Motivation

St Augustine of Canterbury - the man most credited with England's Christian conversion to Catholic Christianity - turned around on his journey from Rome to England and went back. He didn't think he could do it. Of course he did. But the pope had to send him again - it was not a lack of obedience so much as a lack of self-confidence - or God-confidence - that he would be empowered and enabled in this ministry.

Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote in the Times of London this weekend about our motivation. The "getting away with it" mentality which seems, so often, to pervade our society. Think about driving, which most of us do. How many rolling stops and slight speeding offenses are we all guilty of in a week? If our kids drop something in a store and break it, do we take it to the register and offer to pay or do we look around to see if anyone is watching and stick it back on the shelf.

These are small examples - but Rowan Williams argues that our attitude in the every day things that we do points to our deeper motivation. If - and I am adding my own words - if, we are filled with God and God's Spirit then we cannot fail to act into that and will cease to be "bare minimum" people.

Augustine, in his ministry, was not a bare minimum person - but in allowing himself to be turned around in his mission he was. We can live into the minimum both in what we do and what we believe about ourselves. All things are possible in Christ and it is to this abundance of being that we are called - not to the greyer existence of worrying that we are not "up to much".

Rules are there for a reason, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. But as Christians we are called to have a greater scheme for our action and decision making. We should, where possible, be good citizens but then go beyond that. The law says we should not deprive others of life - Jesus says we should bring life in all its abundance to the world. To that action there is, gloriously, no end.