Honours Day

"Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!"

Thus spake the apostle, and have we any reason to mistrust his words? It is said that in a great house there are many vessels, some of gold and silver and honourable in disposition, some of clay and wood and made for humble purposes. Yet besides honour, there is use; for there are things of honour with no use and things of use that we do not honour.

"Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man," said his brother apostle.

Those apostles were really good. Good as gold. And it is quite clear from their words that there are two meanings of silver and gold (and neither has to do with my own pocket-money funds). The first connotes nobility of value and use; it is used to speak of the purity of divine purpose and of the foundations built in our lives by the workings of the Spirit. The second is what another apostle calls 'filthy lucre', the cancerous desire for scoring more worthless points than our fellow humans.

Today I felt happy that young people were being honoured for what they had done, what they had earnestly striven for (and in some case, got away with). All of that has value in this world, and the Word does not refute that this is true. But in the end, the most important points were in the hymns that were sung: leadership, dedication, glory. All of it, to God and His holy purposes. Which is why I wince when I see and hear the behaviour and language of some of our athletes, and remember that I too was sometimes like that when I was young.