moderator?

There was almost a case of a serious mistaken identity today.

For which I'd have been responsible, I guess. Although it was all a misunderstanding.

I was conducting a funeral service this afternoon. Way over the other side of town. Not the usual place.

But then, it wasn't a local person who had died. This was 'Kirkliston time'. So most of the mourners only knew me at best by sight - and mainly, I guess, not at all.

The service was good and folk listened well. And I think appreciated all that I said. I had that sense at any rate.

Waiting around in the aftermath, as mourners filed outside, a man came up and, in the course of fairly idle chat, he asked -

"Are you the moderator, then?"

I was about to say 'Yes' - since, of course, that's what I am in relation to the church out there at Kirkliston: the 'Interim Moderator', to give it its full designation. I assumed that's what he was talking about.

But someone once told me, 'Never assume - it only ever makes an ass of u and me!'

This could have been a case in point.

My assumption was way off beam. The guy was thinking of something rather different - the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Which is a rather different, and vastly more elevated, creature than a humble 'Interim Moderator'.

Had that little word 'Yes, actually crossed my lips, I fear I might have had him asking for my autograph or looking for a photo of the two of us together. His fifteen minutes of fame as he spoke with this noble personage - 'The Moderator'.

So I had to disabuse him of that notion pretty quick.

It's silly what titles can do to the way that we view folk we meet. I mean, whatever I'm called, whatever position I hold, I'm still only me.

And that's how the folk in the fellowship here all treat me. By and large. Which is great. The way it's meant to be.

Like Jesus and his followers. The way he called them friends. And said that's what he was for them as a well. A friend.

Yeah, sure, he was their teacher and their leader, but he never pushed position or tried to use his leadership to lord it over them. Anything but.

I guess that's why they loved the guy and gladly hung around with him. He was glad to be just one of them.

When things are like that it's great!

Like today.

I'd prepared for the funeral service when I first came in. Then the rest of the morning it was a celebratory chill-out sort of session over coffee, scones and cream with the Reception Area team.

They treat me as part of the 'gang', just one of them. And when we meet like that it's not like a committee meeting or anything remotely like that.

Things get discussed and decided, for sure. There's 'business' we get through, I guess. Except it never feels like that at all. It's more just being with friends.

Quite a productive morning, nonetheless. Sharing in a common enterprise and trying to see together what the Lord himself is doing at this time.

At night I was out with friends again. Back with the 'five' to get into the Bible again. That's always good. We kind of miss it when there are spells such as this when we don't get to meet at all.

Did I have a 'meeting' in the morning and at night?

Well, that's a sort of 'Are you the moderator?' question.

Because I don't really go for the things that we call a 'meeting'. Not at all. But I love when I'm meeting with folk!

Which is why these things that I don't really like are actually called a 'meeting' - I suppose!

Except, in a strange sort of way, we often as not don't really 'meet with' each other at all. They're formal and structured and driven by business concerns. There are axes that people are grinding and issues that make folk defensive.

They're often not 'relational' at all. And I think that's the difference. And maybe the problem, too. The absence of relationship.

Which makes me think there's some real mistaken identity going on. Why call them 'meetings' when there's not really any true meeting of people going on?

(That's a rhetorical question, by the way!)