From the Rector

  August 2010

Many of us enjoyed a very successful men's social as we participated in the clay-pigeon shoot.  Thanks to the efforts of Les Pike and his team, who guided us through the basics, we all hit something at the end of the day; of course 'great humility' means that I cannot tell you how well I did!

We had a mixture of expertise, some of the group shoot on a regular basis while others, like me, had never fired a gun before.  Instructions were carefully relayed and if we followed the advice, then there was a reasonable chance we would make contact with a clay-pigeon.  However, despite good coaching, a few regular marksmen and our best efforts, all of us at least on three occasions, missed the target.

On reflection, targets - goals to aim for, are used in a variety of ways to help us achieve what we hope to get done.  At the beginning of any New Year we endeavour to improve our lives and circumstances by setting ourselves some aims, some aspirations that we hope to achieve during the coming year, effectively a fresh start.  However invariably we fail to meet our chosen targets and I wonder how many of us several months later can even remember our New Year resolutions!

Another target we failed to meet recently was during the teddy bear jump: despite the scouts commendable efforts not all our brave teddies landed safely in the sheet, although none suffered any ill effects.  

How many of us set targets for our lives and end up missing them completely?  Not only do we miss our targets, but failure can come with a price.  We saw in the recent World Cup it can be costly to miss a penalty or an open-goal.
 
I recall one fly-fishing trip.  Just out of range, feeding on the surface was a large rainbow trout. Despite my efforts I couldn't quite get my fly to land in front of him.  It was very frustrating to see this trout and for my line to fall-short.  I missed out what would have been a catch of a lifetime and it still irks me now when I think about it.

We not only fall short and miss our targets, but we fail someone else's.  We may not realise, but as we live our lives we do so against the backdrop of God's standards.  The Bible uses the Greek word Hamartia to express this falling short; it literally means 'missing the mark.'   

All of us, to varying degrees, live lives that come short of the requirements God asks of us.  We might think we live reasonably good lives, but compared to his standards (and we will be judged by his benchmark) we come well short and find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of breaking his perfect law.  Of course as we are not perfect, it is inevitable that we should stray.  It seems like there in an inclination, or bias within us, like a bowling ball that causes us to not to go in a straight line and hit the desired target.

The Bible is reassuring in assessing our spiritual situation, it suggests we are all in the same boat, no matter how good we might feel about ourselves (such confidence is gathered when we compare ourselves to others), by suggesting:  "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
The sin; the missing the target, in our lives means that we cannot hope to come into the presence (glory) of God:  our lives, our standards fall short.  If this situation were to remain, then we would be forever outside the joy of our heavenly father.
Thankfully, we are not left without hope.  At the heart of the Christian faith is God's great love for his creation and through his Son, Jesus, steps into the world to rescue us from all our failings.  He is the one, who through the Cross deals once and for all our failed attempts at living the godly life we are expected to.
And because of this God is in a position to offer forgiveness to those who are truly sorry for the mess they have made of things.

Yes, our lives miss the target, but we have a God who is willing to forgive and tells us to have another shot, and another shot and another shot...