Bishop Auckland Methodist Church

Rev John tells an example of a modern day sort of parable

A story from Rev John

Sure there is nothing wrong with a wee drink, a glass of wine to relax with after a days work. Teetotalism was never part of the teaching of Jesus or St. Paul and even John Wesley had more to say on the wrongs of tea drinking than a pint of ale….

It is interesting to read that we are buying less deodorant during lock down (what those we share a house with have to put up with) and at the same time buying more alcohol.

And sure what is wrong with a nice warm church to return to some day, boiler serviced and ready to go again. Gone thankfully are the days of sitting in chapels either beside the stove being cooked, or a few feet away feeling no benefit but a cold draught coming under an ill fitting door.

But what if Rev John was like the fellow Irish cleric Father Jack?

What if his alcohol consumption was not just a social drink or two, but enough to cause him Ill health, to make him a laughing stock, to make Rev John not only less capable of doing his work but to set an unhealthy example for any foolish enough to go against all sound advice and continue to drink themselves into an early grave.

And what if a reckless use of fossil fuels and a disregard of climate change and global warming allied with a reluctance to embrace a change to new carbon neutral energy-efficient heating led to the ill health of the planet, it’s ecosystems and it’s poorest must vulnerable people. What if our church heating led to an early grave for future generations coping with a temperature rise of over two degrees? What then would have been the legacy of our witness?

Father Ted, stories to make us laugh. Father Jack, a story that should make us cry.

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