The image of God's boiling rage inspires the author to focus on the kettle, as you do!

As with other domestic items, he notes the twin aspects of the technology that allows us to boil water, and how it can be employed for in different ways, some good, some bad, some neutral... steam to sterilise, hot water to make tea or coffee and so on.

His summary is that 'love and judgement go hand in hand' - the God who forgives is also the God who smites, and the two are inter-related.  Hmm (not a Holy Spirit hmm, just a human hmm I think). The correlation of judgement with smiting/punishing is problematic for me, not because choices don't have consequences, they do, but because bad things happen to good people, and we need to be very wary of seeing cause-and-effect where none such exists.  The child who is murdered by an angry or vengeful ex-lover has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with wrath... and somehow the God who is also love has seemingly done nothing.  The revered and saintly person whose life is lived for others struck down by a life-threatening illness has nothing to do with smiting or loving, it just is.

Yes, I believe that God is capable of anger, even of rage... but I also believe that God's mercy and love are stronger.  If God is a kettle, then it's a huge, automatic kettle, with a very efficient cut-out controller designed to nuclear standards... 

The author notes, and disagrees with, the discomfort many (myself included) have with a modern hymn (and otherwise I like it) that says 'on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied...'

I think the author is wrong... an angry God (wrath) who needs a victim (satisfaction) is no God at all! Let's follow the logic... If Jesus is (only) the son of God, then the cross, killing one human being, is sadistic. If Jesus is (only) God, then the cross is masochistic.  If Jesus is both, then this is sadomasochism in extremis, and frankly I just don't get it!

The cross is a profound mystery, an event, a moment when somehow or other God chosen to draw all the pain and suffering caused by human sin and finitude into God's very self.  This was no act of wrath, it was an an act of love.

If God is to be compared to a kettle, boiling water, then my prayer is that the water so boiled is employed to make the finest, most refreshing tea/coffee ever!

God of love and judgement, I am sure you do sometimes get very angry about how things are - but I also believe that anger does not lead to retribution, smiting and destruction.  Help me to distinguish between sin and those who sin, and to love others as you love me. Amen.

Today's object is the fridge-freezer, set alongside the parable of the man who built bigger barns and then died.

Fridge-freezers are viewed positively, allowing food to be preserved and helping to ease fluctuations in availability due to seasonal effects. However, there is the flip side of stockpiling food that is eventually discarded.

Loving God, help me to find a healthy balance between wise preparation and wasteful hoarding, not only of food but of any resources in my life. Show me how to employ the riches entrusted to me in the service of others.

(sorry this is so brief, am writing it at the end of a long, fairly intense, day)

Vacuum cleaners are the focus today - labour-saving devices intended to relieve the drudgery of housework - along with the story of Mary and Martha where Jesus tells Martha to stop fretting...

The idea of work as prayer is offered by the author, not a Protestant Work Ethic so much as a Benedictine understanding.

The final part fo the reflection, where the author plays with a verse from the hymn 'teach me, my God and King in all things thee to see' made my smile, and made his point pretty well.

The original words...

If done to obey Thy laws,

e'en servile labours shine;

hallowed is toil, if this the cause,

the meanest work divine.

In some hymn books this is updated thus:

A servant with this clause

makes drudgery divine:

who sweep s a room, as for thy laws

makes that and the action fine.

The author playfully offers this version...

When working for an hour

on vacuuming a stair,

who cleans up dust with suction power

makes that a task of prayer.

Maybe I need to keep that in mind next time I get out my vacuum cleaner...

This stunning painting by Raphael Soyer is currently doing the rounds among Minister-types I know.  It's absolutely stunning.

Jesus as washing machine - that's the essence of today's reflection!  Not just the 'Jesus washes whiter' take on soap powder ads of the 1980s, but Jesus as the 'easy' form of salvation!  The author compares the OT sacrificial system with hand washing - hard work and not always entriely successful.  Washing machines, on the other hand, you chuck it in, switch it on and, lo, perfectly clean laundry emerges.

Except when a red sock gets in the whites wash...

Except when you accidentally put you favourite wool jumper in the hot wash and it emerges just about big enough for a doll, and matted, and ruined...

Maybe I'm being mean, stretching the analogy too far... maybe the analogy is too simplistic anyway... maybe somewhere in between.

In Philippians, the apostle tells his readers to "continue to work out their salvation..." not because it isn't assured, but because it's an ongoing process not a one-off event.  My clothes may emerge fresh and clean from the washing machine, but they'll need to go back in again all too soon. Jesus may wash whiter, but the grime of a disordered world still finds its way back.

Cleansing God, just as I need to wash my body and launder my clothes, so I need to cleanse my soul.  Thank you for the twin gifts of confession and absolution, at the heart of which lie your promised forgiveness and salvation. Amen.