Lectionary
reading: Romans 12.1-8
Recently,
Jo and I, along with two of our three children, took a week staying at a
self-catering holiday cottage. I say cottage; it was, in fact, an industrial
building sitting over a drain.
Which
doesn’t sound very appealing. Let me explain.
It
was located on fenland, where farming land lies below sea-level. The fields have
a network of drains, that feed into the Mother Drain, a waterwork the width of
a canal but deeper and without narrow boat traffic—as such, it provides a key
habitat for certain species, including the kingfisher. The building was a
former pump house, in fact two, one on either side of the drain, formerly used
to pump excess water from the drain into the river that runs alongside it at a slightly
higher altitude. The buildings themselves had been converted into a beautiful home,
one side occupied permanently by the owners and the other side let out to
guests. The outside is industrial, the inside, full of natural light. It was in
the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do except sit on the patio and read and
keep an eye out for sight of a kingfisher, fishing from a perfect branch set on
two iron prongs rising just above the water.
And
finally, on the last morning, I saw one, flying down the canal towards its
perch, but then—perhaps it saw me—turning in mid flight and flying off in the
direction from which it came. It was fleeting. But it took my breath away.
The
Anglican poet priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote As kingfishers catch fire:
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
All
creation does as it was created to do, being itself, unique and precious, to
the glory of God. The human, alone, struggles with this, or perhaps finds it
too lowly; we seem hell-bent on making people conform to the spirit of the age.
But the good news is that we are not abandoned to our fate or judged on our
best efforts.
Paul,
writing to the church in Rome, declares,
‘Do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and
acceptable and perfect.’
Don’t
allow yourself to be moulded from the outside in, by a fearful, hostile world
that seeks to put wonder to death, but be transformed from the inside out, by Christ
at work in us, and through us. Like an old industrial building being given a
new life full of light and beauty and offered as a place of rest and recreation
in the world.
When
we offer ourselves to God—our bodies, as a living sacrifice—we become a place
in the world where Christ plays, childlike, trusting, beloved. When we speak
hope that brings life, when we serve others, when we teach wisdom, when we
encourage the weary, when we are generous with our time or money or material
possessions or words, when we model faithfulness in our relationships, when we respond
to the hurting with compassion—it is Jesus himself doing these things,
transforming us from the inside out, and the world through us.
For
this we were made, and this we proclaim. May your eyes be opened to see how and
where Christ is, and wants to be, at play among us, today and through the
coming week.
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