In A Corner Of The Car Park

I’m coming into the car park of the supermarket where I usually do my shopping. It’s a covered one: convenient when the rain comes down on a Monday morning. I don’t like people throwing open their car doors and denting my bodywork, so I drive almost all the way round, until I come to where I can park next to a pillar, which affords at least some protection.

Given that this town has the lowest property prices anywhere in England, I’m surprised to see so many large, expensive cars, new and nearly new, which make my eleven-year-old model look a little shabby; but, let’s give their owners the benefit of the doubt: they may well have worked hard for a long time to be able to afford them. They can’t all have been acquired on PCP deals - or can they?

Then I notice something that I haven’t seen in any town but my own: a man taking his dog for a walk, not round a public park, which is bad enough when the idiots let them off the lead, but around a crowded car park. “Why would you want to do that?” I wonder. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he has a supply of plastic bags in his pocket. Let’s hope so. Tread warily.

Passing a row of bays reserved for the disabled, I can’t help noting with what alacrity and agility three middle-aged individuals emerge from a shining white Range Rover Evoque. No-one is left inside the vehicle. Still, I know that not all disabilities are visible to the naked eye, so I suppose we will have to give them the benefit of the doubt, and trust that they haven’t simply borrowed a badge from an elderly relative. Who would stoop so low?

I’m nearly there now, passing the far corner of the car park. It’s dark. The bank of fluorescents which used to provide light has been out of action for years.

There they are. Late afternoon, evenings until late, and sometimes even on a Monday morning: a small group of cars, windows down, engines idling, drawn up side by side, even if there’s plenty of room all around them.

The vehicles vary: perhaps a couple of newish BMW’s, an Audi of the more exotic variety, a hot hatch with blacked-out windows, and the obligatory Mitsubishi Evo, able to outrun an RPU Audi S3 from a standing start. What are they up to, these young men - some white, some Asian, some smoking, a couple out and leaning against their vehicles, or bent towards open windows in earnest colloquy?

I am not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. They are up to no good.

Am I jumping to conclusions? Just too judgemental? I don’t think so. They are - or were - my natural constituency. I worked with them for many years. They told me lots of things, some of which I would rather not have heard. Trust me: they’re up to no good in this dark and distant corner of the supermarket car park.

"And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed." (John 3.19-20)

And what of ourselves? “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son”. (Colossians 1.13)

So we trust. However: “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbour.” (Galatians 6.4)

Let’s leave it to Matthew Henry to put all of the above into its proper context. (N.B. I had to read it quite slowly to take it in properly. You might need to do the same.)

Galatians 6.1-5. We are to bear one another's burdens. So we shall fulfil the law of Christ. This obliges to mutual forbearance and compassion towards each other, agreeably to His example. It becomes us to bear one another's burdens, as fellow-travellers. It is very common for a man to look upon himself as wiser and better than other men, and as fit to dictate to them. Such a one deceives himself; by pretending to what he has not, he puts a cheat upon himself, and sooner or later will find the sad effects. This will never gain esteem, either with God or men. Every one is advised to prove his own work. The better we know our own hearts and ways, the less shall we despise others, and the more be disposed to help them under infirmities and afflictions. How light soever men's sins seem to them when committed, yet they will be found a heavy burden, when they come to reckon with God about them. No man can pay a ransom for his brother; and sin is a burden to the soul. It is a spiritual burden; and the less a man feels it to be such, the more cause has he to suspect himself. Most men are dead in their sins, and therefore have no sight or sense of the spiritual burden of sin. Feeling the weight and burden of our sins, we must seek to be eased thereof by the Saviour, and be warned against every sin.