death in the tank

One of my massive goldfish died.

I didn't get a pathologist in to determine the time of death. But I figured out that the goldfish died at more or less the same time as a large-scale meeting of ministers and elders in Edinburgh was taking place here on our premises.

I don't think there's a connection. It was just, I guess, coincidence. But maybe there was a certain sort of symbolism as well.

The fish, after all, was from early times a symbol used by followers of Jesus. The greek word for fish became an early acronymn, spelling out the tag line - Jesus Christ, Son of God our Saviour.

Which they figured, with some justification, just about said it all. Or all that you needed to know if it came to the bit and didn't have time to chat.

Well my fish grew big and died.

A picture perhaps.

Since the theme of the meeting these leaders were at was all about our being church in a 'post-Christian' society. The world as it is once the 'fish' has sort of died.

Friends have kindly asked after the one remaining goldfish, sensing maybe something of the isolated loneliness it surely feels.

Not a bit. The other big fish (not quite as big as the first I have to say, but big enough by any goldfish standard) is happy as Larry.

Rejoicing, it seems, in its 'freedom of the tank' and glad to be finally out of the shadow of its big old bossy boots of a pal.

For the sake of clarity, I don't have a clue who 'Larry' actually is: but it's not the name of the goldfish that died.

Anyway, I felt I had to 'decontaminate' the tank today. I mean I'd changed the water right away when I found the floating corpse. But I thought I should give all the bits in the tank a good old scrub and give the fish that remained a new and fresh start.

And immersed in this task of 'cleansing' the tank, I had loads of time to think.

I thought there was perhaps a parable in all of this. It often feels as if there are two very different sets of folk to whom I'm trying to teach the good news of Jesus. Two sort of 'fish' swimming round in the tank of faith.

The big fish died. Is that some sort of strange prophetic sign from God, a pointer to the fact that the big, expansive institutional church has really had its day? Maybe the institution grew too big for the spiritual 'tank'.

I should say at this point that I haven't a clue as to why my big fish died. The jury is out on that one. But people have got their theories - and one of those theories runs like this, that the fish was so big it kind of 'suffocated'. If you see what I mean. Squeezed by the lack of room.

Which makes me feel rather guilty. As if I am somehow to blame. But as I say, the jury's out on that.

The big fish died. That's the fact of the matter. Whatever the causes. Whoever's to blame.

And maybe, if that is a 'sign' from the Lord, maybe it serves to underline the fact that it's the other 'fish' on whom I'm now to pour my remaining energies.

That other 'fish' is the growing body of folk who love the Lord, who kind of tick all the boxes in terms of how they view Jesus (all the Greek 'fish' stuff), but for whom the institutional church just doesn't hold water at all.

I didn't spend all of my time attending to one bereaved fish, of course. But I started my day like that and the thought of this personal parable has been with me throughout its course.

It's been a mainly 'admiistrative' sort of day.

Getting the 'tank' in order.

Helping to clean up the halls and tidy things up (our regular cleaner is ill).

Getting the card which we send round each home in the community printed and cut. There are somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand homes we deliver the card to each year - and we print a good few more besides. So that's a lot of printing, and a lot of cutting, too.

But it's part of the process of getting the message across.

I was told, in designing the card, to make it less 'wordy'. Not that the previous one could really be termed 'wordy' at all. But I tried to oblige.

The picture on the front says 'life' (one word). Inside it says - 'he gave it .. you get it' (another six words). A seven word message.

For a society short on concentration we hope the message gets through!

Maybe that's the message, too, I should pass on to my one remaining fish.

Life. He (your pal) gave it. You get it.

Well, I hope the folk who receive our card will do just that.

Get it.