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CHURCH NEWS
Weekly Prayer Roster
Each week during the year the Churches, in their prayers, remember the residents of particular streets in the vil-
lage, those who work in the parish and village organizations. Those to be remembered this month are:
6th March
Vineyard Way, Burberry Road, Swan End, Lark End, The Library and its librarians
13th March
The churches of the village: St Hugh’s, St Mary’s, Buckden Methodist Church, also Offord and
Perry Baptist Churches, members of home groups from these and other local churches, min-
isters and all who make our churches welcoming and worshipful places
20th March
Church Street, Mill Road, The Barns, The Old Flour Mills
27th March
The Parish Council, The Village Hall and Playing Field Trust; those who help to run the Village
Hall, and the activities there
LENT STUDY LUNCHES
The Lent lunches, a course of lunches titled ‘Considering Challenging Issues’, are on the following Mondays:
29th February, 7th March, 14th March and 21st March
Methodist Church Hall 12.30 pm to 2.00 pm Contact:
Ann Brittain
on
812012
Thought for the month
Dear Friends,
When I was knee-high to a grasshopper, wearing short trousers held up by a snake belt and thought “The Man
from U.N.C.L.E.” was as good as television got, I used to get beaten up regularly by boys bigger than me. (This
was due in part to having older sisters, in part to having black friends, in part to being precocious and in part to
being obnoxious.)
When this happened I would take my bruises and abrasions back to my mum and complain bitterly that “it isn’t
fair!” Mum would respond “Son, life isn’t fair”. And it isn’t. Still.
I have come to learn over the years that “fair” is different from “just.” Fairness is “the quality of treating people
equally or in a way that is right or reasonable.” Justice is “
the administering of deserved punishment or reward.”
I
did not deserve a hiding because I had older sisters or black friends, or even because I was precocious (I couldn’t
help that). I did deserve a hiding because I was obnoxious. Thus I had no grounds for judicial complaint; justice
was done. The fact that the boys who thumped me were bigger than me (and usually plural) meant it was, indeed,
unfair.
Jesus makes the distinction in his parable about the vineyard owner who pays his labourers the same amount
whether they worked a whole day or just one hour. The owner is just, because each man received the amount he
agreed to work for, but he was not fair, because the amount was not related to the length of the labour.
So life is not fair. We know this. Neither is there much justice in this world. We know that, too. But if life is not fair,
then death is even less so. Many splendid, generous, loving people die young. Some grumpy, miserable bullies
live to a ripe old age. Some die so young we cannot know what they would have become.
So life isn’t fair, and death isn’t fair. Then again, God isn’t fair. God arbitrarily selected Abraham and his offspring
for special love, to be his chosen people. God spared Nineveh (in Jonah), but allowed Jerusalem to be sacked by
the Romans (in 70 CE).
But God is just. No-one deserves God’s love, no-one deserves a shot at repentance and no-one deserves heav-
en.
Death is also just. Everyone deserves death in two senses. We deserve death as a punishment for our sin and we
deserve death as a release from the trials and sorrows of this world.
I would rather God be just than fair. (But I would rather those boys had been fair than just.)
Paul