STANDING IDLE
Nowadays we express unemployment in terms of percentages. Other societies – Hardy’s rural markets for instance – looked at things differently. The New Testament is one such. (Matthew 20). This is a story Jesus composed about men standing idle in the market-place. No talk of stake-holders, no glimmer of organised labour Tolpuddle-style. A land-owner asserts his rights and the sympathy of the narrator is all his. The land and the job that go with it are his and his alone. The men he hires to do the work have to recognise this.
Undoubtedly the story makes a point about new arrivals They are to be treated generously. Why? Because the land-owner thinks that appropriate. In the same way God treats new arrivals to the Christian faith generously. They are not second-class citizens. They have all the grace that the elder brother had. Why? Because God loves sinners, sinners such as the younger son who wasted his substance on riotous living and then came to himself.
We gasp. Is that really the way God thinks about his creatures? Is his mercy so unbounded? It is. That’s what made John Newton write ‘Amazing grace’ That’s why Paul wrote (in Romans 5.8) ‘But Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.’
We have to take account of 2,000 years of change. Men on hire in the market-place! We legislate to allow men – and women – to negotiate working conditions. We have eliminated diseases like smallpox. We have given our Clydesdales and Shires an honourable discharge and switched to steam, then to electricity. Diesels, not the winds, power our ships. We accept that we have moved from a labour-intensive rural economy to a hi-fi one.
But we and our fellow-human-beings have the same needs as our ancestors. That story of Jesus still has its relevance.
LIMEHOUSE YURT
Founded in 1147, St Katharine’s conference centre in Butcher Row, London E14 runs, as it claims, the only yurt café in the capital. It offers tasty national food, including craft coffee and special teas, not to mention connection with the community. The accommodation and grounds are 21st century. It is located close to Canary Wharf. The word ‘Yurt’ comes from a word for the portable round structures found in the steppes of Siberia. St Katharine’s Foundation is a Church of England outreach serving the community. Its site and its purpose have not changed since the 12th century.
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