Streams of Living Water

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John 6:26-29

We live in a world of aims. In our business lives we are confronted by projects with aims. In our personal lives, we set aims for ourselves – we will get fit, we will lose weight, we will this, we will that. My question tonight is basic: what is to be our over-arching aim in life? What are we to live for? And in particular, whether in ‘full-time’ service or otherwise, why should we give up our lives and serve God? We look around us and we see our neighbours with their beautiful houses, beautiful jobs, beautiful kids and beautiful holidays – they aren’t being tempted, or persecuted, or going through the kinds of trials we have to as Christians. So why do we bother? I have spent a lot of time thinking that question through recently, what with the problems I have had to face in the ministry, and the greater problems some of my ministerial colleagues in the presbytery have had to face. Faced with a lifetime of disappointment and pain, why should we bother serving God in this way?
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One of the best things about the football world cup is the expressions on the faces of the players after a penalty shoot out. For the team which has won, like Portugal, faces light up with smiles and shouts of joy. For the team which has lost, like England, faces dull down with grimaces and tears of grief. There are no neutrals after a penalty shoot out. But whilst the television screens can show us what players are like on the outside after a penalty shoot out, the book of Psalms gives us an unprecedented glimpse of what we as God’s people look like in the extremes of our Christian experience. And here, in Psalm 43, especially in vs. 5, we have both extremes interlocking into one song – the experience of living in darkness and living in light.
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As I talked about in my lecture on Sunday night on the Da Vinci Code, the society in which we live has moved from being one dominated by institutions like the government and the church, to being one which is deeply suspicious of all authority structures and all figures representing them. We are instantly suspicious of, and cynical about Glasgow’s governmental structures and possibly even the religious institutions which dominate our culture. We are members of a society which has a powerful anti-authority mood. And yet, in the Christian church, and in particular the Scottish Presbyterian Church, the one thing we distinctly lack are real leaders – and not just leaders in the sense of decision-makers, but leaders in the sense of role models. One of the biggest complaints I hear from Christian young people is that they lack older role models, those who will model what being a Christian in 21^st Century Scotland is all about. And so, I thought I would encourage us all here tonight, and especially those in positions of leadership in the congregation, to start being role models.

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