Expressing Community – How On Earth?

Tim Argall - Executive Principal 

Have you ever experienced profound grief?  The unexpected loss of a loved one, the expected loss of a loved one to whom we were very, very close.  The loss of all your possessions through fire, flood or theft. 

I spent the weekend seeking to find some “hopeful” messages in amongst all the coverage of the current health crisis.  And then I noticed how many “un”-words are being used in the press now:

unprecedented, unexpected, unsubstantiated, unsophisticated, uncommunicative, unexceptionable, uncertain, undesirable, unprofessional, unrealistic, uncertainty, unhelpful

This encounter with a huge volume of press, reflective writing, even printed sermon texts, reminded me that it is so easy to slip into a narrative that is not God’s.  Even without realising it, we can be out of step with our faith by consuming, even just subsuming, whatever the dominant narrative of the day is. 

Don’t get me wrong; as Christians, we have to acknowledge exactly what we are feeling, if we are to be able to truly walk in step with God’s call on our life.  We need to grieve – to step through its stages as we seek to stay in God’s grip, understanding his purposes in the genuinely tough times. 

We live as Jesus followers, at odds with the world.  Our faith is different – for it seeks, as we acknowledge our complete inadequacy to establish a relationship with our Creator, to live in the hope seen in the historic reality of Jesus’ victory over the death we deserved.  No other faith (official religion or otherwise) says that it’s OK to rely completely on God’s work as all-sufficient.  Instead, it’s “do this thing, do that.  Then, just maybe, you’ll be OK.”  That’s how the world would have us believe it should be.

God’s promise of salvation is our rock.  In fact, as a Christian school, with a new form of Christian education rolled out this week, we have approached this task exactly as we have before, built on the “rock of our salvation” in Christ.  With the Bible speaking into our planning and lessons, as our authority.  Lessons have looked different, but staff, students and parents have been heroic in their preparations and in their execution of these class events over the last two days!  Thanks for rolling up your sleeves, helping one another, giving it a “good hard go” as we seek to get the balance of academic, pastoral, spiritual and fun right. 

What is emerging is this: some lovely instances where parents have been able to help one other in creative ways to settle into this term’s tasks; parents sending words of encouragement to staff missing the physical presence an “actual” classroom provides.  

At the moment, the day-to-day lesson experience isn’t “school as we know it”, but it’s Christian schooling – because Christ is at the centre, we are seeking to glorify him as his people, in all that we do, even if it’s on a screen, by email, through SchoolBox, in a WhatsApp group; however you are connecting at the moment.

As we seek to be God’s community, trusting one another in the roles we play within our population (a population that matches a small town – 1470 students, plus their two parents, plus siblings not at the school – about 4000 to be honest), let’s take the reflections of Paul to the Corinthians as a measuring stick for all that we do together in these challenging times:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13