Autumn Days and Loving Others

It had obviously settled in for the day. Grey clouds, no rain, but damp; one of those days which never really get light. It would have been so easy to focus on the negative, to moan about how dreary a day it was. But then you turn a corner and the most astounding tree appears, the leaves shining red, standing out far more against the grey backdrop than they might have done in the sun. The colours on the trees this year are amazing; yellows, golds, reds and oranges blazing, whatever the weather. On a grey day, it would be so easy to forget this, and focus on the dull, drear darkness, the lack of light, which can be a real problem. But that does not take away from the fact that this season of the year has its’ own beauty. The trees as the leaves blow away reveal their own particular structure. I remember Sr Daphne saying how much she loved the trees in winter, for she could see their form. I have never forgotten that, and she is absolutely right. We can focus on the bareness, the deadness of winter, or we can look at the beauty that is revealed then.

The idea of focus, and what we concentrate on is wider than this, though. We can focus on our neighbours, on our churches, and on our society: on the negatives or the positives. We can judge our neighbour for their irritating traits, or we can encourage them in their gifts … we can, of course, do both. Just as we can take a grey Autumn day and acknowledge its truth: that it can be dull and depressing, but it can also reveal the beauty of the changing leaves, so we can also acknowledge our neighbours, our churches as they are, without narrowing our focus so much that some of their truth is lost. All Saints-tide might be a good time to look at this. Too much of a negative focus can drag individuals and churches down, can almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy; too much of a positive focus may ignore very real problems that could be developing. The truth is that most of us will be exactly like a grey Autumn day … neither perfect nor totally bad, just a mixture: human. We get things wrong, we mess up … but we also get things right, we can be successful, we do have gifts.

Why is All Saints a good time to focus on this? Just because it is at this time of year that we celebrate the Saints; those on earth and those who have gone before us. It is at this time of year that we celebrate not individual Saints, but the whole company of Saints, the body of Christ. It is so easy to look at this or that Saint and think: yes, but I cannot do that. I remember being told once that the Saints are often far more aware of their sin than most people. It is not that they are less sinful than us, or that they are more sinful; it is that their focus on God makes them more aware of their failings - presumably (how would I know?). But we are back to focus again. Focus on God.

To focus on God means to focus on love; it is so much easier not to. To not believe that we are loved that much (with all the implications of that); to believe that our neighbour is loved that much (which brings its’ own implications). To divert our focus from God; to focus on either the negative or the positive is to lose our focus, to lose something of what is. The fact is that we follow a God of love. Not one who ignores the fact of sin, or who pretends it does not matter, but still one who loves. Looking at Jesus, he was prepared to call out people who were in the wrong - see Matthew chapter 23, for example. But while they come across as strong denunciations, they do not come across as negative judging of others. There is also evidence that Jesus ate with Pharisees (see Luke 7:36-50), so he was not against them. I’ve always felt that the ‘woe to you pharisees and scribes’ passages may have had two purposes: to warn others about this standard of behaviour, and to encourage the Pharisees and Scribes themselves to change their ways. While Jesus was well able to point out unhelpful behaviour, he did not write off the individuals themselves as beyond the pale.

But do we? It is so easy to gather in our groups and condemn x or y for a failure; to complain about an individual, who may be difficult but whose behaviour we may be making worse by condemning it (either by increasing the behaviour or by making it more difficult to handle). To criticise others, to exclude them, can make us feel as though we belong, but it is a precarious way of belonging, for we have to work to ensure we remain part of the ‘in’ group.  We can also cover up our own negative feelings towards ourselves by projecting them onto others; judging others can make us feel better about ourselves anyway. It means we are the morally righteous ones, apart from the one who has failed. Does any of this sound like the Church? Should it?

This is not to say that there should be no discipline; there absolutely should be, and there have been times when we have failed at this. But to fail at discipline is also to fail at love. The love that God has reaches beyond those who do right to those who have fallen in the depths of their sin. God has never pretended that sin does not exist. To fail to discipline those who need it is to fail to love the victims and sufferers of their behaviour. But it is also to fail to love those who have sinned. The love that this involves may well go far beyond most of us, but it brings us back to focus. Can we focus more on the love of God? Can we accept the love of God for each one of us? Can we go out into the world in the Spirit of that love, to pass it on to each of those we meet?