Not for ever in green pastures …….
This simple reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent (B) is for a small group who gather once a month for worship following the Book of Common Prayer. Hymn singing is not part of what they do, except today when the focus is on the hymn Father, hear the prayer we offer as a way of a simple exploration of Jesus’s way of suffering in Mark 8:31-end.
We have prayed this morning:
Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same
We have prayed to God who shows to those in error the light of his truth that they may walk in the way of righteousness. God wants his people to walk the way of righteousness, and he gives us the means to do that.
What is the way of righteousness?
Righteousness is the translation of the Greek word in the New Testament which gives us also the word justice. In other words, that Greek word, is translated in two different ways: righteousness and justice – and can be summed up in the word rectification. So the way of righteousness is the way of rectification, the way of setting right what is wrong, the way of rectifying what is unjust. It is the way of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Another word we use is salvation. We, alongside many others, including many non-Christians lovingly long for this rectification and salvation.
And we know it’s not an easy way.
A song from the heart of the church is Father, hear the prayer we offer.
Father, hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.
In today’s gospel Peter again gets it wrong. Jesus was talking openly about how the Son of Man had to undergo great suffering, be reject and be killed, and Peter took him aside to rebuke Jesus about this. To which Jesus said to him what he’d already said to the tempter in the wilderness – “Get behind me Satan”. Peter was suggesting an easier way for Jesus. Father hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer shall be.
We went to see the film about Nicholas Winton this week – One Life. He was a stockbroker who in 1938 went to Prague to witness the plight of refugees there – people fleeing for their lives. He took an enormous risk going there. His mother didn’t want him to go. She knew how dangerous it was. She wanted an easier way for her son. But he insisted, “I have to go”.
He was horrified by what he found in Prague and immediately set about finding a way to rescue some of them. It was the plight of the children which most affected him. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to help them – nor did those who were with him. He just knew that he had to find a way – a way that would need visas, foster homes and money. Gradually he found the way and organised the trains that would rescue 669 children.
Father, hear the prayer we offer:
Not for ever in green pastures do we ask our way to be, but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly.
Esther Rantzen’s programme, That’s Life, featured his story. They invited him as a guest and in great appreciation surprised him with an audience made up of the children he had saved back in 1938. The final credits of the film One Life suggested that over 6000 people owed their life to him – taking account of the families the children he rescued went on to have. He never talked about his work. His wife only discovered what he had done when she found a scrapbook in their home many years later.
He is remembered in Israel and named as one of The Righteous among the Nations – they are non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. He is one of the righteous who followed the way of righteousness, righting wrongs in his small ways, the only ways he could.
We have heard a lot this week about the former leader of opposition to Vladimir Putin. Alexei Navalny died in his cell in his prison inside the Arctic Circle – most likely he was killed. Alexei Navalny was a Christian. The Beatitudes were his inspiration. He called them his instruction book. He was particularly inspired by the blessing on those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. That is what he did. He hungered and thirsted after righteousness, all the while knowing the risks he was running, undergoing great suffering, getting rejected, and finally being killed ….
We don’t live with the same extremes as Alexei Navalny. We are not victims of Russian imperialism, nor are we Jews facing persecution and extermination, nor are we living in Jesus’ context in Israel, where their life wasn’t their own because of the Roman occupation and the cruelty that went along with that.
We could say that we live in quieter times in this rural setting of Warwickshire – but Christian prayer isn’t about having an easy time. There is a temptation to turn our backs on the suffering world, and we can do that because we might have built up protections. It is a temptation – to turn our back, to close our eyes and to not engage our hearts and minds. We have to resist the temptation to turn our back, to turn away from trouble, and instead we need to turn to face the realities of life and engage with the suffering of those who are the victims of wrongdoing. This is the way of righteousness – making things right, righting wrongs in our own small ways.
Father, hear the prayer we offer:
Not for ever, by still waters, would we idly rest and stay.
There are two ways we can go. We can go the way of the tempter, or we can go the way of Jesus. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That’s the way of righteousness. It’s the harder way and the way that those who love us may prefer us not to follow.
Mark 8:31 – end
Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
PS I am grateful for Fleming Rutledge’s work. She is the one who has pointed out the meaning of righteousness as rectification in her book The Crucifixion.
Grits and Grains 