I have long been a connoisseur of quality bodaich and despite my upbringing and cultural leanings, it was somewhat inevitable that I should add the new Pope to my collection. It’s stretching the definition a little to include a sprightly fellow in his late sixties, particularly when it had been considered that his ‘youth’ might work against him in the conclave. Nonetheless, I’m counting him in.
Now, what is it, you may well ask, that appeals to a Leòdhasach of Calvinist leanings about the head of the Roman Catholic church? Please don’t write in, but here it is: his faith. I mean, yes, he’s photogenic and highly entertaining with his high-fiving, pizza-scoffing, baseball-signing ways. Nuns squeal with delight in his presence, and he has been gifted a truly sensational number of hats and cuddly toys, signalling a general acceptance that he is a cutie pie of the squishiest kind. And yes, I am well aware that this is not quite how the Westminster Confession of Faith refers to him.
But, here’s the crux. If we are Christians, ultimately we are only concerned with one thing: the increase of the Kingdom. Aren’t we? Doctrine has its place, of course, but when you see people who profess Christianity – Protestant or Catholic – wielding points of doctrine and even of liturgy and tradition as a means to gatekeep salvation . . . well, I am reminded of the good sense of God that he didn’t leave it in our hands.
I mean, I have thought for years what a shame it is on us that an island like Lewis hosts so many different (but not) denominations. You can’t get an onion-skin page of your Bible between any two of them in matters of doctrine and confession, but they have put supreme effort into locating even one difference that mandates them to sit in a separate, three-quarters empty building. Never mind that we do not have enough preachers, never mind that increasingly elderly congregations are burdened with heating and lighting churches across the island when we could probably all fit into one or two.
And if our hearts were fixed upon the love and joy of the Lord, that’s exactly what would happen. We’ve all read the revivalist accounts, where people couldn’t bear to be parted from one another, so continued praising God into the wee hours.
Now, we not only put up walls, but we form whole new denominations to show just how wrong those others are. Not us, obviously. We all think we’re worshipping the right way. It started off with eschewing the bells, smells and statues of the Catholic Church. And since then we have divided and subdivided so many times that we’ve now resorted to separating over what kinds of songs are sung in praise of God.
Chan ann san aon àite a tha an olc. This is not just a Calvinist thing. Since finding myself on the RC side of social media (this happens when you follow the Pope’s every move like a fangirl) I have read an awful lot of self-righteous nonsense from Catholics too – only the priest should hold his palms upwards when praying, the Eucharist should be placed directly on the tongue and not into the hands . . . Mo chreach, with all the petty bickering about the correct way to worship, I’m inclined to think that we have more in common than we might care to admit.
Which is my point here. There is one Redeemer, and he is the one route to Heaven. When he comes back to claim his church, I don’t think he’s going to sift us by denomination. Call me bold, but I don’t even think he’s going to ask us which songs we used to praise him, how we held our hands, and if we used beads, prayer cards, or candles. Faithful women who went hatless are probably not going to be counted less than hard-hearted ones who covered their heads.
Unless I have been on a very misleading path all this time, it is not about any of the 
trappings. God gave us something that is, yes, undoubtedly, mysterious, and in many ways beyond our comprehension. But, more importantly, he gave us something so simple that a child can understand it; indeed, he said that WE must become like children to receive it. Not by squabbling over ritual, and certainly not by telling each other we’re damned because of the way we stand, or kneel, or wear our hair.
No, we must receive his free gift as he offers it. Complicating it is a sin because it may act as a stumbling block to someone else. What is wrong with us when we tell others that they cannot be saved because they have a statue of Mary, or because they allow musical instruments in their churches? Shouldn’t we be saying, ‘never mind HOW you worship, as long as your worship is of him, and for him’? Why aren’t we hungry and desperate to share our loaves and fishes with a multitude?
Yesterday, I watched Pope Leo preside over Mass with a group of people, described in the Vatican briefing as ‘the poor’. The Pontiff urged us to make no difference in our hearts, or in our dealings, between those who minister to people in need, and the needy themselves. Each, he said, meets Christ in the other.
Perhaps I am naïve. There’s a good chance this blog will be taken as further evidence that women are silly about doctrine and definitely shouldn’t have a voice in their churches. Nonetheless, in a world that is buffeted by the enemy, I think we should focus more on being Christlike – as the Pope has modelled throughout his life – saying little, but being and doing what we ought, witnessing effectively in faith. I prefer the white martyrdom of Leo XIV to the whited sepulchres that would damn us all on a technicality.
humility
‘Daddy, paste it’.
In what would undoubtedly be considered revealing by any psychologist – especially the cod variety – I had an unfortunate childhood habit of removing my dolls’ heads. My father would then be called upon to reattach the noggin, which he did over and over again, without much complaint. I had an unshakeable belief that he could fix anything, therefore – an attitude also displayed in the film, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, when Zuzu’s flower sheds a petal and she demands, ‘Daddy, paste it’.
This morning, I echoed Zuzu’s request. Our world – handed to us in perfect working order by our heavenly Father – has been broken and broken again. Today, the people of Ukraine are suffering the consequences of that, as their country is torn apart around them, and many are forced to flee for refuge elsewhere. As Putin’s relentless display of ‘strength’ continues, the collateral damage is immense. Homes are destroyed, families separated, loved ones killed in the midst of terrifying chaos. Other world leaders wring their hands hopelessly and look at each other, wondering how – short of military action – they can stop the despot in his merciless tracks.
Political leaders fear the might of Russia, and despair at the idea of China rallying to Putin’s side. These presidents and prime ministers do not know where to turn because what they see with their eyes is bigger than all their forces put together. The media invokes the imagery of World War II, when Europe and America last found themselves in a pickle to equal this.
But there is a vast difference between then and now. Then, you had leadership that, instead of wringing its hands in despair, might have clasped them in petition to the Lord; then, you had some people of faith, who knew that the mightiest army of all was fighting at their shoulder.
The helplessness we are witnessing in our leaders is the consequence of believing that you are the ultimate power, and that there is nothing beyond yourself to which you might look for guidance, for wisdom, or for strength. When you are strong, Biden, when you are strong, Johnson, then are you weak.
Yes, the church elders are praying, and calling upon their people to do likewise. But it isn’t at the moment of crisis, this witness is needed most. As a Christian community, we are doing what the Ukrainian leader is doing in his desperation: chucking weapons into the hands of civilians who have no idea how to deploy them. We ought to be testifying unceasingly to our political masters, interceding on their behalf with God and begging that they would see their own need of him – in all situations. Glancing through the March issue of the Free Church ‘Record’, I saw something incredibly wise in the prayer diary. It was a request to pray for people whose lives are so great that they see no need of God. No one is wishing them pain or suffering; but we do wish them the sincere yearning for the Lord that seems so absent in easy situations. I think we need to be in prayer, likewise, for our political leaders, that they would lean on God’s wisdom and strength in times of peace, so that it’s familiar and instinctive to do so when trouble comes.
Even now, though, as the tyrant batters down the gates of what we were pleased to call ‘peace’, it is not too late. Those of us who pray must put our shoulders to the wheel, and ask God to turn our helpless leaders into praying people also. I don’t know how many more messages we can expect him to send, signalling his displeasure, before we turn to him again in earnest. And those among us who do not pray, are you reading this? We have seen that people being the ultimate power does not work – it wrecks lives and it destroys this beautiful world. Ego always tries to triumph over humanity, imposing its will in a show of destructive strength, not caring who it tramples along the way.
The capriciousness you attribute to God is not his, but ours. Putin is a product of the way in which we have chosen to steward creation, with hardly a passing thought for the Author of all things. No wonder that men become drunk with power and blinded by self-importance when they think that they have actually taken God’s place.
Luckily for us, humanity is not the ultimate authority. When we look around us at the harm believing the contrary has done, however, surely we can admit that there is only one course of action left to us. We have got to humble ourselves, hold up this broken world to heaven and beg:
‘Daddy, paste it’.
Post tenebras lux 