Education is not wisdom, just as age is not maturity. Power
and influence do not always equate with capability or competency; and
intellectual ability is not the same as understanding. But we often forget all
of these things. I am refreshed when I read the story of the Ethiopian
official. I wonder sometimes if our leaders both in Church and in society would
do well to observe the Ethiopians approach to seeking understanding. Well the
Ethiopian is a man of means, a person of influence in the court of a queen, and
he is perplexed in his attempt to grasp the deeper meaning of the sacred words
he is reading; yet he willingly opens himself to learn something new from
someone else.
In fact, he seems to understand a basic principle of a life
lived in humility. We need guides. We need mentors and conversation partners
and covenant commitments in community. We need other voices who have heard
other stories. We need other people willing to share their successes and their
failures, their faults and their virtues. None of us, no matter how educated or
powerful or influential or smart, will be able to navigate a life let alone a
life of faith on our own. And for my part, I offer my thanks to the Ethiopian,
who accepted the grace of God’s intervention in his life without asking
Philip, “Where did you earn your degree?” “What is your most recent successful
project launch?” “How long have you been in ministry?” “Who
do you know that I know?” Perhaps, instead, he simply said, “Please
share with me what you think. I want to know.”
You know as we ponder the glue that creates community and
enhances our interior life we cannot but be drawn to the love our God offers to
us and through us. Talking about the deeply interior one is lead to the
understanding that it touches the universal. It touches God and it touches us
into the depths of the love that is God. Here I am off on a little tangent
reflecting the mystical tradition of the Christian church from which I come.
Evelyn Hill once put it that the contemplative life, “with its long slow
growth and costly training,” prepares the human person for the life
of compassion, union with the Holy and with people. Life is grounded in
community— a vineyard of neighbour planted with neighbour.
We can then say that vines and root systems enmesh. We drink
the same water and breathe the same air. Humans live in overlapping spheres of
human interaction in one global community and an increasingly fragile
ecosystem. Jesus taught that you can’t love God and not strive to love
others. “What you have done to the least of these”
links us completely and totally to God. But growing in love is extremely difficult,
often stunted through false starts, twisted mistakes, and well-meaning
disasters. If we factor in poverty, addictions, mental illness, disordered loves—
wilful, ignorant, and biological we could get horribly depressed about our
chance of failing our God and not receiving his love. Then add the usual
character flaws of greed and envy and fear.
Also note what happens to the human person during war, famine,
displacement, stress of all kinds. Every stress affects every part of the vine.
You are not born mastering or being an expert at the impossible standard of
loving neighbour as yourself, loving enemies, honouring the stranger in your
midst, and laying down your life for your friends. Those lessons come at a
cost, often through tragedy and pain, a tremendous suffering for such awakening
and growth — a life lived in God’s love and on our journey of faith is a
long, slow growth with often costly training.
There is much pruning, practice and prayer. Love’s impossible
enterprise finds nourishment deep in the darkness of Divine Love where we find the
strength to bear blights. The times when we might have too much rain and too
little sun, or too much sun and not enough rain.
Love demands deep roots for the length of days to withstand
generations of love’s disasters. Where do we find such a love to strengthen and
support us on the journey? Like me I hope and pray you will find it in our God.
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