OK, so maybe that's not such a rare occurrence, or certainly not when I'm chairing them 'cos I make sure we stay on task, but this one might not have been since it was mainly a case of reporting back on things done, flagging up items that need to be picked up after Christmas and sharing pastoral news.

Just this once, I moved pastoral news to the end of the Agenda - it usually comes first - because I wanted us to have a decent chunk of time for praying together which would include the pastoral stuff.  And this was the good bit!  We split into small groups for prayer (plenary open prayer just never happens, everyone gets too embarrassed for some reason, and we sit in silence) and prayed for a full half hour before silence fell.

And we were still done by 8:50, having started at 7:30.  This should earn me a few Brownie points with those who like to be done by 9pm and from those who think we don't pray enough.

Already some interesting ideas have been mooted regarding the bequests - including the possibility of buying things that will benefit the wider community!  If that comes to pass I will be delighted.  We shall see.

At tonight's Church Meeting we will be beginning to consider how best to employ some money - a useful sum - that has come to us in the form of a bequest and a couple of 'in memoriam' gifts.  We are keen - at least those of us in the know - that the money is purposefully employed and not spent on, say, a lovely silver rose bowl that ends up shoved in a cupboard.  We don't want to lose this money into general running costs, because it is a gift, but I am struck by a dilemma in this approach, which means, were the amounts larger, our hands would be tied.

Around two decades ago, the church received what was then a substantial bequest, which meant that the church moved to a zero HMF grant for two years, after which the money was exhausted and the former grant level needed.  On one hand, I think it is fair that if a church comes into money, this should be reflected in their continued support from HMF, on the other, why should an already poor church (we have never had substantial reserves) have to use a gift to pay its bills?  It's a tricky one.  The amount of money we have now received would fund for example, a data projector (freeing up mine!), underwrite a good outreach event and leave us something perhaps to plant a tree or put a bench in our 'memorial garden' (grave yard) if people wanted a permanent reminder (even thoguh I detest plaques with a vengeance!) but would not be enough to take us out of HMF for more than a couple of months.  I can't help feeling it is more honouring to these departed friends that their bequest serves mission and ministry purposes rather than propping up our existence.

A non-funded church would not have this dilemma, or at least not in the same way.  It feels a bit 'off' that the poor aren't allowed to enjoy the 'expensive perfume' but must pay the gas bill or room hire, whilst the rich can indulge their whims.

Anyway, we won't decide before January how to spend this money, but I hope that it is used wisely and well in the service of the Kingdom.

I am working on two sermons this week, one on the Emmaus road story, the other juxtaposing (or sort of) Matt 13: 44-46 (buried treasure and valuable pearls) with 2 Cor 4:7 - 8 (treasure in clay pots).  These are familiar stories, and therein lies the danger, I come at them with a whole heap of preconceptions, and notably some mental images that are thirty to forty years old.

'The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a person found and hid again and out of joy goes and sells everything he or she has and buys that field' (Word Biblical Commentary translation, p395.)

'The kingdom of heaven is like a pirate's treasure chest, filled with gold and jewels, half-buried in the middle of a field,where a jolly man, clad in mid-twentieth century attire, is walking.  Spotting the treasure chest, he goes to investigate.  Realising what he has found, he looks around to check no one else has spotted it, hastily buries it and rushes off to buy the field which is, conveniently for him, for sale.' (Catriona's mind)

Recognising that this mental picture was dominating my thinking, I began to ask questions of my mental image:

How did the treasure chest get there?

Surely it belonged to the pirate (!) or land owner, not the finder

Was the field actually available for purchase?

How come the owner of the land was oblivious to the existence of the treasure?

What was the jolly man doing in the field anyway?  Was there a public footpath (as per my childhood image) or not?

In asking myself these questions, I knew they were not relevant to understanding the parable, which was about the worth of the treasure not the ethics of its acquisition, but they did remind me how blindly I often read familiar passages.

Deconstructing mental image is one thing, filling the void is another.  And actually, although I know that a first century story cannot have implied a pirate's treasure chest, I'm not sure there is anything fundamentally wrong in imagining it as such, so long as that mental image does not preclude me from seeing more that is 'hidden' in the story.

'The kingdom of heaven is like...' Well, what image might work in our context?

After yesterday's funeral, one of the mourners discovered she had lost her poppy and began to search for it.  Whilst I thought this was a bit excessive, it clearly mattered to her, and I was pleased when she found it.  She explained that each year she kept her poppy to put on the Christmas tree, recalling a young man from our village (to whom she was, presumably, related) who died in Iraq nearly three years ago: this year there would be three poppies.

A powerful, but quiet remembering.  Not overwrought or mawkish, just a red flower nestling amidst tinsel and fairylights as a relative remembers.  I was reminded of the words in Matthew's gospel as Mary received a gift of myrrh: 'a sword will pierce your heart also.' I imagined a shudder running through her young woman's body as new life and hope were already tinged with death and fear.

I am sure that the woman who rescued her lost poppy, and carefully smoothed its battered petals, will enjoy her Christmas celebrations; I am struck by the simple symbols of remembering that will prevent it being a denial of the realities of the broken world into which a Saviour is born.

I made it to the end of the Heidegger chapter!  Hurray.  At that point I opted to call it a day, and save Gadamer for my text reading slot.

Towards the end of the chapter, I found a sentence that was worth pondering, both in relation to biblical hermeneutics and hermeneutics of historical artefacts:

'Prior to every interpretation, the hermeneutical manifests itself as "the bearing of message and tidings."'

Jean Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, New Have, Yale University Press, 1994 p. 104

citing Heidegger, On the way to Language tr. Peter D Hertz, New York, 1971 p. 29

Whilst not every 'message' or 'tiding' is 'good news,' and there presumably can be kakangelion (is there such a word?) as well as euangelion, this simple phrase seems to point to something important in interpretation - that it is concerned with releasing/realising the message (meaning and doing perhaps) of a text (or object, film, image, piece of music, set of data, etc).

Hermeneutics as euangelion - as gospel - liberating the message of hope - seems a good thing.  Maybe it balances, in a good way, the ubiquitous 'hermeneutic of suspicion' I have heard of to the point of tedium.