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"For
This Cause..."
by Commissioner Wesley
Harris
A SENTENCE in a
Salvation Army periodical triggered a train of thought in my
mind. It suggested that a corps should not merely offer a
culture to die in but a cause to die for. Now I like the
Salvation Army culture; it is my comfort zone. Bands, banners
(and bonnets?) are all right by me. Wearing the appropriate
uniform suits me - and most other people - better than
anything else. While not averse to some of the new, so-called
‘plastic choruses’, I also love many of the good, old Army
songs and value them not merely for their literary merit but
for their theological substance as well.
There are
idiosyncrasies which are part of our culture too - funny
expressions which are peculiarly Army - like ‘going to the
open-air'
or
‘being promoted to Glory’ - and I love them. Other people may
scratch their heads or give superior smiles or want to
exchange our terms for others which sound more ‘churchy’. So
be it. The Army culture suits me and probably it always will.
Hopefully I will die in it, although not too soon, I trust!
But the writer
said that our corps should not merely offer a culture to die
in but a cause to die for - and he was right! The cause is
more important than the culture. The ‘why’ matters more than
the ‘how’ and it is encouraging that many Salvationists are
rediscovering the reason for which The Salvation Army was
brought into being in the first place. Our cause is to honour
God, win people for Jesus Christ and serve the needy. If we
lose sight of those aims we will have lost the plot and will
deserve to be consigned to a museum for religious relics.
As an Army editor
I interviewed the late Commissioner Catherine Bramwell-Booth
(a granddaughter of the Army’s founders) when she was
approaching a hundred years of age. She surprised me by saying
that she was all in favour of Army pop groups adding ‘as long
as they do what they do for Jesus and not just to show off’.
So far as she was concerned it was the cause which mattered
most.
It has been said
that there is not such thing as sacrifice if the cause is big
enough . Recently, when conducting meetings in the
Philippines
I met officers living and working in terrible districts and
exulting in the challenges which they faced. Similarly, in
Brazil
I saw women officers who wanted nothing more than to be
allowed to work in appalling shanty towns where drugs and
violence were the order of the day - every day.
Years ago my wife
and I were appointed to an English corps and I took an early
opportunity of speaking to members of the youth fellowship.
What a crowd of spoilt kids they were!
They grumbled about everything!
They had a catalogue of things which the corps did not
provide for them. Eventually I could take no more and
suggested that they should try to forget about themselves and
do something for other people. “Like what?” they asked glumly.
Off the cuff, I suggested that they might organise a dinner
and entertainment on Christmas Day for people who would
otherwise be on their own. Remarkably, those youngsters took
the idea hook, line and sinker. With a bit of help they
organised the meal, the entertainment and the transport and
had the time of their lives doing something for others. As a
group they found themselves through finding a cause.
That was the
secret of the verve and vitality which characterised the early
Salvationists. They may have been as poor as church mice but
they had a great cause and a mighty God and simply had no time
to be bored or sorry for themselves. Literally, they were
ready to live and die in order to fulfil their mission which,
of course, was the case with Jesus himself. On trial before
Pontius Pilate he said, “To this end was I born, and for this
cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto
the truth...” (John 18.37 - KJV).
During the civil
war in
China
a communist was about to be executed by nationalist forces.
Somehow he managed to tear the bandage from his eyes and, just
before he was riddled with bullets, he shouted, “I’m dying for
an ideal. What are you living for?” That is a challenge for
all of us, whatever our age or stage.
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