Christ, the unseen guest at every meal, by Rev Trevor Jamison

“Christ is the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation”, or so ran the wording on a plaque which adorned the dining room wall in the house to which I had been invited to dinner. I suppose I should have found this sentiment a comfort but I must confess that at the time it seemed a little sinister to me. Not only was Christ keeping an eye on my table manners – mouth always shut when I chewed, no elbows on the table – but he was eavesdropping on every comment shared and any aside uttered by me during the course of the meal. At least I had been given fair warning but what about my manners and conversation on all those previous occasions when I had shared a meal and no notice was affixed to the wall? Perhaps it is better to have Christ as the unseen observer rather than some of the alternatives. The

UK, it is claimed, has more CCTV cameras per head of population than any other country in the world: 4.8 million cameras in 2005 and no-one really knows how many now. Next time you are up in central

London pause for a moment to consider that in Westminster Council’s CCTV control room someone may be watching you on one of forty-eight screens that control one hundred and sixty fixed cameras plus dozens of wi-fi-connected mobile cameras. This “state of the art” centre is frequently visited by representatives of police forces from around the world, impressed by cameras that can “id” you from seventy-five metres away. They may then choose to transmit your picture to the relevant police control room. So if you do pause to think about this try not to do so in a suspicious looking manner.

 It may be true that the camera does not lie but sometimes it does not tell the full story. Recent pictures of some G20  protestors breaking the windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland building in London show almost more photographers present than protestors so how representative was the image of what was going on that day? Likewise, images of police officers appearing to assault protestors may be made to stand for the behaviour of the whole police force for the whole of the day. On the other hand the camera can uncover truths otherwise unavailable to us. In 2007 I witnessed a “smash and grab” raid at a jewelry shop in central

Cambridge. As the robbers emerged from the shop they were confronted with a small army of passers-by, all holding up their mobile phones to take pictures of the faces of the perpetrators. Likewise, the photographs and videos taken by police, demonstrators and city workers (including at least one church member from this pastorate:www.flickr.com/photos/26916199@N03/) may be a force for good, uncovering truth and restraining poor practices and bad actions on future occasions. How we feel about being observed is greatly influenced by the view we have of the observer. Some feel reassured to know that “the forces of law and order” are watching over us. Others are worried that “big government” is watching our every move. Likewise, how you feel about being watched over by Christ depends not only on what you have been up to but what image you have of God. The picture of God as some irritable old guy, living only to catch us out in misdemeanors and possessing unimaginable powers to punish us, dies hard. The insight that “it was not to judge the world that God sent his Son into the world, but that through him the world might be saved” (John 3: 17) should help us here. God observes us and our failings, then acts to save or redeem rather than to condemn or punish. The instigators and operators of CCTV systems, however, are not God but human beings like us, prone to our failings and shortcomings. We might do well to be cautious about these unseen observers yet more trusting of the divine, unseen guest at each meal and in every life.

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