Tuesday 1 October 2013

In the church where I used to work, the church building sat on one of the main trunk roads through London. Not only that, but my office on the top floor had floor to ceiling windows looking directly out onto the particular form of chaos which unfolded below. Sometimes it was more like Milan than London, with hooters going, lights flashing, and the odd expletive being hurled from a rolled down window.

The leafy part of West London where I live now is very different. Major roads don't go through the town, and it can be quite a peaceful place. Not always, though. Last week, early in the morning, it was total gridlock in the small road where the church stands. People were trying to come out of side roads immediately opposite each other, others had wedged themselves into the gaps between them, and nobody, but nobody was going anywhere.

At this point, enter the hero of the hour - one of our Parent and Toddler helpers in his bright blue church T-shirt. Of course it wasn't his 'job' to direct the traffic - but then again it wasn't anybody else's. As long as everybody thought somebody else was to blame and they ought to sort it out, nothing would change.

Sometimes people like to take a situation and ask the question What Would Jesus Do". You may even have seen them wearing little bracelets with those 4 letters on. What would Jesus do with the traffic, I wonder? I guess he could have parted it with a miraculous wave of his hand. With one word from him, every engine could have been stopped and every car spirited away to the place it wanted to be in the first place.

I think Jesus would probably have done what my friend in the blue T-shirt did. I think he would have walked out and taken gentle charge, helping people to work together and show a little bit of tolerance for each other. That said, Jesus probably wouldn't do it every day or he would never get away from Hyde Park Corner.

Is it the church's job to direct traffic? Probably not - but as long as the church is there to serve the community it takes allsorts to get the job done!