This coming Sunday we are at D+1 for our monthly joint service.  Unusually, I am preaching for them.  As has become my practice of late, I am using lectionary readings as my jumping off point.  So we will have Ezekiel 2: 1- 5 and Mark 6: 1-13.

These are intrersting readings!!

Ezekiel 4:5 says:

Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they shall know there has been a prophet among them (NRSV)

Mark 6:5 says:

He could do need deed of power there, except he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them (NRSV)

So that got me wondering - what does it mean when it says that Jesus couldn't do any miracles (apart from a few healings)?  Miracles weren't magic tricks designed to impress, rather they were signs of God's redemptive work.  So what was it that the people did (or didn't) that meant that Jesus could not do that?  How is it that we disempower Jesus?  What do we do that impedes God's redemptive purposes?

It was in Jesus' home town and among his family that this happened, which got me thinking... if the church is those allegedly closest to Jesus what does that say about us?

So - what am I going to say on Sunday and how will the Ezekiel words connect?  Hmm....

No, I'm not talking about one of those big evangelistic rallies that used to happen in borrowed circus tents not yet the 'big top' things at Spring Harvest and the like.  I'm taking about wilderness sojourning of faithful congregations with out a permanent home of their own.  It's all very biblical but not very British!

After four years of this lifestyle (and with the potential of something similar, if temporary and chosen, a year or two down the line) I have learned that this is a great way of being missional people.  In a couple of weeks another little church sets out on its own wanderings, see here and here. Please pray for this little brave congregation as it meets God and is church in its own wilderness journey.