Crusader Rabbit: A Response to a Query

There is a fine line between giving care and trying to fix the problems of others.  In our family we are well acquainted with the Crusader Rabbit syndrome.  Crusader Rabbit is large, white, fluffy bunny that takes his sword, his shield and his lance, mounts his white stallion and charges down on a problem situation (or person) and attempts to fix things.  The problem is, that fixing things is not our responsibility, but loving and giving care is.  Generally speaking, when Crusader Rabbit mounts his white horse and charges down he is about to get knocked off his horse.

Unlike the shrunken soul who said that the best advice he ever received was to never volunteer, I think it is a good thing to volunteer; You have remarked that as a child you were told not to speak unless spoken to and to that you were to wait until you were asked, before doing something.”  As a child I remember the dictum, "children should be seen and not heard", (and I might, add “and preferably not seen either!”). That kind of attitude was a vestige of those halcyon days when the governess presented the children to the parents after dinner for inspection, but for little else.  Children should be respectful, but so should adults, even of children.  On a simple level even respectful children would bless their parents by volunteering to wash the dishes or walk the dog.

As for your living arrangement.  There are so many mixed motives and emotions in any family living arrangement.  What's done is done.  However there is here a matter for some serious and persistent prayer.  The question is not "What should I have done?", but, "What should I do now?"  The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

The Bottomless Well

Some of us by nature are caregivers; it is in our blood, in the very fibre, muscle and bone of our being.  It is not just that there are those who need our care.  We ourselves need to care, to mend and heal, to rescue and restore.  I suspect that trait in one degree of another is found in most people.  Natural care givers often hold suspect those who have no apparent need to give care, and recognize as pathological those who instead of giving care, victimize those who either need care or give care.  That proclivity is not just pathological, it is wicked.

There is only One who is a bottomless well.  Through the Christ flows the water of the Spirit, the gift of the Father’s love.  All the rest of us lesser caregivers fall into one of two major categories; the shallow well that taps ground water, and the well spring that has tapped a source deeper than itself.

The caregiver that functions as a shallow well is soon drained of inner resources and only slowly filled by fresh rain water seeping through the soil.  The shallow well, giving of its own fleshly strength and human power, gladly gives all it has but then sits depleted, empty and tired, very tired of caring.  Some shallow wells are slowly repleted, others, once depleted, sit as dry holes for times upon times; their care giving days are over.

The caregiver that functions as a wellspring has tapped into the deeper artesian spring of God’s love and presence and even if depleted is quickly filled.  Contrasting the earthly and heavenly well there is One who said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13,14).

There are some limits to caregiving that must be recognized.  Even Christ the Caregiver is limited by the freedom of will that is an intrinsic right of those for whom He cares.  He allows us to say “No!”  We ourselves are bound by the same reality in our offers to care for others.  On another level there is no comparison of His ability as a caregiver with our lesser ability.  It is not for nothing that He is called the Redeemer, and we the redeemed.  His caregiving becomes incarnate in our caregiving but subject to our humanity and limitations; but by the grace of God we are what we are and His grace in us is not in vain.  Caregivers give care only by virtue of their connection with the Christ in the power of the Spirit.

Being filled with this amazing water of the Holy Spirit requires both inflow and outflow.  Without the inflow that comes through worship, praise, prayer and reflection on God’s word the well soon dries up.  It is necessary to drink daily and drink deeply.  Without outflow, without giving care the water becomes stagnant and the well itself becomes dank and drear.  The one who actively leans upon Him is like a tree planted the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  The one who drinks deeply of His Presence is like a deep well of water springing forth and giving life to those who need care.                                                                                                                                           

In the Garden Where I Love to Go

I see the hollyhocks all planted in a row,                                            

Peach and apple blossom, hyacinth and golden bell,                          

The Lily of the Valley, the greater celandine and daffodil.                 

Nothing can compare with God’s great beauty rare,                           

In this wild profusion of His glory, a sight beyond compare.             

Come walk with me a little, while the gentle breezes blow                 

And share with me the beauty of His garden here below.                   

Beneath the olive trees One kneels whom I adore.                             

In the ardent labour of his soul he sways,                                           

In bloody sweat and deepest agony he prays,                                     

In surrender perfect, my life he does restore.                                     

As for old guilts, let them go, let them go.                                          

 So walk with me a little, while the gentle breezes blow                 

       And share with me the beauty of His garden here below.

Genealogies

Someone recently posted an awkward article from The Daily Mail on Facebook, [Tuesday, February 10^th, 2015]. The headline was, “The Archbishop of Canterbury's wife, her dozens of female lovers and a very surprising peek behind the prim facade of Victorian Britain.”

Do you ever wonder about your own ancestors? Some of mine were a dicey lot. I come, in part, from a long line of Scottish Border Reivers who made their living stealing cattle from the English and providing mercenary cavalry for European wars. Some of my more immediate ancestors were alcoholics who ended their lives in suicide.

But frankly, what of it? Did you ever consider what the ancestors of Jesus were like? How about the disgusting story of Judah and his sons Er and Onan, and their poor wife Tamar? Or, how about the story of King Manasseh, one of the most corrupt kings of Israel?

No matter where you dig in our ancestral backgrounds you find dirt. But consider this. Christ Jesus, the Son of the Living God became incarnate in a very human family with a very human lineage. That is what it means to be human. He became one of us to carry us all back to our true Father in Heaven. 

Only one thing is required of us, and that is to accept Him and His labour of love on our behalf, and follow Him!

All Our Desires Are Known

It is with some embarrassment and alarm that the Psalmist prays, “O Lord, you know all my desires, and my sighing is not hidden from you” [Psalm 38:9 BCP]. The words are strong words. The Septuagint Greek translates the word for desires as “lusts”, and the word for sighing as “groaning”. At our very worst he sees us.

No wonder the Psalmist in the very next Psalm prays, “Deliver me from my transgressions and do not make me the taunt of the fool” [Psalm 39:9]. It is not just that all our desires, bad and good, are seen by him. Our foolishness is seen not only by Him but also by the fool who may well taunt us for our foolishness. Finger pointing is a worldly sport.

Again the Psalmist prays, “I waited patiently upon the Lord; he stooped to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure” [Psalm 40:1,2 BCP]. The Lord God not only stooped to hear  our cry; He becomes Incarnate, born in human flesh, that through His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension he might lift us out of the miry pit and carry us aloft to God the Father. “Not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the Manhood into God” [Athanasian Creed].

How far down is it from Heaven to earth? Down thousands of tumbled miles, immeasurable distances from heaven’s highest realm to the lowest earth. A Late-Medieval English poem rightly identifies this Middle Earth of ours as the focal point of the world’s greatest mystery: “The turning circle of the years had spun/ Through the world’s winters in the way men count,/  Two hundred and three times, and then/ Still thirty more, since Almighty God,/ The King of Glory, had been born on this middle-Earth of ours, light for the faithful/ In human form” (Burton Raffel, “Elene,” Poems and Prose from the Old English).

He works this miracle by the sacrificial offering of His own Blood. This gift is offered free to us, but very expensive for Him. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” [Hebrews 10:19-22].   

Rising Very Early

Rising very early in the morning
while it was still dark, he departed
and went out to a desolate place
and there he prayed. ~ Mark 1:35

O to be with You in the midnight hours
when all is dark within, without.
To be with You in perfect peace
my resting place, my heaven, my all right place,
my shelter in the midst of storm.
Life in the daylight hours spins around
with dizzying pace, sun rise, sun set,
and you are here with me within, without.
How small, how petty all the daily trials
when at night I rest myself in Thee,
my heaven on earth,
my heaven in the midst of life,
my heavenly Lover and my King,
my resting place in the midst of storm.

The Rape of Dinah

Christ Jesus, who is the Word of God, tells us the stories of the Torah; but why, I ask myself, would he tell us stories like the story of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34? Jacob and his sons have camped near the city of Shechem. Shechem, the foremost son of Hamor, sees Dinah the daughter of Jacob, seizes her and rapes her. His soul is knit to her, and he desires her as a wife; but he is holding her captive in his house. Jacob tells his sons and they make the circumcision of Shechem and the men of his city the bride price. On the third day when the men of the city are sore Simeon and Levi slay Shechem and all the men of the city and plunder them, including all their wives and little ones.

At best it’s a nasty story. Eventually Jacob and his sons settle in Egypt. On his death bed Jacob prophesies, “Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” [Genesis 49:5-7]

First, both the rape of Dinah and the slaughter of Shechem are reprehensible. 

Second, we see similar dynamics at work in the world today. 

Third, and most important, Christ Jesus is not afraid to speak about such things; he does not shirk when it comes to talking about reality. 

Fourth, in Psalm 105 the Psalmist lays down an important principle, “When they were few in number, of little account, and sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, saying, "Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!” [Psalm 105:12-15]. There are some complex moral issues in the story that should keep us entertained, nevertheless, the principle holds  true. God’s protection is on his people, “Touch not my anointed ones.”