Posts Tagged c s lewis

Ordinary People

August 29, 2011 at 11:56 am · Filed under movies ·Tagged , , , , ,

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

C.S. Lewis wrote that in “The Weight of Glory.” Later in the essay he says that, apart from the sacraments, neighbors are “the holiest object presented to your senses.”

It’s a staggering idea. When I hear the word “holy,” I usually start with places: places that intimidated me as a child, or, as an adult, touring Europe, perhaps a cathedral, quiet and dark except for candles flickering in corners. But as Stephen, the first Martyr reminded his accusers, “the Most High does not dwell in places made with human hands” (Acts 7:48).

The Temple and its surroundings, where Stephen made his confession, was destroyed in 70 AD, leaving only a portion of its western wall. The Roman Empire that destroyed the Temple? It’s gone too.

The things we encounter every day are the same: they may have been around a long time, and they might endure long after we’re gone, but they’re passing away.

They’re all passing away, that is, except us—our neighbors, and ourselves, and strangers driving through town. We’re immortal—and that makes us extraordinary. The most exceptional thing you’ll encounter today is the friend or neighbor you encounter every day.

How much more so, then, the stranger? Perhaps that’s what the writer of Hebrews meant:

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2

To our cynical ears, it sounds like the writer wants us to invest in strangers only because one of them might pay off. But perhaps the writer means this: the people we already know are such extraordinary creatures that the only things more amazing are strangers—who are so incredible that some may even be angels.

How would it change your relationships if you saw people this way? If they are the holiest objects available to your senses, who would you invest more time getting to know? Who are some strangers, and what kind of hospitality could you show them? Who would you invite to dinner, or to church? Who would you help out in a fix?

(Cross-posted at the Desert Hills Presbyterian Church website.)

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The Best Apologetic

October 13, 2010 at 11:36 am · Filed under apologetics, compassion, evangelism ·Tagged , , , , ,

Twenty-odd years ago, I became a Christian, and part of the reason was apologetics, or defenses of the faith. God used several books, including C.S. Lewis’ wonderful Mere Christianity, to overcome my objections to the Christian faith.

By the time I got to seminary, however, I was really pretty bored with apologetics. It’s not that I had decided they were unimportant–far from it: as my faith became more important in my life, I realized how important those apologetics had been. But I’d moved on, and they weren’t very helpful to me any more. (Although I do still pick up my copy of Mere Christianity every couple of months and re-read a chapter or two.)

It turns out I’m not alone. In this article, Max Lucado, a best-selling Christian writer, says that the best apologetic is compassion.

Though Christians do need to respond intellectually to explain their faith, the long-time pastor recognized, “When the church argues back with society, I don’t know if we get very far.”

“But if we can say our passion is to help the poor and the forgotten, you cannot argue with that,” he noted. “Nothing convinces people of our Lord better than to live like he lived. We cannot live like he lived without being compassionate.”

That rings true for me. Jim Noble, the pastor who led me to Christ, told me, “Maybe you could believe in God if you saw him at work, and [his church] is a great place to watch.”

He was right. I had some baggage I needed to deal with, and my apologetic reading helped me do that. But it was seeing God at work in and through the community of faith engaged in works of compassion, that enabled me, finally, to put my trust in Christ.

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Do the Dead Grieve?

July 14, 2010 at 9:56 pm · Filed under book, compassion ·Tagged , , , ,

Reading C. S. Lewis, I was struck by this thought:

If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.

(From A Grief Observed, pp. 49-50. Emphasis added.)

I’d known that Lewis was comfortable with the whole idea of purgatory, but I was fascinated by his idea that purgatory might entail grief. On the one hand, we want our loved ones to be happy — to be, as we say at such times, “in a better place.” But there is a slight, selfish appeal to the idea that they grieve for us, just as we grieve for them. How much sharper it would make our grief if we thought our loved one had simply shrugged us off.

We Presbyterians, however, aren’t keen on the concept of purgatory. Our Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, in the Service of Witness to the Resurrection we have at funerals, says, by contrast:

We thank you [God],
that for him/her death is past
and pain is ended,
and that he/she has now entered
the joy that you have prepared.

It’s an intriguing notion, nevertheless. I don’t have time right now to do a serious study, but I’ll have to keep this in the back of my mind, in case I run across Scriptural arguments for or against the idea.

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