‘I am a Messianic Jew,’ says the jittery young man at the rectory door. He is pale and drawn, with a close-shaven scalp and several days of bristles on a sharp chin. The bloodshot eyes search for me swimmingly. ‘A Jew, a Messianic Jew,’ he emphasises. I should have a clever rejoinder, but I am assessing if he has a knife so I only manage, ‘Ah yes, and how can I help?’ ‘Is this you?’ is thrown back at me, as he jabs his finger at the screen of his phone and then holds it up to my face like a mirror. I admit my identity (an image from our website), and this makes him confident of success. ‘You must pay my bus fare to-Latvia.’
Such encounters are the commonplace of the daily life of the urban vicar. The rage and frustration when no money is forthcoming is the awkward moment — best done somewhere public. ‘Give to everyone who asks of you,’ says Jesus in Luke’s gospel, but then Jesus wasn’t a vicar in Catford. In fact, I am not sure Jesus would have made a very good vicar. One can’t imagine him chairing the parochial church council or filling in yet another funding application, though he would perhaps have gone out of his way to encounter the Messianic Jew I am trying to get rid of. I must pay his bus fare, he says again. But if I help, my front door will quickly become even more of a magnet for the lost, bewildered and feckless. I offer food to my Jew, but it is of no interest, despite his racked and hungry appearance.
The Church of England still understands herself to be the church of the nation: bishops in the Lords, royal weddings, choral evensong and, above everything, availability to all — ‘a presence in every community’, as the strapline goes.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in