Thought for the Month August 2024

How should I live? It is the perennial question that keeps us coming back to the Bible, listening to preachers and (hopefully!) reading Cooksmill Thoughts for the Month. Lucky Ephesians then who, in the set Epistle for 4^th August, get a master-class on the subject from St. Paul.

Paul begins by praising the virtues of gentleness, humility and patience; these might at first sight be considered as inner qualities – well, up to a point. You often have to be patient about or with someone; and sometimes you have to be patient with a much wider group or an institution. It could be said, for example, that if we were more patient with, and less vitriolic about, our elected representatives, they would function better and others, possibly better, might be encouraged to come forward. Gentleness and humility too mean overcoming our genetic predisposition to fight our own corner regardless. These three sisters sound easy to tick off, but try to focus on putting them into practice and you soon find out that without the help of God they are a (worthwhile) challenge.

Peace is a similarly ambivalent quality, one that perhaps most profoundly we wish for in our lives, particularly their spiritual side. Paul though talks of a “bond of peace” – this is more than simply sharing our own inner sense of peace, but actively pursuing it and seeking to build it in our relationships with others, in the networks of our daily lives and, beyond, in our local communities and nationally and internationally. We live in a chain of being that has some strong links, some weak, some broken, some to be reforged. God is above us, his children; God is within us, individuals; God is through us, the human race. We come into being through him; he shares in our humanity through his incarnation as Christ; but it is up to us to foster and share the gifts of the Spirit around us. This is true both in the wider sense but also in the way that our individual talents can contribute to the spiritual growth of our church and society. We are called upon to act, to build faith and unity.

Paul’s comments on truth are ones likely to resonate particularly with us across the centuries. Just check into any social media and you will be bombarded with “every wind of doctrine, people’s trickery, craftiness in deceitful scheming”. Paul calls on us to become mature Christians, to grow up and into Christ: so being truth-full is not just about not telling lies but actively combating untruth wherever we find it in its multitudinous forms in our society. Hatred, contempt, prejudice, these are diseases: Christ calls us to be well: each individual part of his body “working properly, promoting the growth of the body, building it up through love”.

Jesus through his death, resurrection and ascension “made captivity captive”: it is through his grace that we find meaning and release and purpose in our lives.

Or, if this Thought had been written in the seventeenth century by Thomas Traherne, you might be reading this:

Can you be holy without accomplishing the end for which you are created? Can you be righteous, unless you be just in rendering to things their due esteem? All things were made to be yours, and you were made to prize them according to their value: this is your office and your duty, the means by which you enjoy the life for which you were created. By prizing all that God hath done, you may enjoy life and Him in blessedness.

David