‘Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen.’
So said Alexander Pope.
I said to Humpty, who is very much at home amongst 18th century poets, ‘And isn’t it just as true to say that goodness needs only to be seen to be loved?’
‘Now you’re talking,’ he replied. ‘It’s there in black and white in the Sermon on the Mount.’
‘Where precisely?’ I asked.
‘Matthew 5.16,’ came the answer.
I checked it out. Humpty is quite right. ‘’When they see the good you do, they may give praise to your Father in heaven.’
There is nothing as convincing as goodness. I pondered that. When Christians have a reputation for generosity, magnanimity, and the Church is a kind of reservoir of creative self-forgetfulness that benefits mankind, people will pay attention. We may get our legs pulled, particularly if we get heavy about it, but friends and neighbours will on the whole give us credit for helping to make the world a better place.
‘What you are shouts so loud that I can’t hear what you say,’ goes the old adage. It seems to come from Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was one of those people (Gladstone was another) who came and went within the bounds of the 19th century. Emerson was not exactly orthodox but he had a good one-liner here. Goodness is attractive. It is contagious. It wins people over. Luke puts it beautifully when he describes it as ‘good measure, pressed and shaken down and running over’ (Luke 6.38), We have to ask whether that is the first thing people notice about us and our local church.
DRY ROT
St John’s church, Pendlebury, Manchester (built 1841) would not be what it is today without its experience of dry rot. In 1986 the monster was detected and the church had to be gutted and renewed. Out went a three-decker pulpit. In came an immersion pool and chairs in place of pews. The parish is a large one and the Vicar is Gareth Thomas, formerly a nurse.
JOSHUA TREE
Coming out of lockdown, Hillside church, Gateshead (two churches) is launching a new café called Joshua Tree. It majors on drama in its worship and has a walking group -- Hillside Wanderers. The Vicar is Glen Macknight.
CRICK VOICES
Published weekly, ‘Crick Voices’ is produced by church members, with Graeme Anderson, interim rector, in charge. On Saturday 9 October the church is putting on a musical evening with local talent. A wooden Anglo-Saxon church was the first place of worship in this Northamptonshire village and a £500k restoration has saved the present 14/15th century church, St Margaret’s.
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.
Kommentare