‘What was that you said?’
‘I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean?’
‘Please say that again in a way I can understand’
‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about’
In our minds we may know exactly what we mean. It’s crystal clear to us, obvious in fact. Simple, perceivable and surely understandable – but something can often go wrong when we attempt to communicate it to others. Instead of our illuminated thoughts switching lights on in the understanding of others, it can seem that we have simply managed to draw the curtains in their mind and created a haze of perplexed misunderstandings.
I have a friend who had been encouraged by others in his church to join them for an after meeting takeaway. The dish of choice was a mixed meat kebab and although the experience was new to him, it was quite a regular custom for the others. As they sat in the service listening to a scintillating message their rumbling stomachs ached for the moment that was drawing ever closer – the moment where they would feast on their ‘bundle of joy!’ That’s what they called it – the delights of this pitta bread stuffed with chicken, lamb, salad and oozing with spicy sauce had been given its own nickname.
After the service they made their way to the takeaway and talked freely about their inevitable ‘bundle of joy’. My friends anticipation grew as he looked forward to experiencing this for the first time. He made sure he was at the front of the queue and aware that he had the attention of the obliging worker the other side of the counter asked ‘can I have a bundle of joy please?’The others rolled around the floor with hysterical laughter and my friend wondered what was going on. Why were they laughing? Why was the man serving him looking so confused? ‘Bundle of joy?’ he asked ‘What are you talking about?’ The others were now holding their stomachs with muscle cramp from the laughter. ‘A bundle of joy’ my friend repeated – ‘one of those please’ pointing to a picture of what he had seen in his mind all along. ‘You mean a mixed meat kebab – why didn’t you say that in the first place?’
So often the church can have its own language – expressing real things in ways that mean real things to us. But to those outside the church in the Post-Christendom world we are now living, the response can often be ‘What are you talking about?’ But rather than asking us to clarify what we mean, they just walk off confused with their understanding dulled.
Romans 10:14 asks how people can believe unless they hear - but this cannot just be the resonance of an audio sound in their ears – it must be the communication of a truth with their understanding and for many people today this will involve example – it will call for us to point to an articulated picture of what we mean, a story, a testimony as an expression of what we are trying to communicate.
Do our neighbours, families and communities know what we’re talking about? Do they understand us or our churches? Faced with stares of perplexed faces that are simply confused about God, these are great questions to ask. Let’s be patient, creative and authentic as we seek to express what we mean with living stories of what the gospel means and what it can also mean for others.
