Religion
A matter of faith
Martin Sullivan
A man who judges his neighbour's religious life by performance or on the basis of a profit and loss account has no real understanding or appreciation of the meaning and purpose of religion. As a Christian I am much more likely to fall short of my aim than if I were not. I do not mean that I become morbidly introspective but I make greater demands upon myself and I find temptation's tooth infinitely sharper. I have formed a personal relationship with Christ. This does not mean that I never set out to please Him by my behaviour, but rather that I want my conduct to reflect my friendship with Him. A man does not remain faithful to his wife in order to win her love. He remains so as a reflection of it.
There are, nevertheless, Christian ethical victories and defeats, but they are not measured by ordinary yardsticks. A glance at the conduct of Christ's intimate band of twelve disciples will reveal this. Judas Iscariot not only betrayed Him but took blood money for his infamy. At least he had the guts later on to throw it back in his new masters' faces, and go out and hang himself. Peter was a more craven coward. Three times he shouted in
shameful fear that he knew not the Man. John, the beloved friend, the model held up to us all, came to Christ or allowed his ambitious mother to push him into His presence, bluntly asking for a specific reward in the form of two reserved seats in the new order, two places of power, one for himself and one for his brother.
Thomas resolutely refused to accept the fact that Christ had abolished death, and demanded the most detailed proof. A sight of his risen Lord would not satisfy him, nor even the evidence of the nail prints or the spear wounds in His body. He would only be convinced if his probing fingers and thrusting fist revealed that he was being confronted by some fake. Here is the earliest demand for positive scientific data, not from a sceptical enemy (this would be understandable), but from a personal friend and companion. And every now and again a voice from the background would urge the leader to forget all this nonsense about love and non-violent resistance and draw the sword to assert the only influence which could be remotely successful, and to put forward a positive political programme. When someone, thinking He was in doubt on this issue, came to Him and said, "Here are two swords," His cryptic reply, "It is enough," completely mystified them. "Enough is enough," He meant but no one understood Him.
If these are the defeats, or at least some of them, where do the victories lie? In the Christian world of values, it is 'always from the small beginnings that great things grow. The diffident Andrew brought the volatile Peter to Christ and then virtually faded from the scene. Who did the greater work, the brilliant leader or his retiring brother? We shall never know. Most of us do well because unseen, others sustain us or make the opportunities for us which we virtually snatch out of their hands. It was the same Andrew again who apologetically brought to Christ a boy with his meagre lunch and from these slender resources a crowd of five thousand was fed. But he has never been made captain of the first eleven by latter-day Christians.
If we are reading history from the accounts of the last hours of the Crucifixion, it is to one of the 'sons of thunder,' the ambitious and rather worldly John, to whom Christ committed the care of His mother after His death. What change had been wrought in this disciple over a year or so? Again we do not know but perhaps his thrusting and arrogant demand for a place of honour was a form of acceptable exorcism. He finally leant on Christ's breast at the Last Supper, a sign of acceptance and humility. Christianity is a transvaluation of values. Those who practise it most ' effectively are seldom recognised in the world and usually remain unhonoured by it: but their influence is as leaven in a lump, and it is to them that we owe our best insights and our deepest inspiration.
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