I watched a Kingfisher catch fire on a sunny day at a pond behind the Kilns, C. S. Lewis’s home. Gerard Manley Hopkins first introduced me to the thought in a poem. Kingfishers are birds which reflect the sunlight so beautifully that they appear to catch fire. In the first part of the poem, Hopkins proposes the thought that we all do what we were made to do. As an extension, we might say, we all act out of who we are and for our own interests.
After the trial of Paul before his opponents came to no obvious conclusion, Festus offered to move the trial back to Jerusalem. Why? It was likely in his own best interest as a new Roman governor to appease the Jewish leaders and ingratiate himself to them. Because Festus cared more about his own interests than Paul’s he proposed the compromise, which might have proved fatal to Paul. Paul, too, acted out of his own self-interest by refusing the request and appealing to Caesar. Why? He knew he had done nothing wrong. If granted an audience before Caesar, he would finally accomplish his goal of getting to Rome.
Not only was Paul trying to save his own neck. He was trying to save the lives of all who would hear the gospel and believe. I especially love the conclusion of Hopkins’s poem. “But I say more. The just man justices. Keeps grace that keeps all his goings graces. Acts in God’s eye who in God’s eye he is. Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in eyes, lovely in limbs, not his, to the Father through the features of our faces.”
As Kingfishers catch fire in the sunlight, so we often act out of our own interest. Instinctively, we look out for number one. But we were made for more. As part of God’s new creation, we begin to resemble Christ himself, who laid down his life for his friends. There is more to life than self-interest. The sooner we learn that the sooner we will be free to catch fire in the light of our Father’s love.
