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Christ Church Morningside
Michael Paterson 15th July 2007
May our eyes and ears be open to the Living God, who is Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Seven years ago, with all the fuss about the end of one millennium and the beginning of another, I, along with many thousands of other people, took a good look at myself and decided it was time for a change. Having lived in exile in London for nearly ten years, I concluded that it was time I moved back north and so began to look around for a suitable post. In due course I was offered a job which was strictly speaking in the north - but the city of Cambridge, 52 miles to the north east of London was 350 miles short of the north I had originally had in mind. I hummed and hawed about whether to take it and received plenty of advice from friends who tried to sway me one way or the other. But while most people proffered solid rational arguments, one of my more eccentric friends firmly advised against it purely on the grounds that the countryside around Cambridge is extremely flat. Knowing my passion for hillwalking she was sure that living in such a flat environment would be bad for my health. And she was right. In those five years when I was teaching in the University I really missed the hills and glens of my native land and not just because I am addicted to walking but more importantly, because to stay sane I need the bigger picture and the broader horizons that I get from scrambling up hillsides (even in soft Scottish summer rain) for a different view of the landscape from the top. I was reminded of this the other day when a friend and I sweated our way to the top of Arthur’s seat and were rewarded with that wonderful panoramic view from the top from which you can see for miles and miles all around.
In his novel, Waterland, Graham Swift, addresses people living in the low lying Fens of East Anglia and asks: How do [you] surmount reality? How do you acquire, in a flat country, the tonic of elevated feelings? If you can look down from your Norfolk uplands and see in these level Fens … an idea, a drawing-board for your plans, you can outwit reality. But [what] if you are born in the middle of that flatness, fixed in it, glued to it even by the mud in which it abounds?[1]
I no longer live in the fens, but even here in Edinburgh, surrounded as we are with the vantage points of the Pentlands or Blackford Hill, I know just how hard it can be to step back from the immediacy of the moment – what is right bang in front of my eyes - to see things from a wider perspective. I know that when I am under stress, a thick cloud descends, the world closes in on itself and the only thing I can see is the thing that is worrying me. And when that happens, the wider view, the bigger picture goes out the window and I can’t find my way forward.
In recent weeks, it seems as if perspective – the ability to see things from the panoramic advantage of the hilltop – is in real danger of being eclipsed by a dark cloud of fear.
And yet, what I find so reassuring about being a Christian, is that VISION, the ability to see things not through the cataracts of fear but through the clear lens of faith, is rarely given to us when we are locked away in freely chosen forms of solitary confinement. But rather, Vision, the grace to see things in wider perspective is given when we peel off the masks of self sufficiency we each wear and turn to others and say ‘You are my neighbour, we belong together, I need you and I can’t make it without you’.
There’s an old Aboriginal saying: ‘If you have come to help me then you are wasting your time but if you have come, because your liberation is bound up with mine, then come, let us walk together.’
Our faith teaches that our own individual and personal liberation, our freedom, our ability to see without stumbling is indeed bound up with that of each other for we are members one of another.
The vision of Jesus and the perspective of his Kingdom is crystal clear: peace for the bewildered, healing for the sick, forgiveness for the guilt-ridden, reconciliation for the estranged, justice for the poor, and redemption for the lost. But that Vision and that perspective are not accomplished by a remote control button in heaven but by people like you and I here on earth who have signed up for the radical call of the kingdom.
Unlike life in the Fens, with Jesus nothing is flattened out but every contour elevated and seen from a new perspective. He knows our inner landscape, the quicksand and the solid rock. He knows the worries and concerns that hang over us which narrow our vision. In drawing near to us in the Scriptures and in the bread and wine, He raises our eyes from the stony path beneath us to catch a glimpse of our final destination. His Spirit offers horizon to the flatness of our sight.
Whatever we face this week, in our families, in our work places, and in our leisure, may God be with us as we try to see clearly the way forward, and may he nudge us to stand alongside those who with eyes bleary with tears or brows furrowed by fears are straining to see that despite all appearances to the contrary, God has not abandoned us, but is indeed very close and will not leave us comfortless. Amen.
Blessing May God be a bright flame above us a smooth path beneath us a kindly shepherd behind us and a clear light before us And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit come down upon us and remain with us throughout this week. Amen [1] G. Swift, Waterland (Picador 1992) p. 17
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