brethren

What’s love got to do with it?

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Just when I thought I was safe from our former minister’s pesky challenges, up he popped on Sunday, reminding us to love one another. Why couldn’t he just go off to Marbella like other retired Brits, and stop unsettling people leis an dol a-mach seo? I tried writing some of it down in the hopes that it would exorcise the persistent voice that whispered, ‘do YOU love the brethren, Catriona Murray’?

I will freely admit to all of you, because the only one whose opinion matters already knows, that this is a particular issue of mine.  Funnily enough, though, it would be an even greater difficulty if the command was to like my brothers and sisters. That’s a subjective thing, you see, based on whether you find people interesting, appealing, pleasant to be around. And not one of us can say that we like everyone we meet; nor would everyone say that they liked us. 

But something I have eventually learned is that when the Bible talks of love, it is referring to something much bigger, and much less whim-based. In a way, it’s a bit like the joy you find in Christ – that doesn’t diminish depending on your circumstances; in fact, I have found that it grows, often in proportion to how hard those are. You find joy regardless of what else is going on in your life.

Well, the love that God speaks of is surely similar to that. I think we have to love one another even if we are not always likeable. We love because he first loved us. He didn’t wait until we were perfect, or even good; he simply loved us, because his love is not subjective and does not – mercifully – depend on our degree of lovability.

On Monday, the devotional app that I use had a really timely study that spoke to an issue I have discussed here previously. While my particular problem related to a professing Christian, this study talked in wider terms about how we should respond to those who wrong us. Of course, the human instinct is retaliation – but that would be to ape the world, and we have a different, a perfect, example to follow. Christ is not only love, but he is truth, and he allowed himself to be crucified without uttering one word of reproach to his betrayers.

What did he say? ‘Father, forgive them’, and sometimes I think that’s the only prayer we need in the circumstances of which I speak. If the person, or people, who try your patience are unbelievers and persecuting you for your faith, pray for them. I don’t pretend that this comes easily, but it is possible.

‘What’, you ask, ‘even in your resentful and sarcastic heart’? Yes, well, I’ve adopted a strategy. Like I said, subterfuge is pointless with God, and he can spot an insincere prayer a mile off. ‘Oh’, I can hear you say, ‘so now you’re a paragon of sincerity’! No. I offer my inadequate prayers to God, and ask him to bless my enemies according to his mercy, and not mine. That way, it doesn’t matter so much what I may feel about them, because I am not the author of their fate.

I’ve had quite a lot of practice with this and have found that nothing takes the sting out of your dislike the way that asking God’s blessing on your enemy will.

That’s enemies, though. What about the brothers (and sisters)?

Well, last time I wrote a post, it was about this very thing. A man, professing faith in Christ, but openly practising hatred for me was causing some consternation. Aside from the variety of wise and Biblical advice you all gave me, I also received the inevitable enquiries as to his identity. Some people guessed correctly which is, I think, a comment in itself. I concealed his identity in the first place, not because I am particularly merciful, but because the blog was never about him. 

All any of us can control is our own behaviour, and our own response to these kinds of challenges. A person with anger management issues so bad that the mere sound of someone else’s voice throws them into a rage is really an object of pity. But after meditating on the matter for a time, I was brought to the verse, 1 John 4:20, ‘ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar’. It is a grave consideration because it implies that either his profession is false, or mine is. 

His, or mine? Well, I can’t answer that, nor can he, nor can you. And perhaps that uncertainty should be our gift to one another. There is, after all, nothing more dangerous than the conviction that your salvation is sure, if it is not. Such a person is possibly more lost than the loudest atheist.

And so, the best thing that we can do – any of us – is to try to make our calling and election sure. I can think of worse places to start than by praying for the brothers, and for those who have done us wrong. Yes, it’s mighty hard, but the power of prayer is in the one who hears, not the one who speaks.

Fools to make war on our brothers in arms

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When the national media got hold of the fact that the Muslim community in Lewis was building its own meeting place in Stornoway, they scented blood. The expectation was that the narrow minds in black hats would be out in force, that a trench would be dug with Muslims on one side and ‘Christian fundamentalists (whatever they are) on the other.
Disappointingly for the usual suspects, that is not actually what is happening on the ground. As David Robertson points out in a recent blog, commentators from outwith – and, indeed, within, I would add – our island, fail to distinguish between the different denominations of Presbyterian churches represented here. Far and away the largest denomination is the Free Church of Scotland.

Its size and reach is, I guess, why the responsibility for influencing the Comhairle, rigging elections and intimidating old ladies falls fairly and squarely on the Wee Frees. Other denominations may have taken a different view, but the minister of the largest Free Church in Lewis has voiced what most of us believe: we would prefer that everyone saw the beauty of Christ and gave their lives to Him, but we will not achieve that by force.

Actually, he has articulated an important facet of the misunderstanding many harbour about Christianity: we really are not about power, we are about love.

However – and it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to say this – we need to be better at walking the walk. I can say as many times as I like to the unbelieving public that we are holding them up to God in love, but words alone are not enough. We have to be able to demonstrate our love to win the unbelievers over.

In a famous passage – 1 Corinthians 1: 13 – Paul speaks of the futility of Christianity without love. The older translations render this ‘charity’ which, as we all know, begins at home.

We need to be able, as Christians, to love one another demonstrably, before we are capable of winning the world over. How will an unbeliever be convinced that I am lovingly concerned for him, if I cannot show first that I love my brethren?

As Christ led us to expect, and as my church prepared me for, I have been reviled for my witness. There is no need for me to repeat here what has been said and done against me for His sake. It is because God is the stronghold of my life that I have weathered the excesses of
secular hatred; it is His armour, fastened and refastened by His loving people, that has protected me from the fiery darts of Satan and his – sometimes unwitting – workers.

But who will protect us from one another? When, in the middle of what is undoubtedly a spiritual battle, Christians waste their energy and misdirect their concern, in judging one another, who will make the peace?

Still punch-drunk from having my private grief used against me by unfeeling strangers, I was accused by one of the brethren of being ashamed of my Lord. His justification for this was that I had not, in my election campaign literature, explicitly said that I was a
Christian.

Another of the believing community took it upon herself to ‘name and shame me’ as unsuitable to hold elected office because of . . . well, my many failings. We do not, she said, share the same theology. Indeed
we do not.

But we do share the same Saviour. He is Lord, we are His church – and when we do this to one another, we offend only Him.
The world loves it. I know that unbelievers seize on any chance they can to justify their lack of faith, by pointing to the failings of Christians. It is not, ‘see how they love one another’, but ‘see how
they fight amongst themselves’.

This is a plea to my fellow Christians, of whatever denomination, to think about who it is you wound when you publicly rebuke one of your brothers and sisters in Christ. If we say something that you consider theologically unsound, or otherwise damaging to the cause, then I
believe the correct course of action is private counsel. The Bible has much to say on this subject, but nowhere does it
mention public pillorying, or shaming before the baying mob. In fact, Matthew 18: 15 tells us that our starting point, if we have a grievance against a brother, is to speak privately to him about it.

That’s privately – not on Facebook, not via a letter to the ‘Gazette’, not from a public platform in the Town Hall.

If you are certain that your position is the right one, as a Christian that means right in the eyes of God, and according to His Law. You need, therefore, no other witness than Him, and your erring brother in Christ.

He laid down His life for us; all He asks in return is that we crucify self, and see our brother as greater than we are. If we love our family in Christ, any error is not a subject for public shaming, but for private reconciliation.