Weekly Team Message

 Dear Elstow Team of Churches,

I think I must be one of the few people who has never watched a single episode of the hit TV series ‘The Traitors’. 12 million watched last nights final.

The Traitors is a game of deceit. The traitors, a minority chosen in secret, must keep the trust of the faithful whilst quietly eliminating them one by one. In the meantime, the faithful try to unmask the traitors before it’s too late. The result? Evenings of entertainment filled with bluffing, suspicion and psychological warfare – I get enough that every day as a Vicar which is probably why I choose not to watch it!.

For many viewers, it’s the traitors who are the most fascinating, deception seems so much more exciting than honesty. The faithful plod through tasks and arguments, whilst the traitors live on the edge, balancing guilt and exhilaration. The show exposes what Jeremiah wrote long ago: “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). There’s something within us that is drawn to the idea of getting away with something, even when we know it’s wrong.

In the end, The Traitors works because it plays with ideas that are profoundly human. It holds up a mirror to our culture, showing both our fascination with darkness and our longing for something more. For Christians, that ‘something more’ is not a game to be won but a relationship with the one who is truth itself. In a world of half-truths and hidden motives, Jesus stands as the original ‘Faithful One’ who was betrayed so that we might be forgiven.

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Rev’d Fr. Paul Messam SCP,
Team Rector,
Elstow Abbey & Elstow Team Ministry.
Assistant Area Dean of BedfordAbbey Vicarage
Church End
Elstow
Bedford MK42 9XT

01234 261477
07711098209
vicar@elstow-abbey.org.uk