Virtual Methodist

After a brief, pink-tinged diversion from politics, it is back to a recent recurrent theme, this time in the form of a dialogue we used in worship this morning while looking at the phrase "may your Kingdom come" in the Lord's prayer... It is particularly pertinent at present given the run up to European and local elections over the next week or so and bundles up a lot of the stuff I've been saying recently in a slightly different form, with thanks to (or should that be apologies to) John Bell and Graeme Maule of the Iona Community for the format if not the content...       Peter:           Eh... Jesus...? Jesus:          Yes, Peter? Peter:           Have you ever heard of democracy? Jesus:          Where’d you hear about that Peter? Peter:    ...

Found myself in the embarrassing position on Saturday of noticing that our esteemed President, Heather Morris, had put this dialogue of mine on her facebook page... It shouldn't have been a surprise given that I had sent it to her a couple of weeks ago for her to use in whatever way she saw fit under the banner of her theme for the year "A People Invited to Follow..." But when I later shared the post I linked it to another dialogue which simply takes some of the invitations of Jesus from different gospels and stitches them together. I'm not very original in my writing... And actually I had forgotten that it is for that very reason that I HADN'T published what follows on my blog, or indeed on Seed Resources where I send most of my stuff... It is actually based on a much longer piece by John L. Bell & Graham Maule of the Iona Community/Wild Goose Worship Group, the very first of their "Eh Jesus... Yes, Peter?" dialogues. My problem was that I di...

Peter: Eh... Jesus...? Jesus: Yes, Peter? Peter: How many times did you say I should forgive my brother? Jesus: Have you and Andrew been fighting again, Peter? Peter: Oh, you know what he’s like... I know you want us to forgive each other, but I really am ready to deck him... And I can’t remember, are we supposed to forgive others 77 times or is it 70 times 7? Jesus: Who’s counting? Peter: I am… Remember… I asked you how many times should I forgive him and you told me 77, or 70 times 7 before telling us that story of the servant who was forgiven a huge debt but then got banged up for throttling his friend over thrupence. Well, I’ve already forgiven Andrew 76 times so I’m wondering if the next time is his last? Jesus: How do you know there will be a next time? Peter: Oh, Don’t you worry… There’ll be a next time… If I haven’t drowned him or brained him first… Jesus: That’s hardly the right attitude… I didn’t mean that you only had to forgive someone a certain number of times be...