A comment I often find myself making when I work with a passage or diea for a sermon.

Today I've been working with Luke 15 and 16 ahead of Sunday's service, and, having been reminded of Luke's theme of the ptokoj (the poor), have been trying to read the parables in that light.  As I neared the last sentence of my draft sermon, I recalled the verse "the poor will always be with you" and tried to recall where it came from.  Three of the gospels have it; Luke is not one of them.  Hmmm.

OK, so everyone else already knew that, but I hadn't spotted it until now.

Usually I quite like the BUGB e-news sweep, it is often useful and sometimes funny.  Today it made me swear.  Now you have to appreciate I don't often do swearing, it's not in my make-up!  So why did it make me swear?  Because it linked a Daily Mail article with these words:

Miracle? Cancer-stricken father defies odds and beats disease by stopping chemo - because God told him to

With a ten per cent chance of survival, he needed a miracle - and that's exactly what God gave him

Now I am delighted for the man (in the US by the way) that his cancer has been healed, and I am prepared to accept that for some reason God chose to heal him, but for goodness sake let's be a bit responsible here.  How many Christians (or other people of faith) don't get 'healed' of their cancer (most) how many suffer excruciatingly until they die of secondaries (many) and how many live with the pressure of OPE that God will supernaturally heal them (more than a few).  For crying out loud, God gave us the skills of oncology and surgery and radiotherapy for a reason.

So listen up folks (I'm quite wound up, you can tell!) God has given me more through having cancer and being treated for it than any miracle healing would ever have done.  I've met amazing people, I've learned a lot about cancer, about myself, about others, about life, about faith.  I'd like to think, though physcially scarred, and with a 30% chance of still being here in a decade, that I am a more whole person now.

So please, do not throw away your chemo, your radiotherapy, your hormone therapy, your screening appointment card.

Today a friend of the Gathering Place is laid to rest after cancer claimed her life... she has ultimate healing as she enters eternal rest.

If praying is your thing, please pray for those whose work is caring for people with cancer or researching into into its causes and treatments

And if you want a miracle, then please pray for Annie who is 27, has aggressive stage 4 b.c. and exploring every option she can as she chooses life in its fulness (however long or short that may be).  Chemo and prayer - now that seems a much better mix to me.

BUGB e-news sweep I forgive you... even 70 x 7...

Rant Ends!

It has been a fiunny old week - why weeks become 'old' in this context I don't quite know, but there you go.  It has been one of those 'the whole of life is here' weeks, one in which the interruptions are the ministry and the sermon/service prep is incidental (it's Thursday and I know what I want to speak about, just haven't got anything on paper yet).

It has been a ministry of...

drinking tea and coffee, eating lunch, sending and receiving emails on diverse and sometimes complex pastoral and pracitcal matters, answering the phone, sorting through cupboards, finding craft activities, reading, dancing with joy, wondering 'why?', standing alongside those who weep, thinking 'should I?', laughing, sharing...

Yup, a funny old week, but one that serves to remind me why this is what I am, who I am, maybe even why I am.

Now I need to start playing catch-up!!