Thou shalt not……
There was a time when
the Ten Commandments were written at the East end of most churches and taught
to children and Confirmation candidates. They were seen as integral to the
vision of the Christian faith which was to guide us through life.
For good or ill, you
rarely see the commandments written large on church walls now. I think it is to
do with the way that people have found the picture of God too forbidding with
all those Thou Shalt Nots, and that the emphasis on restrictions paints a one-sided
view of faith. It is more fulfilling to be encouraged to live lovingly, to care
for others, to forgive, to do to others as you would have them do to you.
We are currently
being told very strongly by secular authorities that “Thou Shalt Not”. Given
the seriousness of the situation it makes sense that we should stay at home and
be wary of contact with others for a while. Intriguingly it is being met with a
mixture of acceptance by most people, denial by a small group and seemingly an
offhand lack of concern by quite a few people: It applies to others, but not to
me. We don’t generally like being told what to do even when it is for our own
good.
God’s way of being is
a positive way, of outgoing, sacrificial love. Jesus came to do the will of the
Father and, for example, gave the Beatitudes at the Sermon on the Mount : “Blessed are……..”.
We are loved! He does pass judgment on hypocritical, self-satisfied, uncaring
people but he is clear that he is inviting them to follow the way of the
Kingdom. Faith is not about fear or self-righteousness – it responds to God’s
love and looks to the needs of others.
Seeing the high
infection rate and the highest daily death toll thus far, there are clearly a
lot of Shalts happening when, in Elizabethan English, they Shouldest Not. Today
we took the decision to close All Saints again for the coming weeks, a very
hard choice which goes against my instincts and preferences, but the risks are
too high. Worship and love of God is about our deepest feelings and our ethical
stance in life: perhaps we can see it as not so much “not meeting” as “caring
and protecting” until we can feel safe in this world, even as we live in the
way we are called by God as inheritors of joy and peace in the next.
No comments:
Post a Comment