It took a long time for somebody who had seen many kettles boiling to ask a simple question about steam. What is it? was the question. Water vapour, people might have said. ‘Power,’ said Watt That simple question and its answer led to an industrial revolution. Watt (1736-1819) had seen something that everybody else had missed. Steam is more than hot water. Steam can be harnessed to do the work of many horses. Kettles had boiled for many generations. Eager eyes had watched pots. Nobody had put two and two together. Watt did. He asked what could steam do? And Watt changed the world.
At least, that’s how I was introduced to the industrial revolution as a child in junior school. It was actually a bit more complicated. Newcomen had a hand in it. So had Boulton, Watt’s backer. But it was James Watt who made a decisive intervention that resulted in steam engines and steam locomotives powering the world as we know it. It was thanks to Watt that his name is now used as a standard international unit of electrical power.
That is the kind of thing that can follow an innocent question. Sometimes we can never get the right answer because we are not asking the right question. Jesus once asked such a question. He was told that his mother was outside, waiting to see him. Jesus asked: ‘Who is my mother?’(Matthew 12.48) Anybody could see that that was a silly question. Everybody knew his own mother. But Jesus was getting at something else. He explained: ‘Everybody who does the will of my heavenly father is my mother (and also my brother and sister). Nobody had quite thought of defining parenthood that way. As so often happened, Jesus made people think.
This is one of the reasons why Jesus’ name is remembered. This is one of the ways Jesus changed the world. He did of course go on to ask even more searching questions. ‘Can you drink the cup I am to drink?’ (Matthew 20.22) We hardly dare to go down that route. But that is the kind of thing Christianity is about. We need help in asking the right questions.
YOUTH WORKER
Looking for a youth worker is St Clement’s church, Oxford. The Rector. Rachel Gibson, leads the ministry team. Development in the area led to the building in 1827 of a new church, in which a curate, John Henry Newman, played a significant part. Alpha has a place in a busy programme.
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