Proclaimer Blog
You’ve got to pick a pocket or two
Our youngest has been learning the musical Oliver as part of a school project. It's good stuff. She's learning and having fun. The music is catchy and clever – a step up from what goes as a musical today. She's particularly fond of Fagin's first number – You've got to pick a pocket or two. The opening lines set the tone for the rest of the song:
In this life, one thing counts
In the bank, large amounts
This words take on added poignancy when you know the story of the musical. A desperate Lionel Bart sold all the stage, television and film rights for £300,000 in the early seventies (they would later turn out to be worth millions and millions). Bart (you can read some of his story here) is a tragic figure. His cocaine and cash fuelled parties became notorious, living off the earnings from Cliff Richard's Living Doll. It's not a nice story, though. Here is a man who once had large amounts in the bank and discovered that it didn't count, it didn't count at all.
I mention this because this is the culture we are preaching to. Most of our members have some kind of delusion that if only they had more cash, things would be altogether better. Many will do the lottery. And those who don't, dream of doing it. It's only their conscience that prevents them. Our preaching has to tackle the prevailing culture and this is it.
But there's a deeper issue at stake for preachers which is that many of us suffer from the same kind of delusion. If only we had the extra cash for a youth worker. If only we could reorder (that seems to be the in-word) our main building. If only we could buy an extra property to house staff. It's tempting to think that large amounts in the bank would solve any number of our church crises. But Lionel Bart proves that to a false hope which we must not only fight against in our people but in our own hearts.
To paraphrase the words of Fagin later on in the musical, "I think you'd better think it out again."