Spring Outing to the Zoo

 

Journey of a lifetime

An attempt to launch a School of Theology nearly went off the rails when frustrated tourists thought the church was trying to jump the queue. I set up the School, which meets fortnightly on Saturdays at our Cathedral, as part of my work as Coordinator of the Anglican Centre for Theological Education in the Diocese of Rio de Janeiro. It aims to offer lay people an opportunity to engage with the key themes of Christianity.

I dubbed the launch event in the centre of town, which featured a number of keynote speakers, ‘The adventurous journey of the Christian faith’. To underline the idea I included in the programme for the day a ride on Rio’s famous yellow tram.  There are moments on the tram which make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, others when you feel you are going nowhere and times when you see the world from a new perspective. Just like the Christian life!

But when 40 of us turned up at the tram station we found a huge crowd of 200 exhausted tourists who had been waiting ages for a ride and, even though I’d made arrangements a month in advance, they imagined we had been given special privileges. ‘Hypocrites!’ they shouted at us as we sat red-faced on our pre-booked transport. ‘This has nothing do with Jesus’, they cried.’ ‘We’ll write to the Pope’. 

My attempts to explain were ignored as we bore what felt like years of disaffection with organized religion and, as the tram drove us away, reflected on how being misunderstood and facing opposition would always be part of the adventure of faith.