A short time ago I had the opportunity to hear an educated and devout Muslim talking to a group of ordinands about his faith, and what it actually feels like, for him, to be a Muslim. This is so much better than most of the ways we get to learn about other religions. We can read about them, study them in the news and media, even read their holy books; but none of this gives the same insight as listening and talking to a real believer.
One of the things that impressed me most, was something he said about his sense of what we all owe to God. It was in the context of an answer to a question about how we "get to heaven": is it a consequence of our good deeds, or what? Our speaker said that, in the scales of God's justice, all the good deeds of the most holy and virtuous person that ever lived, are outweighed by a single one of God's blessings. If we claimed that our goodness earned us anything from God, God would simply point at the other side of the scales and ask, "What about the gift of sight?"
The sceptical atheist brigade who try to discredit religion by asking, in effect, "What has God ever done for us?" could learn a lot from this; but so could we Christians and not-quite-Christians. We take so much for granted, as if we were in command of our lives and destiny. How differently we would live, if we really believed that all the ordinary blessings we enjoy, like sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, health and being able to walk, even life itself, are God's incredible gifts to us.
At the same time, the Christian faith encourages us to call God our Father, and to behave like children. Jesus said quite clearly, "Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." One of the ways that little children express their gratitude and enjoyment of a thing, is to want and ask for more. "Please Daddy, can I have another go? Can I have another sweet, another piece of cake, another present?" I'm sure this delights the father-heart of God: not that we say, rather piously, "Oh no, you shouldn't have, I really don't deserve anything you know, well maybe, just a little..." but "God, that's great! When can I have some more?"
I long to see a Church of England that hungers for more of God. That longs to know God better, to have more of a sense of God in its worship and the lives of its members, to have a deeper, stronger faith, to receive more of the Holy Spirit and his gifts, to see clearly what God is doing in the world, and to see God more at work. And I long to be that kind of holy child-like believer myself.
With the season of Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday (the 21st of this month), it's a good time to get serious about some of our Christian resolutions and good intentions. We can use the six weeks of Lent to reflect on the myriad ways in which God has blessed us, to practise not just being thankful, but also wanting and asking for that 'More'.
The whole pattern of the season of Lent is designed to help us to practise all this. Before Lent begins, it was traditional to keep Carnival - a huge party-like celebration before entering the time of fasting. The day that we British observe in the rather niggardly vestigial form of Pancake Day, was originally a gigantic Meat Feast, (the word carnival comes from a Latin word meaning, 'putting away meat'). Then the fast of Lent meant going without meat, or abstaining from other good things, as a spiritual exercise. The point of this is not to make ourselves miserable by denying ourselves the enjoyment of good things, but in order to enjoy them even more when we take them up again at Easter. (It seems ridiculous to me that you can now buy Easter eggs and hot cross buns virtually all the year round: how will Good Friday and Easter ever be really special to modern people, if these unique seasonal foods are available before Christmas, or whenever we want them?)
It is all really directed towards reminding us, that the heart of Christian living is Celebration. The first miracle Jesus performed, at Cana of Galilee, was to turn water into wine so that the wedding guests could go on celebrating. As if the Word of God, on becoming flesh, were to deliver his first message, "Party on, people!" And so every season of the Christian year, our fasting as well as our feasting, is a celebration of God, of being children of God, and of all that God has done for us. He delights in us when we want and ask for More, because that is the sincerest way in which we can express our thanks, and our worship.
Published in the Marston Times, February 2007