Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Faith
Date: 17 September 2009 09:38:30
A couple of weeks ago I was at church and during the sermon, the speaker repeatedly talked about the church being a lighthouse, giving out a warning light to those around us. I have been thinking through further the statement “the church is like a lighthouse”. This further thinking has been prompted as I have been reading a book called “the Lighthouse Stevensons” by Bella Bathurst. (It is all about the Stevenson dynasty and how they were responsible for so many of the lighthouses around the Scottish coast, and is well worth reading.)
Through this book I saw the dedication of those who built the lighthouses. When building a lighthouse, yes what has been learnt in the past can be used, but needs to be adapted for each individual lighthouse, the same is true of the church, each church needs to learn from others, but not assume what is right in one place is right in another. Building a lighthouse is not a quick process, due to the nature of the sea, it is often built in fits and bursts over several years, with breaks over the winter. In church we often forget that God intended rest to be part of the building process. We see this when we look at Adian at Lindisfarne where he built his monastery so that the ebb and flow of the tide would mean there were periods of activity and periods of rest. In the lighthouse builders we see determination even when lots of there work is destroyed. For example at Skerryvore over the winter months the barracks built ready for the workmen were destroyed, they didn’t as we are often tempt in the church give up. They went back and re-built. The lighthouse builders showed perseverance in completing impossible but necessary tasks. How often do we in the church look and say, that’s to hard, we can’t make any difference there. Muckle Flugga (which is the best name!!) is a reminder that the impossible is possible!
Moving past the actual building, we look at the keepers who for so long kept the lights working at great cost to themselves. Those working on off shore lighthouses, had to live in cramped conditions, away from others but forced to get on (or at least co-exist for the benefit of others) with the other two keepers. How often as the church do we need to learn the lesson of working for the benefit of others with those we are put with who we wouldn’t always chose? We also see with the advent of automation that, automation allows for the purpose of the lighthouse to go on. They still warn those at sea where the dangers are. But through automation they have lost some of their other functions. There are no longer able to raise the alert when they see those in distress, in some cases house those in need until help arrives, give early warnings of approaching storms. This stuck me as very like the church where often we become “automated.” We can continue to warn those outside the church, but we forget to do other parts of what God has given us to do. We forget “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness , And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8”
Finally I will note that the book talks about the politics and infighting, over how to ensure that the lights themselves were as bright and clear as possible, and what was the best way of achieving this. I will leave you to draw your own conclusion on how this relates to the church!!