Moral

 

Hello All. I hope you are ok. I am too hot. We had a huge thunderstorm on the South Coast last night and it has made no difference at all. Also, I fell asleep with my leg out of the bed so when I got up for my early morning trip to the water closet, my leg gave way. HOH slept through this, citing back medication. Hmm.

I had a few nice things to chat about this week. I thought we could talk about The Osmonds and their champion song "Love Me For A Reason". I was going to mull over who came up with lyrics such as 

" I can't continue guessing. Because it's only messing. (only messing)".

Or

"Honey, give me love - not a facsimile of!" Which is off-the-scale excellent if you ask me.

Also, I was going to ask "Is Midsommer Murders taking the mick now?" I don't know if you saw the last one. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean it's meant to be ridiculous but in a good way. This last one was full of Holly Willoughby going on about beavers (don't give up the day job love). Also, people in masks running about in nighties and that cute Jack Russell who is ALWAYS off his food. I can't be doing with it. We have moved on to Annika which is a bit annoying and every time she gets the murderer, I have no idea how she gets to the bottom of it - even when she explains it. But, I quite like the way that she works it out, then everyone runs to their car or their boat, flapping their hands. Quite often, these boats and cars blow up but luckily Annika and her plucky team have been thrown to safety so that's alright. HOH seems keen on it though. Wonder why?

Or I could ask "Did I overdo the salt in the slow cooker tonight?" and also "Does putting a slice of bread in sort it out?" Answers Yes and No.

But we cannot pursue these important issues tonight because I have accidentally read the Observer. (Long story) and the column snapshotted above was in it. I won't shorten your life by directing you towards it but basically, it informs us that all churches are now empty (see photo with irrefutable evidence below) and that no one needs to be a Christian anyway because we are all quite capable of sorting out our own moral code. Well, Observer reader, if you could just spare me a moment while you are mashing up your avocado and chia seeds to spread on your Sourdough  

Firstly, the empty church bit. I think that would come as a surprise to some black churches or a lot of C of E churches or even a few mega churches. (I understand some mega-churches particularly have to be handled with care but you can't ever really accuse them of being empty). I used to work in quite a big church - about a thousand people on the books - and I could have taken a photo like that seven days a week. Because people don't live there! Take that photo at nine am Monday morning and, that's one more person than I would expect to see, to be honest. 

However, the main thing that annoyed me was the blathering saying people could work out their own moral code. Firstly, I would gently challenge that. Really? You are happy with how that is going, are you? I give you the British Government M'Lud. Anyway, that aside, I have to tell you, as I understand many other Christians will, that I didn't become a Christian because I was in search of a decent moral code. All that interested me about Christianity was Jesus. The sum of the things that I am here for is to become closer to Jesus - fascinating, glorious, astonishing Jesus. It's not about a moral code or even finding a good way to live which I understand is how it can look when you are on the outside. It's about the God/Man who rescued me. Obviously, the moral code follows on but only because Jesus is so shot through with compassion, he asks for nothing less. My moral code - such as it is - doesn't get me up in the morning. It's about him. And it is good news.

“Jesus is the descent of God to our lives, just as they are, not the ascent of our lives to God, hoping he might approve when he sees how hard we try.”

Eugene Peterson.

Have a good week.