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Introduction:
Justice
Ruth Hutchinson
Comment:
Be Not Deceived...
David McMillan
From
the Director
David Porter
From
Just Us to Justice
Duncan Morrow
Right
Relationships or Justice
Brian Lennon
The
Truth, the Whole Truth
Alwyn Thomson
Walking
for Ministers
Graham Cheesman
Dealing
with the Pain
David Bolton
The
Case for Human Rights
Martin O’Brien
What’s
Wrong with Rights?
Alwyn Thomson
WALKING
FOR MINISTERS
It's good to walk. It's also biblical. When Paul wanted to go from Troas
to Assos, he sent the rest of the missionary team around the peninsular
by boat and walked across without them, 20 miles. Jesus sent his disciples
across the Sea of Galilee by boat. They thought he’d walk round the
lake, in fact he walked across it, but the intention was the same. What
is it about walking which makes it so important for ministers?
Walking is for those who are not busy
Ministers are busy people. We have diaries full of appointments, heads full of plans, people to see, messages to prepare. We seem to be on a treadmill of things we have to do. Maybe we even get the same rewards from this as busy people in the world — sense of identity, self-worth, significance. But listen to Eugene Peterson on busyness:
The word busy is the symptom not of commitment, but of betrayal. It is not devotion, but defection. The adjective ‘busy’ seen as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterer is to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker.
Why the strong language? Because busyness is not about the most important things. Cars are very useful for constantly busy people. Constantly busy people are not very useful for God. Jesus did not have the benefit of the internal combustion engine but made a bigger impact on the world than you or I.
Walking is a place without words
When the saints of old talked about silence, they did not mean the absence of the wind in the trees, but the absence of words. Our society has a love affair with words. They talk to you out of advertising hoardings, TV, papers, books, radios in cars — and the Reader’s Digest kept in your smallest room so you will not be without words even for that short time. Our faith is a very wordy faith. The Reformation mostly began in universities and it shows. The minister’s job seems to revolve around words.
In fact, words gain power in proportion to their absence. Henri Nouwen uses the illustration of Anthony in Egypt in the third century (not the one who fell in love with Cleopatra!). Anthony moved out of society and Christian work for some years. When he came back into Christian ministry, his words counted. Nouwen's conclusion is that words spoken out of silence are more powerful than words spoken out of busyness.
Walking is for healing
As Dr. Johnson said, the two best doctors are often the left foot and the right foot. Ajith Fernando from Sri Lanka talks about how he copes with stress and the way it deadens his spiritual life:
During this time I developed the discipline of walking, sometimes two or three miles until I felt the joy of the Lord return.
One of the great diseases of the heart is the preference of doing over being. Doing what we ought to do may be difficult but it is always easier than being what we ought to be. And walking is the absence of doing which gives us space to think about being.
Walking is so as not to be alone
Walking on your own is saying that people are a joy and blessing but we need time without them. The three things modern man seems unable to be without — busyness, words and people are all put on one side when you walk. But it is not to be alone, it is to be with God.
God is always with us because he is everywhere. He is with us in all our busyness. But there is a difference between presence and attention. Think of two people in the same room. One is doing the ironing and the other reading the paper. Then the iron is switched off and the paper folded and they sit together. They were always present to each other but now they have put the busyness aside are enjoying the presence. Perhaps we ought to take that description of Enoch more literally. Enoch walked with God.
Now, why don’t you put this magazine down and go for a walk?
Graham Cheesman - Principal of the Belfast Bible College, is a regular contributor to Lion & Lamb.
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