Mulled Vine

He sat on a pew with his head in his hands – what was he to do? The church was in desperate need of a paint but the funds were so low and even with his good credit and negotiation skills he only had enough paint for just over half the building. Then suddenly the idea hit him: it was good paint, and he could dilute it to make it stretch; this he did, and proceeded to paint the entire church, finishing just in time before an almighty thunder storm let loose … alas pouring great floods of water over his church, and washing away the diluted paint. He looked aghast at the streams of paint flowing uselessly down the storm drains, and then fell to his knees and shook his fist at the heavens, “Why, Lord?”

Suddenly a great voice answered: “You should have trusted me to provide, my son, now get off your knees, I will provide, so go repaint and thin no more.”

Have you ever wondered what people are really like, what they think, what they do when no one is looking? I did, that fateful morning, and it was my undoing.

It was an ordinary Sunday, much like any other. Spring was in the air and I could sense a corporate reluctance from my flock. I had prepared a fairly decent sermon on Grace, intended to instruct and to encourage, but not many were paying attention. Even the normally attentive Harold Withington had dozed off in his usual seat, much to his wife Arma’s annoyance – she was very concerned about appearances. So I was glad to reach the end and announce the closing hymn.

The congregation rose with a collective sigh, and as it was preparing itself during the organ prelude it struck me: they were all fakes!

Mrs Andrews in the front pew, singing with arrogant shrills above the rest, excessively proud of having studied music at London Royal College of Music. Her husband James, whom I knew was having a torrid affair with young Maisie two rows back (obviously not during the sermon). Why even Harold, old saint that he was, had a gambling problem that I’d had to rescue him from repeatedly.

Yet despite this, they paraded like perfect little Christians, with impeccable, fine smiles, secretly looking down on each other, forgetting deliberately the great heights from which we all have fallen, and the immense price paid to get them back there.

So after the hymn I announced that no one was to leave their seats. It was time for detention Bible style. They sat stunned, looking at their old pastor, not quite sure what to expect.

I then started to pray, oh how I started to pray! I prayed that the Lord would deliver my flock from their sins, that they would mend their wicked ways, that they would learn to love each other, that they would care for the poor and so on. I sensed the congregation getting restless, but nobody moved because we were in the presence of the Almighty.

Then I stopped and we waited. We waited for the Spirit of God to move among us. Nobody moved. Nobody talked. At least until suddenly Harold started from his slumber and leapt up shouting, “Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring, don’t panic!”

The congregation collapsed with laughter at the old Dad’s Army quote, and that was it, the moment had passed: God had spoken, or perhaps not. Who knew?

I hung up my collar and frock in disgust and walked out never to return.

They were All fakes.

Twins were not particularly remarkable in the great city of Nineveh, but what was unusual about the two Jonas brothers was that they were in fact both called Jona. The reason was very simple: they were identical in very respect, so much so that even their mother could not tell them apart and had to resort to giving them the same name to avoid embarrassment. The consequence of this was that the two brothers rarely left each other’s company, for fear of being mistaken for the other, and were generally known as the Jonas.

So it came to pass that the two brothers were sitting on the hilltop overlooking Nineveh, when the word of the Lord came to one of the brothers.

“Jona, behold Nineveh the great city. Its iniquity has grieved me and I want to destroy it, but before that you must go and preach a message of repentance to them so that they will have one last chance to turn and thus avoid my wrath.”

Jona looked at his brother, who was dozing pleasantly in the sun and had clearly not heard any of this.

“Lord,” he replied, “I cannot do this on my own. Let me take my brother Jona with me.”

The Lord replied, “That would be two confusing. Now go, or I will smite you.”

Jona leapt to his feet and ran off, foolishly hoping to escape the wrath of God.

The rest is the stuff of legend and is documented in the book of Jonah in the Bible. Jona boarded a ship which ended up being stricken in a mighty storm that the Lord had sent. It was clear to the crew that something was amiss with Jona so with his consent they threw him to the waves where a large fish ate Jona.

That would have been the end of that, except that his brother had not been sleeping at all, and had heard the word of the Lord, but being slightly more cunning than his brother had feigned sleep.

He agonised over what to do, and when his brother did not return, thought that perhaps he should do as the Lord had requested, and thus avert a great smiting. This he did, and to his immense surprise, the whole city, including the King, repented with sackcloth and ashes, and the Lord did relent as per his word.

Over the years this story of mercy and hope has been retold and passed through the generations, and though some little changes have been made here and there, it stands in essence as a lesson to us all.

And no, it was not a whale. That’s just silly.

Emma pulled into the shopping centre car park. It was full again – it was always full – and she was desperate. “Oh Lord, please give me parking space. Pleeeease!” Just then a car pulled out in front of her and she continued, “That’s ok, Lord, got one.”

Up in the heavens Gabriel turned to the Almighty Creator of All, “There’s just no pleasing some people, is there?”

The Wisdom of the Ages looked up, slightly forlorn, “I did consider smiting her, but it’s Friday and I don’t like to do any smiting on Fridays – it spoils the weekend.”

I am a firm believer that the family who prays together stays together. I know its a corny saying, but it is true, so I encourage my children to pray before they go to bed, at mealtimes, and whenever there is a need.

Angelica however does not want to pray; I don’t what it is, but try as we will she refuses point blank to pray. My wife thought she might be possessed but I told her not to be silly, that this house was under the protection of the Almighty.

Then today, at Thanksgiving, with all the extended family gathered around, she astonishingly began to say grace: “Dear Lord, thank you for the food you give us, and the nice things you give us, and Lord, please provide clothes for the children in Africa, and all those naked ladies on Daddy’s computer.”

A man walks into a pub with a lump of tarmac under his arm. ‘A pint please, landlord’ he says. ‘And one for the road’.

One day in the Garden of Eden, Eve calls out to God, “Lord, I have a problem!”

“What’s the problem, Eve?”

“Lord, I know you’ve created me and have provided this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful animals, and that hilarious comedy snake, but I’m just not happy.”

“Why is that, Eve?” came the reply from above.

“Lord, I am lonely. And I’m sick to death of apples.”

“Well, Eve, in that case, I have a solution. I shall create a man for you.”

“What’s a ‘man’, Lord?”

“This man will be a flawed creature, with aggressive tendencies, an enormous ego and an inability to empathize or listen to you properly. All in all, he’ll give you a hard time. But, he’ll be bigger and faster and more muscular than you. He’ll be really good at fighting and kicking a ball about and hunting fleet-footed ruminants, and not altogether bad in the sack.”

“Sounds great,” says Eve, with an ironically raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, well. He’s better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. But, you can have him on one condition.”

“What’s that, Lord?”

“You’ll have to let him believe that I made him first.”

I have a low patience threshold at the best of times but today was the limit.

Blah, blah, blah … vision statement … blah, blah, blah, … synergistic thinking …. blah, blah, blah … I haven’t really achieved anything but look at my wonderful blue sky thinking … blah, blah, blah … look I can do Powerpointless presentations with transitions and dull text … blah, blah, blah.

And all this when I should have been catching one of my rare evening trains home.

So afterwards I strode to the station, fuming, muttering as I do about the self-inflated oxygen wasters in that meeting, when lo and behold a direct train to my home town had been delayed 15 minutes by some missing driver and was waiting just for me.

I say lo and behold because it felt vaguely Biblical. “And lo God did provide a train for his faithful servant.”

Of course I don’t really believe God did that just for me, particularly as my muttering was not full of blessing, but it was nice to have a train anyway, so thank you Lord for the way it worked out.

This blog is a bit devoid of spiritual content at the moment, because that’s the way I feel, but that’s for another time. My train is almost home.

I saw this on EBay the other day: someone had discovered the portrait of Jesus scorched on a slice of toast and was selling it. The bidding was furious but I snuck in at the last minute with my bid and won the item – it cost me everything, but it was worth it, a picture of my Lord, on toast. So it arrived today by special delivery and I could scarcely contain my excitement as I carefully opened the package. There it was, my very own miracle toast, except that Jesus had been covered with butter and jam and one bite of my toast was missing. I considered returning it, but it was strawberry jam, and I do like a bit of strawberry jam.

“Who’s that in the photo?” Jemima asked? I looked, unsure; this was a photo of us in our lounge, just last week, my wife and I, and two daughters Amy and Jemima, but here in the photo was another, a boy, somewhere around 6 years old. My wife grabbed the picture from my hand, “It looks like you when you were young, you know, the picture we call Little Lord?” I did know the one and she was right – that was me in the picture, but how was this possible? I looked at myself so much younger yet here in the picture I was. The Little Lord looked back at me, judging my uninspiring life with eyes full sadness, and slowly faded away.