Feast of Saint James, Apostle

Lectionary: 605

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;

perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being given up to death
for the sake of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Saint Paul's reflection on his ministry, which we might regard as enormously successful, helps today's zealous Christian to put their own experience in perspective. If, upon coming to the end of an assignment, a significant anniversary, or retirement, we feel successful, there's probably something wrong. Our service of the Lord is not assessed by accomplishments, accolades, or success. 

If my experience is common, we remember as much confusion, uncertainty, and struggle in the darkness of controversy and conflict -- what soldiers call the fog of war -- as we do success. I often think of Thomas Hardy's line from his poem, Channel Firing. Disturbed in their graveyard by the roar of naval guns practicing,

...many a skeleton shook his head.

“Instead of preaching forty year,”

My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,

“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

(His name, of course, suggests the futility of his dull sermons as he laboriously listed his paragraphs, "firstly,... secondly,...thirdly,..." I shudder to think of how many irrelevant asides and downright idiocy might have infested my preaching.)

Life in Christ, whether we preach or listen to preaching, teach or are taught, pray or are prayed over, is Christlike; meaning it must end with a cross. Or its conclusion might not be as spectacular as Easter Morning. If Christ's death was punctuated by an eclipse of the sun and an earthquake, only the Evangelist noticed the coincidence. The rest of the world may have noticed an omen -- in those days they looked for omens in natural events -- they gave it little thought after that. 

Faith surrenders the need for assessment of one's life to the Lord. The only opinion that matters is God's, and who has known the mind of God? I sometimes remind the Lord that it's better to praise God from heaven than from hell as the psalmist says -- although that judgement too is God's business.

It is better to reside within the fog of battle, let God be the judge, and offer one's uncertainty as an evening sacrifice. 

LORD, I call to you; hasten to me;
listen to my plea when I call.
Let my prayer be incense before you;
my uplifted hands an evening offering. Psalm 141