Standing Corrected

One of my favourite poets in the last few decades is R.S. Thomas, who was a Welsh clergyman in the last half of the twentieth century. Some of his poetry is bleak, but much of it attends to the mystical beauty of faith and the world around him.

Thomas’ language is limpid and beautiful, holding me as he describes prayer, or faith, or doubt, in ways which not only make sense to me, but illuminate my understanding of who I am as a disciple of Jesus

My favourite poem is the one below, The Country Clergy, the ironic final two lines of which always gives me hope.

I see them working in old rectories

by the sun’s light, by candlelight,

venerable men, their black cloth

a little dusty, a little green

with holy mildew. And yet their skulls,

ripening over so many prayers,

toppled in to the same grave

with oafs and yokels. They left no books,

memorial to their lonely thought

in grey parishes; rather they wrote

on people’s hearts and in the minds

of young children sublime words

too soon forgotten. God, in his time

or out of time will correct this.

It is always a challenge for me to trust God for the process and the results of the mission in which we are engaged. There are so many resources available to leave everything in my hands … I like to work it out myself, with the internal slogan of working harder, or smarter.

Twice this week, the stories from Scripture correct me. Naaman imagined a much more rigorous, or perhaps formal, task in order to be cured. A traditional introduction, and a magical flourish of the prophet’s hand would be a more respected, even honourable procedure. Bobbing in and out of the Jordan seven times seems a bit beneath the commander of an army.

No shoes, no credit card, no mobile phone. Jesus sends seventy or more disciples out on mission of engagement with the wider community, testing hospitality, while offering healing and hope. Not a tract or an app in sight. The whole process seems a bit scanty – what about one more training video?

Our mission is not ours. It belongs to God.

Our work is in God’s hands; in a world where resources flourish we are asked to believe that God invites us to participate in the plan of God. We are not indispensable, despite our best theology of our value and our giftedness. Valuable and gifted, indeed; blessed by God’s grace, absolutely; but indispensable?

So, we trust God for the task, for the steps we take, for the joys we experience and for the ability to rise from our stumblings. We are asked to be faithful, to serve God where we are called, to offer the grace to other which we have first been offered by others.

What if it doesn’t all work? What if our best efforts see only minimal reward? What if the church we know becomes a different church? It’s in God’s hands – we have ever been asked to fix it all, we have been asked to follow, to be obedient and to trust. What of our efforts, our service and our love? God honours it all, but has always loved us first.