I've just spent a quiet hour listening to the podcast of last week's service, and really appreciated it greatly.  From the call to worship, to the music, to the sermon and the prayers, it was almost as good as being there, and touching to be mentioned and prayed for intelligently.

I am really proud of the cover preacher, L, for taking on the challenge of focussing on a "text of terror" from the Old Testament and diligently seeking out hope from within it, when the easy option would have been to ignore that passage and preach something from the New Testament instead.

It reminded me a bit of the time I preached on the "Slaughter of the Innocents" as a student - a terrible New Testament passage - that I used to explore some thoughts around what we might do with the passages that disturb our ease or that we'd rather simply excise.  Avoidance and evasion are tempting; engagement is challenging and important.

The sermon ranged quite widely, perhaps more widely than I would do nowadays, with lots of useful material to expand on the context, exploring ideas such as questioning or arguing with God (very important to recognise); the nature of God who seems capable of wrath yet whose desire is that none be loss; the distortion of sacrifice and so on. 

For me the little nugget to ponder further was the idea that God would spare Sodom and Gomorra if as few as ten righteous people could be found (Abraham stopped at ten, but maybe the limit was actually one...).  The preacher then invited to imagine that the people in that place at that time were the only 'righteous' in the whole of Glasgow, and that for their sake, God would spare the entire city irrespective of what was going on.  Wow!  That's a massive, mind-blowing idea.

And as I pondered it, my mind leapt to the gospel words that tell us that as Christians we are the 'salt and light' of the world.  Far from passive recipients of God's grace to all creation, far from being spared within the mess and muddle of real life, we have a purpose that is no less mind-blowing.  We are the salt that preserves the whole, the candle that illuminates the darkness.

God does not lift us out of the muddle, God employs us to transform it from within.  And of course, by the Spirit, God shares with us in all of that.

Thank you, L, for a sermon that made me think and gave me something significant to ponder.  I am looking forward to more weeks of receiving.