Words for Worship
Ministry Today
Texts:
John 12.23-28
2 Cor. 12.6-10
After a week in Edinburgh
for the General Assembly,
I felt that its sunny disposition
and architecture
did allow it to live up
to its sobriquet of
the Athens of the North.
But the shoving
in the bus queues
less reflected
its other moniker –
the Glasgow of the east.
Yet our capital does
outdo its bigger neighbour
in the beauty of its districts’ names.
After all, who can doubt
Cramond
Overshadows
Nitshill?
One such Edinburgh name
with definite class
is Juniper Green.
And it there
we must go
on a wintry Sabbath
in February, 1892.
Because on that day,
250 people
trudged through heavy snowdrifts
to hear
their new kirk’s opening sermon
by the well known preacher and hymn writer,
the Rev George Mathieson.
But what was even more remarkable
was that Mathieson
got there himself.
Since, he was blind.
For Dr Matheson
had partial vision
as a boy and by the time
he was 18,
he was completely blind.
This must have been
a huge blow
to a gifted scholar.
Nevertheless he held
to his resolve
to enter the ministry.
And so gave himself
relentlessly
to theological and historical study
at that great college of knowledge –
Glasgow University.
Not only that but
rather like Paul,
he somehow
used his physical handicap
to advantage God
instead of it being
a cause of bitterness.
And so when
he turned his hand
to hymn writing,
we must admire him
when he said –
my writing is the "fruit of much mental suffering.".
Nevertheless when we sing his works
we are all too aware
of a certain paradox
in them
that such beauty and comfort
could come out of suffering
and the ugliness of disease
And this amalgam of opposites
is never more obvious
than in his most famous hymn –
O love that wilt not let me go.
For it was written
on the day of his sister's marriage;
a sister to whom
he was utterly devoted
and greatly dependant upon.
Now this occasion
must have been
a celebration to him
but also one
that was worrying personally.
However, he rose to it by writing:
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe
,That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
Then again, just as good drama
has the paradox of comedy
and tragedy in it;
we also see Mathieson’s
balance of opposites
in the teaching of Christ
and the letter of Paul.
The opposites
we hear of
in kernels dying and being reborn.
The paradoxes
we wonder at
in Paul’s thinking
that his suffering was a gift.
Nevertheless, these are the very conflicts
we all feel too
in our lives
from time to time.
The days which encompass
openings and closures,
laughter and tears;
births and grieving.
And this inner struggle
is never more disturbing
than when
we ourselves
only want to see one side of it;
when we want only
wine and roses
and never taste the ashes.
And in a way this is a sort of blindness.
Therefore, it is the challenging
of this blindness
that maybe
is one of
the greatest powers of hymns.
For their top performers
start us
to see things
we want to be blind too.
The sort of conflicting truths
we would rather not see in:
O Light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
Yet simply perceiving
this perplexing balance
between the cheerful and concerning
in itself
is not much progress.
For we can only make our way
through our confusion
by grasping the idea
that Paul goes on
to present to us.
Since he is saying
if we have enough faith,
we can turn weakness
into strength
and we can accept
the thorn a
s a flower of huge beauty.
We can even embrace something,
which on the face of it
is unpalatable,
as indeed a gift of God.
And that surely
was the aim and purpose
of Mathieson
when he wrote:
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain
, and feel the promise is not vain
that morn shall tearless be.
It seems just yesterday,
but it wasn’t.
It was,
when as a small boy
on holiday
in Lairg in Sutherland,
I used to be taken
to the shin falls.
Because I can clearly remember
going down the steep path
towards the coco-cola brown waters
tumbling down
the waterfall
and its deep black pool below.
But that alone
was not why
we had come there.
It was to watch
the silver flash of salmon
jumping
time and time again
against the helter-skelter cascade.
I recall also thinking
why do they bother?
Well those fish
were purely
following their instinct
to return to the place
of their birth.
For, they would have spent
a few years
out in the ocean.
But then
they were compelled
to swim thousands of miles
back to their home river
to spawn.
And so they ended
their long laborious journey
by digging a hole
and laying their eggs.
But then their life was over
and they would expire.
Nevertheless,
out of those eggs
came new life.
In straight talking, it is only
through an ending
is there a new beginning
among the salmon.
Here then in stark terms
in the palatable truth
presented to us
in Christ’s words to us today.
It is a truth hinted at
by Paul speaking
to the Corinthians.
It is also a truth
that we acknowledge
in part of
this morning’s sacrament.
For it is often only
when things come to a halt
does a new direction open up;
it is only in loss
do we find gain
and it is only in rendering up
do we received back in full measure.
Well, George Mathieson
once remarked
about his writing
of O love that wilt not let me go
in this fashion.
"I am quite sure that the whole work
was completed in five minutes,
and equally sure
that it never received
at my hands
any retouching or correction.
I have no natural gift of rhythm.
All the other verses
I have ever written
are manufactured articles;
this came
like a dayspring from on high."
Yet it was that
day spring from on high too
that helped George Mathieson
cope with the paradoxes
of the thorn of failing eyesight
and his outstanding ability
with the pen.
And it is that
day spring from on high
that also allows
every human to accept
and even celebrate life’s opposites
and contradictions.
May then every hymn we sing
release that same day spring of faith
so that we also
can face
our strengths and weakness,
endings and beginnings,
life and life ever more.
And so let us
with anticipated understanding,
certainty and joy,
sing:
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms
red Life
that shall endless be.
Amen
Offering
Hymn………..
George Mathieson