relationship

There were more folk out at the funeral service today than I'd thought there'd be.

Eight more people, to be exact. Five folk from the neighbourhood, hardly 'friends' as such, more neighbours who were good enough to pay their last respects.

And three of the team from the surgery. Next door to us at our halls. I was really touched by that and found the whole occasion very moving in some ways.

The crematorium attendant came up to me afterwards and said what a good, clear voice I had. It's nice to be able to hear what's being said for a change! he remarked.

Which at least was re-assuring. Rule number one for anyone speaking at all is always this: if you've got really anything worthwhile to say, at least make sure it's audible.

Pretty obvious, you'd have thought.

The girls from the local surgery were briefer in the comment that they made. You got him to a T, they said. Which, again, in its way, was very re-assuring.

It was great seeing them there, I have to say. The fact that they'd taken the time and gone to the trouble of trailing the whole way across town, simply to be there, the three of them - it was really very striking.

It helped cement yet further, I think, the sort of bonds we have with them. Relationships built up across the years. And it's always in the context of relationship that Jesus gets to be real for folk.

Because there were so few folk there I was able to speak quite personally, both to them and about them. I think that's maybe what ensured it was so moving for them all. The three from the surgery here were all visibly upset.

I had lunch later once again with Douglas on my return. And he was talking of the difference that there is between the folk who know relationship with Jesus and those for whom the whole thing's just a sort of 'system' of belief.

The contrast, I guess, between relationship and religion. And it struck me again that the whole of our life as followers of Jesus Christ should afford the room for just such relationships to grow and to thrive.

Which isn't always true of that which passes for 'the church'. Too often in the past the life of the church has gone on in a way that doesn't really make for relationships much at all.

Services of worship can be a classic case in point. They're meant to be about relationship. With God, of course, primarily. But relationship with him and also with each other.

And often neither how the time is structured, nor, indeed, the furniture itself, allows at all for anything remotely resembling relationship.

Most of the folk that I meet today simply don't get it. And I don't suppose God does either!

At night I went to call again on the woman whose 'partner' had died just three weeks back: the funeral had been last week. And it crossed my mind again that 'church' just doesn't register with her. And 'church', as such, I don't think ever will.

But the Lord ... Well, that's a different matter! There's a deep, deep void in her heart and life just now. Obviously. But I think there's been that void throughout. The God-shaped void in all our hearts. And it's him I'm praying she'll know.

I've no great wish that this woman start coming to church. Which maybe sounds dreadful for someone in my position. But it's true. I don't.

That wouldn't, I think, solve anything. In itself, it wouldn't really meet the needs of her heart at all. It might even get in the way.

But getting a feel for Jesus. Having a sense of his presence. Somehow encountering him. That's what I long she may know.

And that won't really happen by a set of skilful sermons (not even by my preaching in her home). It's not an intellectual thing. It's in the end emphatically relational.

And that takes time. Always.

Which is what the girls from the surgery had given this man who died.