Alastair, I may have remembered the name
wrongly, but that doesn’t matter, came into the church in Islington of which I
was then minister. I assumed he had come
to “borrow” money, as that was why he usually came, and I hadn’t seen him for a
while, and I began to consider whether I would be generous, or whether I ought
to be resistant – as he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out, and here I
definitely can’t remember, 20, 30 pounds – saying: I have come to repay you,
and so he did. In that inner city
location, I often had people coming asking for money or food, but only once was
I repaid, one encounter that I didn’t expect to work out as it did.
But move on a few years, and we are in
Panama. We lived in a very interesting
street. We lived next door to the church
of which I was minister, a Methodist Church, so that was there. But it was also one of the main drug dealing
streets of Panama City and home to some very interesting characters, quite a
few of whom would knock the door from time to time, or, actually, more often,
yell from the gate which we usually kept locked. I remember the day a police shoot out ended
up outside our house and damaged our gates.
I have often wished that I had kept the bullet casing that I found in
our garden the following day. Anyhow,
these characters would yell to attract my attention, and I got to know a few of
them a bit, and would give them, usually, just a bit of coinage. But, on the day in question, my wife and I
were going out in the car and had just got a little way down the street when
this rather dishevelled looking character loomed up in front of the car, waving
me down. My wife wondered what on earth
was going on. But I didn’t really,
because I knew him. He was one of my
regulars, and I assumed he wanted a little money. But actually he didn’t. He just wanted to say hello. I was somebody who did help him from time to
time, and he simply wanted to greet me.
Another encounter that didn’t quite turn out how I initially expected.
I wonder what the people who are mentioned
in the last few verses of Mark 6 expected?
What, if anything, were they looking for? It is interesting that the stress seems to be
not on the fact that Jesus healed, though that’s there, but on the large numbers
that came looking for him. His
reputation was getting around. And so,
there were those who rushed round the area grabbing those who needed Jesus’
transforming, healing touch.
And so, I want to just ask three questions: first,
are we ready to be surprised by some of the encounters that we have, and
especially when we think we have got it clearly worked out what people will
do? Second, what’s our reputation? What are we known for? And third, how much effort do we put in – are
we willing to put in – to get those whom we know to need Jesus to have the
chance of some contact with him?
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