedience in following Jesus and living the ethics of the Kingdom. White evangelicalism is on the decline in the United States; it may well be that its embrace of Trumpism will both hasten and harden the trajectory of its decline. Gushee’s book is a long time insider’s analysis of that weakening and decline, and of what he sees as a fundamentalist hegemony fixated on power and holding on to white privilege, in recent years, apparently at any cost.

This is a book by an ex evangelical writing primarily about white American evangelicalism in its evolution and current manifestations, and out of his personal knowledge, experience and perspective of that context. The book combines personal testimony, ethical critique, reconstructive theology, and pastoral guidance to those who are ex-evangelicals. He is not writing to comfort evangelicals. He is deeply concerned to offer ex evangelicals like himself, some foundations on which to build a more inclusive community of faith that flourishes as the soil in which the seeds of the Kingdom can grow. The book is both personal search and public manifesto. His last sentence in the book has its own poignancy, and latent hopefulness:

“If I have helped to provide, even for a few people, a way out of this lost place and a way ahead in the direction of Jesus, then all I can say is: thanks be to God. (170)