An Evangelical Church in the Heart of Thatcham
Date:November 04, 2014

Vacuum joke gets clean sweep

It was voted top joke this year at the Edinburgh Fringe by the comedian Tim Vine:

“I decided to sell my Hoover… well it was just collecting dust.” Well, funny joke or not, what seems to be no joke is the sheer volume of things that most of have which are truly just collecting dust. Now why is it that we seem to be so automatically good at hoarding things? After all, wouldn’t we feel so much better to have a clean sweep and live clutter-free?

Perhaps you have already tried this exercise and time and again you’ve caught yourself saying: “Well I might just need that sometime”. Is there anything that can cut the Gordian knot which stymies the reality of giving of things away? Jesus said the simple words: “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. Did you ever wonder where He first saw that in action? My hunch is that He simply watched his heavenly Father.

So what evidence is there for that? Well the fourth gospel, the gospel of John, heavily emphasises the “giving” nature of the Father towards His Son, Jesus. To start with He gives Him a mission, a purpose to achieve. Then He gives Him all the equipment He’ll need: the Holy Spirit without limit, affirmation that He is loved and that His Father is delighted with Him. He is carefully shown everything that He is to do and exactly how He is to do it. He’s granted the necessary authority to carry it out. And if that is not enough, He is given a people, given true glory and given to have life in Himself.

What a remarkable “giving” God we have. And that’s no joke.