From Jim McGuiggan... Columbus and the wreck of the Royal Charter

Columbus and the wreck of the Royal Charter

In Philippians 4:8-9 (AV) Paul says: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you."

"Think" on these things, he said.
"Do" these things, he said. 

Think on these things

He says "think" on these things but he does more than that. He uses a present imperative. It isn't a suggestion about a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence; it's a call to a continuing custom.

He says "do" these things. Again, it's a present imperative and is rightly rendered by modern versions with something like "practice". "Keep on doing," what you have seen and heard, the NRSV offers.

He isn't snarling at or bossing them, but there's an intensity about Paul (isn't there?) even when he's being warm and protective. His imperatives here aren't mere suggestions or "pretty good advice;" they're a word from God coming from a servant of Christ who cares deeply for the people he speaks to.

But "think" on these things—is that not a weak sort of thing for a man like him to say? He was all go, all action and scorched halfway across his world, shaking off the friendly hands that for his own good would have held him back, leaving pints of blood on the streets they chased him through and beat him senseless on. A man like that tells Christians to "think"?

We would only think this strange if we underestimated thinking and meditation. Paul commends people to God and the word of his grace which is able to build them up and give them an inheritance among God's people (Acts 20:32) and in deeply troubled times those who feared God gathered together and spoke of the noble and honourable and God wrote their names down in a book (Malachi 3:16).

The entire book of Psalms opens by drawing a distinction between the wicked and the righteous. The difference in this case is the difference in the kind of things that are on their minds. "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly…But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night." This man doesn't shape his life in light of ungodly counsel and as a result he is richly blessed (Psalm 1:1-3). And in 119:97 the writer, too filled to be silent, burst out with this, "O how I love your law! I mediate on it all day long." And does it do anything for him? The entire 176 verses are one long song of praise to God for the richness of his word and what thinking about it does for him.

If we think Paul urges his Philippian brothers and sisters to reflect on abstract truths like "honour" or "justice" or "honesty" we're missing the mark. He's too distinctively Christian for that. Paul sees everything as gaining its meaning and worth only in relation to Jesus (compare Philippians 2:1-11 and his own imaging of Jesus in 3:3-11 where he thinks and acts as Jesus did in 2:5-8). When he urges them to think about goodness and purity and honour he is urging them to think as Christians.

It's clear, then, that those among us who minister the word should give God's people something to "think" about. There's a richness in our Message that simply begs to be unearthed.

I came across an unfriendly book reviewer once who wrote of an author's offering, "Professor X has written his book again." I wonder what he would write of my teaching/preaching, of our teaching/preaching.

People must think, they must envision and dream. Their thoughts should be greater than their present capacities. They should be helped to see as well as hear the word of the Lord. There is a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) they should be able to see and they should be helped to imagine the cosmic gathering of glory into which they have been called (Hebrews 12:22-24). Seeing and dreaming shape life and change the world while defying the present powers.

Columbus is speaking to the royal minister of finance, pleading for funds to enable him to follow his dream but the accountant is too practical a man to be impressed. Visions and dreams are too flimsy, they lack substance and spider's webs carry no weight. Columbus takes him to a window and asks him what he sees when he looks down. He saw buildings, streets, cathedrals, commercial centres and courts of justice—but tangible and fully visible. "They once were dreams and only because someone dreamed them can you now see them," the dreamer told him.

"Think on these things," said Paul. 

Those things...do

We must leave ourselves open to new visions and dreams; we must go looking for new truths and new truth about old truths (compare Mathew 13:52). But we're to live and while thinking is an essential part of living there is no fullness of life if what we think does not affect how we relate to others in life. Do what you think and have learned and seen, he says. There is a place for meditation and enlarging of our vision and understanding, but truth is for doing and dreams are for following.

This is what Longfellow was getting at in his poem called The Legend Beautiful.

In his chamber all alone,
Kneeling on the floor of stone,
Prayed the Monk in deep contrition
For his sins of indecision,
Prayed for greater self-denial
In temptation and in trial;
It was noonday by the dial,
And the Monk was all alone.
Suddenly, as if it lightened,
An unwonted splendor brightened
All within him and without him
In that narrow cell of stone;
And he saw the Blessed Vision
Of our Lord, with light Elysian
Like a vesture wrapped about him,
Like a garment round him thrown.

The little monk, lost in rapture and adoration, can hardly believe that Jesus would be willing to show himself to one as unworthy as him. His joy knows no bounds; but in the middle of it all he heard the bells ringing, calling the poor and needy to come and get their daily ration of bread. The one they were to get their food from was the one who at that very moment, his soul filled with ecstasy, had the Lord himself as a guest.

Should he go or should he stay? He told himself it might be an insult to his divine Guest but the truth was he was so uplifted in his soul he didn't want to leave; didn't want to break the spell. Afraid that if he left he would discover Jesus gone when he returned he nevertheless knew in his heart that he needed to go so, reluctantly, he bows and leaves Jesus there alone in the little cell and went to see the very familiar faces

At the gate the poor were waiting,
Looking through the iron grating,_
With that terror in the eye
That is only seen in those
Who amid their wants and woes
Hear the sound of doors that close,
And of feet that pass them by;

He served them knowing that the One whose vision he had rejoiced in earlier had said, "If you do it to them, you do it to me." Still, he hurried back hoping against hope.

But he paused with awe-struck feeling
At the threshold of his door,
For the Vision still was standing
As he left it there before,
When the convent bell appalling,
From its belfry calling, calling,
Summoned him to feed the poor.
Through the long hour intervening
It had waited his return,
And he felt his bosom burn,
Comprehending all the meaning,
When the Blessed Vision said,
"Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled!"

If you had stayed I would have fled.

People are surer of God when they see Christian dreamers and thinkers rise from their meditation to involve themselves in the lives of people all around them. Charles Dickens immortalised the work done by a preacher who served a little church right down on the coast of Wales. An Australian clipper, The Royal Charter went aground on 25^th October, 1859 in a fierce storm as it headed to Liverpool. By far the greatest number of the many dead was taken care of by Stephen Roos Hughes whose health was broken in his heroic service (he died a couple of years later, in 1862). In The Uncommercial Traveller Dickens, in the light of Hughes' cheerful spirit that was completely free of bravado, said, "Convocations, Conferences, Diocesan Epistles, and the like, will do a great deal for Religion, I dare say, and Heaven send they may! but I doubt if they will ever do their Master's service half so well, in all the time they last, as the Heavens have seen it done in this bleak spot upon the rugged coast of Wales."

Only a few days ago I received a note from a gracious and hurting young woman who heard a preacher tell the truth that those who minister the word need not spend all their time visiting hospitals. She said she completely agreed with that but she felt the need to go to the preacher "to tell him how much of a comfort it was for us to have our preacher Dave come to the hospital and pray with us when Greg's grandpa died."

These things…do.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.