Rightly, we expect dignity from those bearing responsibility in our Church. We do not expect bishops to be tearaways or tricksters. Nor do we like them to fit into institutional compartments and have it be known, as might be the case in a company with a board of directors at the top of a hierarchy, that their cars are an indication of their seniority. We like to think we do differently in a Church. Dignity is a delicate being and finds survival difficult in a rough-and-tumble world.
All the more astonishing is it then to discover that there was an episode in Paul’s life when he was lowered from the city wall in a basket. Like so much dirty linen he was smuggled out of Damascus to evade the equivalent of the Gestapo.
Of course, those were days when prominent Christian believers were the Tom, Dick and Harry of the population. There were no special favours, no honourable places, no honorific titles on offer. It was more a question of blood, toil, tears and sweat. As far as Aretas, the king of the Nabataeans, was concerned, it was all about power politics.
In a letter to the Corinthian Christians (the second of two such letters in the New Testament) Paul apologises again and again for writing about himself He is acting like a fool, he says. But he is driven to do it in order to make some things plain to his unruly friends. He would do anything rather than become a financial burden to them. So it is that we discover the privations, punishments of a man whipped, beaten, stoned as an agent of the Gospel. It is folly to recount all this, he protests, but he has been given no choice. He has to demonstrate to the Corinthian believers that he is no con-man, that he has God-given authority to act as he does. Remember, he says, that Satan masquerades as an angel of light and Satan’s disciples are not above their master.
So we should remember that basket. And we should take note of the fact that followers of the Way did what needed to be done. They made no bones about it. We are reminded that in Luke 7.25 Jesus asked his followers what kind of man they went out to see when John the Baptist was campaigning. Were they looking for a man dressed in finery, enjoying grand clothes and luxury? No, they went looking for a prophet. Who knows? When occasion demanded it, they might come across him hiding in a basket.
TEN YEARS IN LUTTERWORTH
For ten years John Wycliffe was Rector of St Mary’s, Lutterworth, Leicestershire. He had lived through the Black Death, had a scholarly career at Oxford and been a driving force in the translation of the Latin Bible into English. The Lollards were itinerant preachers who owed their inspiration to Wycliffe. He has a theological college and a Bible translation agency named after him and is regarded as a precursor of the Reformation. St Mary’s today has a full programme. Leading he ministry team is Robert Harcourt.
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