I remember an occasion when I was on my way to church when I realised I had left a simmering saucepan on the hob. The person who was kindly giving me a lift promptly turned his car round and helped me solve the problem. Better to be late into church than have a kitchen full of smoke and maybe friendly fire-fighters to welcome me back.
Better to delay going to church than take smouldering resentment with us. It is idle to pretend that we do not have our differences. It is also wasteful to go back years picking over unhappy incidents. It is destructive to let guilt balloon out of all reasonable proportions. And in practical terms it is sensible to keep talking to people we don’t see eye to eye with.
If we are doing our best to follow the precepts Jesus gave us, we have no licence to plunge into discord and spiteful behaviour. A church should not be a place of unsavoury malevolence. Not if we read the Sermon on the Mount and particularly Matthew 5.23. Nor can we offset foolish behaviour by kneeling before God or singing his praises. Jesus offers the simple advice that before we come before God in worship we should make peace with somebody we are at odds with. An everyday matter for us everyday people.
So we should not go to church nursing a grudge. We should not let the sun go down on our wrath (Ephesians 4.26). It’s altogether human to want to get our own back when we have been slighted or treated less than fairly. Revenge or the thought of it is sweet. But it has a sour after-taste. We find it is vinegar that has been masquerading as wine. Should it be no more than an academic game with no bones broken either way, we can cheerfully have some knockabout fun. But if we embrace a grudge, if we fondle it, it becomes part of us. This is how it has the tenacity to last over the years in the form of a feud or vendetta. Romeo and Juliet fell foul of that.
Here are appropriate references: 1 Samuel 15.22, Isaiah 1.10-17, Micah 6.6-8, Amos 5.21. They’re all in the Old Testament so we can observe them along with our Jewish friends. The first Christian believers too were in the same boat as we are. Euodia and Syntyche had fallen out (Philippians 4.2). Paul calls upon a mystery church member to assist. We have to be peace-makers and encourage others to be so too. It’s there in the Lord’s Prayer.
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS
All Saints’ church, New Eltham, London majors on its gardens. There are four of them and energetic teams spend time and energy in making them something of a showpiece. It seems obvious but it is worth saying that this is a way of inviting outsiders to see what worshippers value in the way of beauty and order in the natural world. And that seems to be not a bad way of going about evangelizing. Appropriately the Vicar is Annette Rose.
A SWARM OF VISITORS
A huge swarm of visitors earned a picture in the Stoneleigh, Coventry church magazine. Ed says he had never seen such a swarm. He rehoused the bees in one of his hives and helped them on their way with sugar.
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King at johnc.king@talktalk.net Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.
Comments