(Tim) A couple days ago, Bill Mouser forwarded an article from the London Times, along with a brief comment of his own. I posted them both and they've spawned an interesting discussion of a number of matters, but especially whether the author's incipient repentance is any reason for hope. Note that the issue isn't whether his incipient repentance is spiritual conversion. There's no indication of that at this time.
But if the Holy Spirit works through conviction of sin to draw us to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we must rejoice when we see others coming to a fuller understanding of their own wickedness accompanied by even the smallest shoot of hunger for the perfections of God--in this case, His Fatherhood from Whom all fatherhood gets its name. Who among us demonstrated perfect understanding or repentance when we first began to see God Himself against the backdrop of the idols we had made and worshiped (still)?
Repentant sodomites aren't unique in failing to understand the self-sacrificial love of Christ for His Bride and therefore the meaning and nature of marriage as God created it. This is an epidemic in the church.
After following the discussion under my post, Father Bill wrote his parish the following letter and I post it here as an example of the sort of generosity and faith...
I'd like to see more of in each of us, dear readers; and of course, in myself. So, thank you, Bill, for your example.
* * *
Dear members of St. Athanasius parish,
At Lisa's helpful prompting, I'm sending you a PDF of the Times article I mentioned in the homily this past Sunday. Here is some further commentary on the significance of what Patrick Muirhead reported about himself and what he saw in a barber shop in Kent.
Muirhead's head was turned by the display of a genuinely patriarchal father lovingly guiding his small son through one of modern life's anxiety-laden adventures -- the first trip to the barber shop. Please note also that in the Times story there is not a hint that the father who gave Muirhead a sight of something God created was himself a Christian. Rather, he was just a man, acting as God intended men to act toward their sons.
In one sense, none of this is new. There are many testimonies -- a gazillion, probably -- of Christians whose treks toward the faith began in exactly the same way, by beholding the goodness, wisdom, power, and beauty of God's creation. This is what the first half of Psalm 19 is talking about.
Moreover, so common is this dynamic that it was used comically in an old film about two men who were (my memory may fail me here) house siding salesmen. In one scene they're in a bustling cafe during lunch, when one of them approaches a sumptuous salad bar. He is suddenly awe-struck by the vegetables laid out before him in all their color, tastes, textures ... well, he declares that this can't be an accident. Someone made this all happen. A small-scale beatific vision at a salad bar! It could very well be that the screenwriter and/or director were mocking. If so, absent repentance that scene will likely be evidence submitted at the Doom in their prosecution before Jesus for blasphemy. For Christians, however, the scene is funnier than it could ever be for a mocking unbeliever, for what makes that scene "work" turns out to be as true as the first half of the 19th Psalm.
Their are two things that are special about Muirhead in his vision of God's goodness in creation (and, again, note he does not credit God at all for the goodness he saw in that barber shop!)
First, it is not "raw nature" (trees, rocks, rivers, weather, a salad bar, etc.) that he sees, but rather something much closer to God Himself -- an image of God Himself. Who knows? Maybe what Muirhead saw (and reports to us) is a distant glimpse through thick fog of the Father-Son relationship during the earliest days of our Lord's humanity. It's the glory of God to hide a matter, and almost everything of our Lord's infancy, boyhood, and youthful manhood is hidden from us. Hidden, that is, unless God, in His glory, held up a foggy mirror before a man depraved by this world in a barber shop in Kent.
And, that is the second thing unusual about what Muirhead reports (though he reports far, far more than he understands!) -- the aspect of God's goodness in creation that Muirhead beholds is an aspect that is so profoundly depraved in our world at this time in history. Even Muirhead himself understands this -- "In modern times, we have become accustomed to abnormality again," Muirhead writes. This is the first small step of a sinner who can acknowledge that his sin (though he probably wouldn't call it that) is "abnormal."
God grant Muirhead grace to know that his life is worse than abnormal, that it is sin against Someone who created manhood to be something other than what it has been in Muirhead's life, that Muirhead must sooner or later engage that Someone face-to-face, and that he'd best do so as one covered by the blood of the Lamb.
It's interesting as well to read the comments at the Baylyblog on this story. Some there seem to have missed the point Pr. Tim (and, I before him) were trying to make -- namely, that there is genuine spiritual power in an authentic display of the good things God created. Knowledge of God in nature will not save (not in itself), which again is the point of Psalm 19. You recall from last Sunday that it is the second half of the 19th Psalm that expressly deals with sin and what will correct the many harms arising from sin that remains in the redeemed sinner.
At any rate, beware of dismissing the significance of Muirhead's report about himself as some of the commenters do.
Meanwhile, take to heart that your life in this world, your good works, your own return to "normalcy" by God's grace -- all of these things which you likely do not even think about, all of them are on display to the lost in this world, who can see in you what they know is lacking in themselves. And that what they see in your can turn them in the right spiritual direction and, perhaps, encourage them to take the first steps toward the New Jerusalem.
Father Bill
