... of the Baptist Unions' Declarations of Principle...

It shall be the duty of every Baptist congregation to be purveyors of the finest home-baking for any and all ecclesiatical events whether Baptist or ecumenical.

You know it's true so why fight against the inevitable?!

For my last birthday, a circle of my friends clubbed together to give me a VERY generous financial gift, and I have finally got round to deciding how to spend it... this week I became the owner of a shiny new Kindle, along with a smart blue cover and 3G connection.  Being the good minister type person that I am, the first book I bought for it was an NRSV (with apocrypha) not as quick to navigate as a real Bible it must be said, but handy to have one with me that is light enough to fit in my bag with print that is big enough to read.  I also picked up a tourist guide ready for my trip to Hungary for the sum of 72p... can't be bad!

The real test will be to download a book I want to read properly, cover to cover, but so far, so good.  I hope my friends will consider their gift money well spent!

I have to smile though, because of the way I set up my account way back when, Amazon thinks my first name is Revd, so my Kindle is, Revd's Kindle... that seems quite cute somehow.

Today's readings are a rather odd selection...

Psalm 51:1-12
Habakkuk 3:2-13
John 12:1-11

Still Psalm 51, but now joined by Habbakuk and a wrathful God smiting rivers and mountains trmapling nations, and the tender story of Jesus' being anointed at Bethany from John.  Very odd.

Scripture can be puzzling, and all too often we skip past the verses or passages that prove enigmatic.  So today I want to play, be it ever so briefly with something the John passage...

Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.
You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.

John 12:7 -8 NRSV

You will always have the poor with you... is this so?  There will always be people who have too little means to provide for themselves?  That, no matter how many handouts, how many schemes, how much charitable giving and how much aid work, some people will always have too little, will always be dependent?  Is it really the case that we can never overcome poverty?  Is the chant of 'make poverty history' doomed to failure?

We tend to read this passage, and probably correctly,  as Jesus saying, this is my moment, and in pouring out the perfume Mary (or any other unnamed woman in similar stories) is acknowledging that.  The opportunities to give to the poor will still be there, but this opportunity is a one off.  So is Jesus maybe speaking somewhat ironically?  The poor will always be with you - you're never ging to really tackle poverty, this is just talk arising from missing the point.  How holy it sounds to say 'the money could have been given to the poor" but you have no more intention of doing that than flying to the moon (or whatever a first century equivalent expression might have been).  Rather than an ontological inevitability, poverty is inevitable because of self-centredness.  That feels preferable, I think, and gives our charitable giving and aid-work at least some sense of hope.

The poor will always be with yoy.  Why?  Because individually and collectively you will never care enough to make poverty history.  Jesus words do not give us permission to give up and say, well that's just the way it is; instead they challenge us to examine our own lives and see the impact we have on others, especially 'the poor' that nebulous part of humanity of which we do not see ourselves as part.  Lots more I could play around with using the Matthean and Lukan variants of the beatitudes, but I'll leave it there for now; it is Saturday after all.

The poor will always be with you

Who are 'the poor' Lord?

How do we measure poverty?

And is this just one more trap

Into which we fall

In our attmepts at self-justification?

How do we find the balance, Lord,

Between giving to the poor

And spotting the moments

When something else

Is more important -

Can such a judgement ever be made?

If not ontological inevitability

But product of human sin and finitude

Then show me, Lord

How I can both give to the pour

And lavish my devotion on you.

One dozen blueberry cheesecake cupcakes.  One dozen carrot cake cupcakes

To be delivered to the churches' ceilidh in aid of Christian Aid Scotland's Malawi project.

Why do cupcakes now have double barreled names?

And why am I baking yummy cakes during Lent when I'm not able to sample them?

And how many of my male colleagues have been baking this afternoon?

Ah, questions, questions!!

Today's PAYG employed a reading from the apocrypha, something that Roman Catholics and Eastern Christians value, and, shush, don't tell anyone, is the source of many inscriptions on plaques in Victorian Baptist chapels.  Here is what was read, from Wisdom Chapter 2:1-2; 12 - 20

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
‘Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.

‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.’

So.  Is this divinely inspired writing?  Should it be in the canon of scripture?  Why?  Why not?

Lots of people do not know how the canon of scripture evolved, how late it was before any of the versions of the Bible were agreed.  Some early Christians wanted to throw out the entire Old Testament, others were dubious about the Gospel of John or the Letter of James.  Most people don't spot the parentheses at the start of John 8 or the three endings offered for the gospel of Mark.  Even less will read the footnotes on large chunks of the OT that point to the absence of complete early manuscripts or the significantly different possible renderings of substantial chunks of text (take a look at footnotes on, for example, Isaiah if you don't believe me).  We just take it as read that this is the stuff God inspired, provided it's in our preferred translation of course, and that's the final word. 

A comment on another blog I read got me thinking though, the writer posed a question along the lines of, if we were to undertake the task now of forming a canon of scripture, what might be 'in' or 'out'?  What would you include or exclude and why?  It's not an easy task, you have to take books as a whole, I'm not giving the option of a paper doily Bible (tearing out the bits you don't like to make it pretty) or a confetti Bible (collecting the bits you do like, tossing them in the air and seeing how they land).  So, if you reject a book, you reject all of it; if you keep a book you keep all of it.  I wonder what you end up with?  What is lost or gained as a result?

Or, as an alternative, keeping the Bible as it stands, what would be your list of deutero-canonical books (an alternative name for the apocrypha), a secondary canon, of lower authority than the Bible, but still important to shaping and informing your faith and discipleship.  Why these books?  What emphases are overlooked or consciously excluded?  Why is that?