Gerry Williams has been thinking about two of the Parables of Jesus

Whenever I utter the words, “I’ve been thinking...” within earshot of my local minister there is an [almost] inaudible sigh accompanied by that look of benign resignation that harbours the thought, “Dear Lord, what has he found now?“

This is generally followed by a 15 or twenty minute discussion on some obscure passage that I have found in the Bible on which I have alighted with a certain interpretation, the purpose of the discussion being to establish whether my interpretation is correct or, as is sometimes the case, I have got it completely wrong and am in need of guidance back onto the correct path.  As a result of these exchanges between myself and my minister over the years, there is now a tangible link of communication between us that allows us to approach any subject and argue the pro’s and con’s, sometimes agreeing and just as often, not agreeing at the end.

And so it was that I recently said to her, “I’ve been thinking...”  A little shuffle in her seat to get comfortable and we were off.  I reminded her of two of the parables of Jesus; the parable of the ungrateful servant [Matthew 18:23-34] and the parable of the talents [Matthew 25:14-30].  A quick summary to save you looking them up - the ungrateful servant; King calls servant in who owes him money; servant is totally skint, throws himself on mercy of King.  King says, “Fine, forget it.”  Servant goes off.  Later servant corners fellow servant who owes him money.  He is just as skint as his mate but that is no excuse and first servant drags debtor off to court.  King gets to hear about it; goes ballistic, reinstates original debt, has first servant chucked in the nick until he pays the lot off.  Good for King.

Parable of the talents - boss is going on holiday; calls junior executives into office, bungs them all a grand, tells them to get on with it.  3 months later returns tanned and 10 pounds heavier.  Calls executives into office.  Asks first executive for financial statement.  First executive has chanced his arm on the stock market, made a killing and now has 10k on his balance sheet.  Boss over the moon, kisses exec, gives him a Porsche and the keys to the boss’s private bathroom.  Second exec; likewise but only made 5k; still, not bad for a youngster so he gets new BMW and an office move to one with a window.  Comes to the third exec who has made a complete hash of the whole thing and scared he would get a roasting from the boss, decided the best thing to do was to hide his k under the bed.  No loss but no profit either.  Boss goes nuts, takes his 1k, demotes the exec to car park attendant and gives his dosh to the other two.

Now does anything about these two parables strike a note of familiarity with anyone?  Isn’t it the case that we have been reading these parables or at least something very much like them in our daily newspapers for the last six months?  Didn’t the “Banks” [the servant] go to the King [the government] pleading poverty and didn’t the government [us, the nation, in fact] not only forgive them but gave them more of our money?  And didn’t the banks then go in pursuit of their own debtors and demand payment under the threat of repossession of their houses, forcing the closing of their businesses and generally acting like the servant?

Likewise, when the “boss” [again the government/us] gave money to the banks, haven’t they simply hoarded it for themselves [as with the third executive] instead of putting it to use in revitalising the economy by getting it back into circulation?

As yet we have not witnessed the justice handed out to the servant and the young executives but we can but live in hope...

Now already I can hear the mutterings from the back; you cannot simply take an extract from the Bible and interpret it to suit current events, that is a bit dangerous, I hear you say.  If we were talking about John’s Revelation, I would tend to agree with you.  Many people through the ages have attempted to identify incidents in history as corresponding to John’s visionary epic in predicting the end of the world and the Second Coming and all have been proved wrong.  But in the cases cited above, while you may yet have your doubts about quoting scripture to suit events, they do point to one of the aspects that hinder the spread of the gospel today.

The argument of those outside the church is that the Bible was written thousands of years ago, was directed to a different society and as such has little or no relevance today and therein lays the only excuse needed to ignore not only the gospel message but also all the lessons learned through the history of the Old and New Testaments.  I would argue that this is, of course, quite the opposite of the truth.

Many is the Sunday that I have sat in the congregation, listening to a preacher, ordained and lay, eagerly anticipating that moment, all the while silently exhorting the preacher, “Come on - get to the good bit!”

The “good bit” is where the preacher makes the link between the lectionary passage that is the basis of his or her sermon to events that are happening today, thereby establishing the relevance of that passage to people’s lives, and oh dear Lord, how many times have I been disappointed?  While the preacher’s analysis of the reading; the explanation of the context and what Jesus was really telling his followers are all exemplary, the punch line is missing entirely.  No matter how much theology is contained in a simple Bible passage, the point will very often be lost because of a failure to establish relevance with the everyday events that affect the lives of the congregation.

If I am leading a worship service on a Sunday morning, I spend at least one hour watching the television news channel to catch up on overnight events to see if there is anything happening in the world to which my sermon for that day applies and working out how I include that in my script.  This not only ensures that the message is relevant but it is up-to-date as well.

I confess that I shuddered inwardly recently when not one but two preachers quite happily admitted to me that they “never read the newspapers“ and “never watch the news.“  How on earth do they expect to make their messages relevant to people today, especially in the age of instant news, if they do not themselves know what is going on?

The gospel is all but it is only going to be heard by those who have hitherto been deaf to its message if it is seen to have an impact on that person’s life as it is lived today.  If we are not making the gospel relevant, we are failing Christ.

Gerry Williams is a Local Preacher in the Gosport & Fareham Methodist Circuit