This Generation

Let’s not be a dull and distracted generation, because it seems that there are many witnesses to our worship and our mission.

At a small civic gathering last Tuesday, I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for a monk. Not a real monk, but the new Monk in Meditation sculpture in Oxford Street.  Presumably he is intended as a traffic calming measure. As I did this I chose a few words from Psalm 145 as a text:

³ Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    his greatness no one can fathom.
⁴ One generation commends your works to another;
    they tell of your mighty acts.
⁵ They speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty –
    and I will meditate on your wonderful works. (Psalm 145:3-5)

When I have spent time with monks they never really strike me as spiritual superstars, and in truth there is no such thing. Monks come across as wonderfully ordinary people, very hardworking, and with an abnormal communal discipline as they devote hours to the reading and hearing of scripture and the singing of the psalms. Their meditation is not an emptying, more a filling. The works of God slowly marinating their souls; the word, a lamp to their feet.

But last Tuesday I also noticed the generational dimension of Psalm 145:4—a reminder of our role in Malmesbury. The sense that we live and serve in a town with an ancient and significant Christian heritage, and that since the 7th century, generation after generation have prayed to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and not one generation has ceased to tell of the ‘glorious splendour’ of God’s majesty to the next. We are helped to some extent by a building that screams of God’s glory to all who drive up the A429, but nevertheless there are ruins and empty churches across our land. Nice stones won’t do the job on their own, it is up to the living stones. (See 1 Peter 2:4-12)

So let’s not be a dull and distracted generation, because another generation is watching us right now to see if we really are consumed by the ‘wonderful works’ and ‘might acts’ of the LORD. Let us be a people hungry to be nourished by God’s word, passionate with uplifted hands and faces in our worship, silent before his holy presence in broken bread and wine, and eager to speak of his glory to a world we work to transform.  If I see that in another, it will cause me to meditate.