My year as Moderator will finish around June, officially at the June Presbytery meeting, but there are a few tasks after that date still to do. On Communion Sunday afternoon I will head to the City Chambers and lead a reflection as part of Glasgow Churches Together.
The email popped into my Church of Scotland Account.
It was from Elspeth, the Ecumenical Officer at the Presbytery Offices. ‘Here is the suggested reading for the 7th,’ she wrote. ‘It’s John 14… ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ I was tempted to send back. ‘I am still hurting.’
I won’t spoil your summer returning to the major decisions wrongly given that stopped my beloved team from winning the title, but on this Pentecost Day and now long season, I want you to think about winning and losing!!
Those of you who know me well will agree with my need to win a treasure hunt, a Quiz Night, a game of dominoes, or even making sure that I am not the one who will knock down the Jenga tower. This need might have come from having an older brother and the competition that ensues with a sibling rivalry.
They do say a fear of failure is a malaise that particularly applies to people in jobs where a person controls his or her own time and workload.
Those who are really fearful choose occupations where they can really push themselves because you yourself are always so much more demanding than even the most exacting boss.
The other side of the so-called ‘driven personality’ is the determination to win through because failure is so fearsome. This is a personal quality that pushes a person on when others might say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t really matter, let’s go with the flow.’ Yet, of course, this isn’t just a clergy disease. For so many people life has too many failures and too many fears of failing further. Too many struggle to find a sense of their own worth, and too many are haunted by anxiety.
But Pentecost brings healing.
On that first day of the week the disciples were locked in, for fear of their neighbours. Had it been worthwhile leaving so much to follow Jesus? The crowds’ adulation as he rode into Jerusalem had so soon turned sour. They had run away. Peter had tried not to, but at a crucial point he failed to stand up for Jesus too. The women’s stories of Jesus risen seem too good to be true. Surely it wasn’t only Thomas who doubted? What were they supposed to do now? Locked in for fear. It’s possible to read the story of the church as one of unrelenting triumph – and in a sense it is – but it is triumph that is born out of defeat, failure, weakness and anxiety. And I really do mean ‘born’ out of.
On Pentecost the Holy Spirit brings something to stir, encourage and renew the defeated. They communicate in ways they could not have imagined only minutes earlier. They were heard in a way they had never been heard before. They find a new hope of fulfilment; new ways to cope (at least for the time being, and the time being is enough – one day at a time). This little band that had been from triumph to despair and back again – this motley crew of labourers, quislings, would-be terrorists, women of ill repute, fishermen and country traders became those on whom the Spirit was poured. And this brought amazing new possibilities – cower no longer, hide no more.
Ours is a God who finds us a way through life’s mazes; who untangles the knots of our fears, anxieties and failures; a God who opens the channels that we thought certainly blocked; who weaves a pattern of beauty, hope and meaning from our chaos. That’s what he did on Pentecost – that’s what his Pentecostal Spirit does now.
So, however your day is today, or the holidays to come, success or failure, the Spirit is with you, bringing healing and hope.
It is an old phrase that tells us that the strength of a person is often seen best getting up from being knocked down and standing tall after the wind has been knocked out of you.
I hold on to that in the Pentecostal season and in the football season to come!!
Have a restful time, near or far.
Your friend and minister,
George C Mackay