Proxy

The upcoming December 12 election is the first time in my quite long electoral history when I have been out of the country for a General Election, and at relatively short notice.

It has brought me to the Proxy Vote.  This is where you nominate someone to cast your vote on your behalf because you are not able to do so on the day.

The Proxy Vote has also brought me many interesting comparisons with a much bigger representation issue.

First, your proxy must be qualified to vote.  So, for example, you can'task your friendly Member of the House of Lords to do it for you.  Or your cat.  Or President Trump etc.

Secondly, they have to be willing.  They cannot be forced to be your Proxy by you or anyone else.  They do it for you of their own free will.

Thirdly, of course, you have to trust your Proxy.  They could simply use the Proxy vote for their own purposes and ignore your wishes.  Because it is a secret ballot nobody, apart from them, could ever know.

MEANWHILE

the Scriptures teach me that I have a Greater Proxy in a Greater Place.

Jesus is fully qualified to represent me for he, too, is human.

Jesus is willing to represent me, because he loved me and gave himself for me.

Jesus is trustworthy and he who began a good work in us will carry it to completion.

Praise God!

Health and (much less) Safety

In a famous section of the Chronicles of Narnia Lucy asks Mr Beaver about Aslan. 

"Is.. is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he.. quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver, "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Erwin McManus might have been reading that before the following interaction with his young son, who had just returned from a week at a Christian children’s camp;

He writes, ‘Unfortunately, since it was a Christian camp and they didn't tell ghost stories, because we don't believe in ghosts; they told demon and Satan stories instead. And so when Aaron got home, he was terrified.

"Dad, don't turn off the light!" he said before going to bed. "No, Daddy, could you stay here with me? Daddy, I'm afraid. They told all these stories about demons."

And I wanted to say, "They're not real."

He goes, "Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?" I could feel it. I could feel warm-blanket Christianity beginning to wrap around him, a life of safety, safety, safety.

I said, "Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe. I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room."

And he goes, "All right. But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy."’

Beset, as we are, by a culture of risk removal and social diffidence it is time to break free with the Lion!  The Lion said, ‘Take up your cross and follow me”.  And his followers were said to be “Turning the world upside down”.   Try risk assessing those statements!

Our buildings and activities can be made safe, but our faith can never be.

Unknown

These moving Bible words are found on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, just inside Westminster Abbey,

THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE
HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE

It was the first such tomb in the world, though many nations have since followed suit. The soldier's corpse within was chosen by a series of randomisations to make sure he was absolutely unknown. The Tomb says so much about the impersonality of War and its random destructiveness of young and other lives.

It is an extraordinary place, and deeply moving.

Strangely, it is also one of the most astonishing misuses of the Bible to be found anywhere. For the text is adapted from the Chronicler's statement at the end of the life of a priest named Jehoiada who was responsible for God's temple in the days of King Joash. Sure, he was buried among the kings but once you get past that observation the text is vexingly inappropriate. For a start, he was not unknown.

Not only that, he was a man who spent his life in Temple service (while Joash went around killing people as a soldier-king). Jehoiada was the very opposite of a soldier.

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all is that Jehoiada lived to 130 years old - in the words of the text he died 'full of years' - which is the exact opposite of what makes the young soldier in that Abbey tomb a reason for poignant remembrance.

Indeed, the more I think about it the more I struggle to imagine a more inappropriate epitaph. It is as if someone selected words from the Bible in as random a way as they selected the corpse to bury. Which is sad because the Bible has plenty of poignant and meaningful things to say for such a place and for such a day as today when we remember the waste of human life.

For example, how about the following which combines both the meaning of the tomb and the meaning of the Abbey:

Gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.