One love

You are my son whom I love (1:11) 

Much study has been done on young people leaving church, not surprisingly. A whole generation left in the 1960s, and then again in the 70s and the 80s and no one could work out why. Many answers were tried: rejection of parental discipline, easy access to drugs and sex, doctrinal confusion. All had a part to play but none seemed to quite fit the bill. Indeed no one knows, but here's a suggestion. A gap grew quite suddenly between middle-aged adults and young people. The parental generation were interested in mortgages and classical music and sensible things like that - a reaction I suspect to the insecurity of the war. The young generation were not. They wanted to dance to loud music, stay up to all hours and... you can guess the rest. Why is this gap my main suspect? Well, all the evidence suggests that friendship - genuine, honest, reliable friendship - between young people and Christian adults, is what keeps the youngsters going on with God. 

My friend was Chris Seaman. He was a lovely man - gentle, humble, funny and very talented. My favourite Chris Seaman story is this. He was a quite well-known orchestral conductor, and as soon as this came out at a dinner party the conversation got stuck on it. He was, in the circles he moved in, quite famous, I suppose. So he had a simple tactic to avoid it - he lied about his job. His favourite alternate job was to claim he painted the inside of coffins. 'And you should see some of the things people ask for' he would say. Always raised a chuckle.

We all need to know we are loved. And, as we grow up, parental love does not have quite the power it once held. It is the foundation for all our security, but is no longer a guide to our choices. The love of friends becomes the new norm for our lives, and if those friends are all young like us, then the echo chamber of the peer group becomes our guide instead. But it only takes one friend who sees the world a bit differently to put everything into a divine perspective.

There comes a time when even that is not enough. We need to know that we are loved by one whose love never fades or forgets. It seems even Jesus needed that ultimate affirmation. All our human loves point that way. He just got a bit of a short cut. Maybe he needed it. Maybe we do too. And when we have it, maybe we need to get really good at passing it on.



Comments

  1. Julie S11 October 2020 at 01:08

    Sadly, the church must look at itself for this one. Instead of presenting rules and judgement, the church needs to radiate the divine love for which we all search.

    ReplyDelete

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