Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s Grace – 2) Alfred and the Cakes
Hespeler, 21 March 2016 © Scott McAndless
Matthew 11:25-30, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Psalm 6
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ing Alfred, the ancestor (35 generations ago) of our present monarch Elizabeth II, is famous for many things. He is the only ruler of England ever to be called “the Great.” Indeed, most would say, if it weren’t for Alfred, there would never have been an England at all. But for all the “great” things that Alfred ever did, he is probably most famous for one little mistake.
Alfred became the king of Wessex, one of the seven ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, at the young age of 22. It was not a good time to become a king. These were the days when the Vikings were invading England and things were not going well. When Alfred came to power all of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had already fallen under Viking rule. Only Wessex, in what is now southwestern England, was left as an independent English kingdom. And the Vikings were coming for Wessex.
Alfred and his lords held them off for a while, but eventually the Vikings just got too strong and the king and his lords had to flee abandoning most of the kingdom into the hands of the invaders. They hid out in some low, marshy land in the region of Somerset where they were relatively safe because the land was almost impassable unless you were very familiar with the marshes.
At one point, during those dark times, the king was taking shelter in a house on the Island of Athelney in the m arshes. He was staying with an old woman who, I suspect, didn’t even know who she was sheltering. One day when she was alone with the king, she made some cakes and put them on the fire to bake. She told Alfred that she was going out and asked him to watch the cakes and take them off the fire before they burned. He agreed and she left.
But Alfred, as you can imagine, had a lot on his mind. He was thinking about his problems and his challenges. He was wondering, perhaps, whether he had completely failed as a king. He was also desperately trying to come up with a strategy to get out of his dead-end. So, for all kinds of reasons, Alfred was rather preoccupied with his troubles. Can you guess what happened? That’s right, Alfred let the cakes burn and, when the old woman returned, boy, did she let him have it! And Alfred, according to the account, accepted her criticism with grace and humility, though I suppose he could have had her put to death.
It is a famous story because, of course, it is the only time in all the history of the world that a leader ever made a mistake, right? No? You don’t think that is why people remembered it? Then why?
I think this story stuck because it is a reminder that, no matter who you are – no matter how “great” you are – we all have our weaknesses. Alfred actually had a lot of them. For one thing, he was often very sick. A lot of historians think that he suffered from Crohn’s disease – a particularly nasty chronic condition. Put that together with his Viking troubles, it is maybe not too surprising that he was rather distracted from his duty to watch cakes.
There are, I think, two ways of dealing with our weaknesses. Most often, we tried to hide them and pretend like they are not there. In fact, a lot of people assume that that is what leadership is: not showing weakness. That is why people in leadership positions are often so obsessed with avoiding mistakes and with covering them up when they do happen. “Sure, I can watch the cakes. I’m totally in control here. I don’t have any problems.” But that often doesn’t work. We end up in the same mess that Alfred did. We pretend that we’ve got it all under control when we really don’t and that is when cakes get burned.
But there is another way to think about our weaknesses. The Apostle Paul tells us about something that was clearly a weakness for him. He doesn’t say exactly what it was. He simply refers to it as a thorn in his flesh, but it was clearly distressing to him – so much so that he says, “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me.”
So, like any of us would, Paul didn’t like his weakness and he wanted to get rid of it. If his weakness caused him to make any mistakes, I’m sure he would have liked to cover them up. But Paul received a surprising and powerful answer that made him think about his weaknesses and his mistakes in a whole new way. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And that answer, that he obviously received from Christ in some unmistakable way, led him to a stunning new way to think of his own weaknesses and to say, “whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”
I know that such a statement doesn’t really make any sense in the way that our world understands such things. How could somebody’s weaknesses actually become a foundation of strength for them? The short answer is that it is only possible because of God’s grace.
This was obviously a lesson that Paul only learned through hard experience and by earnestly seeking God in prayer. But other wise people have also found certain echoes of this same truth down through history. One person who comes to mind is Carl Jung, one of the great fathers of modern Psychology. Jung was a man who felt a real vocation to be a healer in the life of people by developing his methods and approaches to psychotherapy.
One of the key insights that Jung had had to do with his own weaknesses and woundedness. He had had a very difficult early life particularly because his mother had suffered from mental illness and it left deep scars in him. As a result Carl’s natural impulse may have been to hide or ignore his weaknesses and his scars but, as he began to help other people, he discovered something amazing. The more he ignored or downplayed his faults, the less help he was to his patients. But the more he got in touch with his own weaknesses and woundedness – the more he understood these things about himself – he was able to help his patients in ways that he could never have thought possible.
I happen to believe that, even if Jung was only using a scientific approach, his vulnerability and courage in dealing with his own woundedness was actually opening the door to God’s grace and healing power.
Thus it was that Carl Jung introduced to the world the idea of the wounded healer, which he based on a number of ancient myths that featured a figure who was a powerful healer and yet also carried a grievous wound. But, while this figure of the wounded healer was indeed to be found in many ancient belief systems, the main reason for that, I think, is that there is a universal truth behind it. And that truth that is to be found in the Bible as well – like in this morning’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
The truth of the matter is, my friends, that we are all like King Alfred. We all make mistakes. We all get things wrong. Even worse, we are all like Carl Jung. We have all been wounded and shaped by the bad things that have happened to us. We may not have suffered, like he did because of a parent who is mentally ill, but we have all had to deal with disappointment or insult or loss. And how often have I had people tell me that they are not eligible for any kind of leadership role because of their faults or wounds or their fear of making mistakes?
I am not saying that God intentionally gives us flaws or that God wants bad things to happen to us. To tell the truth, I don’t really have a great explanation for why the bad things happen in this world. Maybe it’s something that we will understand someday; I don’t pretend to know now. But I do know this: God has this incredible way of taking all of the bad, all of the flaws and all of the weaknesses that we carry around with us and of turning them into blessing. That power is called grace.
We see that in the story of Alfred and his cakes. Yes, Alfred had his faults and one of those faults was apparently that he had some trouble focussing on minor details like how long the cakes had been in the oven. But that weakness of Alfred was actually one of the things that made him great. His mind was always focusing on the big picture, and that focus on the big picture was actually the thing that got him out of the marshes and on the offensive against the Vikings. It was what allowed him to come up with an overall strategy to build his kingdom in such a way that it could weather the storm that was created by the Vikings. As a result, we have Alfred to thank for the fact that England survived at all. We have Alfred to thank for the fact that we speak English and not a Scandinavian language today.
Alfred’s weaknesses and his strengths were unbreakably tied to each other. And I think that is probably true of all of us. When we flee from our weaknesses or hide from our mistakes, we may be cutting ourselves off from our greatest strengths as well.
But even more important than that, when we’re not afraid to face our weaknesses and mistakes, when we can acknowledge them and even embrace them, God is able to take them and use them to bring about extraordinary healing and blessing. That is what Paul was saying to the church in Corinth. One of the reasons for that is that when we are weak or when we fall short, it is like we’re getting out of the way. And when we get out of the way – especially when we get our egos out of the way – that allows God the opening that he needs to let his grace shine through.
But here is the really amazing part. We assume that God will use us and bring blessing to us in spite of our weaknesses and our mistakes. But that is not how God likes to do it at all. No, God loves to use us and bless through us because of our weaknesses and errors. That was what Carl Jung discovered in his therapeutic work and theories – though, of course, he would not have spoken about it as something that God did.
That is why, for example, people who struggle with alcoholism or other addictions can often only find a way to break free of the cycles of using with the help of people who struggle with the same issues. The real secret of the success of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is that they create a community of people who understand each other’s struggles because they are part of their own weakness and brokenness. They are able to come to terms with their own addiction by getting to know others who share the weakness. They are able to bring about healing for themselves and others by directly helping other people who share their brokenness. That’s not just how it works with addiction, that is how it works with almost every form of healing and renewal.
Many of us have been called to be leaders in this church in various capacities. The temptation, when you are put into that kind of position in the church or anywhere is to run away from your weaknesses, to hide from them. I mean, we think of all the great leaders that were there in the past – gigantic figures who seemed to have no flaws – and we think that we have to be like them. But you know what? Those famous leaders of the past had their flaws too. It is just that we have largely forgotten them over time as we forget the things that went wrong and just recall the things that we loved about them.
And consider this: God is calling you to be a leader in his kingdom – wherever and however that might be – God is calling you to be a leader and he’s not doing it in spite of your weaknesses, your faults or your mistakes. He is doing it becauseof them – because of everything that makes you who you are. Think about what that does to your excuses.
I think that our challenge as leaders is to be who we are – to be strong enough to be vulnerable about our weaknesses and our failures – to share those things in the appropriate situations. God promises that, when we do that, it allows his grace to shine through. Alfred was a flawed person who made mistakes. None of that prevented him from being hailed by all as “the great.” Your greatness – and many of you have much greatness – will only be enhanced by you coming to terms with your own faults and weaknesses. Stop running away from them. Stop hiding them. Let God’s power be made perfect in your weakness.
Sermon Video:
A note to our Sunday School students!
Just a quick reminder that our "Jar of Awesome" needs to be filled, so come prepared on Sunday to tell us something good about your week. We will write it down and put it in the jar. On Easter Sunday we will celebrate everything awesome!
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| This past Sunday we celebrated things like getting chocolate for Valentine's Day and mom making French Toast for breakfast! |
Lots of workshops and seminars coming up!
There are some really good workshops and seminars coming up if you would like to join us.
The Problem with Substitutionary Attonement or How the Vikings Muddled us up
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hy did Jesus have to die? That is, you might say, one of the most central questions of the Christian faith. And if you ask that question of most practicing Christians you will likely get an answer along the lines of this: “Jesus had to die for my sins,” or “Jesus had to die to save us” or “so that we could go to heaven.”
And some people will be happy enough with that answer. But every so often you’re going to come across a really annoying person like me who isn’t satisfied with that simple answer and starts to ask really some tough questions. “Well,” the annoying person says, “I thought that you said that this God of yours was all powerful – that he could do whatever he wanted. And I also thought you said that God was full of mercy and lovingkindness. If God wanted to forgive you and let you go to heaven, couldn’t he just do that? I mean, sure, you may have sinned but God doesn’t have to let something like that stand in his way if he wants to forgive you, does he? Why would the bloody and painful death of Jesus be needed for that?”
And if you ask questions like that long enough, you’ll eventually find someone who’ll give you a fuller explanation. And the standard Christian explanation these days goes like this: Yes, God is loving and merciful and wants very much to be forgiving to us but there is just one thing: God is also just. In fact, God is so just that he cannot simply let any injustice or sin slide without there being some sort of payment made. God’s justice has to be satisfied with due punishment.
And that’s where Jesus comes in. God looked around to find someone who could pay the price and take the punishment in our place so that he could forgive us and it turned out that only one person would do. Only someone who was perfectly innocent (and so didn’t need be punished for their own sins) would be able to play that role. So God turned to his only begotten son, Jesus, and chose to send him down, live a perfect life and die as an innocent man. Jesus’ suffering and death would be enough to satisfy God’s need for justice and therefore allow God to forgive us for our sins.
That, as I say, is the standard explanation these days. The name for it, in case you want to know, is the substitutionary theory of atonement. It is called that because the key element is that Jesus substitutes for us – takes our place and suffers the penalty that we deserve. It is a good theory, really. It makes good logical sense and is a compelling story. It is so compelling that many now think that it is the only way to understand the meaning of the death of Jesus and that it has always been how Christians thought. But that is not true.
The substitutionary theory of atonement has only been around for about 1000 years – only half the length of time that Christian faith has been around. Where did the theory come from a thousand years ago? Well, it happened like this:
The year 1066 ad is the only date that all English school girls and boys know off by heart – the most significant date in their country’s history. That was the year that England was invaded and conquered by the Normans who took over the entire government and local administration of the country. The Normans came from France and they spoke a unique dialect of French but they weren’t actually French. They were Norsemen – Viking raiders who had merely settled in France for a little while. And as Vikings, they had their own unique ideas about good government. Every Norman lord was master and judge of all within his domain. He settled all disputes, judged all crimes and punished every offender.
And it was not an easy thing to appear as someone accused before a Viking lord because they were particularly prickly when it came to judging people. Vikings were famous for many things, but I am afraid that mercy was not one of them. And so mercy was not something that was easily found in a Norman court. Viking lords were very protective of what they saw as justice. They felt that no offence – not even the smallest – could be pardoned without due payment being made in some form or another. Their judicial motto was, “justice must be satisfied.”
Now what, you might ask, could the Norman conquest of England possibly have to do with the Substitutionary Theory of Atonement? As it turns out, everything. About thirty years after the conquest, the second Norman king of England appointed a man named Anselm to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, a few years after that, Anselm of Canterbury wrote a book. He wrote it, he said, to defend the Christian faith against all those who would scoff at it – in particular the Jews and the Muslims. He called his book Cur Deus Homo in Latin. In English that translates as “Why did God become a human being.” In other words, he was trying to answer the question why did Jesus have to live as a man and why did he have to die.
The book is important because in that book Anselm gave for the very first time in history the answer that we’ve been talking about – that Jesus had to die in our place to satisfy God’s unyielding justice so that God could forgive us. Anselm invented the substitutionary theory of atonement. It is very interesting to note that, although Christianity had been around for about 1000 years before that, nobody had managed to come up with that theory until Anselm came along.
And there is a reason why only Anselm could have come up with that theory. As I said, the theory requires a very particular image of God – a God whose sense of justice is so inflexible that he can only forgive when he has been completely satisfied (even if he has to will the death of his only son to be satisfied). How is it that for the first thousand years of Christianity it never occurred to anybody that God would be that inflexible? And then Anselm came along and (as Archbishop of Canterbury) spent a lot of time in the courts of Viking lords watching them make their judgements. It’s not that hard to guess where his strange new view of God came from.
That’s why it seems to me that the Vikings have muddled up our understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ death. If we buy into Anselm’s explanation of why Jesus had to come, we end up with a God who resembles a Viking lord. And I realize that almost all of the images that we use to talk about God are based on one human model or another and that we can’t really even talk about God without saying, “Well, he’s kind of like this” or “kind of like that.” But I just think that there are some better models for talking about God without imagining him as a Viking lord. The Bible uses many images when it talks about God: a father, a near eastern king, a kind master, a loving mother (yes, that image is used of God in the Bible) and all of those sorts of people were much more ready to exercise mercy in their relationships than your average Viking lord. And it goes without saying that the Bible never describes God as a Viking lord. But somehow, with the substitutionary theory of atonement, that is the idea of God we end up with.
And so I suggest to you that it is time for us to get past our obsession with Anselm’s substitutionary theory of atonement. There are other ways of understanding what Jesus has truly accomplished for us without starting to imagine God as a Norman lord. The Bible does indeed talk about Jesus dying for us and about him dealing with the problem of sin for us but such talk has little to do with satisfying some Norman sense of justice.
Instead, the Bible most often talks about the death of Christ as a sacrifice. And sacrifice had nothing to do with substitution in the ancient world. When a family in the ancient world took its year-old calf up to the altar for a sacrifice, there was no sense in which they understood that that calf was somehow taking the place of a family member. Nor did they see the death of the animal as some sort of punishment taken in their place. That is why I wanted to take the time during this season of Lent to understand how sacrifice functioned in the ancient world.
On a practical level, it was all about providing a means for the people to safely eat meat once in a while. The sacrificial system provided a humane means of slaughtering animals and a professional, well-trained guild for safely butchering them. These people were called priests. And, most important, the system also provided a safe means of disposing of those parts of the animal that they would not or could not eat by burning them up on the altar.
But sacrifice was not just about meeting those practical needs. It also had a very important spiritual function. The sacrifice brought the worshippers together with one another and with their God. The shared sacrificial meal where the family ate the good cuts of the meat while God shared in the meal by means of the fat, bones, blood and other inedible parts that burned up on the altar was the basis of their relationship with their God. In the sacrifice they came to know their God in ways that would not have been possible otherwise.
And that is how I have come to see the death of Jesus – as a sacrifice. In his death Jesus does tackle the problem of our sin which is, at its foundation, a problem of separation between us and God. We had wandered far from God and didn’t know how to find our way back but Jesus’ death brought us back into relationship with God just like an ancient sacrifice renewed the ancient worshipper’s relationship with their God.
We shouldn’t think of Jesus’ death as a mere substitution – Jesus taking our place and suffering our punishment – because Jesus didn’t speak of it as substitution. He spoke of it as participation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That is not Jesus’ responsibility in your place that is your responsibility in imitation of Jesus. If you want to be a follower of Jesus, you have to realize that that means following in the path that he has led. That is where the real transformation begins.
And, to attempt to answer Anselm’s question, “Why the God-Man,” why did Jesus have to become flesh and dwell among us, I think that the key answer is this: Jesus came to show us the grace and compassion and love of God. He knew that words weren’t going to be enough and so he had to show us what those things looked like. But the world cannot tolerate such love. The world cannot stand to be shown how wrong it is about everything. And so the response to Jesus was predictable. He was bound to end up on a cross sooner or later.
But Jesus took that terrible and tragic death and, with God’s help, transformed his death into something much more meaningful – a sacrifice – the kind of sacrifice that can renew any and all relationships. In particular, he transformed his terrible death into a sacrifice that is able to renew our relationship with the living God – a sacrifice that is effective for all times and for any person who participates in it by taking up their cross and following him.
Response to the Study, Body, Mind and Soul, from St. Andrew’s Hespeler Presbyterian Church (Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington
After leading a Study of "Body, Mind and Soul" within my congregation, I asked the participants what sort of feedback they wanted to give to the Justice and Church Doctrine Committees They asked me to send a summary of our discussions and observations into those committees. I have done that. Since we did not hold an additional meeting to share the report together, I just want to post it here so that the members of the group can read it.
A group of members of St. Andrew’s Hespeler Presbyterian Church met together in five sessions from January 13th to February 3rd to discuss the study produced by the Justice and Church Doctrines committees. The committee has authorized me to summarize our reflections and thoughts and send them back to the committees to include in their deliberations.
The first thing that I would note is that our discussions were very interesting and engaging. The discussions were held in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
We did not agree about what course the church ought to take in regards to the place of LGBT people among us. There were people who strongly felt that we should not change our present positions in any significant way. There were people who strongly felt that it was time to make a change. Those positions did not change in the course of our discussions; that was not what this process was about as we understood it. Nevertheless I think most of us would say that we’ve learned things through the process and came to appreciate a great deal more about the positions that people take and what they are based on.
We want to let the committee’s know that we will be praying for them as they attend to prepare reports for the coming General Assembly and continue to guide the church in other ways. We recognize that they have a very difficult task in front of them.
As we can hardly say that we agree on what the best course of action might be, it is hard for us to give the committees any concrete advice or direction, but we would say the following:
- We hope that the church can find a way to continue moving forward together despite the diversity of opinion on this and some other issues. There is a richness in such diversity and we would hate to lose that.
- We would encourage the committees to take their time and do the best job that they can in this process. We recognize that there is a sense of urgency for many people to settle this one way or the other and get on with things, but we, in our little group anyways, felt okay for now living in a dialog.
- Despite having some strong disagreements on what course the church ought to take, here are a few things that we, perhaps surprisingly, found ourselves agreeing on:
o The present positions of the Presbyterian Church in Canada are not necessarily coherent. The various decisions that the church has made don’t necessarily follow a consistent logic. This is certainly not very helpful.
o We agree that none of us has any desire to simply conform to what society and culture around us believe. We all agree that the church needs to take important stands and not simply fall into line with what the culture is saying. The fact that we all agree about this, however, certainly doesn’t mean that we agree about what the place of LGBT people should be in the church.
o We agree that leaders in the church should be excellent examples morally and ethically. For some that is the main reason why they would exclude practicing LGBT people from such positions. Others don’t have a problem with that. It is a little bit difficult for some of us to understand the positions that the others take on this one.
o We all agree that sexual morality is very important and that the church has very important things to say to society on the subject.
o We all agree that we would like to channel of the energy of the church and helping people to develop and maintain mutually helpful and nourishing relationships that are marked by respect.
Roast Beef Dinner
It's getting to be that time of year again.
Our Annual Roast Beef Dinner
is being planned for Saturday, March 5th at 5:00 pm.
(Please note the change of time) It is early this year because of Easter.
Tickets are now on sale.
We would also appreciate any help that you might be able to give.
Sign up sheets will be available on Sundays after worship or
you can e-mail Joni. [email protected]
My Jar of Awesomeness!
This year our special Lenten project in Sunday School is to fill up our Jar of Awesome.
Each week we will add something to the jar that celebrates the good news from our week. By celebrating all of the good things in our lives we will stay positive and we will be reminded about the Good News that Easter brings us.
This week we celebrated things like: having French Toast for breakfast and getting some chocolates for Valentine's Day.
Look who’s in CLUB 10!
This morning we celebrated some more CLUB 10 awards.
Whenever a Sunday School students comes to our Sunday School class 10 times (not necessarily in a row) they get to choose something from the Treasure Chest.
Way to go everyone!
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| Choosing something from the Treasure Box. Lots of choices! |
Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s Grace. 1) Cecilia and the Art Restoration
St. Andrew's Stars Video:
Hespeler, 14 February, 2016 © Scott McAndless
1 Corinthians 1:18-31, James 3:1-12, Matthew 7:1-11
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n the summer and fall of 2012, the attention of the whole world was suddenly captivated by the events that had taken place in a small town in Spain with a population of less than 5000. In this town of Borja, it seemed, somebody had made a mistake. It wasn’t just your everyday, run of the mill kind of mistake either. It was a mistake that was so big that it was like nobody could look away.
In that town there was an ancient Roman Catholic Church and in that church there were various pieces of artwork such as you might find in such churches. One of them was a fresco that had been painted in the early 1930’s by a visiting artist.
The painting was a traditional piece of very common Roman Catholic art called the “Ecce Homo,”which is Latin for “Behold the Man.”It is a depiction of Jesus, crowned with thorns as he appeared before Pontius Pilate just before being sent off to be crucified.
The fresco was quite beautiful (in the traditional manner of such pieces) when it was first painted, but by 2012 it was not in good shape at all. Due to dampness in the walls the paint was fading and flaking away and it no longer looked at all as it once did. The poor state of the painting particularly saddened one of the members of the parish – a very devoted woman over the age of eighty named Cecilia Giménez. She knew that the parish did not have a lot of money to take on an expensive restoration and she was an amateur artist. She decided that she would take on a restoration of the artwork all by herself.
It was the results of Cecilia’s work that got everyone so interested. Armed only with her faith, her best intentions and limited talent, she pretty much botched the job. People criticised her and blamed her for what was clearly a terrible mistake. Cecilia took the criticism that was leveled at her so hard that she went and hid herself in her house – cutting herself off from community and church alike. She was deeply hurt, though, some would say, not without some good reason because, well, look at what she had done.
I think, therefore, that the story of Cecilia Giménez is an excellent place to start our journey during the season of Lent thi
s year because I want to focus on the idea of mistakes. Cecilia made a mistake. All evidence seems to indicate that it was a well-intentioned mistake and that it wasn’t malicious in any way. But none of that prevented all kinds of wrath and recriminations from raining down upon her.
I find the contrast between the work of the original artist and the work of Cecilia to be interesting. Both of them described the work that they did as an act of devotion. The original artist, in his own words, said that Ecce Homo was “the result of two hours of devotion to the Virgin of Mercy.” I take that to mean that the man was visiting the church – a church that was devoted to the mother of Jesus and to her mercy – and decided to donate a couple of hours of his time for the creation of a piece of art.
Cecilia, for her part actually made a very similar devotion. She saw a piece of art in a very bad state of repair and, in an act of devotion that she saw as dedicated to the Virgin Mary, she set out to repair it. And she put in the time in the effort – actually more time and effort that the original artist had done. There was no fault in her effort or in her desire – only in its execution. She simply did not have the level of training and experience that the original artist had had. But which one’s devotion was more acceptable in the eyes of the Lord? Did the artist’s devotion have more value because of his skill and training? Or did Cecilia’s pure heart count in the eyes of the Lord?
So this story gives us an excellent example of the problems that are created by our focus on mistakes. Mistakes cause a lot of damage, but I’m not talking about the damage caused by those well-intentioned souls who sometimes make mistakes. I’m talking about the damage that comes out of our reaction to them. Think of Cecilia. She was absolutely devastated by the reaction. She withdrew from the church. She hid in her home refusing to come out of it. She became a virtual hermit in her own town. It was personally devastating to her.
She said that she did not understand. She had only been well-intentioned. She had acted openly and not hidden her work in any way. She felt targeted and deeply hurt. I’m not saying, of course, that the people who were criticizing her didn’t have any justification. She had effectively destroyed an irreplaceable piece of art. What’s more, it would be almost impossible to calculate the monetary value of what could be called her act of vandalism.
So I’m hardly trying to suggest that her critics were wrong to say what they did. But, just because you can justifiably say something, does not always mean that you should say it? And does it mean that you need to say it in a way that hurts a person? That is an important question in any context, but I would suggest it is extremely important in the context of the church. The church is supposed to be, after all, a place of grace.
I’m not sure how grace-filled the people in that church were. But I do know one person whose grace never fails. And that is the most interesting part of Cecilia’s story. Cecilia’s mistake and the reaction that her neighbours had is not the end of the story. Today there are very few people in Borja who are angry at Cecilia. You see, there’s a reason why we know the story of Cecilia even though it just happened in a small town in Spain. We are living, after all, in the age of the internet and, thanks to the internet, a small event that takes place in a small town can sometimes come to the attention of the entire world. And that is what happened with Cecilia’s painting. Suddenly her picture was everywhere. At first, it is true, everyone was just laughing at her and her story. What a fool they all said.
But then something else started to happen. I’m sure that, at first, it was just a lark. People said, “Why don’t we go to Borja and see Cecilia’s artwork for ourselves? Why don’t we go and have a laugh and take selfies there and post them on the internet?” But then, before you knew it, it became a thing. Everyone started doing it.
And soon, this minor town that had been teetering on the brink of economic collapse had an amazing tourist industry on its hands. The town’s economy was saved and it wasn’t the only thing to revive. The little church also started to charge a little fee for people to see it and take their selfies. It seemed as if Cecilia had saved both her town and her church from possible extinction.
And then there was the work of art itself. No, the art critics never learn to love it or anything like that. But at least some of the observers noted that the piece of art made them think and feel in ways that the traditional art of the Catholic Church had never done. Some noted, for example, that, while the original artwork depicted Jesus lifting his eyes towards heaven, in Cecilia’s work, the Saviour turns his eyes towards you. Perhaps Cecilia had managed to make at least some people think a little bit differently about their Saviour and hers. Art, after all, doesn’t always have to be beautiful in order to help us to see something meaningful that we never saw before.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul explains what I think is the great principle that is at work in the story of Cecilia and her art restoration: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
You see, we all think we are so smart. We have our plans and our strategies and they can often be very successful. Someone could have come up with a plan, for example, to revive the economy of the town of Borja. In fact, there actually were some such plans in place. And some highly paid consultant also could have been brought in to revitalize Cecilia’s parish church. Such well laid plans could have brought about many good things. And, of course, God does sometimes bless such plans because God wants towns and churches and people to do well.
But if the town was saved by some plan that was brought forward like that, who would get the glory? I’ll tell you who: the planners, the designers and maybe the politicians who paid for the project. That is, according to the letter to the Corinthians, why God likes to step in and shower with blessings the Cecilias of this world – the people who may try to get it right but often get it wrong. That way, not only is the blessing bigger and better than what anyone else could have planned for, it is also abundantly clear who the glory really belongs to.
It just seems to be God’s favourite way of acting. That is probably why no matter what we plan for in the life of the church, it never quite goes exactly as planned. At least, I’ve never seen it. We may make our plans and bring in our consultants and get to work and yet you can be sure that, at some point, some little thing will just go wrong and threaten to blow the whole thing out of the water. But here’s the crazy part: later, when you look back on it, you will realize that it was that moment when it all went wrong that led to some of the most helpful outcomes. It is another case of the foolishness of this world being more effective than all the wisdom and the planning of the wise.
We have a kind of a mistake-o-phobia in the church, it seems to me. We are too afraid of making mistakes and so sometimes avoid even trying something that might be a little bit different. Recognizing that God does bless and even prosper the mistake-makers is something that can set you free to try new things without any fear of what you might get wrong because that is how God wants you to live.
The other way our fear of mistakes comes out is in the criticism we heap upon those who do make mistakes – the Cecilias of the world. And you know how devastating that was to Cecilia. It almost destroyed the woman. And, since we all do make mistakes, that leaves us all vulnerable to such criticism. It can do so much harm. And it can so easily change the environment of the church from a place where we build each other up to a place where we tear each other to pieces. That, I know, God doesn’t bless.
So God sends mistakes into our lives and into our churches and into our towns and he loves to use them to challenge our assumptions about what really matters. Next time you make a mistake – or the next time you see someone else making a mistake – take it as a challenge. God is asking you to imagine what great thing he might have in store for you, or for the church or for some other worthwhile project, in what you or somebody else just got plain wrong.