Tonight I am leading a Bible Study on John 4 (Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well) based somewhat loosely on the Big-hearted Lyfe guide.  This group meets monthly and enjoys what might be described as 'problematising' passages.  Most of the folk who come along are very well read, many have forgotten more than I ever knew about literary matters, and it is not easy to find a new angle, a new approach or whatever.  It probably doesn't help that I have preached on this passage oodles of times and heard oodles of other people preach on it too.

So, in the end I have decided to extend the range of verses beyond those in the guide book, and split the story into four parts.  I have conjured up some discussion starters which I'm not going to post here in case any of the group members happen to read this between now and 7:30.

For anyone else who might be interested, can I suggest you take some time to look at the first seven verses and see how they set the scene for what comes next... what do we learn about the embryonic Jesus' movement?  Why did Jesus et al take the quick route north?  And how did taking that road 'make all the difference' to plagiarise the well loved poem "The Road Less Travelled", though in this case it was possibly the road more travelled...

The theme that Roots invited us to explore this morning was repentance and to do so via the Greek etymological root of 'metanoia' which can be expressed 'think again'.  A good idea.  A helpful idea.

As I prepared the sermon I found myself recalling some of Benjamin Keach's worst doggerel - the stuff that makes you wonder how it ever was that Baptists came to sing hymns...

Repentance like a bucket is

To pump the water out

For leaky is our little ship

Which makes us look about.

If you want to find yourself unable to get this out of your brain for a week, you can sing it to the tune of 'Our God, our help in ages past' the author which was contemporaneous (roughly anyway) with Keach.

It is dire as hymnody, but as a metaphor I quite like it - repentance as an ongoing process of baling water out of a ship that perhaps leaks or risks being overwhelmed by the rough seas of life... the sense of being all in it together (plural pronouns throughout).  Repentance not as turning round through 180 degrees (never quite 'got' that as it implies oging back whence you came) but as a process that never ends.

If you wanted to link it to some newer doggerel (we didn't) then how about

With Jesus in the vessel you can smile at the storm

Smile at the storm, smile at the storm

With Jesus in the vessel you can smile at the storm

As we go sailing home...

Again rubbish poetry but there is some merit in the idea of Jesus riding with us through the storms of life, not miraculously calming the sea, but sharing the experience.  Not so sure about smiling at the storms, more likely to grimace, but even so, plural language and life that is not all sunshine and absolutes.

So, repentance as a bucket, or maybe an act of baling, that goes on and on, and in which Christ participates... from the doggerel a germ of a helpful illustration, I think.

Our Thursday afternoon Bible study group has just begun a series using the BMS 'Discover your Shape in Mission' resource, something I used a long time ago, but remains valuable and relevant almost a decade later.  One of the suggested exercises for the first study was that we each identified something we'd like to do that is pleasurable by the time we reached the end of the series.  Some found it more difficult than others to accept the val;idity of choosing a leisure/pleasure activity but we pretty much managed it.  No names, no pack drill (whatever that really means!) but here are the things we identified...

• Walk the Clyde footpath
• Take up baking again
• Practice playing hymns
• Learn a new piano piece
• Decorate a room
• Try to be more appreciative of others

We will hold one another accountable and hopefully our last meeting before Easter will include some musical and gastronomic fruits of our labours!!

A very long time, the day after my ordination in fact, I went into a large branch of a now defunct electrical retailer to order a cooker.  The guy taking my order asked me if it was 'Miss' or 'Mrs' and I said, "Reverend".  His response, without even blinking, was, "is that Miss Reverend or Mrs Reverend?".  It still makes me laugh more than nine years on.

This week I ordered a new heater for the vestry from a well known department store using their 'click and collect' service on the basis that they could deliver it to the supermarket just a couple of minutes walk from the Gathering Place.  Despite some internal hiccups and left hands not knowing what right hands were doing, I finally managed to pick it up this morning, and had to chuckle to myself that the name said R Gorton.  This despite me having given my first name in full in the online form... it appears that they take the data from the card details, and my card has my title and name, so their software decided my first named was Reverend...  what can I say?

Between that and English Heritage insisitng I am a Rev Dr becuase using the abbreviation Revd confused their software I seem to be called almost anything but my actual name. 

Maybe I should just combine them all and be... Miss/Mrs/Ms Rev Dr Reverend Catriona... The again, perhaps not.

This morning's PAYG focused on Luke 5: 12 - 16

Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.’ Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately the leprosy left him. And he ordered him to tell no one. ‘Go’, he said, ‘and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.’ But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.

The thing that struck me - which was not what the guided reflection suggested, was the role of choice in the story. 

The man chose to go to Jesus.  Maybe he was desperate.  Maybe he was hopeful.  Maybe he felt he had nothing left to lose.  Maybe he was angry.  Maybe he was sad. Maybe he was... well I don't know.  But he made a choice to enter the city and seek out a wandering rabbi-thaumaturgist and make his plea, "if you are willing, if you so choose, you can heal me..."

Jesus chose not only to respond, but how to respond.  He could have said no. He could have used this as an occasion for some kind of object lesson on faith or sin or whatever.  He could have sent the man far away to wash in a foreign river.  He could have said or done all manner of things, but he made his choice... I do choose, be clean.  Then he instructs the man to tell no-one, though he is to also get his cure confirmed by those qualified to assess his health and to fulfil the rituals that will restore him to the faith community (bit of a contradiction there Jesus!!).

When word gets out, Jesus is innundated with people wanting to be made well... his choice has consquences, which he maybe anticipated in the command to tell no-one, and so he makes another choice - to withdraw and be with God.  I think it is this last bit that probably spoke to me the most.  How easy it is to be overwhelmed by doing good stuff, Godly stuff that arises out of one particular incident, event or activity.  If I'm honest, I suppose I quite like being in demand, it makes me feel valued and wanted, but my it isn't always the wisest course of action to extend or expand on the one-offs.

I do wonder whether Jesus fully anticipated the impact this healing would have.  Certainly it seems that he found the need to hide away sometimes, in order to re-focus on what God's priorities were (or to put it another way, to pray).  If there is an 'object lesson' in this story (and there doesn't have to be, in general that's poor approach to scripture) then for me it is something about choices and consequences, and permission to back off or hide away in order to re-focus.  Whether I will remember the lesson tomorrow, never mind the next time I find myself in a self-made 'bind' is another thing altogether!!