Friday 13th December, 2024
Maud had been the church cleaner since her husband died, she’d thought she’d be covered by his pension and life insurance policy but some loophole that she didn’t understand meant she wasn’t. She’d always stayed at home and looked after the children, and now, without John and his income, times were tough and she had no work experience. The church cleaning job was minimum wage but it kept the wolf from the door. Maud felt bad taking a wage though; Rev Clark had a new book out on radical generosity where he wrote about how we should seek to be generous with our time in the Lord’s service, as well as with our finances. Rev Clark gave so much away, he had a YouTube channel where he would give bundles of cash, earned from the channel’s advertising revenue to homeless people, he had a huge following and was known for the entertaining ways he gave money to people.
As the church started to fill up this particular Sunday morning though Maud noticed people weren’t sitting quietly waiting for Rev Clark to emerge from the vestry, like they usually did, they were gathered in their pews round some scruffy looking guy, listening to him, and he seemed to be teaching. Maud listened in for a moment and heard him say “Watch out for those in the church with power and authority, they swan about in their fancy clothes making a show of their generosity and holiness but they always make sure they’ve got plenty first and happily take from widows and those in need”
“Blimey, that’s a bit on the nose” thought Maud, finding her own spot on the back row, she liked to sit at the back where she could get out at the end of the service to switch the water heater on, ready to serve the teas and coffees after the service.
Rev Clark was his usual charismatic self, he read an excerpt from his book as part of the sermon; he described a time in his life when he and his wife took a decision to “double tithe” and as a result, he said, he’d been doubly blessed. He challenged the church “Do you feel you don’t have much to give? Give it anyway! Trust the Lord! He is faithful to those who are faithful to him!.” Then he moved onto accountability “We are a family, are we holding one another accountable? Are you saying to your brother- you know I think you could be a bit more generous in your giving? Because you should be, remember we are one body.”
As the final hymn played, Rev Clark picked up the collection plate and personally made his way through the pews, muttering “God bless you” as he did so. Maud reached into her handbag, she’d topped up the electricity meter yesterday and there wasn’t much left, but, looking in her purse she fished out the few pound coins she had left. “God is faithful to those who are faithful to him” she reminded herself, as she popped them into the tray.
The music subsided, Rev Clark swept out of the church and Maud suddenly remembered “I haven’t put the water heater on for the brews” she was just about to dash out to the kitchen when she heard a cough coming from that scruffy looking guy, he was standing right next to her and everyone was looking at him. “This woman” he said, “Put more in that collection plate than any of the rest of you. Most of you gave from your wealth, but this woman gave everything she had to live on.” Maud hurried to the kitchen, but looking back into the church she saw Rev Clark standing in the door of the vestry looking furious. The scruffy looking guy cast his eyes around the church as a few shame-faced stewards shifted awkwardly in their seats, nobody said a word. “Brood of vipers” he shouted at them, and with that he was gone.
The ‘Jesus in Jeans’ series, reimagines what stories from the life of Jesus might look like if they happened today. This series doesn’t make any claims to be the gospel, to be the bible, or to be brilliantly sound theology (I’m a storyteller, not a theologian) Rather, it aims to help the reader think about the context of the story, what might have been going on in the lives of people Jesus touched, and to bring stories from a culture that can seem alien to us into the modern world to make them a bit more tangible to us.
If you’re a Christian, I hope these can give a fresh perspective to familiar stories, and if you’re not, please, read on, don’t dismiss them as not for you. Stories teach us, entertain us and connect us, we don’t have to share the faith the stories have grown out of to enjoy them, and I hope, that by setting these stories in the world we all inhabit they can be given a fresh relevance to those who may consider the originals a bit dry and dusty.
