I was vastly entertained to read that in 1830 a service of worship was conducted in a drawing room in Rothesay for ‘twenty most respectable persons’.
I wonder what they’d have done if a disreputable person had turned up – like Zacchaeus for example. I wonder too whether we who gather at St Paul’s now would qualify as ‘respectable’!
One of the things I enjoy about the SEC is that, in my experience anyway, I can turn up in my jeans but if the mood takes me or it’s a festival day, I can dress up a bit. Nobody minds either way.
On Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, Vicky Beeching spoke about a sculpture of a homeless person sleeping on a bench covered by a blanket with only the face and feet showing – a face clearly intended to represent Jesus, the feet with the marks of the nails. The sculptor had difficulty in finding a buyer for his piece until finally it was bought by an Episcopal church in North Carolina. Apparently someone phoned the police to complain that there was a homeless person sleeping outside the church.
‘Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’
A bit feckless of Him really.
