Where Love is, God is

I grew up with two sets of Christmas stories.

I grew up with the stories built around the accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel.  We will be reading those stories as advent unfolds and Christmas approaches … and we’ll be telling them again to the children in all sorts of different settings.

The other set of Christmas stories I grew up with were stories about the Christ child, tales that go to the heart of what the Christian faith is all about.

Of those stories, the tale of Martin, the Cobbler has been one of my favourites ever since I first heard it as a little one, told in the way I told it to the children today.

I think of it as a children’s story, beautifully re-told in lavishly illustrated children’s books, in glorious animations too.

It was a long time before I realised it was not written as a children’s story.

My father’s signature is on the inside of the front cover of a well-worn volume LXXII of ‘The World’s Classics’.  Twenty-three tales by Tolstoy.  There’s a book mark at Tale number 7.  The title was not so familiar to me, and yet it is a title that goes to the heart of the Christian faith for me.

Where love is, God is.

In a certain town there lived a cobbler, Martin Adveich by name.

Straightaway the story draws you into that basement with a single window through which all the cobbler can see are the boots of the passers by.

By the second paragraph of the story, it becomes very much bleaker than any of the children’s adaptations I have read.  There’s a theatre company doing the rounds at the moment that re-visits children’s fairy stories and re-tells them as they were originally told with a darkness that makes for very adult theatre.  The Knee High theatre company.  They could have a field day with Tolstoy’s tale.

It was while he was still apprenticed to his trade as a cobbler, working for a Master, that his wife died, ‘leaving him with a three year old son.  None of his elder children had lived, they had all died in infancy.’

He thought of sending his son away, maybe to his sister’s.  But then determined to look after him on his own.  And that meant being on his own.  He had to leave his master and go into lodgings.

And then the unthinkable happened.

“No sooner had the boy reached an age when he could help his father and be a support as well as a joy to him, than he fell ill and, after being laid up for a week with a burning fever, died.  Martin buried his son, and gave way to despair, so great and overwhelming that he murmured against God.”

There is a depth of despair in Martin’s soul that is dark, so dark it is without a glimmer of hope.  His prayer is simply that he should die.  He loses his faith.

“After that Martin left off going to church.”

Carolyn was telling us at our Deacons meeting that she had been to a Care For the Family Day on the very subject that we have very much as a focus for the work that Carolyn is doing - 'How to get your kids through church without them ending up hating God!' That’s a big challenging question.  At our church Meeting on Thursday, 5^th January we are going to do things very differently – and give those who would like to have a conversation with Carolyn the opportunity to dig more deeply with her into this big issue.

Thee is something that resonates with Martin’s plight in Tolstoy’s tale.   One thing that puts people off church is what goes on not just in a troubled world, but in the troubled lives people lead.   Where is God in all of this?

What do you do in this moment of anguish and rage.

Martin has an unexpected guest.  What is wonderful about this unexpected guest is that he is willing simply to listen to Martin.  In the depths of his despair, it’s what Martin needs.

“Martin opened his heart to him, and told him of his sorrow … I no longer wish to live … I am now quite without hope in the world.”

It was great to hear that Neil and Lorraine contacted Richard Atkins on his Sunday morning programme and got in a good plug for Highbury.  I happened on a very moving interview he did with Malc Allen, Chaplain to the Robins and Garth, a member of the Samaritans.  They were discussing the impact the sad news of Gary  Speed had had in the footballing world.  As the interview came to an end it was moving to hear the ever ebullient Richard Atkins describing the way he had suffered from depression ever since he had been twelve or thirteen.  He spoke of the way in which so many men refuse to open up about their depression, and spoke of the way in which it was so important to do just that.

It was moving hearing him tell his own story – the experience many of us share testifies to just how true those words of Richard’s were this morning.

Christmas is a time when depression can so easily overtake many.  All sorts of triggers are around.  It is a time when the darkness of this kind of despair can become overwhelming.

In some ways it is simply the willingness of the old man to listen that counts.

The old man who is willing to listen has a wisdom about him that stops Martin in his tracks.

He wonders aloud, as to your despair that comes because you wish to live for your own happiness.

Now I will be the first to acknowledge that tales like this have their weakness.  They are written to make a point.  And sometimes the point they make is unbearably simplistic.  I want to take issue with Tolstoy when he puts into the mouth of this wise old man the thought that all that happens is God’s will.  I actually think that dreadful things that happen cut across God’s will.  It’s not so much that he must will them … but rather my conviction would be that God can bring out of the greatest calamity something more – there is nowhere so dark that God’s light cannot come.

Simplistic explanations often have grains of truth in them.

And for me there is a grain of truth here.

One of what I would think would be many causes of all kinds of despair is that we have built up a culture where the pursuit of happiness means everything.  It doesn’t really matter what happens so long as I can be happy.  One of the things we are being brought face to face with is that the relentless pursuit of happiness is something that can be self-defeating.

Martin has indeed followed that path.  He has drowned his sorrows on more than one occasion to find relief from his pain in an all too transitory happiness.  What else is there but to live for happiness and well-being?

“What else should one live for?” asked Martin.

“For God, Martin,” said the old man.

In many ways it’s simplistic.

But that’s a choice.

What is the purpose of life.  To seek happiness?

Or is life to be lived ‘for God’.

A big choice.

But what does that mean?  All very well to speak of living life for God.  But it’s not very helpful.

That’s exactly Martin’s problem.

Live for God … this is the antidote to your despair.

Martin was silent awhile, and then asked:  “But how is one to live for God?”

I like the response the old man gives.

The old man answered: “How one may live for God has been shown us by Christ.  Can you rad?  Then buy the Gospels and read them; there you will see how God would have your live.  You have it all there.”

“These words sank deep into Martin’s heart, and that same day he went and bought himself a Testament in large print, and began to read.”

So often faced with a crisis of faith, in the face of the depths of despair we want to rail at God, we want to sort God out, we want to ask where God can be in all of this.

You don’t get so far.

Instead look to Jesus … and see God.  To look to Jesus read the Gospels.

A good gospel to start with is Mark – it’s the shortest, and it packs in a lot of the action of Jesus’ life.  There’s no time for the stories around the birth of Jesus, Mark wants to get on with it.  John the Baptist heralds the arrival of Jesus who has the simplest of messages,  God’s rule is breaking into the world,  now’s the time to start all over again, believe the Good news.  Fishermen follow him, and he makes his base in the home of Simon Peter.  And from there he travels the countryside with a simple message and bringing healing into people’s lives.

Then there’s a twist in the story – indeed there are three stories in quick succession of very unlikely people Jesus helps.  First someone suffering from leprosy – Jesus’ reaction to the illness he sees is on the one hand to be angry, and then to have compassion.  He breaks all the taboos and touches that man.  It is a most unexpected encounter.

  Next is someone who is paralysed – and Jesus treats him just like everyone else – no different, you might have thought his biggest need was physically healing.  Not so, for Jesus.  He’s no different from any of the rest of us.  He needs something deep down in his spirit to assure him of the love of God.  It’s the high-up people form Jerusalem who are tasked with making sure the law is copied out fully and accurately to every last ritual detail who are up in arms about what Jesus shares – only God can bring that kind of forgiveness.  For good measure Jesus brings healing to that man as well.   It is an unexpected moment.

And the third tale to tell is of someone who is in hock to the oppression of the Roman power – a tax collector.  Not only does Jesus welcome this most unexpected of people as one of his band of disciples, but he also spends the evening eating and partying with his friends.  An unexpected guest.

Martin’s thoughts turn to no end of people Jesus helped in unexpected ways.  His eye falls on the sermon on the mount.

He is moved by what he sees … but not convinced. 

Then Martin laid his head upon both his arms and, before he was aware of it, he fell asleep.

“Martin!” he suddenly heard a voice, as if  someone had breathed the word above his ear.

“He started from his sleep.  “Who’s there?” he asked.

He turned round and locked the door; no one was there.  He called again.  Then he heard quite distinctly: “Martin, martin!  Look out into the street to-morrow, for I shall come.”

The next day, not sure whether this had been a dream or not, he feels something is going to happen.  Jesus is going to come to him – the ultimate unexpected guest.

And as the day unfolds he is disappointed – Stepanitch, the old soldier is glad of the tea Martin makes as he comes in from the cold of sweeping the snow.

The mother in summer clothes with a babe in arms is so pleased with the cabbage soup … and goes away with a warm cloak for herself and her child.

And the old woman and the young lad – he could have ended up in gaol  if she had had her way – but Martin got her to see the boy differently, and got him to make reparations for what he had done by helping the old woman.

The day over, nothing had happened.

No Jesus.

He took the Gospels from the shelf.  He meant to open them at the place he had marked the day before with a bit of morocco, but the book opened at another place.  As Martin opened it, his yesterday’s dream came back to his mind, and no sooner had he thought of it than he seemed to hear footsteps, as though some one were moving behind him.  Martin turned round, and it seemed to him as if people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out who they were.  And a voice whispered in his ear|: “Martin, Martin, don’t you know me?”

“Who is it?” muttered Martin.

“It is I,” said the voice.

And out of the dark corner stepped Stepanitch, who smiled and vanishing like a cloud was seen no more.

“It is I,” said the voice once more.  And out of the darkness stepped the woman with the baby in her arms, and the woman smiled and the  baby laughed, and they too vanished.

“It is I,” said the voice once more.  And the old woman and the boy with the apple stepped out and both smiled, and then they too vanished.

And Martin’s soul grew glad.  He crossed himself put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened; and at the top of the page he read,

“I was an hungred and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye game me drink; I was a stranger and ye took  me in.”

And at the bottom of the page he read:

Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me.”  (Matthew xxv)

And Martin understood that his dream had come true; and that the  Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.

What I like about the way this tale unfolds is that it is so true to the experience of many.  Happiness at all costs is not a recipe for living life to the full.  Live for God?  That’s all very well … so look to Jesus.  Read the Gospels and find that he is the one who comes alongside us in our weaest moments and draws us to a God who is with us when life is at its worst.  But more than that Jesus invites us to find him in serving other people.  In doing that we shall find in those wonderful closing words to Les Miserables that to love another person is to see the face of God!