The Rubbish Lord’s Prayer

I love prayer, don’t you? I could watch people doing it all day long. Well, that’s perhaps an exaggeration; I like to think I like to pray. It goes something like this: -

Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name
(must remember to concentrate)
Thy Kingdom come
(yep, in the swing of it)
Thy will be done
(what was the next line? I can’t remember, better go back a bit to jog the memory)
Thy Kingdom come
(Doh, gone too far back)
Thy will be done
(Oh good, now I’m in the swing of it)
…but forgive us our….
(Oh, I’ve missed a bit, said it whilst thinking about what I should be saying. Go back again….do not pass go….do not collect….hang on, I’ve lost my thread)
on Earth as it is in Heaven
(good)
Give us this day our daily bread
(I wonder why we’re not supposed to say’ please’? Oh now then, what’s the next line?)
and forgive us our debts
(I live in Scotland remember)
as we forgive our debtors
(I’ve lost my thread now. Must concentrate)
and lead us not into temptation
(But I quite like being led into temptation. Stop it, it’s not good, you’re supposed to shun temptation…..but it is quite tempting isn’t it? I remember that time when…..STOP IT!)
and deliver us from evil
(not long to go now, nearly finished, if I can just remember the last few lines)
for thine is the power
(no, that’s not it)
for thine is the Kingdom
(Geddin!)
The power and the glory forever
(I’m sure I used to say ‘for ever and ever’, that’s two ‘forevers’ ‘cos one’s not enough obviously)
Amen
(Result! I got there, that’s it done for today…..why do I feel however, that it’s not meant to be like that? Start again? No, I’ve got to get up and put on my ‘Rubbish Christian’ t-shirt).

Alternatively, you start with ‘Our Father’……and suddenly, you’re at ‘Amen’ and you can’t remember having done the stuff in between!

Personally, I get a bit anxious when leading the Lord’s Prayer in public because I’m a fast speaker (I am a Geordie after all) and o t h e r   p e o p l e   g o   s o   slooooooowwwwwly. I have to slow right down but of course, being a Rubbish Christian saying the Lord’s prayer (and I suspect dyslexic – I must get that checked) I forget the lines (see above) and so I have to ensure I’ve got it written down in front of me. On the occasions I get up to lead prayers and I realise I’ve forgotten it, there’s only one thing for it; say it quietly, lip-read the rest of the congregation and copy them! That’s how the Rubbish Christian leads in corporate prayer!

The Rubbish Gospel

The Church of Scotland vs. the ‘Original Template’?
If the Church of Scotland had been around when Jesus came to Earth (please forgive the few ‘Scottish-isms’ in this.   If I, as a Tynesider, can learn them, so can you! For ‘Church of Scotland’, you can substitute any denomination you know – I’m certain the results would be similar!) Definitions: -

• Kirk Session – A meeting of Elders of the local church (not necessarily ‘old’…..but usually).
• Presbytery - A meeting of Elders and Ministers of local churches in a given geographical area.
• General Assembly – A curious yearly affair where thinly disguised antagonism is portrayed as healthy debate. A yearly event in Edinburgh for the Church HQ and regional contributors.
• Church Without Walls – A huge initiative to introduce change, which after about a decade has seen some excellent local initiatives in some churches, and also some complete and utter incomprehension in others.

‘Jesus gathered his disciples around to explain to them the things that were to happen to the Son of Man, that He must suffer, be crucified and then, ultimately, rise again to save people from their sins.

The disciples, unhesitatingly, protested (the Church of Scotland is, after all, a Protestant church).

“See you Jimmy, sorry, see you Lord, this cannot be allowed” said Simon “It has’nae even been submitted to Presbytery!”

“What?!” said a stunned Jesus.

“Michty me Lord” said Peter “An event of such magnitude would have to be debated by the Discipleship and Crucifixion Committee at the next General Assembly!”

The Lord, trying to regain control of the situation said, “Look you lot, this is God’s will so you’d better all get used to it.”

“God’s will? God’s will?” said James, brother of….er….someone, “I think that we’d all better slow down on this idea of ‘God’s will’. I mean, we’ll have to wait until the next Ministers’ meeting before they can tell us what ‘God’s will’ is or not. Good grief, whatever next!”

Jesus, aghast, shouted out, “Can we just get on here? There’s work to be done”

Phillip, the disciple that Jesus thought was really quite a nice bloke, said, “Come on Lord, you don’t expect us to introduce anything as radical as that without checking with the Kirk Session do you? I mean, can you imagine what the traditionalists and older people will say?”

“Yes Lord” said Thomas “I doubt we’ll get permission to do anything like that!”

“I have no intention of asking anyone’s permission to do anything” said Jesus firmly “This is what is about to come to pass and that is that! Why are you only interested in making sure you don’t upset the status-quo? Do you believe that it will keep everyone happy? Are the traditionalists the only ones who have to be deferred to? Why is it that everyone else’s feelings on matters is ignored and only the traditionalists indulged?”

This went completely over the disciples’ heads.

“Er….right Lord….. but as we were saying,” said Zebedee (or was it Florence….or Dougal?), blundering on regardless “Why don’t we just change a few things around in the temple, you know, make it a bit more, er, different?”

“Yes Lord” said Andrew (he was dreaming about having a nice Scottish University town being named after him, perhaps with some nice Golf courses) “We could set up a project to look at urban regeneration, you know, get Nazareth cleaned up. You never know, someone might name a rock band after it one day if it gets famous enough.”

By this time Jesus was shaking his head, which was buried in his hands and muttering, almost inaudibly to himself, “Please, no more, it’s enough to drive y’t'drink (communion wine only of course)!”

The disciples, panic stricken that something different might happen in the temple, began coming up with all sorts of wonderful ideas to move the Church of Scotland (and by definition, God’s will) forward.

“Why don’t we organise a ‘History of Stained Glass Windows’ class? That’d be really interesting”.

“Oh that’ll have them packing in” said Jesus with a weary sarcasm, which was completely missed by the disciples.

“Yes, and what about making the Temple flower rota more inclusive? Get more people on it? That’s a sure way to bring about the Kingdom!”

“Stop it; I can’t take any more of this ingenuity. No, really, I’m overwhelmed by the ‘blue firmament’ thinking here!” said Jesus in a dull voice, glazed eyes and anything but overwhelmed.

“I know!” said Lebbeus (or whatever he was called) “Why don’t we set up a commission to set up a review to set up a project to review what the temple does and we could review progress say, once every 10 years?

By this time, the disciples hadn’t even noticed that Jesus was lying against a tree, downing his third bottle of ‘Rolling Rock’ whilst casually flinging the empties at various disciples’ heads, narrowly missing on purpose, but it made him feel better.

“Oh this is so exciting!” chirruped Thaddeus (or something) “How about we revise the Psalm Book, making it more ‘slave and alien friendly’, make it a bit more non-sexist and we could get rid of the militaristic stuff? You know, make it all a bit ‘fluffy bunny’ and stuff.”

By this time, Jesus had vanished and the disciples were busy, organising and planning, getting more and more excited about the various projects they had in mind.

Anyway, 2000 years (and a bit) on, the world never did have the crucifixion, Jesus had taken the rest of his carry-out back up to Heaven along with a nice kebab and decided to let the Church of Scotland get on with it. So, the upshot was: -
• No one had heard of the crucifixion
• There were no nativity plays (some might actually think that no bad thing!)
• Barrabas stayed in jail but eventually got his own slave through Human Rights legislation
• ‘Cliff Richard and the Shades’ became the first UK band to top the charts for 100 weeks with their hit single, “Why should the Devil get all the bad press?” but they split after 25 years when Cliff Richard bit the head off Hank Marvin.
• The Jews were busy trying to update the Temple since its complete rebuild after 1506
• The site of the Vatican is a sacrificial theme park
• The General Assembly never did debate the crucifixion due to more pressing matters requiring inclusion on the agenda including: -
o The urgent matter of the missing Women’s Guild uniforms from the back of the temple
o The need to organise a very pious protest against the new ‘Tridents’ being used by the Roman soldiers occupying the Holy city of Jerusinburgh
o Whether the oldest member of the temple and longest serving elder really was fit enough to represent the Temple of Scotland at this year’s Gladiatorial Games and…
o Whether homosexuals, adulterers (women only), single mothers, thieves and other supposedly worthless creatures should be stoned using properly blessed and holy stones as picked by the Priests or whether any old stone could be used from the surrounding area.

• The Psalms were updated and brought out in a new form known as PS IV and it included such notable psalms as: -
o He who (would have) valiant been
o Where you there when they (didn’t) crucify my Lord?
o Come let us sing of a wonderful love, Jesus (didn’t) save
o Stood up, stood up by Jesus
o When I survey the (pretty ordinary really) cross
o While shepherds watched their flocks by night, a-wondering what went wrong
o As with (sad)ness men of old
o I danced in the morning when the world was begun, but I gave up in the evening when Church of Scotland won
o Yahweh hear the prayer we offer
• The Church did indeed bring in a new initiative and called it ‘Sacrifice Without Walls’. Oh it’s been a wonderful success. Since its inception 300 years ago, there have been reports of real discernable change. Some change has even been captured on time lapse cameras set to the longest delay (for amateurs hoping to try this at home, set your camera to a time lapse of 60 years). Apparently, one church managed to introduce some ‘Unfair Trade’ animals for the daily sacrifice but this was stopped due to lack of support. Another temple had two people rather than one person handing out the new PS IV (latest version of worship collection) at the temple door but it has to be said, it was strongly suspected that this had more to do with the weight of the new scroll than any desire to introduce change.

There never was a rock band called Nazareth.

The BBC television programme ‘Songs of Praise’ never actually happened…….I’m not saying ANYTHING!

The world still awaits the FIRST coming………

The Rubbish Conversion

I became a Christian, in the evangelical sense of the word, when I was in my mid-teens.    Then, throughout the years, I’ve gone through different phases ranging from full on commitment to outright rejection of my faith.   What it hasn’t been, in true Rubbish Christian style, is a steady maturing march towards the Kingdom.    Instead, it’s been more of a dizzyingly chaotic series of lurches from one crisis of faith to the next with stability glimpsed only in the passing during the inexorable swing from one extreme to the other.   So, where the reassuring certainty of the Lord Jesus ‘living in my heart’? I actually have a real problem with that sort of ‘living in my heart’ language. It’s all a bit girly and embarrassing; wot with me being a bloke ‘n’ everything.

Did you ever see the episode of the Muppets where Sam (the American Eagle) is asked to sing ‘Tit Willow’?   He’s reassured that it’s high culture, ‘light opera’.    So, with full defensive grandeur, he accompanies the singer by duly singing the lines ‘Tit Willow, tit willow, tit willow’ and the look on his mortified face shows that he does indeed, feel like a complete……willow….for singing it.   Perhaps then, in our western world, some of us let our hair down (I’m virtually bald so this is metaphorical) or express intimate emotions in some circumstances but not in others.

Whether rightly or wrongly, it does cause a few problems.   I don’t know; the phrase ‘accepting the Lord Jesus into my heart’ just sounds, quite frankly, mawkish.   I mean, think of it, you’re down the pub with yer mates, having just been to the footie (Soccer for my North American readers) or something and everyone’s talking about what’s going on for them: -

“So, what did you all get up to at the weekend guys?”

“Oh, I had a great night out with some old mates!”

“Yeh, I played in a Snooker/Pool/ Billiards competition and won”

“I sprained my back playing Rugby.”

“Great weekend. I was down the local community centre at my Boxing class”

And then, the Rubbish Christian has to pipe up. “Oh me, well, I invited Jesus into my heart”

Embarrassed silence and lots of, “Right, well, er, that’s nice, erm…”

It’s just sooooo, well, mawkish!

So, I struggle along, most of the time, happy to accept I’m a Christian but at other times I wonder.    Not having that ‘blessed assurance’ in my heart, I have to rely on hope.    Is that good enough?    Maybe I’ll just change my name to Thomas (but I ‘doubt’ I will).    Why does Christianity have to sound so, well, girly?!

The Good the Bad and the Rest of Us

Have you ever seen those ancient pictures of Biblical stories?   Moses coming down the mountain with the tablets of stone, the Disciples, strong and brave, battling bravely against all adversaries with stoic looks of thunder and piercing eyes. Angels looking, well, angelic.

Looking at these one immediately gets a sense of, er, well, inadequacy….well, I’ve often done at any rate. These figures, looming large in their historical context seem to me to have just walked on to some Shakespearian stage, with their voices booming, “Lo, thou sinner” (ever noticed how they seem to be about to spout forth in Authorised Version language? No? OK then, well I do). Towering over us mere mortals, they present us with an image of perfect Christianity, of which us lesser mortals can only dream (that’s when we’re not dreaming of stardom, greatness, adulation and other stuff we’d rather not tell our friends and family).

Then there’s the pictures of Jesus, standing there with his right hand raised, two fingers cocked like the barrel of a gun, blessing us. It’s a bit like the church Minister does as s/he stands in front of the congregation at the end of the service blessing us all (aahhhh, isn’t that nice?). Jesus too, is portrayed as some sort of aloof authority figure, pouring out his condescending blessings, ‘for which we are truly thankful’.

I’m not having a go at Jesus, Moses, the Disciples, angels or anyone else in the Bible; it’s just that I wonder sometimes whether these images accurately reflect reality. I mean, let’s face it, Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, the disciples did all sorts of things including bitching, position jostling, ‘denying’ Him and being racist and as for Moses, well he murdered someone and ran away!

However, it’s another great way to ensure that I’m a fully paid up member of the Rubbish Christian Club.    Join now, you know it makes sense.

Welcome to How to be Rubbish

Suffering is all relative and we should not compare through ‘hierarchies of suffering’.   However, I do think there are exceptions.     Welcome to the latest entry to: -

How To Be A Rubbish Christian!

How to be Rubbish – Warning – This post contains scenes of a contentious nature and may cause some viewers to raise the occasional eyebrow and possibly cause some slight murmurings

The Prologue

There are books on how to be a Christian, how to live ‘Christian’ marriages, relationships, missionary work and so forth but what about the rest of us, struggling along, trying to get it right but more often feeling we’re getting it wrong?

This blog is about what it’s like to be rubbish and features rants, observations and utter perverseness in the hope that some of it will ring true with the experience of others……as well as earn me a bit of notoriety in the process!

A number of years ago a friend told me that he’d attended a conference where the speaker was giving a long and intellectual talk about various aspects of Christianity. At the end he asked the assembled audience if there were any questions. My friend shouted out, “Yeh, what about us plebs then?” This single phrase sums up for me what the rest of us, the great unwashed masses, may feel when faced with what seems like the rest of Christendom being all worthy and good when we struggle along, worm-like, always ready with a great long list of ‘sorries’ when we (eventually) get around to saying our prayers.

Of course, in the main I can only speak for myself but I have a sneaking suspicion that the number of others out there who feel something similar is legion.

I am going to outline a number of situations, which I myself have faced coupled with any anecdotes others have (bravely) shared. I do not promise to offer any solutions to these issues for very often they can come across as trite and pathetic. No doubt some readers will be able to reach into their bag of instant ‘just-add-water’ answers and provide just that. I’ll leave that up to them, all suggestions welcome. For me however, I just want to share some of my experiences and thoughts in the hope that others may feel a kindred spirit. They may then come to realise that they too can wear the ‘I’m a Rubbish Christian’ t-shirt with pride (in a grovelling, humble and self-deprecating way of course!).

Now, the sinful nature of the Rubbish Christian is going to be ripe for the finger wagging attacks of those who are (obviously) better than us but bring it on I say, there’s nothing you can do to bring me down, it’ll all just confirm what I’m banging on about anyway so go ahead, I beat you to the post!

More to follow soon….