devotional


Past and present Michael Ramsey


way for the past to seak to the present. Two misconceptions can confuse people about the value of the past.


I


Twomisconceptions Te first is the nature of the Christian Church. Some see


it as a series of generations of Christians, each encased in its own seting of time and culture. No, says Ramsey, ‘It is rather a community of experience reaching across the generations, so that the language and symbolism that it uses can evoke the past in a way that strikes a chord in the experience of the present.’ Te second misconception is to understand the


relationship between the past and the present in pre - dominantly cerebral terms. Some evaluate the past in terms of whether certain ideas of the past can fit the intellectual outlook of the present. Tat is the wrong emphasis. Te issue is whether the past can seak to us now as human beings with our sin and our guilt, our hopes and our fears.


parochial life. They seem, in many dioceses, to have been replaced by the ‘funding programme,’ with a single focus on raising money. Travelling one generation back in time,


I the


‘Stewardship Campaign’ was often titled ‘Stewardship Mission’ and had a strong preaching, praying and teaching element in it. In many cases individuals made a huge step forward in their spiritual journey in coming to a thoughtful, prayerful response to the invitation to give of their time, talents and money.


Christian spirituality is nothing other than the practice of Stewardship. Stewardship is responding to the call of Christ in the present moment, offering to his service all our gifts and abilities. It is the desire to make this loving response to God that is the well-spring of our all Christian ministry.


Consider these two profound prayers; first this prayer from the Methodist Covenant Service: ‘I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; let me full, let me be empty, let me have all things,


12 ■ newdirections ■ June 2014


t used to be the case that four-yearly cycle of ‘Stewardship Campaigns’ was a regular feature of Anglican


n his book From Gore to Temple,Michael Ramsey concerns himself with the ethos of Anglicanism. Tere is a proper


The ethos of Anglican theology Te distinctive witness of Anglicanism can help here.


Anglicanism must keep alive the importance of history as its great divines have done during its history. It must also emphasize the importance of relating the Biblical revelation to other categories of thought in the contemporary world. It will do this by keeping people aware of the importance of doctrine in the life of prayer. Te context of my prayer must be the Creed – what I believe and know of God and my life with him in Christ in the Holy Spirit and the Church. Tis places my prayer in the larger experience of the Christian centuries and saves it from the preoccupations of my own self in its own small world. Secondly, we must always present the Church as the effectual sign of the supernatural in the midst of the natural order. It is this presence of the supernatural in the natural that transfigures and transforms in the way of God’s redemption.


Keeping our identity We must resist the temptation to allow the Church to


become what secular society wants it to be, another politically correct department of state. We will only avoid this if we retain the memory of whom and what we are. If we lose our memory we lose our identity. Scripture and Tradition reminds us of who and what we are. Tat identity if it is true to itself will be concerned to work and pray for the unity of the Church in East and West.


ND Edited by Arthur Middleton


Counsel Stewardship


Ghostly Andy Hawes is Warden of Edenham Regional Retreat House


let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.’ The second is from the final stage of the ‘Spiritual Exercises’ of St Ignatius: ‘Take, Lord and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To thee, O Lord, I return it. All is thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will.’


Both these prayers express the deep desire to make a loving and sacrificial response to God’s love for us which is experienced by each person in the totality of their life. ‘All is thine,’ prays Ignatius. In response John Wesley declares ‘I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure.’ It is this


deep awareness of God’s goodness and that life is grace or gift that transforms and transfigures the individual will to generous self- giving. This is the only place to begin any prayer and reflection on one’s own response to God in the giving of our time, talents and money.


Since Jacob vowed at Bethel to give one tenth of all he had to the Lord, tithing has been recognized as a faithful response to God’s goodness. I have always thought that one tenth is a little mean considering that ‘all things come from you and of your own do we give you.’ The sad reality is that a very small proportion of Christians tithe. This is the fact behind the rather feeble spiritual life and half-hearted mission of the Church in many contemporary contexts. To tithe is both to recognize the goodness of God and to trust in his faithfulness. To try and work out what to give in any other way is an exercise in balancing the books with God without recognising the truth that it all belongs to God anyway. Two questions: what is your giving like; are you being generous to God? If you aren’t, what is stopping you?


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