Friends
As I write, the talk in the Davidson household is largely around Will Smith. Is it or is it not okay to hit someone for disrespecting your wife? Everyone on the news and on social media has an opinion, and my own family is no different. For those of you who missed this riveting piece of scandal from the Oscars the salient points are as follows: Will Smith, who is a very well-known American actor, was at the Oscars, waiting to see if he had won the Oscar for which he had been nominated, when the compere made a joke at the expense of his wife who has alopecia. Will jumped onto the stage, slapped the man around the face and said, “Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth.” The compere has declined to press charges and the two have made up. Will Smith went on to win the Oscar and in his acceptance speech, whilst apologising to the audience for having caused the disruption, said that he felt he was put on this earth to protect the women around him.
And what would Jesus do?
That’s a difficult one if we look at his story. On the one hand “He gave his back to the smiters and his cheeks to them that plucked out the hair. He hid not himself from shame and spitting” and on the other hand, he over-turned the tables of the money changers in the temple and set about them with a whip saying: “It is written ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’ but you have made it a den of robbers.’” Scholars tend to see his anger as being focused on the fact that the sellers of animals and the money changers were making it very difficult for people to actually get to God. Jesus it seems was meek and mild when it came to himself, but not so much when it came to others.
For me, the most interesting thing in the whole sorry incident was that fellow actor Denzel Washington told Will Smith: “At your highest moment be careful, that’s when the Devil comes for you.”
For what it’s worth, my own belief is that physical violence is rarely the right answer. However, in our own lives where we are less likely to be thumped, but where people, accidentally or on purpose, can say quite hurtful things, it is worth our while to reflect that the Jesus response is both “turn the other cheek” and also, “do not be the one to get between God and another person.” As we seek to grow our own congregations it is worth wondering whether we are sometimes less encouraging than we could be, less kind than we should be.
God bless, Vicci
Message from Rev’d Vicci - Regarding an invitation on 13 April
Friends
We have continued to watch with horror the unfolding situation in Ukraine and the churches in the Circuit have responded through donating goods which have been sent to Ukraine and the Polish border, with donations via All We Can and I know in other ways as well. However, we are now moving to a new phase in the conflict and I know that many of you are wondering about how and whether to engage with the government's plan to host refugees from this war. I have spent the last two weeks researching this and discussing with a number of colleagues in the District the Connexional response and how we can help. Anne, Margaret and I all have experiences of some of these issues from different wars and conflicts which we also bring and so we would like to invite you to attend a meeting by zoom on the 13th of April at 8pm. This meeting will start with a briefing on the response, the rules, risks and opportunities and we will then move into break-out rooms to discuss further, before returning to the main group to decide what actions we want to recommend to the Circuit Meeting in May, if and what actions we want to take earlier than that, and the best ways to do that. These break-out rooms will be facilitated and so it will be helpful to have an idea of numbers so that we know how many facilitators we will need. Please RSVP to Circuit Secretary.