USA

Hail to the chief

/ posttenebrasluxweb / Leave a comment

Nobody likes to lose. As we watch the United States struggle to put a leader in the White House, it’s worth asking ourselves how well we handle defeat. It is felt by everyone, I think, as a wound to the soul: rejection and relegation are not what our hearts desire.

I’m certainly not good with it. You’d think all those years of campaigning for the SNP in the wilderness might have taught me something. ‘Smile’, someone would hiss as television cameras panned around the throng attending yet another predictable count. We tried our best not to sound too bitter or look too dejected. And, when fortune smiled upon us, a very long time later, the challenge, equally, was not to be too brash or ebullient in victory.

We were told in childhood that it was proper to be ‘a good loser’. I don’t suppose anyone taught  poor Dòmhnall Iain that, though. As far as he’s concerned, I’m sure, the two words don’t belong in the same sentence.

But the art of losing gracefully is also the touchstone of wisdom, I think – and that is why no one is very surprised that the 45th president of the USA seems disinclined to go out with dignity. He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a wise man. Like all of us, he is flawed and overly directed by his ego. 

And he is a lesson, a cautionary tale, if only we – and he – would see it that way.

Four years ago, when he was first elected, a small number of our church congregation were interviewed about what we would do if he visited Stornoway. I think we were supposed to talk of Presbyterian fatwahs, of shunning, and of banishment. The footage never saw the light of day, however, because what we DID say failed to fit the popular message.

Now, at what appears to be the end of Donald J Trump’s short-lived presidency, we very much need the world to hear what we had to say then. And we very much need to mean it.

Christ is the head of the church, and his church turns away no man. It doesn’t matter at all how the world sees Donald, or how Donald sees the world – there is shelter in the Lord for everyone. That grandson of Lewis could have gone to Christ fresh from his inauguration, or he could go right now in the ashes of defeat . . . and he would be received in exactly the same manner. The angels in heaven could not rejoice more over his soul if he were saved as President of the United States than if he were a tramp whose home is on the streets.

I know what it is to have the closeness of my God in the very worst and loneliest hours of my life. Only God can see the very rawest parts of our griefs and sorrows, only God counts our tears. And when we are brought low, he raises us up – not on our own feet, but in his arms, from which height and safety we come to realise it was never our strength bearing us anyway.

With all my heart, I wish this for Donald J Trump now. Few people are so publicly broken; what a great testimony it would be to see him publicly healed. Oh, I don’t mean in that stagey, tele-evangelist way that is so offensive to anyone who has suffered or witnessed suffering. Not the ‘God wants you well’ message that is really just another way of telling us that this world is everything. I mean quietly, humbly, meeting with his Saviour, even at the well of humiliation.

Imagine then, Donald Trump rushing to tell all to the people – to address the ones who spoke against him, who campaigned for Biden – and boasting, not of himself, but of God. Think of him being astounded to hear all the things he ever did, from the lips of Christ, and not poured out in boastful pride by himself.

If you’re reading this and thinking it highly unlikely, or even impossible, that such a change could ever come to be, then you haven’t met with Christ either. 

Perhaps if we knew him better, we would not feel the need to disown our leaders with childish hashtags like ‘Not my president’. The Christian view says, ‘this is not only your President, your Prime Minister, or your First Minister , but your neighbour also’. 

It’s a challenge. Not everyone we are called on to love will be loveable. Then again, perhaps we’re not that loveable ourselves. Yet, when we were still mired in sin, Christ redeemed us.

Perhaps the miracle of power for which Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser prayed this week will come in ways that neither she, nor we, imagined. Her God does his best work with the broken and is, ultimately, the only one who can speak truth to power – for he is both, himself.

May I Speak to Whoever is in Charge?

/ posttenebrasluxweb / Leave a comment

When I was a teenager, I used to ask my father questions about God, many of which were greeted with, ‘Ist, a Shàtain’. After one such conversation, I overheard him telling my mother that my ‘atheistic streak’ worried him.

But I remember it differently. I was actually trying to better understand this God who, whatever my parents may have thought, was always real to me. So, when people question and criticise Him publicly now, I flinch and fear for them, but it also causes me to hope.

For myself, I was never further away from Him than when He was totally absent from my thoughts.

So, it doesn’t do to dismiss their challenges out of hand. If we disregard people’s concerns as foolish or wicked, there is a risk that we detract from the seriousness of the argument, or fuel the notion tha He is just a fiction and not worth defending . We may say that it is wrong to challenge God – which it is – but it is equally careless of us not to take the opportunity to increase another’s understanding of Him.

Last Sunday, in passing, I heard the familiar verse from 1 Peter ‘always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you’. Those were the same words ringing in my ears when I professed faith for the first time. In the final analysis, it all comes down to confession. I knew in my heart and soul what the Lord had done for me, and I could no longer deny it before others.

Equally, then, when someone takes it upon themselves to accuse God, am I not required to gently say, ‘no, you have that wrong’? If they are maligning Him, should I not interpret that as an opportunity to defend the reason for the hope that is in me?

When a person walks into a church (or a school, or a park) armed to the teeth and bent on murder, I do not believe that God is behind him, spurring him on. This is sin, and our Lord has nothing to do with, can have nothing to do with, sin. We are in possession of free will. If, every time I was about to commit a sin, God reached down from Heaven to stay my hand, I would no longer be free, would I?

Yet, if my fellow human being commits such an atrocity, does that not mean that I also have the same capacity for sin? What has stopped me from doing what this man did in Texas? Why do I choose to take a seat among the worshippers instead of turning the full force of anger and murderous intent upon them?

Is it my innate goodness? My kind-heartedness? My immunity from wickedness?

Of course it isn’t. It is nothing in me. Remember that old-fashioned saying, ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I’? That is the reason: His grace. You have it too, even if you don’t believe in Him, you have benefitted from His grace, just as surely as you bear His thumbprint.

After all, if this God is really a despot, why has He not already struck you down for your unbelief?

And if He really is God of all, why would you not speak to Him about what troubles you in the world?

There is a reason why the Christian response to the events of last Sunday was, ‘pray for Sutherland County’, and it isn’t anything to do with ducking the arguments about gun control. These same Christians are, in fact, praying all the time. They pray for themselves, for their families, for their friends, their colleagues, their communities – they pray for this broken, tragic world.

Even if you don’t pray yourself, there’s a good chance that someone else is doing it on your behalf. Someone who cares about you is holding you up to God’s attention and saying, ‘have mercy on them, and open their eyes’.

I could try to tell you who God is and what He is, but you wouldn’t believe me. He isn’t a cold, careless egomaniacal deity, randomly pushing people off cliffs, or sweeping them to destruction. God loves this world, and He sorrows over what we have made of it. Our purpose is, and always has been, to worship and enjoy Him. Sin, however, has so warped that relationship that we commit evil against Him daily and have the temerity then to blame our actions on Him.

If He exists, that is.

So, please, if you don’t already know, find out for yourself who He is. Talk to Him. I promise you this: He’s waiting for you to speak His name. Ask Him to reveal more of Himself to you. Pick up the Bible and read it prayerfully.

You won’t ever get to know Him by alternately denying He exists and calling Him names. And, if you’re a reasonable person, you won’t denounce Him as a fiction whilst trying to hold Him and His people responsible for all the ills of the world.

His grace has given you every chance to see Him as He really is: take it, please. We are praying that you will.