Tag Archives: grace

Chapter 48: daily manual labour

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…the brothers should be occupied according to schedule in either manual labour or holy reading.

What is work?

Why is it that after time off from ‘work’, feeling refreshed and think clearer, you begin work and almost immediately feel exhausted? The phrase ‘back to the grindstone’ is so apt at these times. I am just starting back at work after a week of relaxation and rest and for some reason find myself asking,

Why can’t I find the peace of rest during my working week?

It is not sustainable nor logical, I think we can all agree, to work until you’re exhausted and empty and then recoup the lost energy only to spend it all until the next break. The constant emptying and filling puts our nerves on edge as we live at extremes. In this narrative work becomes draining and rest becomes fulfilling. We immediately start to talk about work/life balance as if work and life are separate. We see work as a means to afford to live; life happens after work.

E.F. Schumacher, in his wonderful book ‘Small is Beautiful’, describes the West’s fundamental understanding of work.

There is a universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider ‘labour’ or work as little more than necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a ‘disutility’; to work is to make a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice. Hence the ideal from the point of view of the employer is to have output without employees, and the ideal from the point of view of the employee is to have income without employment. (E.F.Schumacher, ‘Small is beautiful:a study of economics as if people mattered’ (London: Abacus, 1988) p.44-45)

I remember when I first read this section of Schumacher’s book and having an intellectual light switched on. I looked at the economic problems facing the UK at the time (and which have not gone away but got worse!) and it made sense: The government, both then and more so now, in trying to balance the books, needs more money coming in than going out and so they want to increase exports whilst cutting costs. What is the greatest cost? Wages. That is why, when money is tight people get laid off or made redundant. People are just a cost, a necessary burden. If we could work without having to pay them then we’d make more money or if we can get one person to do three people’s job then we’d make a massive saving.

Why do we need more money? So we can pay to not work?

Work is seen by the workman, i.e. those who work, as task to be done in order to be able to pay for leisure. The shared vision of work/labour is to earn money to be spent on leisure pursuits outside of work. In the current economic climate, however, people are fearful for their jobs and so, to avoid redundancy and still be able to pay top price for mortgages, cars, leisure activities which are going to make you feel that slaving away was worth it, you work harder and longer hours to show your bosses that you are willing to sacrifice more than others and therefore you have no time for leisure. Work is sacrifice! Those who sacrifice more, appease the economic ‘gods’ and so are safe for another season but the ‘gods’ are never appeased… I digress!

Schumacher goes on to suggest,

If the ideal with regard to work is to get rid of it, every method that ‘reduces the work load’ is a good thing. The most potent method, short of automation, is the so-called ‘division of labour’ and the classical example is the pin factory eulogised in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Here it is not a matter of ordinary specialisation, which mankind has practised from time immemorial, but of dividing up every complete process of production into minute parts, so that the final product can be produced at great speed without anyone having had to contribute more than a totally insignificant and, in most cases, unskilled movement of his limbs. (Schumacher, ‘Small is Beautiful’, p.45)

Here is where I have a major problem with the current governments approach to the welfare problem: it is based on this notion that we can continue to see work in the way outlined above and yet force people also to do it more and for less money. People who don’t work cost the government money and don’t pay any money into the bank. To create money and balance the books we must cut the number of people we give money away to and encourage them to give more to us. If they worked, then they’d earn money and pay tax, they’d also not need money from us to live off. Why don’t they work? Why would they work if they get the money anyway? The mantra, therefore, ‘making it pay to work’, is employed.

This is nonsense, however, when jobs are being cut and the jobs being created are so unskilled that no takes pride in what they do. People aren’t at work because they’ve been made redundant or they’ve not been trained with a skill that is valued. We cut the pay of teachers and they feel unvalued and so struggle to commit to their vocation of training our children to achieve. We cut the pay of nurses and they feel unvalued and so can feel unenthusiastic to work beyond the bare minimum (thankfully many fight this urge!)

I sit each week volunteering at a Food Bank and I hear the same stories again and again. People who are trained in one trade/skill, who have worked for years find themselves laid off because money was tight or they’re pay has been cut or is static against the raising prices and are unable to pay the essentials to live. Cheaper labour can be found and so we become wary of foreigners coming in and being willing to work for less because they’re just happy to work but we don’t want to work because work is about earning enough to enjoy life outside of work.

The other thing wrong with the mantra ‘making it pay to work’ is that it still sits within the understanding that to get someone to work the incentive is money. Money is the system of value, in other words, we judge our value in the world by how much we get paid; this is why the celebrity culture is so big, we look at them and how much money they have and we subconsciously or consciously judge them to be valued more in society. Our teenagers all want the jobs that pay more money and be famous because they are desperate to feel valued by others. When they are completely starved of that sense of value they ‘settle’ for ‘menial’ jobs and accept that they are not valued by society so why bother contributing to it. In fact, why bother even working? They say to themselves,

I will never amount to anything of value (being paid money) so I can take that value (money) without working.

I think there needs to be a change in language around work. The culture needs to change to see work as something you do to connect with other people and to develop as a human being. The major difficulty with this is that a new vision of work requires the death of the major shackle we have to the capitalist materialist view of labour: consumption.

I was not accurate when I said that we find value in how much money we have; to be more precise we find value in how much we consume and in order to consume we must pay. Advertising is driven by the need to increase consumption so that people give more money so that others can consume more so that others can consume more, etc. This is another area of our society where we are lost and broken. Is there any hope?

Grace!

This is the message of grace: Forget the system of sacrifice and trust in God who provides. God grows the plants in the field and has created food to sustain us. He gives us what we need for free in order that we might enjoy the world and life with him. In this world of grace work is another opportunity to be with God. We are called to be co-labourers with God in his world; from the very beginning we are to work alongside God not because He couldn’t do it on his own but because work is more about relationship and process than the end product. We feel fulfilled when we enjoy good relationships with others. Work within the understanding of grace is to be celebrated and enjoyed as a complimentary part of life with God and others. It is to fit equally beside prayer/worship, rest and play.

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Reading and study

There’s so much to say about work that I’ve neglected to even talk about what most of this chapter in the Rule of St. Benedict spoke on; reading!

Here study and reading is as much part of the day as prayer, work and eating. As an avid reader my heart jumps for joy to know that reading/study is marked into the day as a task that is expected to be done, so much so that someone will come round and make sure I’m doing it! The pressure I feel when I’m not ‘working’, fulfilling the expectation of those who pay me money, should equally be felt if I fail to read a book and study.

I often feel guilty when I sit down and read or study. I even feel guilty writing this blog because it is technically not part of any job description I have, but then my job description doesn’t really exist because, again that is not part of the world of grace…

Why do I feel so much pressure to be seen to be doing something? It’s because I want to know that I am valued. Our society values someone by what they do and contribute and so I must do or contribute something. This is not grace…

I feel I am indebted to others whose money goes to ‘pay my bills’ and to I am then shackled to them as a slave. What will reading and study do for them. I feel that if they pay me then I should perform my duties to them. This is not grace…

Some might say,

Other people can’t afford to not work and to spend their days reading and studying. What gives you the right to be given money by others to sit about and be lazy?

I’d challenge that. There is always time for reading and studying if you prioritise it. There is also an assumption that reading and studying has no value because not many people would pay you money to read and study. If we need to earn the right to stop generating income and ‘waste time’ participating in a task which cannot be valued then we are slaves to a world outside of grace…

Reflection

I feel guilty about my life as full-time minister. I feel the judgement of others as they look at me, in my free house, with my stipend,

Am I worth it?

What differentiates me from those who don’t get this?

The problem begins when we talk of what I do as ‘work’ in the sense of what it is widely understood to be. I don’t do what I do in order to pay for leisure; I do what I do because I feel God is growing me in the tasks of this ministry. My ministry is my life not a means to a life. Every disciple should be able to say that. My worth, in the world of grace, comes not from what I do or achieve or ‘earn’ but by the unending love of God. I work not to earn value or worth but as a vehicle to experience value and worth. I work because I am blessed because it is part of the gift of life.

Take my wife as an example. She doesn’t get paid by a pay check for anything she does. In the eyes of the current society is is a sponging, work-shy slacker. She costs money to stay alive, with her food, heating, shelter and (in my wife’s case) medicine (lots of it!) What does she contribute to society? A lot. Does she generate income? No. Nothing she does adds money into the bank. She is of little value to society in this sense.

But…

She does contribute to society. She spends her days caring for others, encouraging others, giving people value outside of the purely materialistic understanding of existence. She is able to do that because she herself has received that same love and value from God as a gift in His pure grace. Without people like Sarah, the world would be a poorer place. She is my partner in ministry; it’s my name on the pay-check but it’s our money. If Sarah didn’t do what she does in the way she does it I wouldn’t be able to be the person God wants me to be in the place where he wants me.

I contemplate my life without Sarah a lot and I’m genuinely scared. How will I function without her beside me? I know, however, that what my life with her has taught me that life is a gift of grace from God that is meant to be shared with others. We must begin any understanding or study of life with the understanding of ‘grace’. God provides out of love for us and we’re called to participate in its delivery in order to draw close to him. The money I receive is not a deserved outcome of a sacrifice I have made, it is a gift to ensure I am able to live the life God has called me to. The gift comes first, the rest is a response.

Sarah lives by grace. I want to too.

The Christian community should be a place where all resources are shared, not out of duty but out of love. This means to have an attitude to all things as gift and to and to eradicate discussions of earning, sacrificing, etc. In this community reading and studying is another activity that is done; it has no less value than the creation of goods which can be sold to purchase other goods. In this community prayer is not a luxury which must be done after you have earned enough money to stop working.

I am fortunate to live the life I lead but it is a life that I invite others to live too, not because I don’t work but because work is another way I get to be with God. I am free to choose to follow God in everything I do. I share all I have with anyone who needs it. My house has been used to house others so they don’t feel the need to sacrifice life to just survive.
I share my table to help people who have none. The money that comes into my bank account each month is a generous gift from others which I pass on to others, through charity, relational gifts and blessing.

If you live in York and would be interested in living a life of grace why not get in touch and join Sarah and I in trying to work out what that looks like for us. We want to structure our lives around ‘prayer, study, dialogue and worship’ (Alan Roxburgh, Missionary Congregation, Leadership and Liminality (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1997) p.66).

Prayer is a life shaped around times in the presence of God establishing identity in his grace. By study I mean exploring and seeking out the truth of God where it may be found. By dialogue I mean real and deep, committed relationship with others that leads to wholeness, healing and reconciliation and by worship I mean activities which honour God, using our body and skills to communicate our love and acceptance of his grace.

Gracious Father, Thank you. Thank you for all your gifts to us. Thank you for your acceptance of us and desire to see us grow in maturity of faith. Thank you that everything in heaven and on earth is yours and of your own do we give you.

Come, Lord Jesus

Chapter 46: offences in other matters

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If the cause of the sin is secret (hidden in the soul), the monk should confess to the abbot or one of the spiritual fathers.

Who can I tell?

When the Lord comes,
he will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness,
and will disclose the purposes of the heart.
Therefore in the light of Christ let us confess our sins.

This is a seasonal provision in Common Worship for an invitation to confession from the First Sunday of Advent until Christmas Eve. I’ve been saying this for four weeks as I’ve led services in different contexts. The wording is from 1 Corinthians 4:5 and is a great image of bringing everything into the light.

Darkness, after the initial shock, can be quite comforting. No one can see what you’re doing and so no one can judge your behaviour. You are alone with your thoughts and those probing eyes of others are gone; you can do whatever you like. You’re free. Darkness brings this sense of privacy where you feel in control, released from judgement.

Darkness is also scary, isolating and lonely. With no sense of sight your other senses are heightened and, those of us who are reliant on our eyes most of the time, struggle to interpret the sounds, smells and other sensations that we are now aware of.

I’ve been involved in many a party game where someone is blindfolded and asked to feel an object and guess what it is. Part of the thrill or anxiety that is created is the unknown, the unseen. What if the worst thing imaginable is placed into our hands? Not knowing what the object is means you cannot prepare yourself for the possible movement of the object or the danger that it might be. There’s a great wave of relief when you see, even if you don’t like it, what the object was. When it comes into the light there’s a fuller understanding of what it is you were dealing with.

St. Benedict has returned to discussing issues of mistakes, faults and offences in community life. We all make them, they all have an impact beyond ourselves and we should all be prepared to admit them and try and make amends. In this chapter St. Benedict reminds us again that there is no difference between what happens in the ‘sacred’ to what happens in the ‘mundane’; we are to behave in the kitchen, cellar, garden, bakery, refectory, etc. as we do in the chapel/oratory. If we make a mistake or offend God or neighbour then we should treat it as if we did it in a ‘sacred’ space such as a church building. We are to go and make a public admission in front of abbot and the community so that no one is left in the dark over such matters.

Like the previous chapter, we are encouraged to admit quickly before the issue becomes larger by deceit and covering over the fault. It is easy to try and keep mistakes private out of fear of being seen to have failed and stumbled but greater is the shame if you are found to be using the darkness to cover such mistakes. The darkness is easy to use as a tool to select what others see of you and to build the false image of yourself but this creates a kind of division within yourself of that which others know about and that which you’d rather hide from them out of fear you will be judged.

In our culture we demand that no one judges another but we do it all the time and judgement is a necessary part of growing and developing. Imagine education without anyone telling you when you get an answer right or wrong, the same is true of the development of character and behaviour. If you want to be a part of a society then you must act within the framework and worldview of that society, if you do not then you are not united in behaviour and outlook with those around you and the bonds are broken. Judgement helps us to connect with others and to learn how to live and behave with those around us.

The problem arises when mistakes and ‘failures’ are seen to be feared and resisted. This view leads to the inevitable hiding of faults and a desperate and futile attempt at being perfect in the eyes of others. Judgement, in this culture, becomes a devastating rejection of a person into the abyss of eternal damnation. The community portrayed within the Rule of St. Benedict, however, is one rooted and established on grace and a desire to be humbled (‘humiliated’ in the truest sense of the word.) With grace, mistakes and faults are to be expected and open to redemption by God who, when invited to, can cleanse us from all faults and make us perfect by his Spirit. Judgement, in this culture of grace, is seen as a diagnosis of a problem that is curable by the great Healer. The rejection of judgement is the resisting of full force of grace and healing within the Body of Christ.

In the issues of mistakes in the ‘mundane’ parts of communal life, St. Benedict is essentially saying in this chapter,

See above.

Although there is one difference in this chapter which has not been said in previous chapters,

If the cause of the sin is secret (hidden in the soul), the monk should confess to the abbot or one of the spiritual fathers. (my emphasis)

Throughout the Rule so far, the advice is to take confession to the abbot and he shall make judgement on the form and severity of correction. Here, however, there is the option of not going to the abbot but ‘one of the spiritual fathers’. When the fault is internal, i.e. not a tangible, which does not impact the community in a practical way, then the monk can go and admit it to another with authority granted to them by the abbot. This must be done, as with other sins, quickly before it becomes habitual or longer lasting.

This is characteristically practical of St. Benedict. I know that I have thoughts and temptations each day which pass, unseen by others, through my mind which effect my behaviour and attitude towards others. I can keep them private out of fear of being judged for thinking or feeling such things and no one would be any the wiser, their opinion of me would still be good and I wouldn’t upset or hurt them and thus cause them to reject me in some way. I justify the hiding of these mistakes by saying I don’t want to upset my brothers or sisters and cause them to act out of anger but it’s not the full truth.

In the Apprentice this year, one candidate made a mistake which cost the team dearly in the task. He was obviously ashamed of his failure and, instead of admitting it to the others, he ‘made a business decision’ and ‘for the morale of the team’ to not tell them: he lied. In the boardroom the truth came out and he continued to persuade the others, Lord Sugar and himself that it was solely for the morale of the team. I was surprised to hear, after he was ‘fired’, that others said this was a reasonable thing to do and was an established ‘technique’ in business. It was hiding in the darkness out of fear of the idol of himself he had made would crumble and he would be humbled.

Going to another and confessing the thoughts or inner sins stops us from building the idols of ourselves whilst, at the same time, protecting those who may not yet have the grace to forgive and pray for our healing from the mistake. The hearer of the confession may feel that the wisest thing to do in order to be healed is to go to others who may be affected by the inner mistake and admit it to them without involving others in the community. That other person may be the abbot and so it would be wise to time that admission for the danger is, the abbot still being human and able to fall themselves, might respond rashly out of anger or fear.
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Sacred/Mundane

I had a good conversation with someone this week about the frustrations of church and they were keen to express their disappointment and anger at the irrelevance of church services to the majority of the population of this country. They had no problem with the Church, the people who make up the Body of Christ, but the worship services were a waste of time. I wonder whether the division between these two things is the problem here. What I mean is, if you don’t engage in the worship services of the Church then how do you engage with the other aspects of the Church’s life? You should have the same attitude when you go to a Sunday service (if your church meets on a Sunday) as you do when you meet together for social times because worship encompasses both activity/tasks and the devotion of time in the presence of God. God should be involved in all that we do, no matter where we are as individual disciples or with other Christians. We know this, so why is it that we say in one instance,

This particular group is my church.

and in another,

I don’t get that group of believers or how they express their faith (if indeed they have one)

The Church is the Church. It is, at it’s most basic level, a gathering of disciples of Jesus Christ. When we meet together we remind ourselves of the Body of Christ and we re-member Christ amongst us by his Holy Spirit. In this posture we humble ourselves before him and lay down our wills in favour of his and we worship, either by enacting his commands or proclaiming his greatness and majesty to position ourselves firmly beneath his will and command.

This should happen whenever we are with other followers of Jesus. Everything we say and do therefore should be worship in these two sense: reminding ourselves and each other of who we serve and to be humbled before him and also doing Christ’s work on earth/building his kingdom and not our own. The kitchen, cellar, garden, etc. then become places of worship because where ever we are we worship God.

If everywhere is sacred does this mean we no longer need specific places of worship? I would say that if we didn’t meet in one place we’d meet in another space and it would become sacred, therefore, we will always have specific sacred sites which we congregate in to intentionally praise and re-member Christ amongst us and receive from him. If we close our church buildings we’d need to find other buildings in which to meet for worship and if we moved we’d lose the connection with the two thousand year history and tradition of our faith and re-member with those ‘saints’ which have gone before.

Indeed, the whole of the worship service as passed down from generation to generation is a tool to connect with the saints throughout the ages to have relationship with the past, the present and the future. It is the mysterious work of God’s Spirit to bring us into the communion of Saints who will all stand, one day, in glory to sing God’s praises. Our worship services are, whether we feel it or not, a foretaste of this heavenly reality. We want to hold onto tradition, not because we are fearful of change, but because we want to honour our brothers and sisters before us and worship with them. It is a lesson we must heed in our time, to lay down our own preferences and choose to honour others before ourselves. This is painful and difficult thing to do because sometimes it feels like a one way street but we enter, in part, to Christ’s approach to us that when we were still sinners he came to meet us. He chose grace and became in the form of a servant and was obedient… to the point of death on the cross.

When we don’t appreciate the sacred in the mundane there is the danger that we will make the sacred, mundane. We stumble into our times of worship together and informality leads us to laziness and blindness. Samuel Beckett writes in his play ‘Waiting for Godot’,

But habit is a great deadener.(Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (London: Faber and Faber, 2000) p.83)

We all find it easier to differentiate between ‘work’ and ‘life’; we talk of achieving the work/life balance but in the life of faith everything is work and everything is life. When you head into the office, the school or wherever you ‘work’ you do not leave your discipleship at the door. You’re going to that place with the mission of Christ ringing in your ear. The priority for disciples, over and above the job description, is to build God’s Kingdom here on earth, to make disciples, to be light in the world. In this mindset we approach worship as a duty that we feel forced to do in our ‘spare time’, there is then the pressure of making it beneficial and for us to feel something. When the service doesn’t live up to that expectation we reject it and complain and grumble. If we were to approach it with the knowledge that we should always be worshipping and encouraging one another as disciples then whenever we meet it is a joining in of what is going on in all of our hearts. Worship then is not the shop window of the community but the factory, the powerhouse at the centre. We return to this place of communal re-membering of Christ to be fed and to be sent out. Inviting people into the community is through the thresholds of the community and via the waters of baptism.

Reflection

This chapter is a bridge between two important points. We are moving from the discussion on the need for swift admission of faults and mistakes, firmly establishing an attitude towards judgement within the framework of grace and humility. We are moving to a discussion on the erasing of a sacred/mundane divide which protects us from the demands of discipleship. The establishing of a distinction between sacred and mundane is done for the same reason we find we want to maintain both light and darkness. In one we can do what we like and behave without judgement and shame whilst still being able to enter into the other controlling what others see and what they don’t.

Those who argue that darkness must exist in order to appreciate the light are trying to justify the maintaining of that small corner of our lives that is useful to feel comfortable and in control. The problem is, without the light reaching those parts we cannot appreciate the full force of grace which transforms and heals us to be the fully resurrected people of God. The Refiner’s fire must burn into every aspect of our lives and change us. This is a painful experience but until we go through it we cannot know the full brilliance of our God who we invite to lead us to holiness and peace.

Our communities must be rooted and established in grace. In this we intentionally seek to be humbled and then to see judgement in the right way as a means to be in the right position before our God who we worship in every aspect of our lives. This means to be actively seeking to be in right relationship with other Christians and trusting in the vehicle of grace: God’s Body, the Church.

If we are not channels of grace then we have no right to call ourselves church… The body of Christ the ultimate vehicle of grace. (John Barclay, a lecture on the wisdom of the cross in 1 Corinthians, Tuesday 4th June 2013, Diocese of York Clergy Conference)

Gracious and healing God, bring into light those things we long to keep hidden in the darkness. We invite your judgement onto us knowing that you are tender and loving towards those that fear you and you have come, in the person Jesus, to heal sinners like me. May our communities be places where mistakes and faults are dealt with quickly so we can experience more fully your grace and love for us.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Chapter 23: excommunication for faults

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If a brother is found to be stubborn, disobedient, proud or a murmurer…

When is enough enough?

As we head towards the middle of the year and, having prayed through the Rule of St. Benedict for 24 weeks, I have begun to ask:

What happens when someone fails to live in accord with others?

We all hold some ideals of behaviour and moral decisions, however loose they are. We are all soon aware, after spending any time with other people, that we all fall short of our own expectations and the expectations of others. It is easy to beat ourselves up over our repetitive failures and disappointments and easy also to point out the faults of others. Even if the ‘law’ does not exist in concrete terms there are always guidelines or expectations within a group of correct ways to behave and when those expectations are not met there is a cry for justice or a lesson to be learnt.

Having reflected a lot on discipline over the last two weeks and how I respond to different forms of it being exercised on me personally, I have found that I appreciate it when people package criticism or complaint within a reminder of deep and real relationship. I wrote two weeks ago about the need to be known; to be in a long term trusting relationship, where character formation can happen. Our deep changes in character cannot be done in a vacuum or in some distant, business-like environment but in deep and loving relationships. I respond to people who have committed to me before they tell me my faults.

It is important not to automatically jump over the first stage of St. Benedict’s guidance to admonition. The Bible suggests if one hurts or causes conflict within the Body of Christ then they should be told, privately, on two occasions. This is harder than many of us are willing to give credit for. To go and tell someone directly and in love, in case of falling into reproof ourselves, is tough and vulnerable. It is easier to gossip and moan behind their back and then gang up with others and expel them… I sadly speak from experience.

The ‘failings’ of a fellow Christian is easier to speak about when the matter is small but we put it off and imagine it will be a one off. Rarely, if at all, are the large indiscretions not preceded by smaller minor offences. There is always that first sign of trouble. Take the story of Cain as an example.

After Cain and Abel take their offering to God and God prefers Abel’s to Cain’s, Cain’s ‘countenance fell’ (Genesis 4:5); he gave up. It was that small thing that shows he had allowed envy and jealousy into his heart. It was this small moment when he gave in to that voice in his head which said,

God loves Abel more than you because you’re… and he’s… It’s not fair.

That small paranoid voice that demands more attention or interprets others actions wrongly is a small seed which can fester and grow. It can quickly escalate into bitterness and anger and then to murder.

The question is when do you say something? When is enough enough?

In my family I was taught it was easier to talk about a small, relatively isolated issue before it embeds within someone’s character/personality and before it gets tightly woven into multiple and varying examples of actions and choices; before everything gets complicated and muddied. I was also taught it was easier to apologies at this stage rather than having to go back over many incidents. If you can acknowledge a problem early on it is easier to manage/‘master’ (Gen 4:7) It’s as God says to Cain,

If you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Resisting selfish instincts is hard work and to keep watch over them is a full time occupation that is why we are put in communities, into families. The correction, however, must be done with love, which is patient and kind, not envious or boastful, etc. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) To face wrongly expressed ‘truths’ is often painful and unhelpful in developing in character. What is needed is both grace and truth.

So when is enough enough? I’d say when it is easier to say something gently and patiently rather than when it is out of control and ingrained.

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Ministry of Reconciliation

After a year of being an ordained priest I have already had my share of conflict and need for reconciliation. This aspect of priestly ministry has been important in my personal understanding of vocation. The ordinal states,

Formed by the word, they [priests] are to call their hearers to repentance and to declare in Christ’s name the absolution and forgiveness of their sins. (The Ordination of Priests, Common Worship: Ordination Services, The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England: The Prayer Book as Proposed in 1928; The Alternative Service Book 1980; both of which are copyright © The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England)

To reconcile warring parties is to stand between them and hold them together in peace. This position means that you can become enemy to all sides as you try to mediate between them. Reconciliation is painful but it is to follow Christ in His ultimate work on the cross. Paul writes in Colossians,

For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

Over the next six weeks we will be reflecting on judgement, punishment and forgiveness but I want to begin by saying that the severity of punishment of excommunication must be understood and exercised within the complete mercy and grace of God who has reconciled all things in Christ. What that means is that all things are held in their correct place and relationship by Christ. Without this acceptance that God is working out that reconciliation, that bringing together of all things into harmony and right relationship with one another, then excommunication is a further severing of relationship.

Reflection

Conflict is hard and gut-wrenchingly painful. I have sat through break downs of relationship in churches, in marriages, in families and in businesses. I have been divided within myself as I see two friends or groups that I care for turn their backs on one another and vow never to speak again. I have tried to sit between people and encourage dialogue and peace and I have failed on many occasions. For me, peace and reconciliation can only occur when relationships are deep; deeper than the superficial exchanges we now label ‘relationship’. We, as a society, now settle for second rate relationships and miss out on sustaining and life-giving intimacy because we are afraid of the risk that it takes to enter such a commitment.

Loving Father, Prince of Peace, thank you for being the source of peace. Thank you for the blessed Trinity, community of love and commitment, our epitome of relationship. We are sorry for the times we cut ourselves off from others by our attitude, actions and words. Forgive us and bring us back to your love where we are held and transformed.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Chapter 4: the instruments of good works

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…If we always remember and use them, and give them up only on Judgement Day, the Lord shall reward us as he promised…

How do we live this?

How we could meditate and reflect on each of the 72 ‘instruments’ independently and bear much fruit from doing so. Many more experienced and suitable scholars and practitioners have divided this lists of thoughts up into manageable chunks and I commend them to you (search for them online). I, however, want to continue my more general reflections on reading the chapters of the Rule of St. Benedict and this week I will try and voice my overview of this chapter. I must remind you, the reader, and myself of my task in doing these reflections: I am wanting to discern how monasticism may factor into parish ministry and what that approach to the life of faith, lived out by monks/nuns, has to say to those outside traditional monastic communities.

With that in mind my first thought about this chapter is how overwhelming each short ‘command’ is. Few of them don’t leave a mark of some description on my conscience and all of them challenge the state of my inner life. To hold them all and to ‘always remember and use them’ is an added challenge and I could easily stop reading the Rule of St. Benedict until that is obeyed but I continue to feel as I pray through this reading that there is an understanding of grace that is rarely mentioned but is necessary if this life is to be lived.

We have explored before the basic premise that we begin the spiritual life, humbled by God, our ultimate Master and Judge. That we throw ourselves on His mercy and from there be thankful for the work He does in our lives. Through this lens, reading these 72 commandments is like the Sermon on the Mount in that you are forced to ask,

How can we be saved?

Surely all of these are impossible to sustain and achieve.

The reply to that feeling is it does indeed seem impossible to achieve all of this on our own, for your own benefit. This sense of futility is another invitation to enter into humility and stand in the strength of God’s mercy and grace alone. Let’s be honest we all need a daily dose of grounding in the true state of our humanness.

I was reminded this week of our tendency to err on the side of one of two extremes when it comes to self-analysis: either we see ourselves as complete failures, deserving of nothing but the destruction that comes from our own mistakes and characters, or we deserve all privileges and ‘blessings’ for we are wonderfully and fearfully made. Neither of these are quite correct on their own. We should be mindful of both our inherent ability to self-destruct and to hurt others in the process whilst holding onto the truth of the gospel; God is merciful and just and His steadfast love endures forever.

It may be my Roman Catholic upbringing but I have preference to speak of my sin, my dirty junk that I carry in my life. I seek out punishment for the blatant and harmful mistakes I make. I call others to balance the current popular notion that human beings are essentially good and we are the solutions to our own problems. Despite my counter-cultural proclamations against humanist philosophy I cling to grace.

Bono was quoted as saying,

You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so you will sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff…I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep s—. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity. (Bono, excerpt from, ‘Bono: in conversation with Michka Assayas’, Christianity Today, January 28th 2014, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/augustweb-only/bono-0805.html?paging=off)

If I am to read, and even begin to attempt to live out, all 72 instruments of good works then I’m going to have to know grace and to trust it.

For all of my readers who err on the side of seeing themselves as ‘junk’: judgement is not from you but God, the merciful Judge, and if you call on the name of Jesus, that Judge will look on Him instead of you. You will be judged with Christ.

For all my readers who err on the humanist side seeing themselves as their own solution and to continue to try and live the perfect life all by yourself: you will be judged in that way. If you live by karma you will be allowed to be judged by karma… I wish you well.

If a community is going to embrace the message of the gospel of Christ then each member should follow Christ’s example and obey His commands fully trusting and knowing that discipleship is done in the strength of grace and mercy and nothing else. Without a message of grace then all ‘good work’ is rendered moot.
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The Seclusion of the Monastery

Aside from reflecting on the necessity of grace whilst living the life of faith and growing in the spiritual discipline of conquering our own thoughts; I was struck by the final sentence of the chapter,

But the workshop in which we must diligently perform all these things is the seclusion of the monastery and our stability in the community.

For those of us not based within a secluded monastery, living and breathing a monastic life, this final sentence leads us to feel even more stranded. It is true that in order to diligently perform all these things you need to give yourself time and space. Everday life does not lend itself to spiritual discipline. Why not? From my experience there’s no ‘let up’.

When we begin any new hobby or craft or practice, we need the space and time to allow the inevitable failures to happen. One does not pick up a violin and become Niccolo Paganini, it takes work and failures to develop sustainable skill and aptitude. In the busyness of everyday and in our culture so afraid of failure we are called to be in control of our development. There’s no forgiveness for not attaining maturity overnight; one is either mature or not, there seems to be no process encouraged.

A true community is like a loving family; each member is allowed to grow and develop over time. Forgiveness should offered continually and inter-generational leading is encouraged. Those that have been through the early stages of frustration and mistakes must encourage and support the novices. True community, based on the humility being encouraged through the Rule of St. Benedict and the grace at the heart of Christian faith, is a place where failures are not only expected but encouraged for,

Failure… leads to quite artistic things, because if you are not afraid of failure you can try, you can experiment, you can search for new ways, whereas when you are afraid of failure you wouldn’t do it, you would do it the way you did it yesterday… (Lev Dodin in conversation with Robin Thornber at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 23rd April 1994, Michael Stronin (tr.), cited in Maria Delgado and Paul Heritage (eds.), ‘In Contact With The Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre’ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996) p74)

Where is such space in parish ministry? How do we encourage this approach to life together? My BA dissertation* explored this idea in great detail (now is not the time to outline my proposal. If you would like to know more contact me and let’s chat!)

Reflection

As we grow into a deeper spiritual life we must hold onto one thing, grace, and seek out another, community. With these two things we can begin to live out the Kingdom of God to which we have all been called.

I suspect most of us shy away from a deep acceptance of grace and resist a deep experience of community. I wonder what a focus on these two concepts and experiences would do to a parish church? I wonder what transformation or revelations would occur if a parish church scrapped all other activity and committed to a life governed by these two principles?

Most Merciful Judge, thank You for Your grace. Thank You that I am judged not on the law of karma but the law of grace. lead me to experience community which holds me, as I am to grow into Your likeness and to only cease in that search on Judgement Day, when You will look on Christ and pardon me.

Come, Lord Jesus.

*The title was, ‘The Divine Collective: how modern ensemble theatre practice can help establish creative Christian communities.’