
Rev Ed McDade
It is a slow day in the small Irish town of Ballyaughnasheoughly. The streets are deserted. Times are tough. Everybody is in debt. Everybody is living on credit. A visitor stops at the small hotel and puts €200 on the counter, saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.
As soon as he walks upstairs, the hotel owner lifts the money and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €200 and runs down the street to pay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes some money and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.
The girl at the Co-op takes the €200 and runs to pay her fuel bill at the oil supplier. The girl at the fuel supplier runs to pay her debt at Weight Watchers. The Weight Watchers girl rushes to the hotel and pays off her room-hire bill to the hotel owner. The hotel owner then puts the €200 back on the counter so the visitor will not suspect anything. Just then the visitor comes down the stairs. He says the rooms are not satisfactory, picked up the €200 and leaves. Nobody produced anything. Nobody earned anything.
However, everybody is out of debt through this stimulus package (as economists call it). They all saw the opportunity and took it. The Bible reminds us that Jesus ‘death on the cross cancelled our debt. Charles Wesley’s famous hymn says, ‘Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing…’ He breaks the power of cancelled sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean. His blood availed for me.
The title ‘O for a thousand tongues to sing’ is said to come from a remark made by Peter Böhler, Wesley’s Moravian friend and spiritual counselor, ‘If I had a thousand tongues, I would praise Christ with them all.’ In a post-lockdown world (we pray) as we travel over this summer period, will we take the opportunities that ‘knock’ to tell people about our amazing Lord? ‘My gracious master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad, the honours of your name…’