Wow, we had a wonderful time this morning, moving from the exuberance of Palm Sunday on into Holy Week and to Gethsemane... and essential exercise for th emany who for one reason or another cannot participate in the midweek services.

Now, like Jesus, we are committed and compelled to the way ahead, we cannot stop the inevitable course of events that draw us closer and closer to Calvary.  This week we have daily lunchtime and evening services everyday - not all led by us, but in which we will be involved.  It will be quite relentless, for sure, but it will draw us deeper and deeper into the story that shapes our lives.

For now, just the briefest pause, then we step out, with Jesus...

Hosanna!  Hallelujah!  Hurray!  And other happy jolly sounds beginning, it seems, with the letter 'H' (that's aitch by the way, not haitch :0) )  Oh yes, and happy All Fools Day if that's what you're marking as well/instead.

Today the lectionary offers us overload:

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1—15:47 or Mark 15:1-39 [40-47]

Because our services this year are rooted in Mark, I'll reflect on some of the other readings here.  I haven't read everything on offer today, just settled for Isaiah and Philippians

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens - wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.   The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.   I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.  The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.  It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

Isaiah 50:4-9a NRSV

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.  Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2: 5-11 NRSV

I suppose what struck me most was the Isaiah, and within that the opening couple of sentences.  Sure, we can see the hints of Jesus' rejection in what follows, and read the words as spoken of him, but to be honest this morning I found the first couple of sentences spoken to - dare I say - of me, and indeed of any and every preacher.  To sustain the weary with a word... what a lovely calling.  Not sure I achieve it all that often, I'm far better at didactic than pastoral preaching.  But I do try.  I try to think what impact my words will have on the people in my congregation, the people who read the stuff I post here.  I hope, too, that my ears are at least half open each new day to hear what God may have to say to me - through scripture, through music, through nature, through people, through reading...

Today we celebrate in festal parade

Hallelujah!  Amen!

Today we laugh and cheer in joy

Hallelujah!  Amen!

Today someone is weeping deep inside

Hosanna... God please save

Today someone is visibly angry and annoyed

Hosanna... God please save

Today we sing praises to our Lord

Hallelujah!  Amen!

But will we walk, with him, the Calvary road?

Hosanna... God please save

This morning, Lord, you speak in my ear

Hallelujah!  Amen!

Help me to speak to the weary a sustaining word

Hosanna... God please save

~

Ride on, ride on in majesty

Hark all the crowds hosanna cry...

Ride on, ride on in majesty

In lowly pomp ride on to die...

Bow down your head to mortal pain

Then take, oh Lord, your power and reign.

Late posting today - been out with my Deacs for a half day reflection day... and it's been really good :-)

Today's passages:

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Jeremiah 33:10-16
Mark 10:32-34, 46-52

Of these three, the one I want to focus on is the Mark, or more specifically the gap...

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again." 

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."   And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?"  And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"  They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.  So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognise as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.  When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"   Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"  Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you."  So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.  Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again."  Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:32-52

Why, I ask myself, do the compilers of the lectionary omit the words I've changed to grey?  And why does the writer of Mark include them at that place?  In Matthew's account, the question is put in the mouth of the mother of the twin disciples; it is she who seeks status rather than they.  Otherwise, the two accounts are broadly similar, though not identical.  So why do the lectionary writers skip past this?  The short answer is that I don't know!  Perhaps it hints too strongly towards Maundy Thursday for thie purposes?  I am left puzzled and intrigued, if none the wiser.

Tomorrow we begin the last stage of our journey as we mark Palm Sunday (or Passion Sunday for RC churches), and as we do so we have these words ringing in our ears "... whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Perhaps, Lord, we don't want to read these words of the twin brothers

Because in them we recognise something of ourselves

Perhaps we are imagining our heavenly reward,

The status you will afford us

The resounding 'well done good and faithful servant'

That assures us our lives have been well spent.

Perhaps, Lord, we don't want to hear words about service or lowliness

Because in them we recognise your voice speaking to us

Perhaps we fear the toil of servant-discipleship

The unrewarded, unrewarding labour of the lowly

The lack of recognition of anything we do

The lack of assurance that anything we do is worth a fig

Lord, as we skip over troublesome words

Dispel our blindness towards what you want to show us

Our deafness to your voice

And lead us onwards in your service

Day by day

Amen

The readings today...

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Jeremiah 33:1-9
Philippians 2:12-18

Again these are fairly well known passages.  Nothing terribly profound today - I'm in a bit of a hurry to fit this in before a whole host of important things.

Way back when, the joke was that Jeremiah 33:3 was God's telephone number (cf Whitehall 123 etc) - 'call upon me and I will answer'.  I suppose it doesn't really work in this digital age or email, text, Twitter, blogs and Facebook, but even so, there is something encouraging about the promise it contains.  Beware simplistic readings though, sometimes, humanly speaking, it feels we get the engaged tone, or queuing message "your prayer is important to us, please wait will we try to connect you" followed by soon sort of angel-choir-muzak; or even, dare I suggest voicemail "sorry, there is no-one to hear your prayer right now, but if you leave a message we will get back to you".  it's not that God is slow to hear or slow to respond, just that sometimes we think we know the correct reply in advance and are miffed if we don't get it, and get it now.

Perhaps it is the Philippians that is worth playing with though, especially this verse:

Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.

Philippians 2:12b-13 GNB

This verse is often overlooked because it disturbs any tidy model of soteriology that operates purely on a 'transaction' basis - pray the prayer and you're in, the end.  Yes, there has to be a point when we decide for or against this Jesus and his claims, but conversion and - according to this passage anyway - salvation are a process in which we participate actively.  Salvation is not just a golden ticket to heaven or a 'get out of jail free' card, it is a process of transformation in which we participate.  The old 'faith and works' dilemma, which has raged through history and is always at the back of my mind in its James 2 expression - 'faith without deeds is dead'.  Perhaps the deeper question is, how exactly do we 'complete our salvation' by working together, with God to be transformed...

God of eternity, who answers when we call

Who hears our 'yes' to Jesus

And who draws us into a process of conversion

More and more into your own likeness

Help us to tune in to your voice

And to be open to your Spirit's transformation

Until, in your time, our salvation is complete

Amen

Well I never did.  Today my lovely Bible Study group finished a series on 1 Peter, which has proved both challenging and very interesting.  They are very keen to pick up something after Easter and after we'd tossed around a few ideas they decided they'd be curious to look at some of the Apocrypha (the bit after the OT and before the NT that proddy non-conformists threw out somewhere along the line, but from which chunks appear on plaques in chapels up and down England of not the rest of the UK*).  The thought is to set some of the material alongside OT and or NT passages.

I am excited by this but have no resources to help me here, and a quick google hasn't helped much - just threw up a few forty year old commentaries at high prices.  Anyone out there point me at anything they've used when working with this material?  Just to clarify, we'll be looking at those books which appear in Catholic or Orthodox Bibles not the other weird and wonderful that are generally excluded but found their way into the middle of the "NRSV anglicised edition with apocrypha"  so beloved of UK theological establishments.

I'll leave the gnostic stuff for another time...!

* By way of an example, Ecclesiasticus 44:1-15 (aka Sirach 44:1-15) in KJV, part of which adorned the wall at Dibley (the plaque that was located nearest the organ console, in case anyone from there is reading)

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.
The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power from the beginning.
Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies:
Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent are their instructions:
Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing:
Rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations:
All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times.
There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported.
And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them.
But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.
With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant.
Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes.
Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out.
Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.
The people will tell of their wisdom, and the congregation will shew forth their praise.