Richard Ayoade plus the QI Elves!

After I qualified as a minister I worked in supermarkets for a few years while taking services in churches with no minister. Curiously, at one point I was working in a shop across the road from the very church that I had been preaching in for ages. Now, someone was caught shoplifting and as is often the case there were tears and apologies and the woman kept telling us she’d never done anything like this before…that she was a good person, she even added, “I’m a good Christian, I’m a good church member.” “Oh…” said I, “and what church would that be?” “That one across the road, just ask the minister…”

“Missus….I AM the minister.” Now, it wasn’t technically correct, but it was too good a line to miss. And it’s something I always try to keep in mind – you just don’t know who you’re talking to. I was chatting away to a gardener on a country estate once and after a long while I discovered he was actually the Earl who owned the place. But I guess most of us know in our hearts that it’s not a good thing to make instant judgements about people, in fact, it’s probably not all that clever to make lengthy judgements either! And in my Christian tradition there’s a simple rule of thumb in dealing with people, all people – but especially those that we might be tempted to look down on: Jesus told us, think of them and deal with them as if they were me.

Boy, does that change the way I should be treating folk, or thinking about them – or, more to the point, - the way I think about myself. I’m not Mr. Superior, Mr. I’m-a-better-person-than-you, any more. And this isn’t just some wee fanciful idea. If I believe that God made us all, that we are all part of God’s family, then of course I should be looking to see God in all other people. So I do try to treat everyone as if they were Jesus – and you never know, one day they might be and they might turn some water into wine for me!