Unbidden and in abundance they come: ground elder, dandelion and nettle. I have never come out a victor after taking on ground elder.
What is true in our gardens is and always has been the case with the Church.
In ‘Acts’ we meet men and women inspired by the Spirit of Christ. We also meet artful dodgers, con-men and gullible bystanders. Everybody, I suppose, remembers Ananias and Sapphira They lied to the Holy Spirit and dropped dead when they were found out. But who remembers the seven sons of Sceva who tried their hands at exorcism and were frightened out of their lives when the evil spirit they were casting out turned on them? Simon was another one who sought a short cut to fame by performing wonders. He was shaking in his shoes, fearing judgment from heaven, after Peter had sorted him out. And as for gullible bystanders, it wasn’t only in Lystra that people jumped to conclusions and took Paul for a god.
Then there were magicians. Some staged a burning of the books to seal their renunciation of the tools of their trade. In a heady atmosphere where speaking in tongues and prophecy were commonplace amongst those following the new way there must have been difficulty in discriminating between true faith and its meretricious counterpart. This should hardly surprise us. Each generation in its day has this kind of problem to face – authentic or ersatz. It happened long before the Church came into being. See, e.g. Micah 3.11.
The infant Church was far from being a no-nonsense cheery nest of singing-birds and saints. There was more than one cuckoo in the nest. Not even the best was without his faults. Apollos was a convincing speaker who seemed to know the answers to lots of questions but it was only after Mrs Eagle (aka Priscilla) had taken him aside and pointed out his inadequacies that he became truly useful. Half a loaf is better than no bread (as we have been saying since the 16th century) but we have to remember there were half-followers, half-believers as well as whole-hearted Christ’s men and women. We also need to take into account healing at a distance when Paul’s handkerchiefs were carried to the sick and they were cured of their diseases, and evil spirits came out of them. Do we think we can hardly go wrong by endeavouring to reproduce the Church of the New Testament? We may find ourselves running into the same problems that occurred then.
If we are watchful about casualties and mishaps in today’s churches, we are not impugning the potency or authenticity of the Gospel. The first generation of believers had their shortcomings. So do we. We are all flawed human beings. We come with all our weaknesses to a Creator and Redeemer who has known about these things at first hand.
BASEMENT CONVERSION
In what may be a unique project in the Church of England St Stephen’s church, West Bowling, Bradford is planning to convert its basement into a garden room. Jimmy Hinton is Vicar of this church in a majority Muslim area; it also has a number of Gurkhas in its congregation. St Stephen’s is heavily involved in a SHINE project that helps people become familiar with commuter skills, etc. to help in the quest for employment.
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