Ordinary XXIX: Faithful persistence not magical expectations
A prominent theme running through the readings this morning reminds us of the importance of perseverance in the story of God’s people and in the life of every person of faith. In the Old Testament reading from Exodus Moses aids the cause of the Israelites as he raises his staff. When he holds the staff aloft the people take charge of the battle. But he tires and so he must sit on the rock found by his attendants. The battle wears on and Moses cannot even hold up his arms unaided.
Psalm 121 pictures the traveller who looks at the journey ahead of him and sees the hills. The hills mean hardship – not just the difficulty of negotiating rough terrain but also the hills that conceal other dangers such as bands of robbers and thieves. He asks where he will find help for the journey. The response is immediate – it is the Lord who gives courage for the journey.
The theme of perseverance continues in the New Testament reading. Addressing a younger pastor facing the challenges of ministry the writer offers this encouragement: “But as for you continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of…” Then finally comes the story of the persistent widow who will not let up on the judge until she gets justice. He relents not because his vocation is to dispense the justice of God, nor because he feels compassion for the woman not even to make people think well of him. He relents so he can return to his selfish peace and quiet. God would have justice distributed much more swiftly but the corrupt and selfish desires of human beings often get in the way.
We might honestly prefer that God magically sweeps aside our enemies, smooths out our hardships, eliminates our pastoral challenges and brings about immediate justice rather than allowing corruption and self-interest to get in the way. However what we often mean when we think like this is that we would like the created order to bend to our desires and self-interest rather than those of others. We can quite easily mistake faith for expectations of magic outcomes.
I use magic here to describe when we try to manipulate the world around us so that our will is done. In contrast we live by faith when we are prepared to sacrifice our desires in seeking the will of God for our lives. These are very different ways of approaching life and it is not always easy to discern between them.
Years ago I was confronted with an important lesson in the perils of magical expectations. I remember seeing a movie in which one of the peripheral characters left a lasting impression on me. The movie was set in the first century and, as I remember it, the plot focused on a search for the Holy Grail. One of the characters was a magician or a sorcerer, I think his name was Simon. Simon made a living deluding people with his magic. He was very good at what he did, but he wasn’t really a magician he was more of an early chemist or engineer. He used his potions and inventions to mystify his audiences. Then he announced his greatest trick. He told his devotees that he was going to fly. What he was really intending to do was to astonish the audience with his ingenuity. He built a tower taller than had ever been built to that time and he cast a long thin metal rod stronger than anything anyone had manufactured before. He was going to attach the metal rod to the top of the tower and slide himself out to the end of the rod. The crowds looking up from below would not be able to see the rod and so it would look like to them as though he had taken flight.
The day came for Simon’s “flight”. The crowds gathered expectantly. Simon donned his specially made flying suit. He climbed the tower and surveyed the adoring crowds below. Then it came to him, “Wait a minute. I’m Simon the great magician. I don’t need these props. If I say I’m going to fly then that’s what I’ll do!” He launched himself from the tower - and plunged to his death far below. Even then I can remember thinking, “If only he had stuck to his plan he would have had it made.” It was much later when I thought, “If only he had used his evil genius for good.”
By making this distinction between faith and magic I’m not suggesting that it is futile to lay our needs or even our deepest desires before God hoping for intervention or even a miracle. On the contrary. Our readings tell us of people in need of help that could only be met beyond their own resources: Moses longs for the promised land, the Psalmist longs for a safe arrival, the Pastor longs to encourage a younger colleague, and the widow longs for justice. We need to ask ourselves what it is we are longing for. What is it we are longing for?
One man whose life exemplifies this seeking to be honest before God about his deepest longings is St John Henry Cardinal Newman. Cardinal Newman was canonised as a Saint of the Church last Sunday. John Henry Newman’s life spanned nearly the whole of the 19th century. He was born in 1801 and died in 1890. The spiritual milestones of his life included an early influence of evangelicalism that could not quench his suspicion that the human heart could be deceptive. He came to believe that some objective authority was needed to direct and correct the human spirit.
He became a fellow of Oriel College Oxford and in the course of his academic efforts had worked himself to near exhaustion. To recuperate he travelled to Italy. It was during his return journey he wrote the poem, Lead Kindly Light. He arrived in England six days before John Keble preached the famous sermon “Assize sermon” in 1833 incited by the British Government’s attempt to restructure of the Church of Ireland. This was a watershed moment for Newman and for him it marked the beginning of the Oxford Movement. Newman relished his work in the production of the Tracts for the Times.
THE following Tracts were published with the object of contributing something towards the practical revival of doctrines, which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few who still adhere to them. [Tracts for the Times, Avertisement]
He wrote or edited many of them - most controversially, Tract 90 written in 1841. He was condemned for the comparisons he drew between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. This was criticism he was not prepared for and was an important event leading to his relinquishing the Living at St Mary’s Oxford and his conversion to Catholicism in 1845. He continued in his life-long struggle to express the eternal truths of God in an age when the very notion of truth seemed to be shifting. He suffered many setbacks in his lifetime. He was rejected by many Anglicans as a Jesuit spy and many Roman Catholics were suspicious of conversion. His conversion to Roman Catholicism was no magical solution to faith challenges. However, towards the end of his life two honours lifted his spirits enormously. He was made an honorary fellow of Trinity College Oxford and in 1879 Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal. On receipt of his Cardinal’s red hat he said: “Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril…Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God.” [Biglietto Speech]
Now John Henry Cardinal Newman has been declared a saint. The influence of his writings was felt in the council of Vatican II to the point he was known as the council’s “invisible father”. In 1964 Pope Paul VI said of Newman that he, “…traced an itinerary the most toilsome but also the greatest, the most meaningful, the most conclusive, that human thought ever travelled during the last century…to arrive at the fullness of wisdom and peace.” Quoted in David L. Edwards, Christian England, Volume Three, p. 187 &193.
The readings today alert us to the reality that the life of faith is a life of persistence and not of magical expectations. Yes, let us hope and pray for success, for safe travels, for peaceful lives, for justice and even for miracles, but let us also be persistent in our faith and discerning in what we long for. As the widow of the Gospel story and the life of St John Henry Cardinal Newman bear witness, it is in persistence that real and lasting fruit is born.