THE PARISH CHURCH FOR LYTHAM

Last Updated 19/05/2008 22:34:12

Crossroads

I suppose it was one of the smarter refuse tips I have used. I don’t know if such places are graded but if they are, this tip would definitely achieve five star status. The first time I took some household rubbish there, I quickly realised the workforce had Council recycling quotas to meet. The amount of material they produced for recycling each month was clearly of great concern to them. They were under pressure to make sure that anything that could be re-cycled did not go unnoticed and was categorised and placed in the correct container.

In fact, the men and women who worked there were so committed to meet the Council’s green quotas, they interrogated you as soon as you had reversed your car into position – back seat and boot covered in refuse - and before you could ascend the steps to hurl your black plastic bags into the containers. I had found it difficult to differentiate between the different categories of rubbish. Some items such as wood, metal, paper and glass, I could sort easily. Others were more difficult. Packaging you find in boxes of biscuits, soggy cardboard and old curtain rails seemed at times to fall between definitions. But I had no idea the trouble this was to cause.

During my interrogation, I clearly failed to answer the questions correctly and with conviction. Maybe I hesitated or my words betrayed a lack of clarity in my understanding. The reaction was instantaneous. The black bags were emptied and their contents examined. It was like going through customs. What is more, these refuse workers had clearly been trained to a very high standard in interrogation techniques, no doubt in some secret underground bunker belonging to the Government. Here, alongside members of the security services who specialise in the interrogation of spies, they would have learned their trade. Imagine the scene. The prisoner is tied to a chair, subjected to white noise for twenty-four hours and deprived of sleep. Then a bright light is shone into his/her eyes and a voice from behind the light speaks with quiet yet terrifying menace, ‘If you want to see your family again, you would be wise to answer my questions.  Now tell me, in which black bag did you place the plastic fabric softener container?’ Imagine, too, the panic that would grip you as you realised you couldn’t remember because to your untrained eye, one black bin bag looks pretty much like any other.

It was almost as bad as that when I failed my first interrogation at the tip. I felt embarrassed and humiliated. I had obviously given the impression that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. The refuse man – a huge bloke – had proceeded to rip open all my black plastic bags in front of everybody and sort through every item individually. I apologised profusely. What greater sin could I have committed than having some of my rubbish sorted into the wrong bags? The perishable was not supposed to be mixed with the imperishable. It was as if the future of the planet depended on the contents of my bin bags being correct. I could feel myself blushing, my cheeks burning and no doubt themselves now making a significant contribution to global warming. My anxiety was worsened by the knowledge that we were preparing to move house and I knew I had several more loads of refuse sacks to take to the tip over the next few days. The interrogation techniques worked with me. When I got home, I opened all the remaining sacks to check that I would pass the inspection on my subsequent trips to the tip.

On one of these journeys, instead of reversing I parked my car head on to the container I was going to use the most. My heart was in my mouth as I waited for the big man to emerge from the shadows. He knew me by now. I dare say he was watching out for me just as I was trying to avoid him. He was a lovely man, approachable and kind, a gentle giant really, but I couldn’t cope with another bag ripping, possessions spilling, heart wrenching episode. As I glanced through the windscreen, I noticed something as extraordinary as it was unexpected. I had never seen anything as incongruous before. For jammed into the handle of the refuse container in front of me was a beautiful wooden crucifix. I would expect to see a crucifix in a church or on a memorial or hung around a person’s neck. I would never have thought of seeing one hanging haphazardly like this in a council rubbish tip.

‘Lofty’ was on his way over. It was going dark again. Dear Lord, spare me from another public flogging, I thought. As his shadow approached my car, I got out and, pointing to the crucifix, I asked him why it had been placed on the side of a rubbish container. He wasn’t sure. It wasn’t something the workmen had done. After a short discussion, we came to the conclusion that someone hadn’t been able to bring themselves to throw it away with the rest of their possessions. Let’s face it, how on earth do you work out which container your are going to consign Jesus to? Personally, I think he recycles pretty effectively - from one generation to another – but others might disagree. Whoever had left it behind had perhaps placed the crucifix somewhere where someone else would see it and take responsibility for it. As the big man and his colleagues had no use for it, I asked him if I might take it and keep it safe. He said he was very happy for me to do so. This bargaining over the image of Jesus reminded me of the way in which the soldiers at the foot of the cross gambled for the robe of Jesus as he died above them (John 19.23- 24.) In a strange kind of way, we seemed to be doing something similar. Anyway, I took the crucifix home and kept it on my desk. Being roughed up on a rubbish heap hadn’t actually done any damage to it. It was in excellent condition.

Some months later, speaking at a conference about church growth for local clergy, I told this story about the crucifix that sits on my desk. At a time when many churches find it difficult to make contact with their local communities, I thought it  significant that I had come across this figure of the crucified Christ in a refuse collection centre. Cast out once again from people’s lives, he had been considered to be rubbish. Yet unwanted and deemed irrelevant, he still held such a power over some people’s lives they couldn’t finally get rid of him. In some ways, therefore, at a time when church-going is generally on the decline, this story of crucified love holds more meaning hanging on to the side of a pile of rubbish than it sometimes does when portrayed in silver or gold on a church altar. It reminds us of the importance of finding Christ in the world at a time when we hear almost exclusively about the Christ of the Church. It also reminds us that the love of God is most powerful when it  engages directly with the world, in the midst of the joys and sorrows of daily life. Here, where he is not obscured by church traditions, controversies and prejudice, the Christ of the universe is set free to lead people to God. His love becomes most eloquent when it is expressed in the language and circumstances of ordinary people.

Following my talk, a local vicar attending the conference came up to me and took me to one side. He asked me to describe the big man to him. As I did so a look of recognition came over his face. The rubbish tip was in his parish and he had recently taken the funeral of the big man who had only been in his twenties. Apparently, soon after passing his driving test and on his way to work, he had misjudged his speed as he approached a roundabout with tragic consequences. Both my colleague and I were left speechless at this point as my story – I had told no-one about it before – and the tragic death of his parishioner came together. We were suddenly aware of perhaps another reason why this crucifix had ended up on the rubbish heap and why the attention of the big man had been drawn to it by a priest. I also wondered whether I had been right to remove it. It’s almost as if there are times in our lives when we are unwittingly used to give others the opportunity to draw closer to God. It’s as if there are special times when God wants to assure us of his love, especially when we experience shadows that frighten and even threaten our very existence. It’s as if there are messages left for us and our loved ones that there is more to life than meets the eye. At the foot of the cross, fear is met by faith.

Today, many do not hear the gospel of Christ. They cannot approach the foot of the cross, because they are put off by the behaviour of some Christians who appear to regard the church as if it were their private possession, forgetting that love is as much about letting go as it is about holding on. At this particular crossroads, the church has much to learn from the Christ of the world.

The workmen and women at the refuse tip were upright, decent and respectable people. But seeing the crucifix on the side of the refuse container reminded me of the following words of George McLeod who worked tirelessly to help Scotland’s underprivileged and poor in the first half of the twentieth century and founded the Iona Community:

‘I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the centre of the market place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves, on the town garbage heap, at a crossroad so cosmopolitan they had to write his title in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. It was the kind of place where cynics talk smut, thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. That’s where he died. And that’s where Christians ought to be and what Christians ought to be about.’

I leave the reader to decide whether this is a load of rubbish or part of the story of the redemption of the world.

Andrew Clitherow.