Strictly Come Dancing
Phil 1:3-11
Matt 18:21-End
Strictly Come Dancing!
What sort of television programme is that? I can’t think of anything more
boring for a Saturday night!
So with a tut and a snort I decided to sit and read the paper
instead.
But over the weeks of
the series, I’ve begun to take a peep from between the sports pages. Despite
myself I’ve found I’ve been increasingly drawn to it all
and finally I’ve admitted to the family that I’m
as hooked as everyone else.
It’s not the dancing
that attracts me really, but rather this whole notion of someone who knows what
they’re doing being in partnership with someone who’s a complete and utter
novice.
It’s great to see how
the best ones develop in grace and style as they spend an increasing amount of
time in the company of the professional – so that by the end you can’t really
tell the difference between the dancer and the celebrity. They just become one.
Consequently, I
particularly champion the cause of the less able dancers – the ones inclined to
flat – footedness and stiff unbending frames. Can they change and become more
like it so that next Saturday Craig Revell-Horwood
will give them a nine!
“It is my prayer” says
I think he’s calling
us to a life in partnership with the Holy Spirit.
So that our capacity to love is at one with
the capacity of Christ so that in matters of faith and holiness we can’t tell
the difference between us.
That we go about our
business day by day exercising this love knowing that it is all in preparation
for the day of Christ’s return, when like the servant in our Gospel reading, we
shall each be called to account.
Each experience of our
life gives us the chance to either grow or shrivel.
To draw nearer to
God’s love or retreat further away.
The unfortunate
incident in our Gospel reading is a case in point.
The king is truly
abounding in love when he forgives the debt of one of his servants who owed ten
thousand talents.
This is an outrageous
demonstration of love because a single talent would have been equivalent to
fifteen years wages. So it’s a repayment he could never hope to make.
The crux of the matter
then becomes how the servant will respond to such a generous gesture – would
that now be mirrored in his dealings with others?
We soon discover that it won’t be.
He sees someone who
owes him a mere pittance and is prepared to beat him up to secure repayment.
Maybe he was being
tested all along, for now he is hauled in before the king and put in prison
from where he could not hope to ever repay anything.
At the end of the
reading, Jesus points to what is the deepest demonstration of love that we
should aspire to: to forgive your brother from your heart.
This is where the full
grace and style of the saviour’s love comes home to roost in us.
Sometimes we forgive
another halfheartedly.
We forgive because we
know we ought to.
We forgive because actually
it increases our dominion over the one who is begging us.
We forgive because it
looks good in front of others and who knows, in front of God too.
True forgiveness,
ultimate love is where we genuinely want to do it.
Where we yearn for the
reconciliation and harmony – forgiveness brings.
Where
we see forgiveness solely in terms of an opportunity to celebrate love.
Abounding
in it more and more for the sake of humanity and for the glory of the Kingdom.
RH 7.11.07