Earlsdon Methodist Church

Roger's Reflections

This is a reflection on a confusing world written by Roger Price. While he is a Worship Leader at Earlsdon Methodist Church with a ministry in writing, the views and comments contained in this reflection are his own and do not necessarily reflect any position held by Earlsdon Methodist Church.

More details of Roger’s writings can be found at: www.rogoofsham.co.uk
(Please note Earlsdon Methodist Church is not responsible for the content of any external site.)

The Annual Church Meeting

I went to the annual church meeting. I heard a lot about sacred places. I heard a lot about images of the cross. I heard a lot about change and staying the same. I heard a lot about new people coming and those who had already been here for a long time. I heard a lot of strongly held opinions and how each of them was right for the life and worship of our fellowship.

But I didn’t hear a lot about Jesus.

You know it’s ok to have a strongly held point of view. It’s ok to test that point of view by sharing it with others – even those who will never agree with you. It’s ok to be so certain that whatever position you take becomes so important to you that you are prepared to defend it unto death and it’s ok to be prepared to let others fall by the wayside who will never agree with you because their position, that which is as important to them, so much so that they are prepared to defend it until their spiritual death, is so unacceptable to you.

But I don’t think Jesus would like us to do that in his name. To be honest I’m absolutely certain that he wouldn’t want that.

If that was the case he would never have reached out to the Samaritan women at the well who was so full of sin that she had to come to fetch water at the worst possible time of day. He never would have told the crippled man who had been lowered through the roof by his friends, thus interrupting the teaching and preaching that he was doing at the time, that his sins were forgiven, restoring him to health. He would never have told his disciples about the widow’s mite – or the Good Samaritan – or the prodigal son’s father – or offered so many other examples of what sacrificial love should and does mean.

He would never have acknowledged the Roman soldier whose faith told him that the order was enough for the miracle to take place. He would never have reached out to the woman for whom a touch of his cloak was enough to cure her affliction. He would never have gone to Jairus’s house where he restored to life the daughter who was already dead and gone forever from her family. He would never have stood before his friend’s tomb and wept, before calling him impossibly forth from darkness into the light.

And he would have never, when he was broken and bleeding and dying, nailed to that very same cross the symbol of which we argued long and hard over, said to his father God "Forgive them for they know not what they do."

Perhaps we needed to hear those words again today: Father forgive us for we know not what we do.

But that day was not just about the annual church meeting. In the morning before coming to church I’d read what the President and Vice President had been saying to the Anglicans on our behalf. While standing in the queue for food I heard of a Fellowship failing because there were only a few people present and they were all old. And I heard of another that needed the education of hearing John Wesley’s music if they were going to be – I really don’t know what. And I wondered what they – the President, Vice President, the Anglicans, the other two fellowships and John Wesley would have thought about what we’d been through earlier that day.

And then it struck me. They’d all know exactly where we were coming from because they were all going through their own version of it at some time or another. Even – as I said on Sunday - John Wesley had had problems at one of the early conferences when disagreement threatened to break apart the embryonic movement that is today’s Methodist Connexion. And I wondered how we were going to move forward together from the confrontation of strongly held opposing positions to the goals – often unseen – that Jesus has set us as individuals and a community in his service.

I even wondered how I was going to find a way to end this piece. In fact I was struggling but Paul Field’s ‘Rites of Passage’ was playing on the computer as I typed and he’d just sung:

‘It all comes to this: can we find the love, take the hurt and still forgive.’

My hope and prayer is that we can – otherwise we’re likely to become yet another Fellowship that sidelines those whose opinions we cannot tolerate, ignores those who have a voice born out of different experience and plans for the future by expanding our graveyard, not realising that Jesus has brought us – all of us - together in this place for his purpose, his praise and worship, his work and not our comfort, reassurance and shelter.

I do hope that the Father has heard the prayer of his Son and that he will forgive us.

Roger
26th. March 2010

An archive of these reflections can be found on Roger’s Blog which can be accessed via his website as above.