I am sitting in the common room of St Georges College waiting for the Sherut (minicab) to take me to the airport and thinking back over my month’s holiday.
It has been a wonderful trip, and taken me right out of my parish mindset and into a learning and experiencing within a community of 20 Christians from around the world. (Perhaps that is really what Parish Life should be like, without me feeling totally responsible for everything.)
So now I am considering the highlights.
One was attending an Arabic/English service in Capernaum. The language just seemed to flow seamlessly between languages. Most of the general prayers were prayed simultaneously in both languages. It works particularly well with the Lord’s Prayer. The sermon was in English and then Arabic. It was the second verse of ‘The churches one Foundation’ that brought me undone.
Another was going to the Samaritan Synagogue. They seem to be a bit like the Quakers, allowing no changes. Which means they hold onto roots we have forgotten. But they have had to make changes because they were shrinking fast and allowed no marriage to outsiders.
Presiding at the Eucharist on Monday, our last day was a great highlight, but then so was drawing water at Jacob’s well.
There is always quite a chance that some of these landmarks of the bible that we visited are entirely wrong, but they are a good deal righter than what I am able to imagine in a country over the other side of the world, and I don’t think there is one passage in the bible that this trip will won’t impact on.
I wish I had had this experience earlier in my ministry, but it is never too late, and St Arnard parish will bear the brunt of my ‘When I was in Jerusalem’ tales – the good and the not so good.
I look forward to seeing some of you on Thursday. You have been in my prayers as I travelled in this land and you will continue in my prayers. Swan Hill is another journey I would not have missed for anything.
Blessings
Jan