CLOSING AND OPENING DOORS
Philippians 3:12-16
Luke 9:57-62
"No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks
back is fit for the kingdom of God."
"This one thing I do: forgetting
what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead."
Last
Thursday I visited Victor Verster prison where Nelson Mandela spent the last
few years of his imprisonment, and from which he walked free on 11th February
1990. We all remember the famous picture
of him and his wife Winnie walking through the gate at Victor Verster on his
final journey to freedom. The prison has
since been renamed Drakenstein Prison,
lying as it does beneath the beautiful Drakenstein mountains on the road
between Franschoek and Paarl. But the house, which originally belonged to a
farmer named Victor Verster , has been left just as it was when Mandela lived
in it, and is now maintained as a heritage site.
On the tour
of the house, our excellent guide regaled us with stories and anecdotes from Mandela's
years. He showed us the lemon tree which Mandela
planted as a sign of hope. He told us
about Mandela's first experience of a micro-wave oven which he thought was a TV,
and about his decision not to use the very large main bedroom because after
living in a prison cell he found it just too much! He also passed on wisdom he had gleaned from
Madiba. Life, he said, was like a journey through those security doors
installed in banks. You go through one
door into a secure space, but there is still another in front of you which won't
open to let you through until the first door has closed behind you. He recalled how in the bad old days when
South Africa was on the brink of civil war, President P.W. Botha was incapable
of closing the door on the past and taking the risk of moving into a different
future, but President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela did exactly that. Often in
life you have to shut one door and leave the past behind in order for the door to
open that leads you into a new future.
Paul did
this after his conversion on the Damascus Road.
He put his previous life behind him and pressed forward as a disciple of
Christ into a new life, and new way of being.
Christian discipleship requires that.
As Jesus said, we have to walk through a narrow gate in order to enter
fully into life, and he also told us that we cannot keep looking back, just
like a farmer in ploughing a field must keep looking ahead. Following Christ requires that certain things
have to be left in the past whether it be selfishness and a lack of compassion
for others, racism or a clinging to privilege at the expense of others. We have to shut the door on such attitudes
and actions otherwise the door into life will not open. St. Paul knew this. "This one thing I do: forgetting what
lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead."
The story of
our lives, not least our journey in faith, is marked more generally by doors
that close and others that open, like chapters in a book. As we look back we can discern moments when
we had to leave the past behind in order to move into the future, however
cautiously. This, we have learnt, is
sometimes difficult and often threatening.
But if we cling to the past we become captive to it, and end up
bemoaning the fact that we did not grasp those opportunities which came along, going
through doors which opened for us, but which also required us to close others and
take the risk of walking through. You can't move forward unless you let go. You can't follow Christ if you are
continually hankering after your old life without him. It is best, as Paul says, to forget about
that. But leaving the past behind is not
necessarily mean forgetting the past. Isobel
and I cannot forget our son Steve; we remember him every day in various
ways. But we have had to learn to close
the door on that wonderful chapter in our lives in order to turn the page and
move ahead. This is not easy as many of
you will know. But it is a lesson we all
have to learn however difficult and reluctantly. Sometimes doors bang shut behind us leaving us
in a empty space like doors in a bank.
But we cannot remain in that empty space. We have to go through the door that faces us
however difficult, and learn to trust that God will leads us through the
emptiness into new possibilities.
It is true
that as we grow older most doors have already been shut behind us, and there
are not too many doors of opportunity in
front of us. It is true that people trapped in poverty see no way
of escape, and many young people see no future ahead. So I do not want to romanticise the notion
that when doors close others automatically open, that when people lose their
jobs others will simply come along for them.
Life does not work like that. Yet
the human spirit is such that people will go to extraordinary lengths to leave
the past behind in order to find a new future.
Consider all those refugees who are fleeing their horrific past in
war-torn countries, shutting the door behind them in order to find a new life,
hoping and praying for doors to open to them.
And there are many in our own country who are, in remarkable ways, doing
the same against all odds.
In thinking
about where you are at this moment in your life and your journey in faith, are
there doors that need to be shut in order for you to move forward? This does not necessarily or always mean that
you have to stop doing what you are doing, or living where you are living, for
leaving the past behind also has to do with forgiving people, accepting fresh
insights and healing memories. Is there a
door that God is opening and inviting you to pass through? And, of course, sometimes we are called to
help open doors for other people, and to help them walk through to freedom and
a new future as Mandela did. How can we
help others to leave their past behind and walk into a better future? Is this not what programmes like Sparklekids
is all about?
In the first
chapter of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe Peter, Susan,
Edmund, and Lucy explore the big house that had become their war-time home like
we explored Mandela's house. Looking into,
a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe: the
sort that has a looking-glass in the door. .. “Nothing there!” said Peter, and
they all trooped out again – all except Lucy.
She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while trying the
door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure it would be locked. To her surprise it opened quite easily…she
immediately stepped in…
Then Lucy
went in further, and further again, until she discovered herself in a new
world, a different space with surprises around every corner. Maybe there is a door we all need to close
and a door waiting to be opened, a door that will open quite easily, allowing
us to enter into a new space in which God will surprise us. This is how the Christian journey of faith
begins, and how it continues to the end.
For in the end we also have to let go in order to enter the door that
leads us through death to life in a new dimension, into the mystery of God.
John de
Gruchy
Volmoed 8th October 2015
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