Pause for Thought - BBC Radio 2 - Joel Edwards
Lions and Lambs
Most of us are still telling holiday stories.
This year my wife and I went off to Madeira for two weeks. Not the best place if you’re into nightlife. Madeira is zimmerframe country - but really, really beautiful! Sun, sea - not a lot of sand, but a lot of great landscape.
And this year I treated myself to a massage. Well, four actually. This was a proper massage: I checked the credentials and my wife gave me permission to go before I booked up.
My last booking was with a chirpy, chatty masseuse. The conversation was inevitable.
"So what do you do Mr Edwards?"
"I’m a minister."
"Oh. With the Government?" "No. With the church. I work for a Christian organisation, I preach and teach. I talk to people in the community. Sometimes to people in Government.
I do a bit of broadcasting"
Pause. My arm is bent up my back.
"Ah. You’re a priest!" She says.
"Well, more a kind of vicar or a pastor. I’m a Protestant church leader." I said.
Another Pause.
"So I guess you’re a Catholic, then?" I asked.
I didn’t expect her reply.
"In church, I’m Catholic, but outside I’m Protestant!" And she fell about laughing. "We Madeirians love to make a protest!" she said.
Funny, but for many of us, very true. For it’s really easy to be one thing in one setting and something quite different in another place.
Which isn’t always a bad thing. Someone once said that we should be like lambs before God and lions before people. Soft and vulnerable when we need to be, but assertively confident if it’s called for.
Having a dual persona is only pitiful if you don’t you are doing it when everybody else does! And most people who fall into that trap do so because they have lost sight of who they really are.
The Apostle Paul could do it because he knew who he was and he also knew what he was about in life. An old Christian writer described Paul as "A man in Christ." And it was from this place of security that he told his audience, "I am all things to all people in order that I might win people to Christ." His life was defined by Christ and his purpose in life was to make Christ known to other people.
People who win other people usually know who they are to start with. Whether they are Catholics or Protestants.
Rev. Joel Edwards
