Saw this on Jim Gordon's blog and had to pinch it! 

Lord grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference

Today my 'middle' Godson turns 18.  He has been in church I reckon around half a dozen times - his Baptism, mine (!) my ordination and the odd wedding.  I have been invited to share a family meal in honour of the occasion.

Today our lunch club ends its second year.  If everyone who is booked in turns up we will have over 60 people sitting down to share food and fellowship.  In two years, I've 'buried' about half a dozen.  A good half of them have been to our carol service teas and other events but as yet no one has joined a church (some are already members of our or other churches)

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with one of my deacons (one of the few folk of around my age!) and our pub-based 'Church Plant' (sounds awfully trifid like to me) has a rock band and will serve food in the interval.

On Friday I take my Mum out for a birthday lunch, and I can be fairly sure that conversation will include the Salvation Army (of which she is an offcial Adherent) and my sister's URC training (along with news of my brothers, nephews and nieces of course).

When each of my three Godsons was "done", I made it clear to the parents that I, at least, would take my responsibilties seriously.  But I find myself wondering - as I watch lifestyles and values that trouble me - what difference I've actually made. granted, I am now a 'tame vicar' useful for Bible questions in trivia quizzes but even so...

Our lunch club does a fantastic job, but there are those little niggles within the fellowship about "them" and the odd mutterings if we put club members' names on the prayer list.  Likewise with the plant, there is a sense that some people see this as 'bringing people into church' rather than into faith.

Being with my own highly ecumenical family is always challenging!  Sometimes I find myself having to take the middle ground when arguments erupt , recently over Christology and prayer: should you pray 'to or 'through' Jesus?  Discuss!(my Mum has a low Chrisology, consistent with her Jewish heritage I guess; my sister has  a much higher view - I recently wound up trying to explain the ontological significance of 'Son of God' in lay language - a great challenge!)

One of my greatest realisations, many years back,  was that I'm not repsonsible for how other people respond to the Gospel or how other people think it should be 'delivered,' all I am responsible for is fulfilling (or trying to) God's call on my life.  This released me from a lot of guilt and anxiety over those who had, visibly at any rate, not responded 'favourably.'  I also know that through the work I do, in some small way Gospel is expressed to 60 or so senior citizens, restaurant and pub staff, coach drivers and maybe even to my Godsons and their families, who, let's face it, would never abandon a well paid job to follow a call to eat with those who can never invite you back...

By the weekend I will undoubtedly be a few pounds heavier (good job I'm walking Hadrian's Wall next week) but as I chew over the things of this week, and recall Jesus the 'friend of sinners and tax-collectors' I dare to conclude that maybe, just maybe, I have something about right.

Three come along at once.

I posted a few days back about the closure of the chapel at Center Parcs, and I had hoped to attend the final service.

Now I have the date, and it clashes with a joint service at D+1, a morning service we had to work hard to get them to agree to...

Then I discover that the closure service at St Smells and Bells is also the same day and time...

Which to go to...?

Sadly, Center Parcs has to take lowest priority and will have to be missed.

Of the two remaining, my preference is to go St Smells and Bells as we have endeavoured to stand alongside them during the last year as they waited for the powers that be to formulate closure plans.  Further, this is obviously a 'one off', there will be more opportunities to go to D+1, none for St S&B.

Trouble is, of course D+1 may read something into me opting out of this service that we had specifically requested...

Life is complicated!

Today I've been writing my 'John's Portrait of Jesus' sermon, which uses as its its jumping off point the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1 - 18).  I had a lovely time playing with my commenatries and even my Greek Testment, discovering the way in which the word 'word' might have been understood all those years ago and how God's word 'does what it says' in Genesis 1 (not sure I'd ever quite grasped that before (no this is not a myth/literal debate, just the idea that a word did more than simply express a thought)).

I had a lovely time finding all the seven signs and (re-)discovering that with one exception (healing the man born blind) they were done without contact, five being by command and the other (walking on water) involving an unpredicated ego eimi (woo, she knows the phrases!).  The power of word as doing what it says shines through.  I'd never before thought about why John doesn't have Jesus making the same physical contact that say, Luke, does with sick and dead people, or even bread, but now I get it (I think).

I got all excited, then I thought about my congregation and realised that I was incapable of expressing this in words - not because they are dense but because it's all a bit technical and far away from their experience.  Then a moment of revelation (hee hee, good Johannine theme) - I have to incarnate what I want to share: the excitement of the word becoming flesh and revealing the glory of God is something I have to try to 'be' on Sunday.

When I was training, one of my tutors after coming to see me preach comented that I was very serious and never smiled - not the person they were used to seeing in college at all.  Well, there were reasons... Anyway, they also said - and it has obviously stuck with me - that I am the face of Jesus people see on a Sunday.  This is part of what I want to get across this Sunday, that (in the words of Paul) "you are the body of Christ" and the word needs to be lived daily so that people we meet may encounter Christ in us.

I don't think the sermon as written is my greatest ever - it has been a slog - but I pray that my excitement at discovering more of the riches of this gospel (which, let's face it isn't my favourite) and another bit of support for James 2:26b will not get lost in translation.

Yesterday I used my narrative sermon based on Luke 14, which seemed to be fairly well received.  For some reason the whole service only lasted 50 minutes (less songs?  shorter prayers?  less interaction in the 'introduction to theme' bit?) so I suggested that people take the opportunity to have a longer chat with each other, and share a little more deeply before rushing off home.

As usual, feedback was nothing and not a lot, but one person said they thought that the sermon was more 'Biblcial' than usual.  I asked if they meant that its style was more like the Bible - i.e. a story - but they said no, then failed really to explain why they thought this.

I am intrigued, because the basic preparation, and my perceived level of hermeneutics (interpretation) and exposition (explaining), was no different from usual.  Was it that the style obscured this - that it was the 'character' rather than me who did (apparently) the interpretting and applying?

I wonder what a 'Biblical' approach to a sermon might be?  To sit down, as a first century rabbi would have done, rather than to stand?  To stir up mutterings in the hearers, as Jesus did?  (Though of course "he read it lovely" as they'd say round here).  To begin 'thus says the LORD' in the style of the prophets?

I'm not sure I have any answers, but it's nice to get compliments, however obscure they may be!