This morning I used the cakes I baked yesterday as a way of illustrating how metaphorical 'cakes' get sliced up.

The big chocolate cake, made with ingredients that were, as far as possible, Fairtrade, organic, free range, British (Scottish) was used to look at how trade works out... that the largest single slice (more than a third) goes to multinational and shareholders whilst a tiny amount (less than a fifteenth) goes to the growers.  When I took a small piece of cake form the toddler was representing 'mulitnationals' and gave it to the person representing 'growers' she cried real tears.  An enacted sermon/parable if ever there was one!

We also used a couple of pie charts I found online to look at how the UK Government slices up its cake/pie and we sliced up one cake to represent education, health, social protection, defence, inland security and international aid as well as 'everything else'.

Time ran out, so we didn't slice up the third cake, but we did explore how the 'social protection' cake is further sliced, between state pensions, disability payments, housing benefit, job-seekers allowances etc.

No message, just the realisation that tough decisions have to be made and there are no easy answers.  I did suggest that I doubted I'd get elected on an "I will increase your taxes" manifesto, even if I would gladly pay a bit more if it meant that welfare, education ands health were sustainable.

The cakes tasted pretty darned good, even if I say so, who shouldn't!

This is going to church tomorrow - but why?  You'll have to be there to find out!!

Yesterday when I was reading "Those Who Show Up" two Bible passages were brought alongside in a way I've never seen before...

The Genesis assertion that humanity is made in the image and likeness of God

The question (and response) of Jesus about paying taxes to caesar, asking whose image was on the coin.

This is what happened when I started to ponder what it said...

The image on the coin is the image of a man who is made in the image and likeness of God, a man whose authority (at least ontologically) derives from God.  The coin is held in the hand of a person made in the image and likeness of God, a person who has (arguably) a kind of dual nationality being part of the Kingdom of God and part of Caesar's local jurisdiction.  Or, from another angle, the locality is ontologically part of God's juridiction and the flawed, finite endeavours of human powers are capable of being transformed more into the likeness of the Kingdom, the eschatological horizon to which we aspire.  Which I think means that we render unto caesar that which is caesar's, which is a subset of that which is already God's.  Then, rather than washing our hands of what caesar then does, we are to engage in the messyness of transforming what caesar does with the taxes by campaigning, lobbying, getting involved in local or national politics and organsiations, and praying.

Whether that paragraph makes any sense, I have no idea, but it made me ponder and I kind of liked the way it stretched my mind.  Sometimes it is a tad easy to 'pray' that it'll all come right as if that was somehow separate from our own daily choices.  The book has certainly challenged me to reflect on my own forms of engagement.

Just beautiful.  I am very blessed to live where I do.

Night has fallen:

God our maker, guard us sleeping.

(Traditional)

Thank you for the night,
the sign that day is done,
that life is meant to rest
and sleep to come.

Thank you for the quiet
as silence scatters sound,
while God, in both,
is waiting to be found.

Thank you for the dark
to compliment the light,
as insight, open-eyed,
replaces sight.

Thank you for the word,
which darkness can't contain,
that life, laid down,
is raised to life again.

Thank you for the night,
a measure of your care.
In darkness, as in light,
you, Lord, are there.

John Bell (born 1949) and Graham Maule (born 1958) from The Courage to Say No
© 1993 WGRG, Iona Community

This Sunday will our second "Think, Pray, Vote" service, ahead the General Election.  After that is one service intended as a follow-up, and I have been thinking long and hard how best to approach that. 

On the recommendation of others, I am reading a book called "Those Who Show Up" by Andy Flannagan, which is an easy read and an accessible exploration of why (and how) Christians can and should get involved in politics beyond 'just' voting, sending post card or clicking online petitions.  It's not rocket science, for sure, but it is thoughtfully written.

Certainly it is helping me begin to ponder what I might choose to say when speaking into a context the other side of the election.