Hillside Parishes Magazine

What does a teapot suggest to you? If you treat it as a symbol it would be fair to say that it represents drink, refreshment, a welcome and hospitality. A quick search through the scriptures will enlarge upon those ideas. Drink: from many references I will choose three. Proverbs 25.v21. "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord will reward you." This idea is picked up in the sermon on the mount, Matt.5.v44. If we change enemy to stranger and think of coals of fire as indebtedness we arrive at basic hospitality as encountered all round the globe. This in turn is at the heart of the culture of the Middle East, though many would begin to doubt it in the present climate of terror.

Matt 11.vv18-19. There is a contrast between Jesus and John the Baptist in their attitudes to drink ant the public perception of them at the time. No doubt the teapot would represent John quite well in this instance! Luke 12. vv13-34. Here we have a discourse by Jesus on life in general and how we might approach it better and more healthily, for drink is part of daily life and the teapot can represent that too.

Next we can move onto the sacraments but the chalice as a receptacle becomes the better symbol as my teapot is the container, so to speak, from which the refreshment is initially poured. John 6. 55, "My blood is drink indeed" raises the metaphor to the status of sacrament but the meaning is clear that it is to feed us on the spiritual level. But let us stay with John a bit, for when Jesus encounters the woman of Samaria in chapter 4 he may well have demanded a cup of tea in our culture this day and age to refresh himself. However it would not be out of place to continue in verse 13 to talk about living water to negate drinking and imbibe eternal life instead. Again in John 7.37, Jesus refers to himself and his teaching as the living water when a libation of water was poured on the altar each day for 8 days at the Feast of Tabernacles. This was to commemorate life in the wilderness when God provided water from the rock, but now Jesus said "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink". My teapot now contains real substance!

Another realm I would like to visit through the tardis of my teapot is prayer. The teapot is a good symbol when we come to the Celtic prayer A Rune of Hospitality. It goes "I saw a stranger today. I put food for him in the eating-place And drink in the drinking-place And music in the listening-place".

It rather reminds me of the hatchways in the cells at Mount Grace where the food was placed in the right angle so there would be no human contact. The stranger of course in the prayer is Christ and how we encounter him in any stranger, which hints at his ongoing incarnation in each one of us. This is summed up in his teaching in Matt 25. vv31-46, about the judgement at the end of his Olivet discourse (from ch. 24), and has echoes of entertaining angels unawares, Hebrews.13.v1.

My last destination on this flight of fancy is Psalm 23. That my cup overflows suggests that the teapot is a full and generous source. We are the receptacles and the teapot is the outpouring of Holy Spirit. All this takes place at a banquet in the face of opposition to us, or hostility. This is also the welcoming side of the teapot whatever our circumstances. We are ushered in and sat down and ministered to. God is a gracious host. We need merely to relax and be refreshed confident of the power of the Lord and the love of the good shepherd.

More tea, Vicar? Well, certainly some teas are good for us and others refresh us more or get us started in the morning. Drink in Holy Spirit deeply this post-Whitsun season!

(PS there is nothing like a good cup of tea on arrival home after walking in a thick fog, and near steep and high sea cliffs, for two hours! Ed.)