In Wayne Johnston’s novel The Custodian of Paradise, on the gravestone of a minister and fisherman of a remote island off the southern coast of Newfoundland, there is an epitaph: “Here lies Samuel Loreburn, a good man with many faults who failed his people and his God as all men must.”
As I begin the first month of the end of my full – time active mission work in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, I think it would be a most fitting epitaph for me. Not that I am feeling particularity dead or morose or even maudlin. In fact, retirement for me has been and still is much anticipated. With my wife, children, grandchildren and dogs, not to mention my many hobbies which I have neglected far too much over the past 32 years of ministry, retirement holds incredible possibilities.
Whatever else it is though, retirement is a kind of watershed. Watersheds are places that evoke reflection. And as I reflect over the past 32 years in full – time ministry in the church, I certainly remember the apparent successes. But perhaps more than anything else, what strikes me most are the failures. I could actually list most of them I think, or at least those that I became aware of as I lived them. There are some that have never shown up on my radar I am sure, but not too many, self – awareness not being something that I am usually too short of. I am not going to make a comprehensive list of my failures here, short of saying that though most relate to the time I have been in full – time ministry, they involve not just ministry but every aspect of my life and those I share life with. What I do want to do is reflect on why the failures occurred and what I can do with the awareness of them.
So why did they occur? Most of them occurred when what was on my mind was doing something good. What I mean by this is that I didn’t deliberately set out to do something that would fail. And in the case of failures that occurred as the result of not doing something, I didn’t choose to not do something so that I would fail. Rather, the failures often seemed to sneak up on me. I remember one example in particular.
I was a young minister and had been called out to the hospital to tend to a young woman in her early 20s who had been suffering with a serious chronic illness for some time. Though I did not know her or her situation very well, I did know her mom quite well from church. And so, fuelled with a great amount of concern and angst I set out for the large hospital in a neighbouring city.
I arrived in a rush, ascended to the room in a flap and entered with a flurry and as much professionalism as I could muster. Her mom was holding her hand and several dear friends were gathered around her. I greeted her mom and introduced myself to everyone else. I was simply told that she had asked for me to come and pray with her. By this time she appeared to be only semiconscious and so I immediately knelt by her bed, took her hand and began to pray for her healing.
The result was immediate and shocking. Though she couldn’t talk and she wasn’t really conscious she immediately began to moan loudly and throw herself from side to side in the bed in a great amount of agitation. Her mom exclaimed, “Oh no! Don’t pray for that. She has lingered with her disease these long hard years. She is dying now. She doesn’t want you to pray for her healing, she wants you to pray for her dying.”
I knew better than that. I intended to do better than that. But then my own anxiety, pride and professionalism got involved.
What the Apostle would say is that my “flesh” got involved or “the sin that dwells within me” took over (Romans 7:14ff). Paul’s point is that as good as I want to be, as good as I may be, there is always another reality that I have to contend with. Embedded in my human nature, comingled with the good that is there, there is also a propensity for sinning and for failing.
On one level this is the reason I need a Saviour. Paul says, “wretched man that I am who will rescue me from this reality” (Romans 7:24, my own paraphrase). His response to his own question is unequivocal and profound; “Jesus Christ.” And for this rescuing, like Paul, I am left extremely humbled and thankful.
But on another level, this awareness of my human nature and its comingling of good and sin and failing gives me a queer kind of encouragement for venturing forth and living boldly. If this comingling is a fact of life that I will always have to deal with, and if Jesus Christ has dealt with the negative consequence of my sin and failure on the cross, then I am liberated to live this life boldly for him, to try my best for the good and for the kingdom. And if I fail, I know I am forgiven and I can pick up and try again. Trying for good and sometimes failing goes with being human. As I stand on the watershed of retirement and reflect, I find great hope and inspiration in this.
Martin Luther demonstrated this principle as he wrote to a perhaps too timid, young Philip Melanchthon: “If you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. … Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”
Sin boldly? What a most instructive paradox. Luther is not calling on Melanchthon to deliberately sin but to live for Christ and to live and serve Christ knowing that he will, in the process, sometimes sin and fail miserably. But in serving Christ, let that reality and the fear of it not get in the way of picking up and trying again, with boldness.
That’s how I think I want to go forward into life and into retirement. And with Paul: Thanks be to God for the forgiveness of the resurrected Christ.
