How will we be remembered?

It’s been good to have time to sit and read a newspaper from cover to cover this week - a rare treat! I’m a bit of a politics junkie and I’ve been pondering how this time politically, socially and mentally will be remembered. Nadine Dorries has tonight resigned as an MP very bitterly. She has told the Prime Minister that “history will not judge you kindly.” Then there’s the shenanigans in the United States. Will people next year really vote for Trump again? Then there’s this stop the boats mentality. We’ve become very divided. We have either become introspective and intolerant, or we readily give time trying to change society by good works and kindness. I guess that divide in attitude has always been so but today we don’t see a lot of good deeds being celebrated in the media in its various forms just bad news.

On the television as I write this there’s a very old programme in which Dr Martin Luther King is describing the dire segregation rules he and others lived by. He’s remembered as a worker for racial justice and respect. He wanted to leave a mark on this world by being an agent of change. 

I compare him with Trump. How can people really see him as their Saviour? We don’t live in the States, and we don’t really understand his make America great again rhetoric. It’s happened before in history of course where people have enthusiastically got behind a figure others looking on have seen as very dangerous but the person promises to make their life better. I’ve read books on 1930’s Germany and I understand at a time of hardship why so many people got behind a charismatic new leader promising the world. It wasn’t until later some of those people saw the horrors his evil agenda would lead to. 

I have this evening walked down the lovely street in Stamford called Barn Hill. I took time to reflect on who might have walked this cobbled street before me. You can also do the same exercise mooching round churches looking at tombs and plaques. It’s very powerful to think who has sat where you sit in your church on a Sunday who are part of the story of the place. 

I’ve thought of some dear souls in the Circuit I’ve passed through this week whose presence on my journey as the minister was very special. I take a lot of funerals! I’m always moved when the story of someone is shared and what a difference they’ve quietly made! I love this picture of the last wishes of a pastor I found in Beverley Minster! 

“The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day.”

The apostle Paul was proud to highlight that the legacy he thought he was leaving behind was a life of faith writing to Timothy. He stayed faithful in the long and arduous race of faith. He faced many extreme challenges. He struggled with temptations. He didn’t live an easy or comfortable life. He could have complained about much that he endured. Yet, he completed the race of life faithfully until the end.

He did not focus on all the churches that he started; on the theological works he wrote; on his earthly “accomplishments.” He was happy to note that he had stayed faithful in following God and serving Him until the end of his life!

That’s probably the greatest legacy to leave behind. How will we be remembered? I sat with 93 year old George the other day. He told me things were a lot better in the past with people being more generous. Despite having the war, he said, people helped one another. Maybe today people are as generous, it’s just that their voices and actions are just not noticed as we despair about what the noisy and the narrow what us to notice. One or two of the tabloids want us to follow a certain story, and you can even buy a mug or a tee shirt with Trump’s mugshot in jail on it! Lord have mercy! 

I guess the only way we will be remembered positively is getting on with the work of living in community, loving, sharing, respecting, being sacrificial, doing our best to be the people God has created us to be. One day some poor Superintendent in whatever Methodist Circuit I pass to glory in will have to write an obituary about me! I wonder what he or she will write. How will I be remembered? I hope that I did my best to help people, build people up and share God’s grace. We shall see! Not yet I hope, but we shall see!