Outside the Box

Do you remember the furore a couple of years ago over MP's expenses?  Something brought this to mind recently, and I thought again about my reactions to the scandal.  When I trained as an accountant many years ago I learned the importance – nay, necessity – of recording every last penny in its proper slot.  I also remember the Inland Revenue’s mantra about business expenses – that they are only allowable if incurred “wholely and exclusively” in the course of business activity.  I won’t bore my readers by attempting to apply these criteria to moats, duck-houses et al.  Suffice it to say that I found it hard to comprehend how some of these claims could have been made ‘by accident’, and yet, unless we accept that virtually all of the country’s MPs are crooks and fraudsters, such accidents have to be believed, at least in some of the examples that have emerged.

 I’m sure some of you receive regular mail from missionary societies.  Amongst mine I frequently see references to the difficulties faced by MBBs – Muslim-background believers.  Often these people are cast out and completely spurned by their families and friends.  Either they have to keep their new-found Christian faith completely secret, or they risk persecution or physical harm at the hands of their former fellows: Shari’a, the Islamic law, prescribes a death sentence for any Muslim who leaves the faith.  For anyone who has not suffered it, it’s almost impossible to envisage how terrible life must be if it has to be lived under such restrictions.

In each of these examples, if we are to have any understanding of what’s going on, we have to stretch our imagination, and try to think ourselves into someone else’s circumstances.  In the modern idiom, we must think outside the box.

When Jesus was brought before Pilate, indeed through all his examinations, by the Sanhedrin, by Pilate and by Herod, Jesus saw everything in the context of His purpose for coming to earth. “The scriptures must be fulfilled,” He said (Mark 14:49), “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One” (Mark 14:62).  He acknowledged that He was the Son of God (Luke 22:70), and ‘King of the Jews’ (Luke 23:3), but He offered no defence against the charges that were made against Him (Matt. 27:12-14).  If we were in that position, I’m sure we would want to offer some contradiction, to explain the ‘real reasons’ why our actions had suffered this misinterpretation.  Not Jesus.  He understood what was going on.  He could see that the Jewish leaders were incapable of rejecting the legal rigmarole that had grown up over the preceding centuries – it was the only culture they knew: how could a mere carpenter’s Son have the power or knowledge to overturn it?

It may not be written in our Creed, but aren’t we all obliged to copy Jesus’ example so far as we are able?  If we could only try to see everything from other people’s viewpoint as well as our own, I’m sure all kinds of relationships would be the better for it.