Until another man comes on the scene who, well he might know the system or he might not. It might be an act of ignorance; it might be an act of belligerence, but whichever it is, instead of waiting his turn at the junction, he starts to walk a little bit down the street away from the junction. To the author’s utter amazement and horror, he hails the next cab that passes, gets in and closes the door. ‘THAT’S MY CAB!’ says our author. At which point the impostor sits back and smiles, as the cab drives off.

So what’s our author going to do? Not in the immediate, but in the future. How is he going to react to this threat, this change to the system? Will he hold fast to his good mannered, well ordered, though not visible, system or will he allow himself to be pulled down into the pushy, me-first behaviour exhibited by the newcomer? Well, guess what? He couldn’t fight the attraction of behaving worse. One problem he writes, with bad manners is that they increase exponentially. If I behave badly, you behave worse, and I must behave worse still. And he succumbed to behaving worse. He started walking away from that junction, and hailing cabs as they approached, jumping the invisible queue - though he never smiled as he drove off.

However, he got his come-uppance. One day in the middle of London, he hailed a cab which pulled up alongside in. He got in and sat down. At that moment the door on the other side of the cab opened, and another man, same age, same weight, same colour, same dress code, in every essence a mirror of the author, got in and sat down. The author said, ‘Camden please.’ The other man said ‘Clapham’. The author said ‘I got in first!’ The other man said, ‘Get the get f*** out or I’ll smash your f***ing face in.’ One problem with bad manners is that they increase exponentially. I behave badly, you behave worse and I must behave worse still.

‘Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.’ We’ve kind of adopted that as our slogan, our vision statement, our strap line for what we are about as a church community. This is the aim that we have for ourselves, our goal, our desire. That is the yearning we have as a church community. ‘Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.’ And when that has happened, that is the moment when we can dis-band, we can close up shop, log off and go home, saying, ‘Job done. Finished.’

But until that moment, until the Kingdom of God has come on Earth as it is in Heaven, our task is to look for little signs of the Kingdom. To uncover and usher in those little bits of the Kingdom where and when we can, and to point the way for those who are less certain of just exactly what Kingdom values are. And we do all this in the context of people who behave like the author of that article in the paper. For if he’s right, and I suspect he is, I won’t be long before he is stealing taxis. In fact, he admits to the fact that he is already stealing taxis by stealth. Now he’s been introduced to stealing taxis by force and threat of force, the chances are, he says, it won’t be long before he joins in. This is the context in which we are seeking to bring about God’s Kingdom. This is the context in which we are being the people of God here on Earth: the Body of Christ.

And this is this context in which we celebrate our Diamond Jubilee Weekend. Seeking to offer those around us a different way. A different road to walk; a different journey to travel; a different story to live by. Seeking to offer to them glimpses of what we know, of what we see and of what we feel about the emerging Kingdom of God.

So when you are asked, as you have been asked, and will be asked again, to sign up to be involved in the Anniversary weekend; when you are asked and badgered to get a little bit more involved in the weekend; when you are asked and badgered and pestered to do just one more thing over that weekend, it’s not about trying to make sure everything runs smoothly, though that’s important. It’s not about making sure we have the right ratio of adults to children in the children’s work or that our health and safety regulations are sorted and we’ve got the right numbers of first-aiders on site at any one time, although those things are important, it’s actually about proclaiming that Gospel truth, that which we long for, that we yearn for, that we pray for and work for which is nothing less than ‘Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven’.