A Basil Fawlty moment

Have you ever had a Basil Fawlty moment? You are so exasperated with life you boil over and it is all too much. I love that bit of the Gourmet Night episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil is trying to get the dinner back to the hotel from the restaurant in town and his battered old car won’t go.

“Come on, start will you? Come on! I’m warning you – if you don’t start…. I’ll count to three, one, two, three. Right! That’s it. You’ve tried it on once too often! Well don’t say I haven’t warned you! I’ve laid it on the line to you time and time again! Well, this is it. I’m doing to give you a damn good thrashing!” And he goes off and gets a large branch and beats the car without mercy.

Or, life feels just a little bit too demanding today and you want to escape it. I had a panic attack on Monday. I was going to visit my Mum by train and then have tea with my friends and their children. Monday morning was wet and miserable. I was tired. I got to St Pancras and the trains were all over the place. And I stood there and froze. All I wanted to do was come home to bed. I couldn’t face what lay ahead so I chose to not go. I had a nice dinner and came back to Hastings.

Sometimes we need instant help and encouragement to keep going. Like Basil Fawlty, life won’t go today and me frozen in panic and fatigue in the middle of disgruntled train passengers and Mothers I needed encouragement to go on but things felt too big and I couldn’t cope.

I believe people need encouragement today to keep going. I believe the church needs more than ever to be a community of encouragement and I believe passionately in a God who encourages just when we need it. So I want to explore those things using our three readings we have shared today.

Encouragement means to be in the state of being encouraged, and to encourage means to inspire with courage, spirit or hope, to spur on. Someone once wrote: “Flatter me and I may not believe you. Criticize me and I may not like you. Ignore me and I may not forgive you. Encourage me and I may not forget you.”  There is tremendous power in the giving and receiving of encouragement. We all need sources of encouragement. The reality is that we cannot live without being encouraged, especially in a world that paralyses like Basil Fawlty’s car or too many demands being made of us when we are vulnerable.

I think God answers prayer. But God can only answer prayer when we actually pray. I prayed in panic at St Pancras. God told me to go and have some space, and think about me. Encouragement comes when we most need it.

Then I think people want to the church to be encouraging. They still think the church will judge, condemn, exclude and that it isn’t for them. People live in a world that is individualistic and they long for community. There was a report this week about older men and loneliness. I am convinced there is a ministry of encouragement badly needed and which is central to the church’s work today. We sing “he bids us build each other up.” But sometimes we put our fellow human beings down and we quite enjoy doing so. Is the church a place where God’s overwhelming grace and encouragement are seen and shared?

Methodism talks about all being welcome. If we mean that, we will be encouraging and embracing whoever God sends our way, both in this building and more importantly wherever people are in our community.

Asking for encouragement, being encouraging and finally today, believing that God is encouragement in Jesus personified. My Mum had a consultant’s appointment the other Monday. She has some health problems and sees a consultant in London every six months. Every six months she gets worried about the appointment. This last time she was told she is doing really well. She smiled sweetly at the Professor and left the room. Then she turned to me and said, “He didn’t mean that, did he?” And she refused to believe what he had said to her. There are a lot of people like her out there, who need to believe life will be okay. We live in an era that will quickly abandon other people because our own lives are so complex – we have battered cars that won’t start and we are bombarded with demands we freeze in panic on the station platform of life. 

"In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Every morning I pray the Canticle of Zechariah which is the song sung by Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth, praising God for God’s work throughout history and through their new-born son John who would become the Baptist. These verses always fill me with hope and a lightness as I begin the day as I sit in my dining room and think about how God is leading me and us today. God encourages us if we will find him and hear him, and people need that, there is much darkness and shadow of death, even in the church, gloomy negativity, we need guiding and our world needs guiding to something different. Less me and my tablet, less me being frozen in fear, less thrashing of things that won’t work, and more focussing on the way God in Jesus would have us be.

What do you hear in the Benedictus for you, right now? I hope the tender compassion of our God is an encouragement for you, whatever you are facing at the moment.

“He is your Father, and His role is to protect you; He will comfort you and guide you. He will feed you; He will carry you when you are weak. He will seek you out when you go astray; He will help you in times of trouble. He will not let your enemies go unpunished; He will cherish you like a father cherishes his daughter. When you fall, He will pick you up; when you don’t understand, He will always understand. When you feel like life is weighing you down, He will lift you up. When you feel like giving up, He will encourage you to keep going. When you are sad, He will lighten your spirits. When you need advice, His line is open 24-7. When you feel unsafe, He will be your safety; when you are worried, He will be an ear to your concerns. When you feel burdened, offer your burden to Him and He will take it. Where you have been burnt, He will make you beautiful; where you hurt, He will heal. Whenever you feel lonely, He will always be with you. Where others have not supported you, He will support you. When you feel discouraged, He will be your encouragement. Where you don’t know, He will tell you when the time is right. When you feel unloved, remember that He has always loved you.

You see limitations; God sees opportunities. You see faults; God sees growth. You see problems; God sees solutions. You see limitations; God sees possibilities. You see life; God sees eternity.”