If you ever hear me refer to something as a total “bourach” don’t worry, I’m not speaking in tongues; I’m speaking in Doric, a particular dialect from the North East of Scotland. Like all words, it’s hard to define exactly, but it means something is a complete and utter mess, a tangled up knotty situation that seems impossible to ever get straight. Like when one of my kids as a toddler got into the fridge and opened a jar of mayonnaise and spread it around the whole kitchen. That was a total bourach right enough! But culinary mishaps aside, there’s an awful lot of situations in life we look at and wonder how on earth we can get out of the mess we are in.
In our reading today, Paul is in the middle of a mess. He’s been arrested and thrown in prison. During the night there’s an earthquake and the prison is nearly destroyed setting Paul and other prisoners free. The jailer runs up to investigate and panics as he thinks all the prisoners have escaped. This means his life is forfeit and he’s about to kill himself when Paul stops him. The jailer asks what he must do to be saved. While we read this as being a spiritual question, it is likely the jailer means something else. His prison is ruined and he’s responsible for it, according to Tom Wright, his question is probably “What can I do to get out of this mess?” Paul’s answer is actually incredibly practical, “Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved”
It’s the same answer to our questions today. It only takes a quick glance at the news, at our neighbourhoods, at our denomination or our world to see that things aren’t right. Through Jesus we saw what life in the kingdom of God is meant to be like, how it is going to be one day. And it’s different from our world. Our world has wide economic disparity, climate change issues, poverty, homelessness and deprivation. We are seeing the rise of extreme politics with populist politicians coming to the fore. Today we ask, what can we do to get out of this mess we are in? And the answer is still the same; believe in Jesus Christ as Lord. We don’t have to “get in touch with ourselves”, we don’t have to worry about good works or believe one doctrine over another. We simply have to believe Jesus is Lord and follow Him and live in His way. Paul has given us the prescription for an ailing world, it is up to us to take the medicine.