As in the days of Guy Fawkes, the nation is in a ‘bit of a mess’ and most people seem to want someone to blame. I say ‘someone’, but I really think there are more people involved than just the few we hear about. The truth is that not one of us is blameless when it comes to actions and words adversely affecting others.
For how many years have leaders we elected been corrupted by power, if not totally then to the extent that we need to replace them? However, our nation is more than just the balance sheet of the pluses and minuses of individual sins. The Britain we inherited is Greater than the sum of its parts.
The same is true of the continent of Europe. We are all socially shaped by the democratic experiments of the ancient Greeks, also the Hebrews who tried to order their lives from a set of ten divinely given ethical commandments. Their inherent basic values then taken up by Christians.
Therefore, our civilisation today is the Sum of the parts of millions of our ancestors including as the church puts it, “The Communion of Saints”.
We today are fools if we try to ignore or rewrite the complex history of our civilisation which is the soil in which we were germinated and out of which we grew. Neglect that soil and, like the farmer who ignores his soil, it will feed one generation only. There will be no soil for those who follow. “It will be as dust to dust blowing in the wind.”
However, we can change our leaders every five years and, until that time we generally follow the words of Jesus and, “Render up to Caesar that which is Caeser’s and unto God that which is God’s.” Sometimes we get leaders who do the will of God by accident or design but when they don’t; to paraphrase St Paul, we still have a Christian duty to our neighbours and our rulers.
Many of our Greek and Judaic-Christian rights are now being challenged by people who think they know better than the wisdom absorbed into history. So, whilst we still have freedom of speech and freedom of worship; I can ask you not to be deceived into making idols of political policies, targets and government organisations or bend our knees or lift our souls in their worship.
The Highest ‘good’ it is possible for a human to attain, is the Holiness needed to meet the first Commandment given to the. prophet Moses. There are lots of lesser ‘goods’ to be striven for, such as the Welfare of the body the mind and the soul, the Brotherhood of nations the Development of the intellect and the Stewardship of the Earth: But, given that mankind is capable of Eternal Life and that we know the way to its attainment: we would do well to put the highest possible good at the top of our aspirations.
The first commandment is to love God is at the forefront of the lives of Monks, Nuns, Sages and Prophets. That life is for some, but for the rest we can have the same focus on holiness simply by trusting the words of Jesus that: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth. So each day for us in faith, and each deed becomes a step towards the holiness needed for eternal life with our maker.
But talking of our Omnipresent God, I recall the first time I heard the joke about a vicar leaning over a garden gate and praising the gardener saying what a ‘fine thing the man and God had created.’ The reply being, Ah, but ye should have seen it when God had it on his own: It was at the end of the war and my grandfather and uncle were planting potatoes in a family allotment.
Great uncle George was a Methodist preacher who told me about Adam being given the Stewardship of the Garden of Eden and that he was permitted to name the plants. But that as soon as Adam thought he knew better than God, he lost his celestial Garden however …………..
God then gave him an earthly one, but he had to dig it himself.
This taught me to be very careful when men think they know better than God.
“The Earth is the Lord’s and the Fullness thereof.” We are Stewards not owners.
View from the Pew 