‘They turned against him,’ we read (Matthew 13.57). ‘How dare they!’ we may say. ‘Who do they think they are? His own family, for one thing.’ Like the tourist who came bristling out of the Louvre spouting: ‘A load of rubbish!’ To which an attendant said: ’It’s not the exhibits that are on trial. It’s the spectators.’
People turned against ‘Carmen’ when Bizet’s opera was first performed. Rodin had a similar experience when his sculpture ‘The Kiss’ came to England. Beethoven’s violin concerto was a flop when it was first performed in 1806.
We ordinary mortals are slow to appreciate works of genius. They for their part have to beware of the peril of being too far out in front. This is what happened to Jesus. He made a wry comment: ‘A prophet never lacks honour, except in his home town and in his own family.’
It is bad enough for an ordinary person to be under-estimated by his own family and the people who know him best. But when rejection comes to a popular figure who is clearly not on the make but has a deep concern for the poor and despondent, the burden must be near-insupportable. And this was just the beginning of troubles for Jesus.
So whether it is new jam (the result of Hartley’s innovative vacuum boiling process0 introduced in 1963 or new towns built under the New Towns Acct 1946 we have to keep our eyes open and our critical eyes alert. What is new is not always good and not always bad. And that applies to religious belief. A new religion such as Scientology may claim our attention. New forms of worship may give expression to old beliefs. New vocabulary may replace the old. But measure for measure must go on.
In his time Jesus was misunderstood. It can hardly be thought surprising if the same thing happens when his story first began to appear in writing. ‘So the people were very unhappy because of what he was doing’ (Matthew 13.57 CEV). The translator of the Gospels, E.V. Rieu, puts it this way: ‘They were shocked by him.’
WATFORD MUSIC
Music is an important aspect of worship at St Luke’s, Watford Herts. The website gives solid evidence of this with a sequence of pictures of instrumentalists. It also has a congregational performance of ‘In Christ Alone’, thanks to two musical Jeremys – Cooke and Hogarth. The church backs a translator in Nepal and work in Malawi and has a new Vicar Michael Norman.
639 INDEPENDENT CHURCHES
A growing sector of UK Churches comprises the 639 churches affiliated to the Fellowship of Independent Churches. Founded in 1922 by E.J. Poole-Connor to strengthen loyalty to traditional Christian faith, the FIEC has a national director in John Stevens and has gained a reputation for church planting. If often has a more conspicuous place among church websites than the Church of England and has youthful leadership teams.
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