“There but for the Grace of God go I.”
October 1, 2011
Dear friends,
One of my summer reads was Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington, entitled Washington: A Life. In his weighty 904-page opus (luckily I was using my Kindle so my hands wouldn’t tire), Chernow provides a fair and honest portrayal of our First President. I appreciated learning about the‘flesh and bones’ of a man we often think of as merely an image on a $1-bill or a quarter. For some reason I was surprised to learn that Washington was a real human being! In the review of the book in the New York Times Sunday Book Review last September, the reviewer, Professor Andrew Cayton, had this to say about Washington:
Few human beings have ever lived a life more self-consciously devoted to proving he merited his fame. In retrospect, Washington seems profoundly insecure. Given to dark moods and angry outbursts, especially at those who questioned his intentions, he compensated by studying rules of etiquette, mimicking successful older men, cultivating the loyalty of younger men and displaying an extraordinary sensitivity to what others thought of him. Nothing was more likely to provoke his legendary rage than accusations that he was motivated by a base motive. †
Rage? Insecurity? Concern about his image? Dark moods? Angry outbursts? Our first president, the father of our country had these ‘issues’? These are not the things we normally associate with the man who toured Long Island in 1790 (we have the plaques to prove it), the man who served on two vestries at once! But, again, George Washington was a human being.
In my mind there is only one human being who is perfect: Jesus Christ. Unfortunately the Gospels are silent as to Jesus day-to-day conversations. I am sure there were several moments in his ministry when he exasperatedly shook his head or rolled his eyes, but he is truly our model of selfless love. Not motivated by human desire of will, but modeling a perfect image of how we should live our life. Frankly put, Jesus raised the bar for us quite high.
But not to worry, where we fall short or where our concern for self nudges forward—God is there to help us get beyond ourselves. God sees to it that in the great scheme of things, for all our human nature—God is there. And so we get a person like Washington. A man who was concerned about his image, yet who gave so much and sacrificed much for the sake of the wider community. But as the English Church reformer, the Rev. John Bradford, said in the sixteenth century, “There but for the Grace of God go I.”
With God’s guidance, strength, mercy and grace the work we do for the sake of others—in spite of our own humanity—in all the things we do we can do for the glory of God. I remain,
Faithfully, your rector and friend,
The Rev. Joshua D. Walters
† Cayton, Andrew, “Learning to be Washington,” New York Times: Sunday Book Review, September 30, 2010, accessed on September 22, 2011 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Caytont.html
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