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A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life - Page 633

  • Third Sunday in Lent

    Today I am preaching on 'grace'.  I had planned to do 'sin and grace' - how stupid there is too much material in one of those, let alone both, for one service.  But first, a quick reflection from the Lectionary...

    Exodus 20:1-17
    Psalm 19
    1 Corinthians 1:18-25
    John 2:13-22

    A strange mixture!  The ten (plus) commandments, the Psalm we have been pondering for a few days, Paul's introductory words to the Corinthians about the foolishness of the cross, and John's clearance of the Temple - here not in Holy Week but right at the start of Jesus' ministry (whether this is a clever literary device, or whether he knew of a second incident, or whether he just doesn't care about chronology, I leave you to decide).

    It is interesting to juxtapose the Exodus and the John... a list of thou shalt/shalt nots and the total chaos in the Temple.  The religious authorities would have claimed they kept the Law to the letter but they had missed the point, it had become a stumbling block (to nick a phrase from the letter of Paul), more important not to have 'mucky money' than to have a space for worship; more important to tithe your mint and rue than to feed people who are hungry, more essential to point out fine details of the law to others than to love them...

    I just wonder, if Jesus walked in to my congregation today what it is that would cause him to overturn the table, drive out the zealots.  I wonder who it is he would affirm and who condemn.  I wonder...


    Loving God

    Lead me from legalism to love

    From proof texts to principles

    From self-righteousness to right-living


    Show me the

    Tree trunk

    In my eye


    Then


    (gently please!)


    Pull it out


    So that I can see

    My lovely

    Neighbour

    Whom

    You call me

    To love

  • Lent Reflections (18)

    It's Saturday morning, I'm due out for a day's walking and I've already handled a couple of 'crisis' emails (friends not church), so what readings are in store for me in my state of rush today?  I honestly have not looked until now:

    Psalm 19
    Exodus 19:16-25
    Mark 9:2-8

    Well... just read them (this is the ultimate in live blogging!)

    Exodus 19 has Moses up a mountain with God, and everyone else forbidden from trying to break through the cloud to see God.  Mark has Jesus up a mountain with Peter, James and John and being transfigured.  because its Mark we get the familiar 'don't tell anyone'  Psalm 19 is still Psalm 19, lovely as ever.

    Today I am off out walking.  I will be away from church (though not away from church people, it is after all a Churches Walking Club), I will be away from the laptop, I will be away from the phone.  If not impossible, it will be less easy for the everyday to 'break through', as the NRSV phrases it in the Exodus reading, I will have more opportunity for rest and/or reflection and/or encounter with God.

    Perhaps that's what I need to hear today.  Perhaps for me it is the 'come apart for a while' that is the message.

     

    Come away with me

    To a quiet place

    Shrouded in silence

    Hidden from noise

    And be

     

    But Lord, my friends needs me

    There is work to be done

    Calls to make

    Emails to send...

     

    Come away with me

    To a quiet place

    Let nothing break through

    The cloud of presence

    And be

     

    But Lord, my mind is whirling

    There are sermons to prepare

    Prayers to pray

    Visits to make

    Ironing to be done...

     

    Come away with me

    To a quiet place

    Empty your busy mind

    Enter the stillness

    And be

     

    But Lord..

     

    Be

     

    But

     

    Be

     

    ...

     

    Be

  • Lent Reflections (17)

    Well, today's readings are a slightly odd mixture:

    Psalm 19
    Exodus 19:9b-15
    Acts 7:30-40

    I know it's rather irreverent, but the Exodus reading left me bemused and feeling more than a little mischievous.

    The LORD said to Moses, "I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will believe you from now on." Moses told the LORD what the people had answered, and the LORD said to him, "Go to the people and tell them to spend today and tomorrow purifying themselves for worship. They must wash their clothes and be ready the day after tomorrow. On that day I will come down on Mount Sinai, where all the people can see me.  Mark a boundary around the mountain that the people must not cross, and tell them not to go up the mountain or even get near it. If any of you set foot on it, you are to be put to death; you must either be stoned or shot with arrows, without anyone touching you. This applies to both people and animals; they must be put to death. But when the trumpet is blown, then the people are to go up to the mountain."  Then Moses came down the mountain and told the people to get ready for worship. So they washed their clothes, and Moses told them, "Be ready by the day after tomorrow and don't have sexual intercourse in the meantime."

    Exodus 19: 9b-15 GNB

    It is the closing sentence that struck me: "Be ready by the day after tomorrow and don't have sexual intercourse in the meantime."

    The NRSV renders it thus:  ‘Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.’

    The KJV thus: 'Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.'

    The NIV thus:'Prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations.'

    It appealed to my sense of mischief, because I could envisage some old-style hell-fire preacher choosing this as his text.  In the GNB choice of words, no sex in 'the meantime' carries a whole heap of potential misappropriation following on from my recent sermon series on 'active waiting' as 'life in the meantime'.  As you can, those readers who've known me longest, I am still sat firmly on the 'silly settee'

    But actually, when I be a teeny bit more serious, I am left with the fact that actually, there was no way Moses or anyone else could prove categorically that anyone other than themselves had obeyed this command, short of some extremely dodgy behaviour.  There had to be some kind of trust exercises, some kind of acceptance that we have no right to be privy to every part of people's lives, no right to ask certain questions of them.  We have to leave it between them and God.

    All of which leads me into the verse or two from the psalm which struck me as I read them this morning:

    But who can detect their errors?
    Clear me from hidden faults.

    Psalm 19:12

    This is not talking about wilful disobedience to some (arbitrary) set of rules, it is about self-awareness and its limits.  This is not about me concealing my misdeeds from other people, but about being unaware of my shortcomings.  It reminds me that, no matter how obedient I am to the rules I have chosen to live by, I am not thereby made perfect or free from sin.  It reminds me that the transforming work of Christ in me is, temporally, if not theologically, incomplete.  It reminds me that I am, at best, 'work in progress'.

     

    God of Sinai

    Unapproachable

    Untouchable

    Issuing frightening words

    Who can ever measure up?

    Who can be truly clean?

    Who can be properly free of the taint of sin?

     

    If I confess the sins I know of,

    The things I have done or failed to do

    The attitudes I have cultivated or failed to cultivate,

    I still fall short

    Because my self knowledge in partial

     

    I may think to lowly or too highly of myself

    I may be unaware (blissfully?) of the way others see me

    I may be ignorant of the consequences of this word or that action

     

    My hidden faults

     

    The 'unknown unknowns' of my imperfection

     

    How can I confess what I do not know?

    How can I be forgiven for what I cannot name?

     

    Yet you forgive

    You make me shiny and new

    You give me umptieth chances

    Not merely to do right and eschew wrong

    Not simply to be good and avoid evil

    But to grow

     

    To grow -

    In knowledge of who I am

    In Christ

     

    And what I called to be

    With Christ

     

    As your Spirit breathes life,

    Abundant life,

    Fulfilled and fulfilling life

    Into my lungs.

  • Lent Reflections (16)

    A little later posting today, have been out enjoying some ministerial privilege as a PAM mentor, meeting with the PAM entrusted to my, woefuilly inadequate, care.

    Today's readings:

    Psalm 19
    Exodus 19:1-9a
    1 Peter 2:4-10

    Each of these is, I think, quite well known, and each is rich in metaphor and symbol - the comparison of the sun with an athlete, God with a mother eagle, believers with the stone blocks from which a building is constructed.  Each of them combines near poetry with some stern statements, each of them combine wonder with awe.

    The 1 Peter is where I want to go today, partly because our Thursday afternoon Bible study group has spent some time reflecting on this letter, and partly because there are verses in it that confuse me...

    Come to the Lord, the living stone rejected by people as worthless but chosen by God as valuable.
    Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.
    For the scripture says, "I chose a valuable stone, which I am placing as the cornerstone in Zion; and whoever believes in him will never be disappointed."  This stone is of great value for you that believe; but for those who do not believe: "The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all."  And another scripture says, "This is the stone that will make people stumble, the rock that will make them fall." They stumbled because they did not believe in the word; such was God's will for them.  But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.  At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.


    1 Peter 2: 4 - 10 GNB

    The bit that puzzles me, and I have never heard anyone attempt to explain is this "This is the stone that will make people stumble, the rock that will make them fall."  I find this more than a tad perplexing... the idea that Jesus Christ is a stumbling block, a means of tripping people up as they endeavour to draw nearer to God.  I find it perplexing because I can only hear it in conjunction with Jesus stern words in Matthew 18 regarding people who put stumbling blocks in the path of the 'little ones'

    ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling-block comes!

    Matthew 18:5 - 7 NRSV

    There seems to me no easy way of holding these two together, without some serious mental and theological gymnastics... either being a stumbling block to another is a bad thing or it's not; either God predestined some people to unbelief, and that's somehow OK, or God did not.  I cannot make much sense of this.  Maybe some more spiritual or more theologically equipped reader can tell me how it all hangs together within the context of a belief in a God who is love (e.g. 1 John 4), who does not want any to be lost (2 Peter 3:9), and who entered our world with the purpose not of condemnation but salvation of the whole cosmos (John 3:16-17).

    Twice in the past I have posted the hymn/poem stumbling blocks and stepping stones, so I won't repeat it  (but you can find it here and here).  I like the idea of transforming the things that make us stumble into stepping stones to new understanding, new believing, new ways of living and being. 

    Might it just be, that when we feel that Jesus trips us up, it is because we have failed to notice the rut in the road or the tree trunk lying across it or the precipice for which we are headed?  I don't know.  I still don't 'get' the idea of Jesus causing people to stumble, of wilfully tripping them up.

     

    Puzzled, God, I'm puzzled:

     

    I don't understand these words

    Canonised as inspired by you.

     

    I don't understand how or why

    Jesus becomes a stumbling block

    An obstacle to understanding.

     

    I don't mind being puzzled,

    Don't mind being pulled up short and made to think

     

    I don't mind the fact that it is beyond my intellect

    To understand what it is that you are saying

     

    I don't mind that it's all beyond me

     

    But

     

    I can't see how

    You

    Who are love

    Whose purpose in incarnation

    Was to redeem and restore

    All things

    Might trip us up in our quest for you

     

    Might it be

    That we are walking backwards,

    Looking the wrong way,

    And collide with you,

    Lose our balance

    And fall over?

     

    Might it be

    That once we have stumbled

    You reach down

    Take our muddy hand

    Lift us up

    Clean our grazed knees

    Kiss away the tears from our eyes

    Then,

    Gently, if firmly,

    Redirect our feet in your path?

     

    I'd like to think so, God,

    To hope so

    To be assured that all is not lost

    Nor can be lost

     

    Lead me on,

    Lead us on,

     

    Hobbling and limping

    Halt and lame

    (as a former generation would express it)

    Wounded walkers

     

    Seeking to step forward

    A day at a time

    With you.

     

    Amen.

  • Happy Saint's Day P

    One of my blogging-buddies, who I have never met in life, but who demonstrates my hunch that there are far more genuine blogs than not, is known online as Perpetua.  Another pseudonymous, but genuine blogger, Archdruid Eileen  observes that today is the festival of SS Perpetua and Felicity.  So a very happy saint's day to P, and thanks to both of you for being the demonstration that the blog world, if sometimes necessarily pseudonymous, is more good than bad, true than false, authentic than fake.