FALLING from GRACE?

“The Rector’s Page” from the Parish Magazine, February 2006

There was something of a “feeding-frenzy” for the news-papers, and for television and political commentators early in January, when Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat Leader, acknowledged publicly his difficulties with alcohol. For a while he was determined to continue, or at least announce his candidature in a leadership contest, but in a few days it was thought best to resign his position. I’m not intending to comment in any detail on Charles Kennedy’s situation and I’m not a Liberal Democrat, but I am sure I was not the only person worried, saddened and at times shocked by the way he was treated in the media. Whether or not he was right to step down, we need to distinguish between the role of a leader (whatever that might be) and the individual who, inevitably inadequately, tries to fulfil it.

As I read the comments and editorials in the “broadsheet” papers that weekend (and I confess I did read them, like many others) I was struck by the lack of compassion. There were serious political issues to be sure, and questions about how and when personal difficulties should be made perfect but there was almost no recognition of how a capable and able politician and human being might now be feeling, and how long he must have struggled with his difficulties and burdens. Many were the questions of suitability; few were the comments on the stresses and burdens faced by those with overwhelming responsibilities.

Christians, I hope, would hear the many stories of “falls from grace” (sic), with more understanding. Given that at the heart of our faith is the image of the God who in Jesus becomes as we are, and enters into solidarity with us, then there is, I trust, the incentive to do likewise. The Gospels record the compassion of Jesus in his human nature, revealing the divine compassion, acceptance and love – we are told that “he knew what was in man” (John 2:25). That means that we are known right to the very depths, he is the one, as the Collect for Purity has it, “to whom all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hidden” . We are known to our very depths, even our darkest places, and we are loved. That surely means that the community of Christ, his body, should be learning to do the same. Spirituality, the journey into God, will reveal to us our depths and the depths of his love, and as we know those depths we will learn to understand them and accept their presence in others. Compassion is costly, its root meaning is “suffering with”; it is not pity or sympathy, but something more radical – a desire to understand and, if practical, to accompany someone into the depths.

When someone we know is not managing, perhaps failing to cope with workload or expectations or circumstances, and is going askew, and astray, how do we respond ? Even if we don’t actually condemn or reject or avoid, we tend just to give advice, rather than be alongside, and suffer with and accompany into the depths. And then we find that their experience rings bells with our own, and we begin to understand. As someone has said (and I can’t find the source of the quotation, I know only that it is French) “To understand all is to forgive all” You can find all this well argued and given a global as well as a personal perspective in the Dominican Friar Matthew Fox’s engagingly off-beat book “A Spirituality named Compassion” (Harper 1990)

And the Christian knows that in those depths, as much as in our heights, God will be found. The Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection of Jesus are images of God, and there is nowhere he has not been, and where we will not find him, even the places we fear and dare not go. Whenever Palm 139 occurs in the Church’s daily prayer, I find it is a great encouragement and comfort to read it – wherever we go, whatever we may be feeling about ourselves or our situation, the Lord is there, to hold us and love us. And it is only in meeting him in those places that we will begin to receive his healing.

And when we know that we are not up to the mark ? When we know that we haven’t got it all together yet ? When we begin to recognise the stresses and tensions that surround our lives ? Well, that should not surprise us either, nor discourage us, for the Christian conviction is that God does not wait for us to be perfect in our own, or anyone else’s eyes, or even his eyes before he uses us and works in us. A very precious verse for anyone in Christian ministry (and that is all of us) is Paul’s precious testimony: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us”. (2 Cor. 4:7) I am grateful to God for the earthen vessels that have conveyed God’s love to me in my Christian journey so far. None have been perfect, some have been awkward, others difficult, but all have been bearers of Christ to me. Our God uses the broken, the incomplete and imperfect - he uses you and me……

Roger Clarke, Feb 2006