The first book of the Bible begins with a universal story. It's couched in conventional terms. There's a heavenly place. Paradise. But it has one rule. Soon the rule is broken and the blame is discussed.
Wasn't me it was the woman.
Wasn't me it was the snake.
Someone else's fault.
Every year in a boarding school I used to run a summer camp for teenagers. At the first mealtime we recited all the rules that might make the place unsafe for a young person. It was a long list. One of them was this. The school insisted we make it clear that no-one was allowed to go on the roof because it was dangerous.
As I shared this rule I sensed a load of young eyes looking back at me thinking 'Hmm. Go on the roof. Good idea. Hadn't thought of that.'
Exposing those young people to a radical idea, even though it was revealed immediately as folly, was enticing.
What is it about 'don't touch' that makes us really want to? Why does a blank wall in the Bear Pit attract the budding Banksys?
Well that, I think, is the Bible's point. We don't get tempted by sin we haven't thought of. I let down your tyres because I thought you were mean parking in my village. I don't let down just anybody's tyres. I'm not a psychopath.
On our teenagers' houseparty we settled on a couple of key rules that were life or death matters and added 'Be sensible - there may be further explanations of what it means to be sensible over the course of the holiday.' We never mentioned the roof again. So nobody ever went looking for the access door to get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment