... her slave will do the housework!

Holly is at the vet having a beauty treatment under GA, poor kitten... teeth cleaned, nails cut and fur dematted... sounds pretty much like all my worst nightmares rolled into one!

So, whilst she is out, and out for the count, I have washed her igloo, as one does, and am busy tidying all the places she objects to me tidying... a busy day off all round!

This is a bit rambling, even by my standards.  Not sure what, if any, sense it makes! 

Today our readings are:

Psalm 119:9-16
Isaiah 43:8-13
2 Corinthians 3:4-11

The line that strikes me today comes from the 2 Corinthians reading, and it is a well known part-verse, 'the letter kills but the spirit gives life'.

This is one of those verses that we all think we understand, which probably means that we don't.  We all wrestle with the balance between legalism and licentiouness; between the minutiae of some aspect of OT prohibition and the intent of the sweep of scripture; between the contextual and the eternal; between societal norms and spiritual demands.

I have to confess to a degree of bewilderment yesterday when I heard on the news that the C of E and the RC felt that the UK government had a duty to help them maintain their cathedrals... cathedrals in which they foot-stampingly refuse to be told what to do.  It felt a bit like wanting a cake and eating it, like misunderstanding that choices have consequences and the why should HM government squander tax-payers money to maintain buildings which might well be lovely, but in which some tax-payers will be marginalised or excluded.  Hmmm.  Not entirely sure how this connects but it feels as if it ought to.

In my electronic version of the Bible on this computer, I have a couple of ancient commentaries.  One of them says the 'letter' means the OT and the 'spirit' means the Gospel; which feels like a move towards the Marcionite heresy of rejecting the OT.  Whilst some in our churches would happily join Marcion on this, I don't think that's helpful.  Another of the free commentaries suggests that the Law shows up that which is death-dealing whilst the Holy Spirit brings life.  That seems a bit better.  But it doesn't help us with those aspects we deem to be contextual or even over-ridden by later writings (e.g. food laws and hygiene laws).  Perhaps the simplest reading is the best - nit-picking legalism is destructive, timless prinicples are creative.  No rocket science here, this is the model used all the time in 'secular' understandings.  But not always in our churches where dogmatic legalism and dogmatic antinomianism are equally unhealthy.

Not sure I've got any further forward, just need to keep examining my own heart, my own motives, to see where either death-dealing pedantic legalism, or equally death-dealing antinomianism is growing.

God's Spirit lives to set us free - walk, walk in the light

To join our hearts in unity - walk, walk in the light...

Were it so, Lord, were it so

Were we able to see

Were we able to hear

Were we able to open ourselves

To your Spirit

Your Intent

Your Will

Your Way...

Teach me to love your Law

As Jesus loves it

Teach me to undertsand your Law

As Christ understands it

Teach me to live your Law

As your Spirit directs it

For your Law is

Love not hate

Life not death

Hope not despair

Freedom not chains

Teach we your ways, oh Lord, show me your paths...

Or the Fifth Sunday in Lent if you're a bit more Catholic in your naming of Sundays (I had an interesting conversation once with a Roman Catholic over which of the last two Sundays in lent is correctly named 'Passion Sunday', since they used the title for what I call 'Palm Sunday')

Anyways, today's readings...

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-12 or Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

These are each and all well-loved, and quite possibly overworked.  I used the Hebrews in church a few weeks back when we explored understandings of atonement.  Psalm 119 reminds the young person how to maintain their purity, contra Psalm 51 which is response to the failure of David so to do.  Jeremiah forth-tells the new covenant which Christians understand to have been made through Christ.  And the John...

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.  They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."

Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.  Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say - 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."

The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him."

Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

John 12: 20-33 NRSV

The lovely people to whom I preached this morning have already pondered in some depth the cost of discipleship, and questions about the need to consider seriously the implications of decision 'for Christ' which is so much more than a ticket to eternal bliss, and mist be worked out in the here and now, potentially at enormous personal cost.  So, I won't go down that route again.

Instead it's that little bit that Jesus says... unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain.  I have preached on this once or twice, and always end up observing the essential aspect of death to what happens.  More than a few times I have reminded people there can be no resurrection without death - it is not resuscitation we are on about here, not cheating death by a hair's breadth.  Death.  Which releases potential and brings forth abundant new life.  We fear death - at least at an institutional level - we fight tooth and nail to keep OUR church, OUR school, OUR community centre, when actually what MIGHT be needed is the death that releases the potential for a new season.  How much time and energy is caught up in preserving what is already dying, as a kind of life-support-with-inevitable-outcome that could be released if only death were permitted?  And how do we tell which is which, and what is now?  Ah, t'were only that simple!

As I reflect back over what I preached this morning, and on this passage, and indeed on some of the other stories I've revisited this Lent, what strikes me is that this is about attitude - the willingness to die, to leave behind career or home or family, the willingness to live with ridicule or rejection, the willingness to go wherever God leads and do whatever God calls us to do.  Not a kind of fake-willingness predicated on the ram caught in the thicket, that somehow if I say 'yes' God will say 'that's OK you don't need to after all'.  Real willingness that says, 'gulp, you want me to do what.... er, well, OK then' or, corporately, 'goodness, you mean close OUR building, stop THESE activities, give away ALL those things and then go THERE with THEM and do THAT.... well..... OK then....

You don't ask much of us, do you God?

Just everything!

Body, mind, spirit.

Heart, soul, mind, strength.

Home, family, wealth, status...

Who can say 'yes' to such a call?

Who would not choose the path of ease

Self gratification

Self fulfilment

Self direction...

Sell all you have and giver to the poor

Take up your cross daily

Don't look back, or you're no use to me

These are tough words

Unless an ear of wheat falls to the ground

And dies

Its potential

Is unfulfilled...

"Follow me"

Dare I say yes?

Dare I say no?

Dare I linger in indecision

Choose today who you will follow,

Choose today what you will do

As for me,

Afraid you might actually make me live out what I commit to,

Yet trusting that if that is so, you will sustain me in its outworking

Tentatively

Trepidatiously

I

Say

Yes

... of the Baptist Unions' Declarations of Principle...

It shall be the duty of every Baptist congregation to be purveyors of the finest home-baking for any and all ecclesiatical events whether Baptist or ecumenical.

You know it's true so why fight against the inevitable?!

For my last birthday, a circle of my friends clubbed together to give me a VERY generous financial gift, and I have finally got round to deciding how to spend it... this week I became the owner of a shiny new Kindle, along with a smart blue cover and 3G connection.  Being the good minister type person that I am, the first book I bought for it was an NRSV (with apocrypha) not as quick to navigate as a real Bible it must be said, but handy to have one with me that is light enough to fit in my bag with print that is big enough to read.  I also picked up a tourist guide ready for my trip to Hungary for the sum of 72p... can't be bad!

The real test will be to download a book I want to read properly, cover to cover, but so far, so good.  I hope my friends will consider their gift money well spent!

I have to smile though, because of the way I set up my account way back when, Amazon thinks my first name is Revd, so my Kindle is, Revd's Kindle... that seems quite cute somehow.