Structured

I recall that, in the days when I attended worship in the Methodist Church, the steward introducing the morning service would often use the words “There are no additional notices this morning.”  It puzzled me; I wondered, ‘if there’s nothing to say, why bother to mention it?  Thinking further, maybe there is a purpose after all.  I had no idea then, and certainly none now, about what went on behind the scenes, but it seems likely that there was a check-list.  Successive items on this list might be, ‘mount rostrum’; ‘are there any additional notices?’; ‘introduce preacher’.  Put in this context, those words – apparently meaningless of themselves - are a reminder to us that there is a definite structure to worship, a framework that allows flexibility while ensuring that all the important items are covered.

Of course, our whole lives are structured in some way or other from cradle to grave.  Soon after we are born we have inoculations according to a health service record; legislation demands that we attend school between five and sixteen; the government aims that half of us or more will then go on to university; peer pressure and social convention directed us in our early years to join scouts, cubs, brigades, or some other youth organisation.  Then there are the laws of the land which govern our behaviour, discouraging us from theft, violence and breaking the speed limit.  We can’t escape structure in one form or another.

Our spiritual lives, too, conform to a pattern.  We are baptised when we come to faith ... or else as infants, later taking upon ourselves at confirmation the promises made on our behalf.  We meet weekly for worship: the writer to the Hebrews exhorted that the believers should “consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another ...” (Heb. 10:25).  We try to maintain a personal discipline of daily prayer and Bible reading and, if our lifestyle allows, we might also attend a mid-week social or study group. We each play as full a part in the life of the Church as we are able.  If we are called to some specific ministry, or even to ordination, then a prescribed path leads us through the appropriate training to that end.

There is even a structure which we can - and should - apply to our prayer life.  Our Lord gave us a template for our prayers: “This is how you should pray ...”, He said (Matt. 6:9ff).  How often do we chant this template as if it were, of itself, the ultimate prayer and consider our prayers ‘done’?  Instead, we should ponder its various clauses, and expand our prayers according to this recommended spread.

And a final thought, with the great feast of Christmas not far off.  Our Church year is structured, too.  As the seasons unfold, so one celebration logically follows another, each reminding us of some significant aspect of our faith, and together providing a variety of emphases for appropriate worship at each time of year.

So, next time you hear something apparently meaningless - like the announcement of no additional notices - question why this should be; perhaps you will be led to give thanks for God’s gift of a framework for life.

Freedom

It was Franklin D Roosevelt who first spoke about ‘four freedoms’ in his State of the Union address in 1941.  These were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.  These values ultimately became enshrined in the establishment of the United Nations.  In other words, we can say what we like, worship who or what we like, however we like, and eat what we like without a care in the world.  Is freedom really as simple as that?  I don’t think so; the EU, for example, has four other freedoms that it holds dear: the free movement of goods, capital, services and people.

So what is freedom all about?  In 1989, just days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in that city, the chorus changed the words of the Ode to Joy from Freude (joy) to Freiheit (freedom) in celebration of the freedom that East Berliners suddenly had from an oppressive Communist regime.  The people of Aleppo would welcome freedom right now from the constant bombing and destruction all around them.  Meanwhile, after months of dangerous travel, lots of refugees have found freedom of a kind in Europe, a freedom to begin a new life away from the dangers of their homelands.

Jesus said, “...the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31).  Those who heard Him protested that they were already free, inasmuch as they were no one’s slaves.  The freedom He referred to was a far greater one than they could imagine, a freedom offered by the truth He taught, one that we can know through His death and Resurrection, a freedom from all the trappings of this world.  St Paul also compared the trials and tribulations of life in this world to the glorious freedom of the world to come (Rom. 8:18-25). 

Paul taught the Corinthians about freedom’s responsibilities in the context of what other people see and think about its use (I Cor. 10:23-33), and both Peter and Paul cautioned against wrong ways to use freedom: as a cover-up for evil (I Peter 2:16) and in order to indulge the flesh (Gal. 5:13).

FDR’s list falls into two pairs.  In the same vein as the above examples, he lists two freedoms from things.  It is our right to be free from want and fear, but our exercise of these rights depends on other people recognising them too, and allowing them to us.  The other two are freedoms to do things.  While the ‘freedoms from something’ are dependent on other people,  the ‘freedoms to do’ carry with them responsibilities to other people.  Our freedom to do things – speak and worship are only two examples – should only be exercised in a way that doesn’t deny some freedom to other people.

Many years ago I lived in a terraced house with a ‘flying freehold’.  There was a passage between my house and the one next door, which gave access to our back doors.  I owned the rear half of the passage, over which was part of my bedroom, and my neighbour owned the front half, over which was part of his house.  According to the deeds, each of us had rights to use the passage under the other’s house.  In the original Victorian ‘legalese’, we had the right to ‘pass and re-pass with bicycles and handcarts’.  Though we had the right, if either of us were to spend the whole night passing and re-passing with a noisy handcart, especially one with metal tyres or a wobbly wheel, I think the other would have had strong words to say about it in the morning!  Our freedom of movement had to be exercised with consideration for the other’s right of freedom from aggression.

Let me end with a final thought about truth.  Suppose you are asked to give an explanation for something and, to gain a supposed advantage, you make up an impressive but fictitious story.  Next time, you will have to remember what it was you said; if you are asked further questions, you have to add another layer to what you concocted before.  Soon, there is so much to remember you won’t manage it and you’ll give yourself away, having been imprisoned by your own fabrication.  How much better to have told the truth from the very beginning.  It may not have been the way Jesus meant those words, but the truth can set you free from a self-made prison!