All In the Wording

It is, of course, a privilege to host the Civic Service for the new Mayor of Hornington. Peter is a member of the congregation and it was no surprise that he wanted to come here for the event. The service happens to be his birthday as well as being Father's Day (not that that's a specifically Christian observance, and I wonder why we didn't come up with a churchy version as we did with the modern Mother's Day), and he had ideas over what he wanted to happen. Which basically meant keeping it simple - a reading, a few hymns chosen by chaps from the area. The reading is from Psalm 103: 'as a father is tender with his children, so is the Lord merciful towards those that fear him'. 'Can we change fear to love?' asked Peter. Well, no, we can't, I said: Hebrew was never my subject but whatever that word is it won't equate to 'love' no matter what you do to it. 'Those who hold him in awe' might be an acceptable alternative if you find 'fear' a bit jarring. 

Given that Peter has been in and around the Church for the whole of his life it did make me wonder what people in our congregations actually think about the Scriptures. The only reason for reading these ancient texts publicly is that we feel they represent God, however we might understand that. Even if (as I do) we accept that the texts come through human experience and occasionally reflect human fallibility, as when clear errors of recollection or transmission creep in, we also recognise that behind them there is both divine activity, and the Church's settled consensus that they represent divine activity. And yet the possibility arises that we might change a word to something entirely unrelated because we find it a bit awkward, as though it had the same status as something in the English Hymnal, as though its ultimate author was JM Neale rather than God. I suppose the fact that Peter asked me does suggest that he thought I might say no. He is a politician, after all.