Jesus never spoke to prostitues - dream to go 23

I’m a Reverend you know. It says so on my credit card, and also on a bit of paper a bishop once gave me. Most of the time I avoid the title – I mean it doesn’t really suit my rugged good looks and street cred lifestyle. But sometimes I quite enjoy it. Like on those days when I’m feeling insignificant and overlooked.

Only problem is, Jesus abolished ‘status’. Seriously, he scrapped it. He even arranged an ancient powerpoint illustration as the curtain in the temple that separated the professional holy people from the others ripped apart when he died.

Jesus started a new community where there are no VIPs. Where children, the homeless and the elderly get as much status as doctors, directors, and archbishops. In the early days they took it really seriously. They even made the rich people sit in the worst seats as a reminder.

But soon the rot began to creep back in. Those who were leaders (Jesus had called them 'servants' – the cleaners and cooks for the community) reinvented priesthood – or gave it new names like 'senior pastor'. Those who were followers happily colluded, welcoming the chance to confirm their nobody-ness and escape the responsibilities of “ministry”.

Of course we need different gifts and roles. And of course there are tools for the job. But does the size of the house, office or car reflect a valid need? Or is it just one more attempt to keep the wretched system going and keep the radical words of Jesus at bay?

Someone said that Jesus never spoke to prostitutes* – because he didn’t see them that way. He saw them as precious women made in God’s image. He saw them as sisters, and the daughters of his father. That's status!

(*I stole this wonderful line from a wonderful book called the irresistible revolution)

dream to go 22 - do it badly

If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly (G K Chesterton)

Don’t wait to start. Don’t wait to be perfect. Don’t wait to be good at it. Don’t even wait to be average. Pretty well everything that is really and deeply important in life is worth doing, even if the best you can do is to do it badly.

Get stuck in. Get your hands dirty. Get your nose bloody.
Do it with all your heart and strength even if that is only good enough to do it badly.

Jesus told us to do lots of things. I am bad at almost all of them. But I’m going to do them, even if I make a fool of myself in the process. I’m going to love God and you and other people. I’m going to pray. I’m going to give lots away. I’m going to give up destructive living. I’m going to resist evil.

It will really help me to keep doing those things, if you are willing to have a go to, and to do them even if badly, rather than wait until you are somehow good.

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Dreamfields

Well I loved getting together with nearly forty of you (including seven children) for our retreat day at strawberry field.

For those who couldn’t make it, you missed

-Chaos over caffettieres

-Malcolm’s brand sparkling new Mac powerbook crashing first time it tried to play a video (no I’m not secretly laughing at all)

-Me ‘preaching’ naked twice (you’ll have to ask someone!)

-Seven lifesize murder-scene type outline drawings of the children.

Seriously it was lovely to be together for a day and to build new friendships. The day was relaxed. The worship was intimate. The commitment to one another and to this crazy thing God’s drawn us into tangible.
There seemed to be a keenness to do this sort of thing again before too long (not sure yet how long is too long).

Thanks to everyone who came and took part.

richard w