Rev Gav

How do we stand out to stand firm?

This week, I attended my stepson’s graduation ceremony, and during the headteacher’s speech he took up a handful of grit and explained how the students, having lived and learned through Covid, had gone through a personal formation such that they had developed grit and determination. And his talk reminded me of something archdeacon Penny Driver once said to me. She said, “Gavin, you are called to be grit in the Church of England.” I think it was a compliment!

You see, to have grit is different to having determination. To have grit means that you stand out to stand firm. If grit was part of the asphalt it would not do its job. It is the grit that makes a difference. And in our Bible reading today, Paul and Silas were grit in the culture in which they found themselves. They stood out to stand firm.

Bad things happen to good people, and just because someone is a Christian does not prevent them going through hard times or difficulties. In fact, Jesus alluded to this when he said that if anyone wants to follow him they too must take up their cross! Sadly, some preachers give the impression that if you are a true follower of Jesus and have enough faith then all will be well with you. Tell that to Deitrich Bonhoeffer or Martin Luther King Jr! What God does promise is to never forsake us or leave us. God promises to stand with us and the history of Christianity testifies to Christians having a supernatural inner strength, joy, and peace in the midst of calamity, pain, and suffering.

I remember vividly in 1987, a television interview with Gordon Wilson, after experiencing the utterly devastating loss of his daughter Marie in the IRA’s Enniskillen bombing. Gordon was a Christian and he said, “I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge,” forgiving the bombers. I was 16 years old, and his Christian witness — his Christian love — his grit — was and still is an inspiration. What did he have that enabled him to speak and act with such compassion for those that had done him such incredible harm? The answer? Christ.

Bad things happen to good people — even those who are devout servants of God. One could ask how could God allow Paul and Silas to be so humiliated, beaten, then shackled in prison? After all, God had chosen Paul to be a witness to Christ, and Paul was only being obedient to his God-given calling? And how could Paul and Silas be praying and singing to God under such dire circumstances? I think we know the answer.

We live in a world where heaven and earth are colliding. We know how the story started in Eden — with heaven and earth fully overlapping, where God and humans walked together — and we know how the story ends, but right now we are in the midst of a cosmic battle between holiness and hate, between the the divine love of God and the greed, pride, and rampant violence of humanity. We know that much of life is not fair, nor is it just. We experience pain and suffering — much of which we can do nothing about.

Through being punished and imprisoned, the authorities were trying to break the wills of Paul and Silas, yet through their praying and singing they effectively stuck two fingers up at a world of hate and corruption. They didn’t just have determination, they had grit. No, they were grit. Yes, their faith was a reflection of hearts full of trust and devotion, but it was also an act of defiance — a way of saying, “You can do what you like to me, but you can never take from me the love that God has poured into my heart.” They stood out to stand firm.

You could ask what, therefore, is the point in being grit, if it only leads to pain and suffering. Well, the story doesn’t end there. We are God’s grit in the world because the world needs us, and it is a world that God is longing to reach.

As I read the account of Paul and Silas, it struck me that God’s concern was not only for Paul and Silas, but was for the other inmates, the jailer, and his entire family. That for which Paul and Silas stood out and stood firm was not just for God’s sake, but for the sake of people who did not yet know God. Paul and Silas remained steadfast, endured pain and suffering, and held their course, and love won out in the end with dramatic results and lives transformed. And it has been the same for all those who were called to make a stand for Christ — for Deitrich Bonhoeffer, for Martin Luther Kink Jr, and for Gordon Wilson. Their love and compassion and their defiance in a world of pain and suffering still endures to this day.

You too will find yourselves in the midst of pain and suffering. There will be times when you have little left of yourselves to give, and you may be physically or emotionally worn out. If this is you, hang in there, for you are not alone. Lean on your family in Christ and I pray the Holy Spirit will work through us to support you. No-one can ever take away the love that God has poured into your heart. Yes, feel angry at the injustice of it all, but do your best to never stop loving because, in the end, you are grit, and love wins.