We could always be humbler.
Yesterday, I learnt that the hard way. My girlfriend and I had walked to a nearby canal for a refreshing swim — it’s hot here, too hot for my liking — and brought with us Woody, our greyhound. I wasn’t feeling particularly well and had had a mind to sit out on the swimming itself and do some reading, with my legs dangling in the water. But cold and green (and quite possible dirty) though the water was, I couldn’t resist the lure of relief from feeling hot and sweaty. Besides, Issy looked so happy and natural in the water, like a mermaid almost, so I stripped off and took the plunge.
The Bible is full of sudden falls. There’s Adam and Eve, of course; there’s the Tower of Babel; there’s Dives, who wakes up in heaven with a horrible pang of remorse. God is constantly humbling us — that’s if he needs to; we’re perfectly capable of doing it ourselves, to ourselves.
For some lunatic reason (again, it was very hot; I may not have been entirely compos mentis), I decided Woody could do with a dip as well. Honesty compels me to admit that this was against the express wisdom of Isobel. Thus, coaxing him into the canal but not, mind you, actually expecting him to obey, I watched as Woody stepped down and in.
There was a good deal of splashing. Of course he could swim, but not very well. It became immediately apparent that he was far from enjoying himself. I went to lift him out, only to find — again, as I had been warned — that the water level was too far below the lip of the towpath to be able to lift him out. I didn’t panic, exactly; I’m sure I could have shimmied him up and out soon enough. But it would not have been easy. I needed help. I needed a helping hand.
So did Simon Peter on the sea of Galilee.
Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’
Suddenly, just as lifting Woody out was becoming unnervingly difficult, two silhouettes appeared standing over the water. ‘Do you need help?’ one of them asked. I said yes, struggling to catch my breath, and both of them — fly fishermen of about my own age — reached down and took poor old Woody from me. They didn’t need to help (and get very wet in the process). But they did.
Initially my gratitude was tinged with a soupçon of resentment: I wanted to be able to do it on my own, especially in front of my girlfriend (who was probably resisting the temptation to say ‘I told you so’). Who wouldn’t? I felt stupid — chastened by events. Humbled.
God humbled himself simply by taking on human nature. In so doing, he opened himself up to both human weakness (shedding tears in Gethsemane) and human heroism, but a different sort of heroism, quite at odds with the callous military splendour of the ancient world; he became the sort of person who holds out his hand for Simon, a slave, a poor man, a fisherman. A nobody. I was a nobody to those two fishermen at the canal. Perhaps God sent them my way, to remind me that one must receive help in this life, and that one cannot give unless one has received. I feel sure that God was working in them, and that my failure — to think prudently, to listen to Issy, to help Woody — was a part of God’s ordinance.
And I am left with the wondrous realisation that God could call me — or you — to be those two fly fishermen at any moment.