‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ flew into Bradford earlier this month with a high-energy, beautifully choreographed, and superbly acted re-telling of Ian Fleming’s famous story about a flying car. I will not recap the story here as I am sure you will know it. As the story unfolds Caractacus Potts, the eccentric grandfather not the inventor, is kidnapped by the henchmen of Baron Bomburst and thrown into the castle dungeon and commanded to build a flying car. He is desperate as he does not know where to start on such a project. In the dungeon with him are those who have experienced a similar fate and they encourage him with wise words which, as this is a musical, are set to music! The song they sing, ‘The Roses of Success’ talks about the difficulties of being an inventor, of the many failures that must be endured before something is successful, until, finally, “up from the ashes grow the rose of success.”

This is a great message. We all face challenges in our lives, situations we must tackle, problems we need to solve, and we can approach these cautiously but to achieve anything we must take a risk. If we do not take a risk, we will never know what is possible, if we do not make mistakes we will never learn. The early church took many risks as they sought to understand and follow Jesus and they did not always get it right, the church still does not always get it right, but it still seeks to understand and follow Jesus.

Following Jesus is a risky business because he asks us to reach out when we might want to stay put, to open our hearts to love when we might want to protect them from hurt, to serve others when we might want to think of our own needs. It is only when we take a risk for love, for peace, for justice, for hope, for others that we begin to understand what is possible. Jesus challenges us to take a risk in faith and, if we do, it is very likely that we will see that “up from the ashes grow the roses of success.”