Two things I discovered this morning...

1 Most of my lovely peeps do not know the title song of this post.  So, if they happen to read this, here is:

2 Most of my lovely people did not know the story of Mephibosheth (2 Samuel, various) so I sent them off to read it for their homework.  So, big thanks to the LHBC, JBC and 1st D GB for telling this important story (I've known it since it was used in the last of those mentioned as a story about children in the Bible for the 'Splorers)

And this pretty amazing grace is...

unexpected

unchosen/unrequested

undeserved

unstinting

and

which is my answer to a comment after the service

unlimited/unbounded

One illustration I forgot to use was of grace in Christian theology as being what my mission tutor called cat-hold grace rather than monkey-hold grace.  The mother cat sees her kitten in peril, reaches down and picks it up, then runs to safety; the baby monkey senses danger and clambers onto the back of its mother, hoping for safety.  Eastern religions, he asserted, hold to the idea of monkey-hold grace (God is grace, we mst seek God) and Christianity has a a prevenient God who looks out for us.  The origin of this image is lost in time, my then tutor claimed he'd been taught it by a retired Methodist minister I knew and worked with in Dibley, and that they'd worked together in the Church of South India.  As a cat lover of course, I prefer God to be cat-like than ape-like!

As I type this, I am listening to Good Morning Sunday on Radio 2 where there is an excellent discussion around marriage taking place between the above people.  With generosity, and allowing diverse views to be expressed, they are talking very intelligently about marriage and its C21 expressions.  Ruth spoke very openly about her own journey of opinion.

Go listen - it began around 7:30-ish, so about ninety mins into the programme if you are on 'Listen Again'.  here's the link (update: it's at 1 hour 36 mins)

Go on... whatever you views... listen!

Today I am preaching on 'grace'.  I had planned to do 'sin and grace' - how stupid there is too much material in one of those, let alone both, for one service.  But first, a quick reflection from the Lectionary...

Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22

A strange mixture!  The ten (plus) commandments, the Psalm we have been pondering for a few days, Paul's introductory words to the Corinthians about the foolishness of the cross, and John's clearance of the Temple - here not in Holy Week but right at the start of Jesus' ministry (whether this is a clever literary device, or whether he knew of a second incident, or whether he just doesn't care about chronology, I leave you to decide).

It is interesting to juxtapose the Exodus and the John... a list of thou shalt/shalt nots and the total chaos in the Temple.  The religious authorities would have claimed they kept the Law to the letter but they had missed the point, it had become a stumbling block (to nick a phrase from the letter of Paul), more important not to have 'mucky money' than to have a space for worship; more important to tithe your mint and rue than to feed people who are hungry, more essential to point out fine details of the law to others than to love them...

I just wonder, if Jesus walked in to my congregation today what it is that would cause him to overturn the table, drive out the zealots.  I wonder who it is he would affirm and who condemn.  I wonder...

Loving God

Lead me from legalism to love

From proof texts to principles

From self-righteousness to right-living

Show me the

Tree trunk

In my eye

Then

(gently please!)

Pull it out

So that I can see

My lovely

Neighbour

Whom

You call me

To love

It's Saturday morning, I'm due out for a day's walking and I've already handled a couple of 'crisis' emails (friends not church), so what readings are in store for me in my state of rush today?  I honestly have not looked until now:

Psalm 19
Exodus 19:16-25
Mark 9:2-8

Well... just read them (this is the ultimate in live blogging!)

Exodus 19 has Moses up a mountain with God, and everyone else forbidden from trying to break through the cloud to see God.  Mark has Jesus up a mountain with Peter, James and John and being transfigured.  because its Mark we get the familiar 'don't tell anyone'  Psalm 19 is still Psalm 19, lovely as ever.

Today I am off out walking.  I will be away from church (though not away from church people, it is after all a Churches Walking Club), I will be away from the laptop, I will be away from the phone.  If not impossible, it will be less easy for the everyday to 'break through', as the NRSV phrases it in the Exodus reading, I will have more opportunity for rest and/or reflection and/or encounter with God.

Perhaps that's what I need to hear today.  Perhaps for me it is the 'come apart for a while' that is the message.

Come away with me

To a quiet place

Shrouded in silence

Hidden from noise

And be

But Lord, my friends needs me

There is work to be done

Calls to make

Emails to send...

Come away with me

To a quiet place

Let nothing break through

The cloud of presence

And be

But Lord, my mind is whirling

There are sermons to prepare

Prayers to pray

Visits to make

Ironing to be done...

Come away with me

To a quiet place

Empty your busy mind

Enter the stillness

And be

But Lord..

Be

But

Be

...

Be

Well, today's readings are a slightly odd mixture:

Psalm 19
Exodus 19:9b-15
Acts 7:30-40

I know it's rather irreverent, but the Exodus reading left me bemused and feeling more than a little mischievous.

The LORD said to Moses, "I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will believe you from now on." Moses told the LORD what the people had answered, and the LORD said to him, "Go to the people and tell them to spend today and tomorrow purifying themselves for worship. They must wash their clothes and be ready the day after tomorrow. On that day I will come down on Mount Sinai, where all the people can see me.  Mark a boundary around the mountain that the people must not cross, and tell them not to go up the mountain or even get near it. If any of you set foot on it, you are to be put to death; you must either be stoned or shot with arrows, without anyone touching you. This applies to both people and animals; they must be put to death. But when the trumpet is blown, then the people are to go up to the mountain."  Then Moses came down the mountain and told the people to get ready for worship. So they washed their clothes, and Moses told them, "Be ready by the day after tomorrow and don't have sexual intercourse in the meantime."

Exodus 19: 9b-15 GNB

It is the closing sentence that struck me: "Be ready by the day after tomorrow and don't have sexual intercourse in the meantime."

The NRSV renders it thus:  ‘Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.’

The KJV thus: 'Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.'

The NIV thus:'Prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations.'

It appealed to my sense of mischief, because I could envisage some old-style hell-fire preacher choosing this as his text.  In the GNB choice of words, no sex in 'the meantime' carries a whole heap of potential misappropriation following on from my recent sermon series on 'active waiting' as 'life in the meantime'.  As you can, those readers who've known me longest, I am still sat firmly on the 'silly settee'

But actually, when I be a teeny bit more serious, I am left with the fact that actually, there was no way Moses or anyone else could prove categorically that anyone other than themselves had obeyed this command, short of some extremely dodgy behaviour.  There had to be some kind of trust exercises, some kind of acceptance that we have no right to be privy to every part of people's lives, no right to ask certain questions of them.  We have to leave it between them and God.

All of which leads me into the verse or two from the psalm which struck me as I read them this morning:

But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.

Psalm 19:12

This is not talking about wilful disobedience to some (arbitrary) set of rules, it is about self-awareness and its limits.  This is not about me concealing my misdeeds from other people, but about being unaware of my shortcomings.  It reminds me that, no matter how obedient I am to the rules I have chosen to live by, I am not thereby made perfect or free from sin.  It reminds me that the transforming work of Christ in me is, temporally, if not theologically, incomplete.  It reminds me that I am, at best, 'work in progress'.

God of Sinai

Unapproachable

Untouchable

Issuing frightening words

Who can ever measure up?

Who can be truly clean?

Who can be properly free of the taint of sin?

If I confess the sins I know of,

The things I have done or failed to do

The attitudes I have cultivated or failed to cultivate,

I still fall short

Because my self knowledge in partial

I may think to lowly or too highly of myself

I may be unaware (blissfully?) of the way others see me

I may be ignorant of the consequences of this word or that action

My hidden faults

The 'unknown unknowns' of my imperfection

How can I confess what I do not know?

How can I be forgiven for what I cannot name?

Yet you forgive

You make me shiny and new

You give me umptieth chances

Not merely to do right and eschew wrong

Not simply to be good and avoid evil

But to grow

To grow -

In knowledge of who I am

In Christ

And what I called to be

With Christ

As your Spirit breathes life,

Abundant life,

Fulfilled and fulfilling life

Into my lungs.