Articles - From the Vicar

Throw away thy rod,
Throw away thy wrath;
O my God,
Take the gentle path.

In his poem Discipline, the first stanza of which I have quoted above, George Herbert takes on the role of advocate and seeks to argue God away from a position of stern severity that is characterised by 'rod and wrath' and into a more gentle mode of action. Possibly the poet-priest was reacting against the increasingly puritan tenor of the times: during the first part of the seventeenth century Anglicanism was becoming more and more austere both theologically and liturgically. A little later in the poem Herbert challenges this austerity more directly, contrasting wrath with another, quite different, quality:

Then let wrath remove;
Love will do the deed;
For with love
Stony hearts will bleed.

Lent begins this month, bringing with it for Christians the opportunity to reflect on the role of discipline, self-sacrifice and penitence in our life of discipleship. Such reflections are an important way for us to enter more deeply into a relationship with God, but we must never allow our Lenten reflections to be dominated by the notion that God is attempting to coerce us into such a relationship. Such ideas run counter to the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ who says Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light. (Matthew 11.29-30)