balance

There's a need for balance.

I'm always aware of that. But today I've been made aware of that need once again.

I'm thinking in particular of the balance there is between 'grace' and 'truth'. Push the one too hard and you end with liberalism. Push the other too hard and you end with legalism. In Jesus, of course, the balance was perfectly held.

"We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

In that matchless combination of both grace and truth lies no small part of his glory. But it's not an easy balance to hold.

Most of the day I've been seeing folk - some of them here, some of them out and about, in their homes and down at the hospital.

All of that is part of the 'pastoral' work in which I'm continually involved. Meeting and talking with people in the circumstances of their own very personal world.

I'm concerned, of course, to be bringing God's truth to be bearing upon the very varied needs there are in that personal, pastoral context. But I trust that it's grace more than anything else which is known by the person concerned.

I hope I'm not hard or harsh. I hope that I'm warm, sympathetic and full of compassion and care. I hope I afford some encouragement, comfort and help.

Grace. Without in any way my compromising truth.

In the preaching of the Word of God, I'm concerned as well to underline and minister God's grace. But I'm bound to proclaim God's truth. Truth that is challenging, probing, convicting. Truth that reveals all the searing, unutterable glory of God in his infinite holiness: truth that thus also exposes the squalid and tarnished corruption of us in our miserable sinfulness.

(I'm quoting the words of a godly and gracious man with whom I had lunch. He declared over lunch that all he could ever describe himself as was 'a miserable sinner').

It's that truth, of course, which will drive us to rest in God's grace and to marvel again and again at the richness and wonder of all that God is and God does in his love.

But that truth in itself is a hammer and sword which discomforts, disturbs and upsets us - as much as it comforts and soothes.

There's a balance between the preaching and the pastoring.

A balance between the preaching which will drive us to our knees in humble shame before the majesty of God and see us clinging, Jacob-like, to Jesus for the mercy which is only offered there; and the pastoring which will raise folk to their feet again and clothe them with the garments of God's grace.

But there's a balance that's needed as well in both the preaching and the pastoring. Comfort as well as challenge in the preaching. Challenge as well as comfort in the pastoring.

Gentle without being soft. Firm without being hard.

In the eyes of some I fear I sometimes seem judgmental. Commit to proclaiming the truth of God, without due regard to his grace, and you end up as a Pharisee or one of the friends of Job.

It's an occupational hazard.

Among the many conversations that I had today, this was a care that emerged. "I'm not sure I want to be coming to worship again, because I feel I'm not ever good enough for Jerry. What should I do?"

It wasn't exactly your 'agony aunt' sort of stuff: but there was agony, certainly.

Because it's me that's preaching God's truth, it feels, I don't doubt, like it's me that's setting the standard. When it's not. It's the truth of God which makes us feel we're not good enough. Before the bright glory of almighty God, who is ever good enough?

It makes me feel exactly the same. None of us is good enough. (Not for Jerry, I should stress, but for God). "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom.3.23).

God's word drives that troubling truth right home. There isn't a way to make it a bit more palatable. But it's God's truth. Not mine.

What perhaps I need to be much more careful to do is ensure that God's grace in his Son Jesus Christ is also being plainly heard. That's where there's maybe a need for a good deal more balance - spelling it out at some length, instead of my simply assuming that those who have been there for years have grasped it and know it all well. Balance.

What should I do? the person asked.

I suggested the one thing the person should do was simply believe the best. About me, not least.

When I've been in your home, when I've shared (as I've done quite a bit) in your family life, have I really been 'judgmental'?

Is that what I've been when I've wept with you all in your grief? Is that what I've been when I've been down on my knees at your side and pleaded with you for God's help? Is that what I've been when I sought to be shouldering alongside you all the burden of pain and concern that you've known?

I preach God's truth from the pulpit, but I hope that it's done with the heart of that pastor whom you've known in your home (I'm sure) as a man who has ministered grace.

Believe the best about your pastor and your preacher. He's not judgmental at all. And I in my turn will work all the harder to see that there's the balance that our truest health requires between the grace and truth of God.