Seeing isn’t always believing

It’s probably a good lesson in life not to believe everything people tell you – and we discovered that with a disappointing trip to Limoges.

The second stage of our round-France marathon has brought us to the Perigord region of the Dordogne, an area we love and have enjoyed holidays in before.

Because most of the country shuts down from Saturday night until 2pm on Monday we consulted our guidebook for somewhere we hadn’t seen that promised to be worthwhile.

Limoges is renowned for its porcelain and was described as a beautiful old town with many charms, so off we headed.

We arrived at lunchtime – we always do! – but the indoor market said it was open until 2pm. We walked in around 1pm and everything was shut except for one fruit stall which was in the process of closing and the stallholder looked very grumpy so we beat a hasty retreat.

There were a few examples of Limoges’ history – a half-timbered street just off the market square and an impressive mural painted on the sides of two high-rise building on the opposite side (pictured).

We kept walking and saw the magnificent Hotel de Ville (pictured top) where clearly a number of people gather for their lunch break for conversation and to sit in the sun.

Our guidebook had told us to prepare for a great day in Limoges – being amazed. Actually most of the time we were walking past shut down businesses; not just closed for the morning but places that had stopped trading; sometimes whole streets with only one or two active shops in them.

As we walked around I was reminded of a passage in Matthew’s gospel in the Bible where Jesus is ripping into the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders who were always giving everyone else advice on how to live.

At one point Jesus tells the Pharisees they are like “dead men’s graves” – all painted on the outside but full of dead mens’ bones inside. Limoges as a whole wasn’t that bad but some of the shops were. On the outside they still had the signs up for the business that once operated there – even some of the bargain posters stuck on the door.

But inside there was no life at all. Just an empty space.

In fact, when we got back to the camp site one of the other people here said that even the best displays of Limoge porcelain isn’t in Limoges … you have to leave the town behind to find it.

We found it hard to believe that the guidebook could have got it so wrong about Limoges – it promised such a lot and delivered a boring place that was really not worth the journey.

Jesus used to fall out with the disciples a lot because he found it hard to believe that people who had so much head knowledge of God could be so far off-track with their lives.

I wonder what happens when people encounter us?

Sandcastles on the beach

My wife and I were on the beach with our grandchildren a couple of weeks ago and five-year-old Rhys wanted me to help him make a sandcastle.

He’d filled up the bucket with wet sand so we patted it down and tipped it out for him to begin decorating with pebbles. As he pushed on into the side of the little castle it began to break down and I warned him not to be too rough with it.

Without even looking up he said: “I know. It’ll fall down because it’s built on sand. The Bible says that.”

I asked him where he’d heard that and he told me about his club at church in Plymouth. Then, within seconds he had forgotten all about his mini-sermon and he was off down the beach on another adventure: to get more sand or to try to dam up the river.

For Rhys the Bible, the sandcastle, the pebble and the conversation about God were all one big picture – they were all a part of the big excitement that was his life at that moment.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could see everything we are doing as part of one great inseparable God-inspired picture?

Those of us who are Christians try in different ways to make contact with our communities and show them the love of Jesus. The difference is that often when we’re asked why, we never quite make the leap to slip in the Jesus part of the conversation. We never quite get to tell people that we are providing them with a meeting place, giving them a meal, getting their prescription, running their children’s holiday club because we believe that God is crazy about them and sent Jesus to earth to die for them.

I now it’s easy to be over-sentimental about our children and as a grandparent I can fall into that trap all too quickly, but Jesus used the idea of childlike acceptance of God’s love for us as the measure of faith. The reason we are in communities is to be the Body of Christ, visible through loving service. As you read through the stories in this edition of TCN, just reflect on where in his great big exciting picture God has put you. And who can you tell about it?