bloody exams

THOUGHTS FROM EXAM SEASON (a few months ago)

Aargh! Yours Truly has exams over the next ten days, and may be a little distracted. When I was dismissed as Dean of Waiapu I decided to pick up a diploma course on Conflict Resolution. I have been muttering imprecations in my own direction ever since. Whatever was I thinking? Apart from anything else I’m not entirely convinced by the quality of the course (and in fact Massey University is canning it after this intake). But as I come towards the pointy end, with just (just!) two exams and a Practicum to go I’m really not wanting to fail.

When I did the first paper back in late 2016 I was somewhat shocked to find that exams still existed. I hadn’t sat one since my Divinity degree back in the mid-80s, and am seriously sceptical about their value as a method of assessment. As I went on through the course in 2017 I discovered to my relief that the exams were a diminishing part of the assessment, so I was somewhat shocked earlier this year to discover that they are 60% of these papers.

Oh well. A wing and a prayer. I feel chronically under-prepared. 

But maybe there’s a parable in this somewhere? Good old Christian doctrines of judgement (= assessment?) have taken a hammering over the years. The methods by which Christian teachers and preachers kept their flock in a state of terror over the centuries were not dissimilar to the methodology of examiners: “on judgement day …” Of course if you were lucky (or blessed or whatever) there were a few ifs about grace and about being found in Christ and ransomed by his blood et cetera, but basically the message was unchanging. “Be afraid, be very afraid,” as Quaiffe says in The Fly.

I will preach and teach often about not cosying up to “God-bro” (or “God-mate” in Australia, “God-chum” in UK, “God-buddy” in the USA, if you get my drift). As a people of God we should err on the side of grace. God is the God who creates grace, who welcomes us to the divine feast, who bridges the gap between our fallibility and divine perfection. I don’t think God (or St Peter) has a check list. But at the same time as we extend divine manaakitanga, divine welcome and hospitality to those outside our faith community, we need to keep remembering that we aren’t chumming up to God by dint of our spectacular worthiness. Not to bash ourselves up, just to “re-member” (as I try to put it, on purpose, in the Eucharistic prayer). It’s God’s feast, God’s church, God’s eternity (whatever that is), not ours.

God ain’t our bro. God invites us and will invite us eternally (whatever that means), to join the feast of joy. God invites all, and, I believe, will continue to do so – eternally. Whatever that means! We just need to make our lives reflect that inviting attitude, too.

I just wish my examiners would.



PS ... I passed