The Animals' Tales

As used at Holy Trinity, Nailsea Crib Service yesterday.

The Story of the Journey - The Donkey's Tale
I am a donkey. To tell the truth I don't have a name. Everyone calls me little. I suppose I am small for my age. But small creatures can do important tasks.

Caesar Augustus wanted to know how many people were in the Roman Empire. So he made everyone go home.

When a census was taken in the Roman Empire everyone had to get back to their birthplace and sign in. All the important people got the best rides. Those with no money either walked or got a donkey.

I got to carry this woman who was pregnant. Very pregnant. I put my hooves down really carefully in case a loud noise started her off.

And her bloke, Joseph, came from David's family. The great King David of Israel. And everyone knows that he came from - yeah that's right - Bethlehem, In Judea. But they lived in Nazareth in Galilee. That's eighty miles away and further if you don't want to go through Samaria. Which we didn't. Scum.

It took us a week. Amazing she didn't have the baby on the way.

And when we got to Bethlehem it was ramming. I wondered if some people wanted to show off that they came from the same town as David.

And all the rooms were taken. Everyone must have got there early to get a bed. So Mary and Joseph had to kip at my place. With the other animals.

I'll let Daisy the cow take the story on.



Inside the Stable - The Cow's Tale
Moo. Moo.

Hi I'm Daisy. High quality, organic milk supply to the hospitality industry.

This bit of the story gets exaggerated. Everyone reckons they know what happened and adds a bit of detail. To be honest it all took place quite quickly. Mary and Joseph crashed in the barn and that was where she had the baby. When Luke wrote it down all he said was:

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first-born, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger...

As I remember it we all tried to move to the side to give them a bit of room. Everyone respects a birth round here.

But it all went well. Lots of happy voices and then Mary and the baby went to sleep and Joseph went to the pub.

We had a bet on what they would call the kid. My money was on David - it seemed to fit - but everyone lost. They called him Joshua; that's Jesus in Greek. It means 'The Lord saves.' Hmm. I wonder.

How do I know all this? Remember, not all cows are as silly as they look.


Out in the Fields - The Sheep's Tale
It was night. We were all asleep. It was a bit of a boring night.

Sorry. I'm forgetting myself. Name's Harry. Harry the lamb. I told my Mum it would have been easier to remember if it had been Larry but what can you do?

I'll never forget what happened next. It became day. Not slowly as usual. At once. In an instant. Kaflash!

And a thing appeared. I didn't know what it was. The shepherds, who had been doing OK up to then, went crazy. They are supposed to protect us but they hid behind us while we tried to hide behind each other. It was chaos.

And a voice said:

Do not be afraid.

Didn't really work. We carried on being more afraid. Because the kaflash talked.

Then it spoke some more and said a baby had been born, was dressed in cloths, was lying in a manger and was really quite important.

The kaflash got brighter and started singing:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.

Rubbish song. Great video.

So the shepherds left us and went to visit Bethlehem. Left us. Alone in the dark again. In the fields, by ourselves. That was frightening.

When they came back they seemed very excited. They kept talking about what had happened and told everyone who passed by the next day.

Amazing.


Another Journey - the Camel's Tale
If you want to go somewhere in style you don't walk. You don't go on a little donkey. You hire a camel.

That's me that is. Tall. Distinguished. Very capable. Someone once called us the ships of the desert.

They must have meant my sister. She looks like the back end of a liner. I, on the other hand...

Anyway, my story.

One day some wise men who studied the stars hired me and my mates for a few weeks to travel to the east, to Jerusalem. They wanted to see a new king. They had seen it in the stars.

In Jerusalem we stopped and asked where the king was, thinking everyone would send us to the Palace. Nobody knew anything.

Eventually some priests and teachers did a bit of checking. They told King Herod, the current king, what they had found out. He sent us on our way to Bethlehem. We looked up and a star seemed to be moving there too. Cool.

When we got to Bethlehem we found a house where the baby they were all talking about lived. The wise guys went in and said hello and left presents.

Herod had told us to report back to him but the wise guys decided not to. There was something of the night about him.

Rich Gospel Investigates the Light

To use this in a service dress as a private eye (dark glasses, hat, raincoat with collar pulled up)

On the word intriguing – stroke your chin before speaking it

On the word suspicious - look round from side to side before speaking it

On the word mysterious - scratch your head as if puzzled

It was Christmas Eve and Rich Gospel was about to go home for Christmas.

It was a busy time of year. At the offices of Glad, Tidings, Comfort and Joy – the theological detective agency – the phone was ringing incessantly. Sadly, incessantly wasn't picking up.

'Paranormal, supernatural and doctrinal investigations,' they'd put on the business cards.

Very popular this time of year. It had been the busiest Christmas season ever and Rich had taken all the countings. Oops. Of course he meant counted all the takings. Obviously.

Suddenly a letter came through the window and landed on his desk. The window had been closed but luckily the letter was tied to a brick.

Very (look round from side to side) suspicious.

He raced outside but there was no-one in sight. Very (scratch your head) mysterious.

Picking bits of broken glass out of his hair, Rich opened the letter.

'Dear Mr Gospel', it said, 'My daughter has asked for a very specific sort of torch for Christmas. She wants a light that shines in the darkness that the darkness doesn't understand.'

Rich had a ponder. He toasted it and spread it with jam. Best ponder he'd had for ages. Then he went back to his train of thought. Sadly the station was closed so he had to return to work.

He knew about light. It wasn't as clever as it was made out to be. Think about it. Every time you put a light on it is because the room is dark. The dark must have got there first. If scientists listened to him (which they didn't because they tried to avoid being in the same room as an eccentric crank) they would be investigating not the speed of light but the speed of dark.

He had a little wonder, a 1987 one, a good year for wonder. It went very well with the ponder he had just finished.

So if all the girl wanted was a light that shines in the darkness he could give her a torch, a lamp, a candle, a bulb, a match, a fire, a tinderstick, a taper, a laser beam, a thunderflash... easy. But she wanted a light that the darkness didn't understand. Weird. In fact very (stroke your chin) intriguing.

Only recently he had whispered into his computer keyboard that he hadn't washed his hands today. This had turned it off.

He picked it up and kicked it across the room. This booted it up. He waited for it to be ready for use again.

He decided to search for lights that shine in the darkness but this simply took him to the web-sites of lighting companies. Very (stroke your chin) intriguing.

So he changed his search string for a piece of rope and tried the words 'understanding the darkness'. This took him to some very disappointing web-sites all about goths. Very (scratch your head) mysterious.

He was about to remove the piece of wood from the top of the computer to log off when he noticed, far down the search list, a quote from a book by a man called John. Men called John were, in his experience, deeply in touch with the innermost secrets of the theological universe. Something to do with the meaning of their name. Jonathan means God has given us a gift.

He read the quote. It was from a very old book but he thought he had one which he had used last Christmas when investigating angels.

He got the book down from his shelf. He read the beginning of John:

...and the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendesd it not.

It was very old language in his Bible; he must get a new one. Then he had a thought. After his ponder and wonder he was pretty full but eating always helped. Comprehending. That means understanding, doesn't it?

Very (stroke your chin) intriguing.

He read on. On wasn't as interesting as the Bible so he went back to it. What was this light?

As he read he found out more and more. The light wasn't a torch or a candle. It was illuminating in a different way. It was a person. A person who throws light on things. A person who - very (scratch your head) mysterious - was said to come from God.

Still he had his answer and that was what he got paid for. He was about to send the reply when he realised he had no address to write back to. Just a brick and a broken window. He'd forgotten that this was very (look round from side to side) suspicious.

He went back into his office where a surfer was just leaving. He was from an emergency boarding company and had tidied up the window.

Give me the answer he said, and the brick. If you let me take it to the client she'll pay for the window to be fixed. She just wanted to get your attention.

Very (scratch your head) mysterious. But he had one thing in common with the window. He was also shattered. He headed for home before anyone else needed investigating, a copy of John's clever book tucked under his arm, to read over Christmas.

This is what he started to read...

(Reading John 1:1-14)

See Through?

A quote from the Church Times drops into the in-tray of WWA's 'truth is stranger than fiction' department:

The likes and dislikes of the PCC and the reordering committee may come into play if your DAC is equally happy for a modern, glass-walled lavatory area, or for a panelled, more traditional-looking one.

If a Parochial Church Council (PCC) and its Diocesan Advisory Committee (for the care of churches) (DAC) cannot issue, today, a joint statement that glass-walled lavatory areas are inadvisable in churches I think we all out to go home.

Year in Status

First one Twitter; second one Facebook

What if?

OK this is a 'What if ?' post. If you don't know what one of those is then go away until you do.

See, the thing is, every Christmas someone goes to a lot of trouble to debunk a bit of Christmas. This year an excellent, and scholarly work by Anthony Billington points out that the word we translate as 'inn' in Luke 2 is probably wrong. It is more likely to mean no guest room. Read it here.

Most exaggerations and additons to the Christmas story (number and arrival time of wise men, presence of animals, requests to Christian children to behave nicely) have been dealt with at some point over the years. They are largely the fault of Victorian carol-writers.

My 'What if' is this. What if it's all bunk? No, not rubbish, but simply not history. John and Mark wrote perfectly acceptable gospels without birth narratives. Paul never refers to it and manages possibly the high point of early church Christology in Philippians 2 without talking about it, or apparently needing to. Jesus himself never refers to it; only to his human family. Joseph disappears from view before Jesus is an adult.

What if, aware of the nature of Jesus the healer/teacher and his ability, it was felt appropriate to give him the sort of exceptional birth or call that heroes of the faith traditionally had? Think Isaac's miraculous arrival, Moses escape, Samuel's childhood temple ministry and you'll get the idea. What if tales grew up as a mark of respect? Needing to treat him as divine someone invented his beginning. Luke adds shepherds (Jesus for the poor and stoopid); Matthew wise men (Jesus for the rich and educated).

Given the unique nature of his birth it is amazing that only one story from age 2-30 survives, Jesus at 12 in the temple. Didn't anyone think to chronicle the life of this amazing and special child? Why on earth not? What if that was because at that time he was not yet special, hadn't yet heard God's call and was busy learning not to cut the ends of his fingers off with carpentry tools?

Does that make his eventual sacrifice any less? Here, finally is a son of God (as we are all called) whose obedience is exemplary. 'This is my son', says a voice from the heavens. What if that is what we all could be, if we just went the way he pointed rather than wondering where he came from.

What if?

Christmas Letter

Christmas letter 2011 now published here. Don't all rush at once but it does contain between none and four good jokes.

A right and wrong speech

I commend you all to read the Prime Minister's speech to theologians and church leaders on the occasion of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the King James' Bible.

Read the text here.

It contains many fine words and quotes but I can't help leaving with the feeling that I have read a speech that was both completely right and completely wrong at the same time. Fully God and fully man?

I think it was this quote, nailing his colours firmly to the fence, that set the tone:

I am a committed – but I have to say vaguely practising – Church of England Christian, who will stand up for the values and principles of my faith…

Maybe he has simply picked up the vibe of the average Englander today - committed but vague. In what other walk of life could you claim a firm commitment allied with vague practice?

He goes on to praise, rightly, the exquisite language of the King James Bible yet finds within it an authority for everything including a constitutional monarchy, something which, on my reading of the Bible, earned God's disapproval and strong discouragement.

There are pot shots at modern translations, failing to understand that these are to help people access God's word as living and active rather than literature and archive.

He insists that the Bible sets our moral framework but wrestles with his own theological issues. There is an inherent danger in seeing the Bible as a finishing point rather than an agreed starting point. It doesn't give us the last word on divorce, sex, abortion or warfare. Indeed the Bible's own theology of these things develops through its pages.

There is a certain amount of cherry-picking:

Indeed, as Margaret Thatcher once said, 'We are a nation whose ideals are founded on the Bible.'
 
Responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility, self-sacrifice, love…

…pride in working for the common good and honouring the social obligations we have to one another, to our families and our communities…

These are all good but why no mention of prayer, receiving the Holy Spirit, putting Jesus first, witnessing - these are every bit as much the Bible's values yet I suspect slightly less popular.

I rejoice that we have a Prime Minister who will, unlike Tony Blair 'do God'. I hope he understands that there will be some who feel it is rude not to do God properly.

A Bit of Dissonance

My head has been in a bit of a spin today. It started with a vague feeling of I don't-know-whatness at Morning Prayer and it hasn't gone away. I'm not ill or stressed; it's just that there's a thought trying to fly.

It may come from having had my notions of order challenged and being invited to embrace the conflict (see Monday's post and comments) but I seem to be more than usually aware of the bigness of God and the smallness of humanity.

It is also a time where many are discussing the future of the church, especially the Church of England, in the light of the TV programme Rev (tonight 9.00 p.m) and also a few articles being Facebooked and Twittered (some quite old) about the decline in the church. Others are renewing their spleen-venting over disestablishment and literal understandings of the Bible. I'm with them on both counts so they may as well save their spleens when in my company.

In Psalm 76 this morning we were invited to ponder a view of God that was enormous:

You are resplendent with light,
more majestic than mountains rich with game.
Valiant men lie plundered,
they sleep their last sleep;
not one of the warriors
can lift his hands.
At your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
both horse and chariot lie still.

This human view of God's majesty was that creatures were attractive because they were food and defeat in battle was all part of God's mighty, all-encompassing command and control. When he says die, you die.

Some say that they dislike the bloodthirsty God of the Old Testament. In fact it is the people who were bloodthirsty. The psalmist suggests that God is bigger than all this.

The Old Testament contains a lot of history and, as we all know, history is often written by the winners.

Then we started the Book of Zephaniah. He prophesied during the reign of Josiah. Josiah is always lauded as a good king who preserved Israel's sacred religious traditions and instituted reforms on that basis. He listened to the prophets and obeyed them. But the words of Zephaniah fly in the face of that. Here's a guy who proclaims death and judgement while things are improving and being renewed. It looks as if Josiah and he may have shared a great-grandfather (King Hezekiah) so that may be how Zephaniah managed to avoid becoming lion food. He is not mentioned in the parallel accounts in the historical books of 2 Kings or 2 Chronicles.

Then we had that little passage in Matthew where Jesus gets his and Peter's temple tax paid by doing a magic trick with a fish. It smacks of folk-tale to me, an invention of Matthew to keep Jews paying their taxes after the fall of Jerusalem.

We (there were four of us at Morning Prayer) often have a short discussion about the readings but today we sat in silence and I enjoyed my own discussion.

During a pastoral prayer meeting a little later I pondered on the simple faith of some of those prayers. At one point I jotted this down, addressed to those who rubbish the church:

The God you mock, the one who intervenes from time to time, occasionally doing our will, is too small. The God  I think I recognise, and know, always intervenes and my prayers are a way of seeing my unique issues in an eternal context.

This thought, not quite fully-formed enough to write down but what-the-hell, wants to suggest that in getting to grasp the fullness of the wonder of God, literalism can be a real hindrance. Sometimes it doesn't mean quite what it appears to says. That doesn't mean it ain't truth. We may need to search harder to find what is. None of these passages, experiences or events will reveal its meaning alone.

Weather

Why do you talk about the weather so much in England? I've been asked this a few times, mainly by continental friends or west-coast Yanks.

If it was 20c every day with rain falling in April only we'd probably not discuss it. But this morning we had overnight heavy wind followed by torrential rain, hail, lightning and thunder. Now it is looking slightly sunny.

We are blessed with not living in a part of the world where the weather makes a serious annual attempt to take your life, but also where it is not so predictable as to be dull.

I think it is part of what makes us adaptable and creative as a people. And on that note I'm going to get some writing and cooking done.

Pepper Pots and OCD

As you know the world divides into two types of people - those who divide the world into two types of people and those who don't . That's not original but originality is forgetting where you found something (Jonny Baker) and I've forgotten.

So you will either love and understand what I am about to tell you or wonder what all the fuss is about.

First, by way of background, you need to know that I suffer from a bit of OCD. Not seriously. I can cope with an odd number of cans in the fridge and visit untidy houses. I walk on the cracks. But I close doors and switch off lights (not a bad habit so far) and (extreme coming up) can't sleep with a dressing table drawer or wardrobe door slightly open.

Today I was meeting with some other ministers from around the Diocese (Hi David, Kate, Tina, Diana and Roger). We are the ones who have specific job descriptions including missional stuff - fresh expressions, pioneering etc.

Over coffee after our lunch together Tina rolled up a piece of paper that had previously contained chocolate and placed it under the pepper pot so said pot now leaned at an alarming angle. And left it there. She continued to talk as if nothing important had happened and when I suggested that I wondered why she had done this she said 'Because I am a pioneer.' When I further indicated that I found this made me uneasy she did nothing.

Now. Who else is bothered by the idea of sitting at a table looking at a deliberately destabilised pepper pot? Only me? OK. I'll shut up now.

Dr Theo

This morning we welcome Dr Theo Claptrap to the site to answer your questions on matters liturgical, biblical and ecclesiastical. Welcome Dr Theo and let's take a question:

Dr Theo, big fan, love your work, been following you for years...

Yes, yes get on with it.

Well I can't help noticing that today is the Festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Indeed it is. Your question?

Well what is that for?

Ah well, glad you asked me that. The idea is that for the Son of God to be completely pure and free from the stain of human sinfulness his human mother must also have been and so on. It used to be called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It is celebrated on the 8th December, nine months before the Nativity of Mary which is celebrated on the 8th September. I guess they assumed a full-term pregnancy. Started about the fifth century CE.

Used to?

I think someone realised we'd have to be celebrating her grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. We'd disappear, immaculately up our own genealogy. Anyway if Christ is fully human as well as fully divine it is important that there was nothing special about his mother.

Nothing special?

Exactly. Ordinary, obedient human lass, probably a teenager.

Ordinary lass?

Exactly. The last thing she'd have wanted was a feast. Let alone one to celebrate her parents getting it on. Have you read the Magnificat?

Blimey won't that upset a few of our catholic friends?

Might do. Accuracy more important than friendship I reckon. You don't help your friends by agreeing with them when they're talking boll... Anyway, must dash, those Orange Lodge doors won't open themselves. Cheerio.

Dr Claptrap will be back to answer more of your questions after his meeting. Acknowledgement to the late Miles Kington who did this sort of thing from time to time.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

This is the title of a short book by Leszek Kolakowski which I have been reading very slowly over the last year or two. It is published, in translation, by Penguin.

In it he concentrates on 30 great philosophers and one idea they introduced or discussed which is, in some respects, still current and still being talked about. It is not (as he categorically says in the introduction) a history of philosophy and he warns any student attempting to treat it as such that they will fail their exams.

It is, especially for those of us who enjoy the exercise of thinking for its own sake, a great challenge. Fantastic to strip down life's great questions to such as:

Can we know anything?
How can we achieve certainty?
Do we need the church?
What is human existence?

It is equally interesting to read a summary of what the world's great thinkers (the list is the author's choice) have made of these questions. At the end of each chapter Kolakowski lists further questions and issues that are raised by the particular philosopher's views.

I loved it. And in passing I note how many of the world's great thinkers have given no answers whatsoever but merely raised questions that others have then gone on to think about in detail. Friends and colleagues will be aware of my dislike of answers and love of questions. Shoulders of giants and all that.

Cost me £8.99 through the Guardian book club.

Signs 2

Observing the strap-lines on large lorries has become a bit of a hobby of late (see previous post). What would once have been a Fowler chilled van is now:

temperature controlled distribution

I felt confident that Eddie Stobart's fleet, kings of truckers with girl names on the front of their rigs, would claim no such nonsense but was devastatingly disappointed to pass one of their vehicles on Saturday. It proudly proclaimed:

trans store logistics

No-one is a delivery driver any more.

Soon window cleaners vans will be offering:

on-site transparent wall cleansing solutions

And the Fire Brigade:

domestic and industrial combustion calming

I used to be a vicar. Now I wonder if people would rather have:

eternity logistics and solutions

Well it's a thought.

Signs

If you were to put three words on the side of your van what would they be? I know you haven't got a van, stupid. Take an imaginary trip.

Thing is, I bet that after a bit of work you'd have only those words remaining that were really worth keeping. They'd say a lot about you. Even the words you jettisoned to get, say, six down to four, would be interesting.

I passed a van on the M4 today. In fact I passed three vans from the same company, Downton. Of the three words on the side of their van, a strap line which you will find on their web site, I contend that two are unnecessary:

Real Distribution Solutions

One way to test a slogan is to see if the opposite is clearly stupid. If it is you don't need to say it. So:

Fake Distribution Solutions
Surreal Distribution Solutions
No Distribution Solutions

And as for 'solutions':

Downton - Really Solving Nothing
Downton - Not a Real Clue
Downton - No Real Answers for 55 Years

I rest my case.

I bet some creative types were involved in finalising the slogan. I used to do this for a living. I wish I was back in that line of work sometimes. People will pay good money for that level of stupidity.

May I suggest:

Downton Distribution

Alliterative, simple and memorable.

There will be no charge.

Unless, of course, it was only one van and it kept jumping beyond me at light speed. Now that would be a solution.

Don't Start Anything

I work best in the worlds of vision and delivery. I am not so hot at strategy. If vision is about destination - where are we going? - then strategy is about the steps to take to get there.

It follows that vision is more about leadership than management and vice-versa for strategy.

After two and a half days of retreat, and now a free day before returning to Advent earth, I have a single thought pinned down. I am fed up of starting things. I've spent all my ministry starting things. I've set things up. I've seen things that were not being done and I've made them happen. I have begun.

But I have lost the knack of being able to infect people with the passion for whatever it is I start and thus hand on the started thing to someone who will run with it, polish it and make it great, perhaps using me as occasional consultant if things get stuck.

I am currently doing too many things I started. And this makes me spend too much time keeping those things going when I really want/ought to be starting something else. I hear a Michael Jackson song on constant repetition. And yes I do '...wanna be starting something.'

The danger, with people such as me, is that we walk away from the things we have started because of the call of things as yet unbegun. I am determined not to succumb to this but it helps me understand the niggly level of frustration I currently experience all the time. Keep too many live things in a bag and one day the fight will break out.

It is good for me to take on one or two jobs in any post which require discipline and stickability. I do this in a couple of ways. It reminds me that everyone has to do a certain amount of the less pleasant jobs.

I've started two new things this term but I didn't stop anything in order to do them. I merely postponed. Both have gone well first time and are heading towards that difficult second album in a term when all the other things I've started here, bar two (which stopped because they didn't work), need to carry on.

If you hear me talk about pioneering anything for the next few months tell me to stop starting. At the moment, like a dodgy set of jump leads, I'm not starting anything.