50th Birthday party at the Gathering Place... massive thanks to everyone for making it such a wonderful and memorable day for all the very best reasons

Coming from a long line of preaching people (a rabbi, a Methodist local preacher and a Christian Scientist reader to name the three I know of for certain!) it is perhaps not such a surprise that both my sister and I ended up preaching.  Our theological views differ quite a lot, but there is a strong, shared sense of what creating an act of worship is about, and I have a sneaky suspicion she's the better preacher of the two.

Anyway, last night there was a slightly weird conversation about worship we were each planning, her for Sunday and I for Christmas Day.  I'm using two secular pieces, she said, this and that.  That's odd, I said, so am I, well three actually, those two and another one.  And three carols she said, this, this and that... Well that's spooky, I said, I'm using two of those too...

So, I have to assume that we are on the same wavelength here, whether as she says, because we both have good taste, or as I dare to suggest, the Holy Spirit gave us both the same nudge.

If you want to know what the songs are... well you'll have to come along to the Gathering Place at 11 a.m. on Christmas Day or to some unspecified URC in Cambridgeshire this Sunday!

Yesterday I heard something on the news that really disturbed me: a seemingly sane, rational and no doubt caring man said that the only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun.  Oh dear.  An eye for ann eye and we all end up blind.  When did an ancient law of proportionality become a mandate for violence?

Yesterday I also had a conversation that equally disturbed me: someone called at church to see if they had left something behind after a meeting they had attended (not one of those I lead) and saw fit to pass comment on the character of my church.  He went on to tell me that, if certain legislative changes go ahead, God will punish this nation. Splutter, cough, what the *good-job-I'm-a-minister-and-the-only-word-I-know-to-complete-that-sentence-is-'heck'*?  Since when was any of us God's perfect spokesperson able to announce what God would do.  In any case, that kind of theology would equally indicate divine displeasure over all manner of things the person saying this would support.

The season of goodwill to all people - so let's arm ourselves to the teeth and shoot to kill!

The season of goodwill to all people - so let's ask God to smite those who fail to meet our standards!

And immediately, after these things, it came to pass that the WORD became flesh:

Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone,

Creator became creature

And lived among us, as one of us, with us - Emmanuel

And shared our nakedness and vulnerability

And shared our sorrow and pain

And shared our laughter and love

But never

Never

NEVER

Our self-righteous, priggish, legalistic, judgemental, sinfulness

No

God loved the whole cosmos with such unquenchable love that,

Iin order to rescue it all from the grip of self-inflicted and selfish evil,

God entered it

And today it is Christ who takes the bullet

Christ who takes the insults of bigoted people

Christ who weeps with the Rachels in a hundred thousand Ramahs

Christ who starves to death in poverty

Christ who is marginalised and victimised and ostracised..

Christ who continues to say,

Slowly,

Gently,

Purposefully

"Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do"

Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Amen