Last night three of us went out to view a flat, a possible for the manse.  Having braved arctic conditions even in relatively tropical Glasgow (it was a mere -9 to -10) we entered the cosy abode and were shown around by the owner.  She then commented, "I gather you're looking for a house for a minister."  Yes, we said, and exhibit 'A' stepped forward.  The poor vendor was most embarrassed and cross with herself, 'oh my goodness, I just assumed it would be a man, and me a feminist too' (or words to that effect).  I appreciate I am something of an a rarity in this part of world, but such an assumption wouldn't be that odd further south either.  Still, I guess a girl in jeans, boots and a thick winter coat doesn't exactly look like the stereoptypical Reverend.... thankfully!

Next week's 'leprosy link' sermon will focus on the account in Luke 17 of Jesus cleansing ten lepers.  When I was at college, a visiting preacher gave a sermon on this passage, the point of which was that only one of the ten was healed.  It wasn't the greatest sermon ever, and didn't quite convince, but did make me think about the difference between 'curing' (or 'cleansing' as the Greek expressed it) and 'healing.'  Curing refers to the bodily effects of the disease, healing is about wholeness and has other dimensions - spiritual, emotional, even communal.  I have known this for decades, and have always been very clear in my own mind that to pray for healing was not the same as praying for a cure, though that might be part of the answer.  So, come 17th January my folk will get a sermon that explores ideas of healing and wholeness in relation to TLM.

I have also been thinking about our life together as a community of faith, and how we develop what we already have to be even more what it is meant to be. Two sets of thoughts have come to mind...

First is a model adopted by a church in Yorkshire, the ministry team all being folk I know quite well, where people are invited to engage within three broad strands of (as I recall it) worship, learning and service.  It's quite a large and diverse fellowship with lots of styles of worship on offer, numerous midweek groups and a fair variety of missional connections.  People are invited to choose from menus under each heading and mix-and-match a healthy blend of activities.  As I understand it, any and all are free to challenge and be challenged on their choices - if you pick only from one or two strands you are gently reminded of what is missing; if you try to do everything you are told to get a life!

The second is the dear old Girls' Brigade 'four square' programme of spiritual, physical, educational and service, which again expects members to engage with each of the strands.  If you were to substitute 'physical' for 'get a life' the similarity with the Yorkshire church's idea is clear and shows there is nothing new under the sun.  The Guides 'eight point programme' is not wildly different and I'm sure the organisations for boys and young men are not a million miles removed.  A healthy blend is what is needed.

Later this year (I have enough ideas for the next 20 years already!) I hope to be encouraging my folk actively to commit to a sense of holsitic disicipleship: spirituality (worship and prayer), learning (Bible study, theological reflection, education), service (mission in many modes) and relaxing (getting a life!).  I know where my weaknesses are in this set of four strands, and it would be good to be accountable to, with and for others as we seek to address those we each have.

Amazing isn't it, how God works... I chose to do a series on 'leprosy stories' to connect with a project our Sunday School are doing to support The Leprosy Mission (Scotland) and out of these stories emerge some of the big themes I feel we need to be working with this year.  Maybe that's part of the wholeness too?

It seems that there is not much news at the moment when all the radio news programmes and comments relate to semi-intelligible jargon used in business. Most of it seems pretty obvious - phrases such as 'the moon on a stick' or 'a bite from the reality sandwich' don't need a lot of explaining but the idea of 'coming at this with an open kimono' is seriously scary!!

Then I noted a reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury struggling to avoid a 'fractured communion' which, looking beyond the sadness and seriousness of the reality to which it refers, hinted at an amusing lack of knowledge of Anglican or ecclesiastical jargon - isn't fracture of the communion actually something Anglicans do every week...?  I mean, the technical term for breaking the bread/wafer is 'fraction'?  Probably says more about my warped mind than anything else.

Anyway, if you want to 'touch base on or off line' you know where I am.  Happy cliches whatever you're adoing of.

Now this post is a real giveaway that I am one of those people whose devotional Bible reading is done late at night rather than when I wake up.  Despite the best endeavours of every Bible reading scheme I've ever encountered and 99.5% of preachers and teachers, and even despite being more of a morning person, I have never managed to sustain early morning devotional times.  It was, I think, the late and still somewhat lamented David Watson who allowed that some people would opt for evening/night devotions, commenting it was absolutely fine just so long as you remembered to pull your armour straight in the morning when you woke up (a light and humorous reference to Ephesians 6) - well I recall it almost 30 years on, so it must have been significant!

All of this is a very long introduction to my response to yesterday's notes on the start of Luke 2 and the emperor's census.  As I read the notes, I was taken back more than 30 years to the thoughts of my RE teacher on the timing of Jesus' birth, at the height of the Roman Empire, pretty much the entire known world, and the significance of this.  The writer of the notes observed that the census was all about power - by counting the citizens and knowing where they were the Emperor could determine how to control the empire - effectively the world.  God subverted this by bringing the bearer/means of salvation for the world (known and unknown) to birth within that endeavour.  How then, the writer asked, might God be working in and through systems and persons we see as powerful, corrupt or even bad at a global level?  That kept me puzzling for some time before Morpheus overtook me, and still has my puzzling today.  God at work subverting global financial or climate change issues...?  God somehow at work in the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq...?  Or even, dare one go there, in the whole terrorism thing...?  And if so, how? And how do we avoid just reading in what we want to see or justifying our own prejudices or agendas...?  I'm not entirely sure I can quite get to where the writer suggests, and of course I could totally have missed the point, but it's good to be made to puzzle over it.

If anyone read the notes and does get it or has any ideas maybe they can let me know?

On my morning blog trawl I just discovered that two significant theologians had died in the last in the last couple of weeks, Edward Schillebeeckx (who must qualify as the theologian with the most mis-spelled name, I always have to look it up) and Mary Daly.

When I was at college I took a course entitled 'women and theology' which was a broad introduction to feminist theology, something of which I was rather wary having been in churches that saw such things as, at best, rather iffy.  Engaging with a whole range of women theologians and writers, some who call(-ed) themselves feminist, some who didn't or who were dead long before the term was invented, was a real privilege and I thoroughly enjoyed the course.  People whose work we were 'made' to read included, along with others I cannot recall the exact names of,  Julian of Norwich, Dorothy L Sayers, Alice Walker, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (another one I can't spell!) Rosemary Radford Ruether and, inevitably, Mary Daly.  And I have to admit it was Mary Daly whose work moved me most - whilst I found myself disagreeing with so much she said I loved the energy and vitality of her writing and her passion for her cause.  I remember saying in a class that I found it at once repelling and compelling, repulsive and compulsive.  Maybe, many years later, if I re-read it I would feel differently, maybe I wouldn't.  What I do know is that by engaging with something way outside my (then) comfort zone I learned from this woman whose thinking was indeed profound and powerful.

I did read some things by Schillebeeckx but alas I cannot recall what; it obviously impacted me less than did Ms Daly.

In the passing of these two scholars the world has lost two gifted and respected theologians.  Quite what St Peter makes/made of Mary Daly is something beyond our ken, but I'm fairly confident it is/was interesting!!

I thank God for these people whose honesty and integrity shaped their theological writing and in some way shaped my own thinking.  Since both were, at least once upon a time, RC it seems fitting to end with an RC blessing:

Eternal rest grant to them, oh Lord

Let perpetual light sine uipon them

May they rest in peace.

Amen.