April is here and family birthdays are looming which means I must think of pleasurable and useful gifts for family members. Rechargeable battery tools are high on the list and this year I am looking at the Romancom battery/chain pruner which will cut branches of about four inches to prune fruit trees and bushes. Moreover, it will cut thick ivy about a foot from the bottom of a tree. Ivy is not parasitic, but if left too long it will prevent sunlight reaching the leaves of the tree’s crown and starve the foliage of photosynthesised food. Ivy will also function as a sail during a storm to bring a tree down. Although ivy is an excellent habitat for many small creatures, it must be controlled to prevent its virtues becoming vices. Ivy, like most people in positions of influence and power, needs to be cut back occasionally. Before, as St Paul suggests, “The good being done becomes the bad which was not intended.”
As we get older, birthday gifts tend to be more useful than decorative. At least that is what I told Marie after buying her a wheelbarrow to be followed a year later by fifty metres of electric poultry netting. I am not sure how the wife of Jules Hudson the TV presenter received her gift of eighteen railway sleepers; but I hope she is like Marie and received them with grace and a wry laugh.
We all know people who can afford to treat themselves and so make ‘present buying’ difficult; And this truism shows that, “The easier it is to treat ourselves also makes it harder for others to treat us. The conclusion being that the more we do for ourselves, the less there is that others can do for us.
However, mention of railway sleepers reminds me of the 1991 Forthampton Show. Amid a 24 hour deluge my sheep trailer was extricated from mud by Doug Young the coal merchant from Maisemore. We were both drenched to the skin, but Doug expressed delight when I repaid the favour with a railway sleeper and half a dozen eggs. However, when his wife Phyllis, cast her eyes over the cold sodden bedraggled creatures on her doorstep, she raised an eyebrow but reserved judgement.
Many years earlier (1967-8) Marie had supported me during training at a leading US religious Seminary, and it was whilst there that the words of one lecturer stuck in memory. One semester included, ‘The purpose and practices of preaching,’ where in addition to exegesis and all the theological stuff, we were told that one of preaching’s functions is to, “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” The tutor paused for our reaction and then added, “ You must however, “ Know your audience.“ You should never add affliction to those who have come to church in need of confidence and comfort.”
His cautionary words rang bells on two occasions during the past year. The first was when a speaker took a negative didactic position towards those people who are honestly uncertain as to whether they felt themselves permanently ‘Saved.’ The second, was when another speaker assumed the congregation was uninformed, ignorant and unconcerned about people who promote public discourse about personal sexuality or gender identity concerns.
Both clerics gave their topics a magnitude and priority not apparent to most people and, in the latter case it is a topic for which there is no overwhelming scriptural affirmative confirmation. Neither did one speaker give credit to the aged congregation for their lives of continuous forbearing tolerance during the years in which their homeland and British life has been radically changed. But as the saying goes. “We are all different and should be allowed to say our piece.”
However. I went home on both occasions thinking that the congregation of worshippers would have appreciated a balanced or alternative view. Especially, as many attend a sacred place to spend time reflecting on the creative force behind this complex exciting and beautiful world. We may go to church in remorse but surely worship should end in renewal! In conclusion, my time at theological college helped me see the role of the preacher as one who engenders tranquillity not stress for, in so doing, a congregation sees purpose and gains confidence.
The message below is a reminder to both preacher and congregation to keep one’s eyes firmly fixed on the basic elements of the Christian Way of Life, and not to be distracted by the host of fashionable but peripheral devices and issues which arise during the lifetime of the modern man and woman.
View from the Pew 