Historical Appendix 3: Reflections of an Octogenarian

HISTORICAL APPENDIX 3

Reflections of an Octogenarian

(27 April 2001)

I celebrated my 80th birthday on 27 April 2001. One of the chief vices of the elderly is the tendency to reminisce. We seem to enjoy inflicting our memories on our hapless victims. Please therefore forgive me if in this chapter the personal pronoun is too prominent, and if I share with you just three convictions of this octogenarian.

The first is a conviction about priorities. I was appointed Rector of All Souls at the tender age of 29. I was much too young and inexperienced for such a heavy responsibility, and very soon everything got on top of me. The urgent regularly crowded out the important, and events would overtake me for which I was unprepared. I began to suffer the characteristic clerical nightmare: I was half way up the pulpit steps when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to prepare a sermon. I guess that at that time I was not far from a nervous breakdown.

Then one day in the early 1950s I attended a day conference for clergy. One of the speakers was the Reverend L. F. E. Wilkinson, Principal of Oak Hill Theological College. I remember nothing of his address except one detail. He recommended every pastor to take a quiet day once a month, to go right away from church and parish, to allow God to draw him up into his heart and mind, to look at things from the divine perspective, to focus on the important and to adjust his priorities accordingly.

This commonsense advice came to me as a message from God. It was exactly what I needed to be told, and I immediately put it into practice. I returned home and went through my engagement book for the rest of the year, and wrote “Q” for “quiet” against one day every month.

Then, when my “Q” day arrived, I would leave early for the home of friends. They would put a room at my disposal, bring me something to eat at meal times, and otherwise leave me alone. Only my secretary knew where I was in case of an emergency. I would get ten to twelve hours to myself.

I would keep for my monthly “Q” day everything which needed uninterrupted time—time to look ahead for the next few weeks and months; time to see where I was going and what had to be prepared; time to pray over some intractable problem; time to reflect on the policy and program of the church; time to draft some difficult letters; time to sketch an outline of a series of sermons; time to write an article; and especially time to be quiet, to seek God’s mind, and to discern his perspective.

All I can say is that this little prudential arrangement saved my life and my ministry. The burden of responsibility was lifted. Although I was still challenged by the job, I was not over-whelmed by it. In fact, so valuable did my monthly “Q” day become that later, when I was exceptionally busy, I had a “Q” day every two weeks, and even every week.

Secondly, let me share with you a conviction about obedience. John 14:21 is one of my favorite verses. Here are the words of Jesus: “Whoever has my commandments and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

This verse ends with a particularly precious promise: “I will show myself to him (or her)”, or “I will manifest myself to him.” Is not this just what we are longing for, namely a clearer vision of Christ? Sometimes we do not sense his presence, and our vision is blurred. We may know the words of a rather old-fashioned prayer:

Lord Jesus, make yourself to me

A living bright reality;

More present to faith’s vision keen

Than any outward object seen,

More dear, more intimately nigh

Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie.

But this promise of Jesus is conditional. He reveals himself only to his lovers. And who are his lovers? Not those who make loud protestations of love, and then go out like Peter to deny him. Not those who sing rather sentimental songs “Jesus, I love you.” (It is all right, I sing them too, but they do not prove anything.) No, those who truly love the Lord Jesus are those who obey his commandments.

To sum up, the test of love is obedience, and the reward of love is a self-manifestation of Christ.

My third conviction concerns humility. No temptation is stronger or subtler than the insidious temptation to pride. Pastors and other church leaders are especially vulnerable, for we are always in the limelight. Our elevated pulpit is a dangerous place for any child of Adam to occupy. Our leadership easily degenerates into either autocracy or person pleasing. We need constantly to remember that Jesus introduced into the world a new style of servant leadership:

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. (Mark 10:42-44)

As the New Testament scholar T. W. Manson summed it up: “In the Kingdom of God service is not a stepping-stone to nobility. It is nobility, the only nobility which is recognised.”

But how can this be? One thing I have learned is that humility is not a synonym for hypocrisy; it is, rather, another word for honesty. Humility is not pretending to be other than we are, but acknowledging the truth of what we are.

Michael Ramsey, an earlier Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke some wise and eloquent words about humility to a group of people on the eve of their ordination:

In conclusion, it is at the cross of Christ that humility grows. As Emil Brunner wrote, other religions spare us the ultimate humiliation of being stripped naked and declared bankrupt before God. I have no greater desire than to make the apostle Paul’s declaration authentically mine:

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

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