This morning I've been working on some reading for my sermon on Acts 15, and wondered what the time lapse was from Acts 10-11 which we looked at last time I preached.  I then wondered about the time lapses to Acts 17 and Acts 28, the other stopping off places in our journey through July and into August (four preaching Sundays).

It seems that the book of Acts covers a period of roughly three decades and, as luck/serendipity/Sophia would have it, the four stories seem to occur pretty much equi-spaced throughout that time.  Thus, for example, around ten years elapse between Peter and Cornelius and the Council at Jerusalem.  I think this is significant/important and something that is easily missed... the issue of what was required of Gentiles was not resolved in a few days, the 'paradigm shift' wasn't achieved in the 'twinkling of an eye', it all took time, lots of it.  This is not the main thread in my upcoming sermon, but it's a valid one.

Here's something to ponder, which may or may not find its way into the end result... What were the issues in church that occupied your mind a decade ago?  Are they still live today?  What has changed?  What hasn't changed?

Rome - and the Church - was not built in a day.  Sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

Oh, for amusement, according to the timeline I looked at, The Council at Jerusalem coincided roughly with the Roman invasion of Britain... I wonder where the use of wode/woad (spelling seems interchangeable) might have fitted in to the edicts given...?

If you enjoy religious/Christian satire and/or if you live in or around Dibleyshire, you may like this. From the creator of the now disbanded Beaker Folk of Husbourne Crawley it will make you laugh, think, scowl or worry.  I was momentarily bothered that people might think this is how 'real' Baptists are, but my fears were allayed by this post.  Take a peek and hopefully enjoy.  I'll certainly be following with interest.

Last night's Rev was, for me, quite thought provoking, exploring the idea of clergy envy.  Adam is envious of the radio and TV vicar with whom he trained.  Late at night after one too many at Adam's vicarage, the media vicar admits his own loneliness and emptiness.  Granted he returns to type at the end of the episode (an utterly predictable final scene).  Two real themes: envy of the seemingly successful minister/ministry and loneliness/isolation of the ministerial office.

I guess I'm fortunate not to suffer from envy, at least not very much, I did at one point wonder if I'd ever get a Baptism when the church down the road seemed to have droves of them!!  Similarly, I rarely feel lonely or isolated but of course it happens, it is an occupational hazard.  What the episode disclosed was some of the inherent dishonesty that pervades the church - that few dare admit their loneliness, emptiness, envy, feeling of failure or whatever.  Instead, all too often gatherings become the 'my church is better than yours' or 'I pray longer than you do' bragging leaving the tired, dried out, hardworking small, shrinking or stable-sized church minister feeling useless and alone.

One of the themes explored in the university summer school was 'truth as pure honesty.'  There are (at least) two problems with this... firstly no one ever is that honest  and secondly no truth is ever pure and uninterpreted (I recalled a Susan Howatch character in the Starbridge series who wanted 'unvanrished truth' - there's no such animal).  At college our pastoral care/theology tutor used a concept of 'appropriate vulnerability' which is probably a useful foil for 'pure honesty.'  If ministers can learn to practice 'appropriately vulnerable honesty' with each other then I suspect the envy, isolation and a whole host of other struggles might be less pernicious.

I am very glad of my networks of Revs, mainly VIKs but not only, with whom something of that is attempted, even if we may not always fully succeed.

There are many hurt and hurting 'vicars' out there, I pray they may find safe-enough spaces to be vulnerable and honest.

Yesterday I read parts of a book called Is There a Text in this Class by Stanley Fish.  It is a book that looks at alternatives to literary theory, centring on reader response and arguing, contra some post modernists, that there are limits on interpretation determined by the unspoken rules/norms of an interpretive community.  (Are you impressed I wrote that? I am!).  Anyway, I found what follows in a chapter that explores the limits of what is, essentially, interpretive orthodoxy.

"doubting is not something one does outside the assumptions that enables one's consciousness; rather doubting, like any other mental activity, is something that one does within a set of assumptions that at the same time be the object of doubt.  That is to say, one does not doubt in a vacuum but from a perspective, and that perspective itself is immune from doubt until it has been replaced with another which will then be similarly immune.  The project of radical doubt can never outrun the necessity of being situated; in order to doubt everything, including the ground one stands on, on must stand somewhere else, and that somewhere else will then be the ground on which one stands."

The argument goes on for a lot more words and I can't claim to  grasp all of it, but it seems to say 'you can only doubt from a perspective of belief, otherwise there would be nothing to doubt.'  I found this quite fascinating, and potentially liberating for those who fear doubt (or questioning) as somehow indicative of loss of faith.  If I've understood him correctly, and if Fish is right, then bizarrely doubt/questioning actually demonstrates that belief is still there.  If belief goes, then the doubt evaporates as irrelevant.  Alternativley, so long as someone continues to doubt, they must also, to some degree, believe.  Lack of doubt might be more about lack of willingness to risk thinking or testing ideas rather than certainty.

I think there are some ideas here I might want to lodge for something I'm involved with next year where it just might be useful.  For now, I think I have found something helpful for pastoral situation where people express doubts or raise questions.

Yesterday I alluded to this poem, a favourite of our childhood, that was the final entry in paperback collection of stories and poems that were read to us at bedtime.  So far as I recall the collection was entitled Tell Me Another Story and I htink it it was published by Penguin; alas I've never managed to find a copy*, though I did find a lovely illustratred book version of the poem a few years back.

I guess we loved it because our grandparents lived in Glasgow, a far away place shrouded in mystery and romance.  Who'd have thought I'd one day live here?!  Enjoy.

Here is the train to Glasgow.

Here is the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
Who drove the train to Glasgow.

Here is the guard from Donibristle
Who waved his flag and blew his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here is a boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here is the guard, a kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here are hens and here are cocks,
Clucking and crowing inside a box,
In charge of the guard, that kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here is the train. It gave a jolt
Which loosened a catch and loosened a bolt,
And let out the hens and let out the cocks,
Clucking and crowing inside a box,
In charge of the guard, that kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

The guard chased a hen and, missing it, fell
The hens were all squawking. the cocks were as well,
And unless you were there you haven't a notion
The flurry, the fuss, the noise and commotion
Caused by the train which gave a jolt
And loosened a catch and loosened a bolt,
And let out the hens and let out the cocks,
Clucking and crowing inside a box,
In charge of the guard, that kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Now Donald was quick and Donald was neat
And Donald was nimble on his feet.
He caught the hens and he caught the cocks
And he put them back in thier great big box.
The guard was pleased as pleased could be
And invited Donald to come to tea
At Saturday, at Donibristle.
And let him blow his lovely whistle,
And said in all his life he'd never
Seen a boy so quick and clever,
And so did the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
Who drove the train to Glasgow

Wlima Horsbrough

* Since I typed that I looked on Ebay and of course there it was!  A copy will soon be mine.