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One of the things the clergy are often asked to do is to endorse things like Passports. I have certified many a ‘true likeness’ photograph in my time. Sometimes, as when I lived on the country, there was even exciting variety like endorsing applications for gun licences! There have been some changes over the years and the most recent one is that I have to supply my own passport number. This can create some difficulty because, though I always keep my passport in a safe place, I cannot guarantee it is always in the same place. Sometimes, therefore, I have to go on a little hunt. I dare say that most of you are much more efficient and can locate your passport immediately. However, would that be equally true about your Bible! When did you last see it? When did you last read it? When I was preparing some material for reflection for our recent Team Reflection Day I was struck by something Dag Hammarskjöld said (we were basing the day on his prayer—For everything that has been—Thanks; for everything that will be—Yes.) He said: “On the bookshelf of life, God is a useful work of reference; always at hand but seldom consulted.” Is that true in your house? Now, I’m not trying to make anyone feel specially guilty, just as I am not creating an opportunity for self-righteousness for those who not only know where their bible is but who consult it regularly. What I am asking is whether we Christians really quarry the Bible and especially the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for help in living our lives both by Christian values and in Christ’s revelation of God’s love that we find there? Another thing we clergy have to do a lot of is take funerals. In places like Epping (as opposed to villages) the majority of funerals are for people we have never met, yet we are expected to say something meaningful about their lives. Families supply some information but there is still the problem that we are talking about someone we really don’t know. When, as in the recent funeral of Laurie King, I not only knew things about him but also, even more importantly, I knew him as a real person with whom I had spent time had conversation, so the things I could say about him were personal, from the heart and with a genuine love for him. It made his funeral, for me, all the more real because I was talking about a Christian alive with a faith I saw and knew. That’s an illustration of the difference between knowing something about Jesus (through hearing bits of the Gospel in worship) and ‘Knowing’ Jesus personally through a regular meeting with him and with his Father in the pages of the Bible. It’s a much more real witness if we not only know where our Bible is but if we actually used it prayerfully to get to know God better and more deeply. A personal relationship is always better than a second-hand one. |