Eating for England by Trevor Jamison

31/08/2010 by idavidsonblog.

I seem to have spent this week eating for England (or should that be ‘eating for Ireland’?).  In Brentwood the URC and Methodist Churches have joined forces to provide “Brentwood Break”, a series of activities for older folks who have not got away on holiday.  Not surprisingly for a Church event, food has featured prominently and all look to the Minister to provide strong Christian leadership in consuming what is on offer.  This is but the hors d’oevre for what lies ahead, for we are now moving into harvest season and at the fourth attempt since I came here the three Churches in the pastorate have coordinated harvest service and harvest meals so that I am able to attend (and consume) all three.  It’s not quite The Vicar of Dibley, where the unfortunate priest accepts invitations to several Christmas dinners on the one day but there’s more than a slight echo as far as I am concerned. 

Food eaten together seems to be such an important part of the life of our Churches.  Was Methodism, for example, really “born in song” as the hymn writer puts it or, as a sceptic suggested “floated on tea”?  Whatever the history of our Churches, recent architectural changes tell their story.  In many Church halls up and down the length of country (including at Ingatestone URC and the Belfast Church in which I grew up) stages have been torn out, to be replaced by enlarged kitchens.  In others, kitchens have been refurbished (as at Billericay recently) or even brought up to professional catering standard (as at Brentwood).  Is it that our Churches are just mirroring the greater interest our wealthier society has exhibited in culinary matters in the past few decades?  Perhaps there is something in that but I am sure it does not tell the whole story. Food, whether eaten together at times of celebration, at times of sadness, or just as part of a regular get-together carries a lot of significance beyond just taking aboard the necessary calories to keep body (and soul?) together.  Food eaten in the context of Church is inescapably about sharing with each other.  I recently heard one Church member who declined to rush forward to be first at the food table comment that they were not worried as in several decades they had never yet attended a Church event where too little food was provided for those who turned up.  Meals, eaten in Churches that have emphasised the word, spoken and heard, and the use of the intellect in the service of God, are a welcome opportunity to exercise those other senses of taste, smell and touch that might otherwise be a bit neglected in our tradition.  Food, available to us in plenty in the context of a world where this is not always the case, can function as a reminder of God’s generosity to us and of our wider responsibility to share with others. 

Food shared together should be important to us Christians.  After all, it plays a significant role in the life of Jesus.  In the Gospels Jesus is often at the table, in the houses of friends like Martha and Mary, of sceptics or inquirers such as a Pharisee called Simon, or invited to a celebratory banquet thrown by a repentant Zacchaeus.  He feeds the hungry by the thousand and, of course, shares that meal with his closest disciples just prior to his arrest and crucifixion.  Quakers, so I understand it, do not have the Lord’s Supper as part of their worship because they understand the life itself as sacrament – a gift from God that demonstrates the grace of God to us – so every meal can be a sacramental event.  I would not wish to drop Holy Communion from our worship but neither would it hurt to recognise every meal as reminders of what God gives us through creation and the salvation that God offers to us through Jesus.  Bon Appetit! Trevor

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An Unforgettable Sacrifice

29/06/2010 by idavidsonblog.

From the Bible Isaac said, “Here is the fire and wood but where is the sheep for a sacrifice?” Abraham answered, “God will provide himself with a sheep for a sacrifice.” (Genesis 22: 7, Eight) From The Independent on 21^st June 2010 A spokesman for 40 Commando, based in Taunton, Somerset, said: “Our thoughts are with his immediate family who were with him at the hospital. His courage and sacrifice will not be forgotten. We will remember him.” 

The Prime Minister stated, “Of course the 300th death is no more or less tragic than the 299 that came before. But it is a moment, I think, for the whole country to reflect on the incredible service and sacrifice and dedication that our armed services give on our behalf. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/david-cameron-britain-should-reflect-on-role-in-afghanistan-2006415.html Genesis Speaks Today is the title for a series of sermons I have been preaching during 2010 at the 5:00pm services at Brentwood United Reformed Church on the third Sunday of each month (to which all are welcome). I must admit I chose the title because it was the catchiest I could think of whilst working against the deadline set by church magazine editors. I did not expect it to describe reality quite so well. In previous months we learned that, like Adam and Eve, we human beings are created for company, both with each other and with the rest of creation. Later, we pondered that John Venables, like Cain, the biblical murderer of a younger child, is a ‘marked man’. Then the biblical flood confronted us with the implications of contemporary climate change and an appropriate human action. On the next occasion God’s covenant with Abram impelled us to consider human response in terms of pushing Christian Aid envelopes through letter boxes. Most recently, in June, we arrived at Genesis 22, the instruction from God to Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. 

For Christians who read this story it is packed with intimations of another death, one that it is yet to come in the biblical timeline. It is hard to read Genesis, which speaks of a father’s beloved son, forced to carry the wood on his shoulder that will be used to create the instrument of his death; a death due to take place on a hill and understood as a sacrifice, and not think of Jesus. 
Many Christians are comfortable with the language of sacrifice concerning the death of Jesus – the death of one living creature in order that others might live and flourish. Some Christians are not so happy, saying that we should not describe Jesus’ death in ways now alien to our society. Yet we today do use the language of sacrifice, as the quotations above concerning the sad death of yet another British soldier in Afghanistan demonstrate. Concerning the death of Jesus there is little point in detailed questions asking who is being sacrificed by whom and to whom (can God really sacrifice himself to himself?). ‘Sacrifice’ here is a metaphor, trying to describe a reality, not the whole reality itself and there are other images which can also be and are used to describe the significance of Jesus’ death. What matters is that ‘sacrifice’ speaks of the reality that Jesus’ death brings life to others. The changed lives of Christian believers provide evidence that this is so. Concerning the ‘sacrificial’ death of soldiers in Afghanistan, there are times when soldiers have died, sacrificing themselves to save the lives of others. More widely, our Prime Minister is correct; each death of military personnel is not just a tragedy but represents for us an opportunity, a duty, to consider to what extent their deaths bring life to others, both in Afghanistan and in the wider world. Careful consideration of such costly sacrifice, balanced against what is achieved is the true basis for political decisions about the way forward. We should pray for our political leaders as they proceed to make these life and death decisions. Trevor

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A Hung Church

31/05/2010 by idavidsonblog.

Dear David and Nick

A Hung Church

Well, I am so glad you managed to get that situation sorted out.  After all, you would not want the country to go ungoverned for too long (unless you are a convinced anarchist).  As Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister I watched you stand in the Downing Street garden, elegantly clad and sporting your different blue and yellow ties.  This seemed to be the only jarring note.  Perhaps you need a coalition tie.  What would the design be?  Blue and yellow stripes seem to put across your message more clearly than mixing the two to produce a shared of green in my opinion.I must say it seemed odd to me that parties who denounced coalition as a bad idea (though embracing it is Scotland and Wales and even making it compulsory in Northern Ireland) soon sought coalition partners once the reality of a hung parliament hit home.  It certainly kept the political analysts and the 24-hour news channels excited, almost to the point of hysteria though the financial markets and almost everyone I know managed to stay calm  It seems that you will have to live with a hung parliament at least for a while, but take hear; some of us belong to a hung Church.Jesus may have prayed that his followers would be one so that the world might believe (John 17:21) but it just does not seem to have worked out that way.  We all know that there are different denominations and that although many of us get along better than we used to (just like you Conservatives and Liberal Democrats?) there is no immediate prospect of us all getting together to the point where we are doing the religious equivalent of wearing exactly the same tie.  Even if we could somehow resolve all the differences and reconcile all the denominations that have arisen since the sixteenth century we would then still have to look east to the Orthodox and a much older division between Christians.  Ecumenically speaking, we are a hung Church.Denominationally, we are no less a hung Church, a hung United Reformed Church.  There are some issues on which we just can’t seem to come to one mind.  In recent years the URC has had impassioned debates about human sexuality, to the point where exhaustion set in and we moved on to other matters.  We have to perform a tricky balancing act to respect the views of those who see infant baptism as acceptable and those who are committed to the practice of believer’s baptism.  One of the Elders Meetings in this pastorate (no names, but they know who they are) could tell you that discussing this issue touches upon deep feelings.  On Holy Communion, the three congregations of this pastorate even have different policies and approaches concerning the presence of children at communion and the presence of alcohol in the communion wine.The truth though is that we are not a hung Church so much as a “hang-together Church”.  In other words we are not defined by our differences but by what we hold in common; that we live in God’s world (Psalm 24:1); that even when the world has gone wrong God puts things back together again though Jesus Christ and our task is to share that message (2 Corinthians 5:19): I doubt if the current coalition will be around for anywhere near a s long as the United Reformed Church has managed so far but if your define yourselves by ideals and policies you share, one that benefit the nation and the world, rather than your differences that will generate party and sectional self-interest you might  just hang together for a while yet.Look forward to seeing how the new tie idea works out. 

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Blessed are the flexible? by Revd. Trevor Jamison

24/03/2010 by idavidsonblog.

Jesus never said, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not snap”, though I sometimes wish that he had done so. Nor, in the interests of balanced reporting, did Jesus ever say, “Woe unto you who are infinitely flexible for you lack backbone” but it might sometimes be a good warning to receive. How do we find the right balance in being a church in the early twenty-first century? When I was a child the prospect of the twenty-first century was the stuff of science fiction, though now we are here I don’t think that the twenty-first century church feels particularly futuristic. Of course congregations have changed. After hundreds of years of congregational life I don’t suppose anyone thinks everything will be just the same or wants us to be doing everything the way they did it in seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries (though some of us may harbour a nostalgic desire to return to church as we knew it in the mid-twentieth century). In our own lifetimes our congregations have changed and developed, which is good news as most things that don’t are lifeless. So, for example, we worship using different hymnbooks than those from even twenty years ago and although many of the hymns we sing came from long before that others are of a distinctly more recent vintage. These days, as we worship we sit on padded seats rather than wooden pews and our hearing is aided by a sound system that those who first formed the congregation could not even have dreamed about. One strain upon us is that although we have changed and are developing as a congregation that rate of change seems slow in comparison to the rate of change in the rest of the world in which we live; technological change like air travel, computers and the internet; social change in the variety of family structures; religious change, with churches, ours included, much less prominent in the life of our society. It is important that as a church we get the balance right in responding to the changes in the part of the world where we live so that we are still relevant to that place and to the people who live there; people with  whom we can share our faith, hopefully in language that makes sense to them as well as us. Getting the balance right is not easy. One thoughtful worshipper in a URC congregation that I know observed that most of the sermons he heard week by week from a variety of preachers fell into one of two types: TYPE 1. The world has changed radically but this congregation has not. Therefore, in order to be faithful to Christ, we must change the way we do everything in the life of the church so as to more relevantly share the Gospel with others. 

Or TYPE 2. The world has changed radically but this congregation has not. Therefore, in order to be faithful to Christ, we must resist the temptation to change anything in the life of the church so that we continue to distinctively demonstrate the Gospel to others.  (He tells me that my sermons are harder to categorise which I hope is meant as a compliment.) In a congregation it is never easy to discern where we should try to position ourselves between these two extremes, seeking change or maintaining continuity. The answer will vary according to the particular situation. Also, as with any group of people, what seems right to one person may not seem like such a good idea to another. We need to be in an ongoing conversation about how we stay true to our faith; worship in a way that makes sense to us and our experiences yet speaks to others who have not been socialised into the particular (and peculiar?) ways our congregation works. This offers us all an opportunity and possibly a challenge. We have the opportunity to play a significant part simply by turning up to worship: never underestimate how much you can contribute by encouraging others by your presence.  And the challenge is to offer a genuine welcome to any visitors, so that they know there is a Christian congregation here that will welcome them should they come again or ever wish to become part of its ongoing life.

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‘tis the season of Annual Church Meetings – rejoice! by Revd. Trevor Jamison

22/02/2010 by idavidsonblog.

During March all three congregations in this pastorate – Ingatestone,

Brentwood and Billericay – will be holding their Annual Church Meetings. One will occur on a weeknight evening and two will take place on Sundays. In one church we will be re-arranging all of the chairs in the church to worship together, café-style, meet together and eat lunch together (in that order). In another church we will conclude the meeting with Night Prayer, using subdued lighting, sitting in semi-circle, following (more or less) a set liturgy. In the third congregation we’ll get the “official business” over with quickly in order to have focused discussion on evangelism and how we might get on with doing some. All three meetings, different in form and focus as they are, share a common three-fold structure. We will spend some time looking back, some time considering where we are now and some time looking to the future.

 This is given a poetic form by the hymn writer Fred Kaan, a URC Minister who died during this past year: We pause to give thanksand focus our thoughton how far our Godhis people has brought.We pause for affirmingour ‘Yes’ to his call,pursuing his future:life’s fullness for all. The future is hereas Christ sets us free;we reach out in hopefor all that will be.We go where he leads us,to time’s furthest ends,to share in his missionas partners and friends.

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Holy Joe by Rev. Trevor Jamison

23/11/2009 by idavidsonblog.

Holy Joe 

I really enjoyed Holy Joe as a way into the Christmas story. Holy Joe was the primary school production for Christmas. Parents, family and friends packed into the church that adjoined the (non-church) school to watch the presentation. Written by one the teachers, Holy Joe was a retelling of the Christian Christmas story in words and song, but told from the perspective of Joseph. Perhaps the teacher had been reading Matthew’s Gospel in particular as the story there seems to see things more from Joseph’s point of view. Perhaps that would also explain why the wise men rather than the shepherds got such a starring role that year (Luke’s shepherds and heavenly host of angels got rather pushed into the background). Not that this was a traditional re-telling of the tale, as the magi’s theme song suggests: “We’re three wise guys on a star-trek enterprise”!  How far can you go and how much liberty are you allowing in re-telling the Christmas story? Productions that fail to mention Jesus entirely have probably missed the plot as far as most Christians are concerned. After that, however, all’s fair in love and nativities. It’s not as if what we call a “traditional” nativity play is entirely biblical. No one thinks that all those involved in the original events were children, though Mary may not have been many years beyond childhood if normal marriage customs were being observed with regards to the average age of brides at this time. Nor, as John Bell, the Scottish hymn writer has mischievously suggested is it compulsory for her to wear blue just because she is expecting a boy rather than a girl. Neither, do the two gospel writers who tell us stories about the birth and childhood of Jesus, suggest that the Matthew’s magi (wise men) ever even glimpsed Luke’s shepherds, never mind gathering all together with Mary, Joseph and various animals around a baby in a manger, though this will not prevent us setting out such a tableaux in many churches.  Not only is it permissible for Christians to have some fun with the plot (angelic messengers as “men in black”, suitably suited, eyes concealed by fashionable shades for example) but it is almost mandatory. We all know how reciting the Lord’s Prayer in church every Sunday can lead to the point where we are saying the words but have disengaged our brains (and possibly our hearts) from the content of the prayer. Just reading the very familiar Bible passages year upon year can begin to have a similar effect and a new twist or change of perspective could be just what we need to make us pay attention once again. If all the parts in church nativity plays were taken by adults this year might we find ourselves reminded that Christmas is not just for the children, but for everyone? I’m not suggesting we try this as I don’t think I could handle the conflict that might arise, though even that might remind us that this a story where King Herod plays a major role and it is set in a place (Bethlehem) where conflict is a very present reality. Oddly enough, I think it is Christians who are best placed to depart from the basic biblical story. In fact, only those who know the original story are capable of departing from it, much as you can only compose a variation on a theme is you are acquainted with the theme in the first place. That is why that during Advent and the Christmas season churches will not be totally dependant on nativity plays for remembering and re-rehearsing the Christmas story. We will hear the prophetic words from the Old Testament, the narratives of Matthew and Luke and the theological commentary of the opening chapter of John’s Gospel that “The true light which gives light to everyone was even then coming into the world,” (John 1: 9) In addition to the message we hear through the words I hope that there is also a nativity play, a Christmas movie or theatrical production, a Holy Joe, a personal or family memory or some other trigger that makes us re-think and re-discover the meaning of Christmas for each of us today.

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Too many cooks ……. or too few?

21/10/2009 by idavidsonblog.

Let’s not fool ourselves. The Christian Church in the UK faces a big challenge, but how big is that challenge and how optimistic do we feel about it? I ask this because I have just been watching the television programme, Master Chef: the Professionals. For those who don’t know, this programme features professional chefs who aspire to cook at the highest level. They compete against each other to impress two judges who have exacting standards. On some occasions they cook to order, on others they produce dishes from their own repertoire. Master Chef is of course only one of a whole host of cookery-related programmes that have filled up the schedules in recent years: everything from Ready, Steady Cook to Great British Menu and several shows in between. What is striking though is that as the nation’s appetite for cookery programmes has increased in recent years the same nation’s inhabitants cook less and less for themselves, and when they do an increasing proportion of the meals cooked consist of processed food rather than dishes produced from scratch with raw ingredients.

 

I think of this situation every time I feel over-optimistic about the spiritual health of the nation. In the face of the Church’s numerical decline and diminishing social influence some people argue that interest in religious matters has not really declined all that much, it has simply migrated to less traditional areas of spirituality. Such commentators point to the growing interest in eastern religions and a whole host of spiritual practices, often labelled as “New Age”. Today’s spiritual seeker, so the argument goes, does not feel tied down to one tradition and is open to explore many different religious practices, sometimes even several at the same time. This large group of the population are spiritually open to the Christian faith if only we can find the argument or attraction that will make them choose our particular brand of religion. Even as I listen to this argument I think of the cookery programmes. Interest in cookery programmes does not translate in to getting into the kitchen and cooking. Interest in religions need not translate into commitment to Christian faith which combines both explicit belief and distinctive lifestyle.

 

So far, so pessimistic, but it does not have be all bad news. The Christian faith does retain some hold on the popular religious imagination. We are getting close to Christmas, the time when that influence seems strongest. Can we help people translate a sentimental attachment to childhood memories or the Dickensian image of a Victorian Christmas into a sense of deep joy that in Jesus’ birth and life God has stepped into the world we inhabit? At a local level our congregations retain a measure of good will among their many contacts – worshippers, friends, family, users of church hall and participants in church social projects. At a recent Elders Meeting at Billericay URC a quick totting up of people currently in contact with that congregation produced a figure of five hundred and fifty contacts! During the last year we have used material from the URC Vision4life Bible Year and soon we move into the Prayer Year, with the Evangelism Year coming along immediately behind. Perhaps our relationships with the people our congregations already know could form part of our exploration of prayer in 2010 and that in turn can inform our thinking about evangelism in 2011. Let’s hope we can turn our interest in prayer and evangelism into more actual praying and sharing good news in the coming days.

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What is it to be reformed? By Trevor Jamison

20/09/2009 by idavidsonblog.

Well, I’ve (finally) staggered into the twenty-first century and now have a page on Facebook, the internet site where “friends” chat to one another and share information about themselves (sometimes with alarming openness considering that this may be viewed by people from all around the world). You can also take fun personality quizzes which claim to answer questions such as which city you wish to live in (Seattle – must be for the coffee) or which famous author you most resemble (James Joyce, another Irishman who spent large periods of his life living elsewhere). As a theologian apparently I am a reincarnation of the American Puritan Jonathan Edwards. If I was transformed into a church denomination I would be Presbyterian (big surprise) and if I exemplify one of the traditions that preceded the United Church of Christ (a

U.S. denomination with similarities to the URC) it would be the Reformed. 

But what does it mean to be Reformed? This seems a reasonable question to ask for a United Reformed Church minister of three URC congregations. John Leith^*, an American Presbyterian suggests the following list of nine attributes that combine to provide the ethos of the Reformed Tradition. I wonder whether you would respond with a ‘yes’, a ‘no, or a ‘maybe’ to some, most or all of these: 

1. The majesty and praise of God2. Opposition to idolatry3. Working out divine purposes in history (and so involved in world as well as church)4. Living a life of holiness (as a response to God’s grace, not a means of obtaining it)5. The life of the mind as the service of God6. The importance of preaching7. An organised church with a system of pastoral care8. The disciplined life (responsible to others for how we live)9. Simplicity  

My guess is that not every one of us enthusiastically endorsed every one of the above. Others may feel that things have been missed out (where is the freedom in worship or freedom from state control so important to parts of the tradition that come into the URC?). Given that other Christians from other denominations would say they believed these things too perhaps we are talking more about a movement that crosses denominations and emphasises particular aspects of church. In any case, most URCs I know have many, many members who started out in other Christian traditions and then enriched our Church’s life by joining our congregations. 

We can go on talking (I’d be delighted if anyone wants to respond to me about this) and exploring together, Ministers and members, Elders and fellow worshippers which would be a very Reformed way of going about things.

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There is no escape by Revd. Trevor Jamison

24/08/2009 by idavidsonblog.

There is no escape!  There is no escape from Job, at least not as far as I am concerned. Like many people, my knowledge of this Old Testament book was pretty sketchy before I became a church minister. I knew that it was about suffering. I knew that Job was supposed to be a good person to whom bad things happened. I was aware that he had some friends to advise him, the proverbial “Job’s comforters”, and that they were not a great deal of use to him. I may have known that when confronted with God, towards the end of the book, Job receives a lecture on God’s majesty rather than an explanation of why things happened the way they did. I then managed to make it all the way through my ministerial training without my relative ignorance being much disturbed, except perhaps to discover that it was one of the Old Testament books that get described as “wisdom literature”, along with others such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Then I agreed to tutor some people for the United Reformed Church’s Training for Learning and Serving Foundation Course and discovered that we spent an entire term, six meetings, using Job as the main biblical resource for our discussions. As a tutor, every other year, for the next few years I found myself having to return to Job. There really was no escape. By the end of this period I would warn course members, “Next term will either be the

high point or very lowest point of the course for you: we are going to explore Job.” Very few people felt neutral or unmoved by Job. Either they hated every moment, wondering how this book had been allowed to wander into the pages of the Bible or they were astonished and overjoyed to find a biblical book helping them to grapple with life’s big issues concerning pain, suffering and injustice.

 Upon moving South, to this pastorate I gave up Foundation Course tutoring and thought that I had managed to leave Job behind me in the North-East of

England – no such luck. Within a month of my arrival into the new pastorate the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary were inviting worship leaders to preach on Job and I duly obliged, not only in the three pastorate churches but even at Hutton and Shenfield Union Church. Still, I thought, that’s Job out of the way and I can get on with preaching from more cheerful stuff, like Leviticus and Lamentations. Wrong again. The RCL is a three-year cycle of readings and, believe it or not, I have been Minister in this pastorate for three years, so guess who’s coming to church on Sunday once again?

 Next month, October, it is time for Job to make a reappearance and those responsible for leading worship in at least two of our congregations will be gearing up for the challenge. I’m looking forward to coming back to Job just as we are all “coming back to church” after the summer break and somehow this feels appropriate. After all, why do we come (back) to church? Yes, firstly, we come to worship God but we also come for all sorts of human reasons, many of them good ones. We come for fellowship and friendship; we come for rest and recuperation from life’s stresses; but we also come in order to be better equipped to live life abundantly during the rest of the week. Exploring Job together is a real opportunity to face life’s realities together, a resource for living in the today’s world, just as troubled with pain and suffering as it was in the days when the Book of Job was written. Like Job, we may find few definitive answers but I’m confident that we’ll grow as seven-day-a-week disciples in the process of discovery and discussion.

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Sticking to the Rules by Rev. Trevor Jamison

27/06/2009 by idavidsonblog.

Sticking to the Rules 

The summer holidays cannot have come too soon for some Westminster MPs. Perhaps, they think, with parliament no longer in session; with members scattered around the country rather than presenting one large target in

London; perhaps the bad publicity and the public anger at MPs’ expenses will die down or even go away. Whether that is wishful thinking or political reality remains to be seen. 

When the whole scandal broke several parliamentarians took refuge in a defence that was quickly revealed to be inadequate and unacceptable: nothing was done wrong because everything was done within the rules. Now both society in general and Christians in particular are in favour of rules. All societies need rules, regulations and laws in order to function. So, for example, the weight displayed on the scales must reflect the true weight of the fruit and vegetables purchased and the pedestrian crossing the road in a built-up area knows that approaching traffic will arrive at a speed closer to 30 mph than 100 mph (at least most of the time). And how can a religion which has championed the Ten Commandments claim not to like rules, especially when its representatives never tire of pointing out that the Christian religion has provided the underlying basis for many of the laws of this land? 

What matters is that the system of rules that a society constructs is intended to facilitate human flourishing, not simply to enforce conformity to the outlook of a political elite or those in authority. Jesus made this point during debates with others over the correct interpretation of Sabbath regulations: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2: 27) Nor, of course, are we supposed to approach rules and regulations with the purpose of obtaining maximum advantage for ourselves at a cost to others, especially if they are not in a position to respond. The trick is to look at the rules and discern what they are intended to achieve in a particular situation. 

It is very easy to become all too self-righteous about the expenses claims of some of our MPs. Many of us conform to the expectation of the group within which we move or the place where we work about what is or is not acceptable behaviour. Jesus’ other comments about making sure not to complain about the speck of dust in one person’s eye whilst having a great plank sticking out of our own are relevant here. (Matthew 7: 3) For all that, however, we expect our members of parliament to be people of ethical discernment (to be able to figure out right from wrong rather than just quoting rules at us) and that is how they portray themselves when putting their names forward for election. 

In some cases political careers will justifiably be brought to an end. In others we will look for evidence of repentance and changed behaviour if careers are to continue. Finally, I wonder if this experience will affect how some of our MPs expect our laws to be framed for and enforced upon those who enjoy much less powerful or financially rewarding positions in life: strictly and heavily or with humanity and mercy? Will they seek to do unto others as they hope the electorate soon do unto them? (Matthew 7: 12)

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