My grey Christianity

The title of the sermon in church this morning was Good Sex, Bad Sex, (about the passage on adultery in the sermon on the mount) and the speaker began with a joke. 

A teacher asked the local vicar to speak to a class of schoolgirls about sex. He agreed but, for some reason, didn't want to tell his wife so he told her he was talking about sailing.

He did the talk and it went down very well. The teacher bumped into the vicar's wife a few days later and told her how very good her husband's talk had been.

"That's a surprise," said the wife. "He's only done it twice. The first time he was sick and the second time his hat blew off."

That was the last light-hearted moment in the sermon. The speaker's view was very straight down the line with no grey areas. My Christianity is full of grey areas, I don't knows, and I don't understands. I was going to say it must be nice to have it all so clearly set out in your head but actually I'm not sure it's always meant to be straightforward. I mean, Jesus' message is simple. Love. Love God, your neighbour, yourself. But Jesus also liked to challenge his listeners. And just about the final thing he did was promise paradise to someone who hadn't even said he was sorry, let alone said the 'sinner's prayer' so beloved of evangelicals.

To see beyond the shell, to hear the unsaid, to love the unlovely.

Our lovely young minister is speaking next week on divorce. He is very anxious and has been preparing for it since before Christmas. He's more like me and less sure that things are black and white.