Last night I was reading the set portion of Matthew 9 and 10, although I got carried away and read a bit further than the suggestion of the notes.  One of the things that struck me is just how often the lists of the twelve disciples are read out of the context in which they are set.  So it is/was with Matthew 9/10.

Matthew 10: 1 - 8 NRSV

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

So, it is quite clear that Judas was one of those who went out on the crazy, exciting adventure of preaching the good news, curing sick people, raising dead people, cleansing lepers and casting out demons.  Wow!  All of which makes it the more heart-achingly sad that his story took the turn it did.

Matthew (and for that matter Luke) doesn't  record the twelve being sent out in twos, as does Mark 6:7.  Even so, I found myself wondering how the pairings worked out... were there obvious pairs like Peter and Andrew or did Jesus ignore with natural friendships and choose who would work with who in order to help them grow?  Who did Judas go with?  (Or for that matter Thomas, John, Simon the Zealot, James son of Alphaeus, Nathaniel/Thaddeus...)  What did they encounter?  How did their relationships develop on the way?  How did this experience impact Judas?

A few years ago a minister friend of mine had a crisis of faith and resigned their post.  Among questions they, and others, asked were what did that make of the rites they'd performed... were the (infant) baptisms still valid?  What of the sermons they had preached - were they of God or just clever rhetoric?  I would not set my friend alongside Judas, as though somehow they had betrayed Jesus to death, but just maybe there are some parallels?  What of the person whose cure had its origins in Judas' touch or prayer?  What of the person who found faith from hearing him speak?  Were these valid?  My gut instinct says 'yes'... and I suspect scripture would concord "whoever is not against us is for us."  In those moments, surely, Judas was 'for' not 'against'?

I wonder what you think?

The first year I consciously 'did' Lent I was 15.  I gave up sugar in tea/coffee (no small undertaking in a family where everyone else had two teaspoons of sugar in everything).  Over the following years the abstentions grew and grew - no sweets, no chocolate, no puddings, no sugar at all, no caffeine.  Each year I collected the money I would/might have spent on these and donated it to charity - SCIAFs 'wee box' idea is not exactly new, though it's a good one.

Yesterday's weekly shop included a pack of dark chocolate digestive biscuits, made by a firm based in Leicestershire as it happens.  So each day I can have just one chocolate digestive (that will be a challenge once the pack is open) as I ponder my many blessings and the temptations that we in the affluent west are so readily seduced by.  I don't think the cost of a pack of biscuits is going to make a good donation to anything, so I will, belatedly, join in with others across Bappy-land doing the Christian Aid 'Count Your Blessings' scheme.

It struck my in an idle moment that I've 'done Lent' for as many years as tradition tells us Jesus lived, so maybe I am entitled to a year off for good behaviour?!

An earthquake in New Zealand, a country already shocked and rocked by a recent mining disaster. 

An earthquake in Japan along with widespread tsunami warnings.

A reminder that humanity will never subdue - as in control - the earth.

A reminder of the frailty and vulnerability of life as people going about their daily lives either have them extinguished in a moment or slowly ebbed away from mortal wounds or impossibility of rescue.

Reading Angela's blog post of Psalm 46 I found myself pondering also 1 Kings 19.  At first sight/hearing the two may not seem to connect, not least as in the 1 Kings passage the LORD is notably absent from the earthquake, wind and fire but is detected in 'the sound of sheer silence' (NRSV).  On (brief) reflection I think perhaps they don't disagree but have different emphases.

Psalm 46, in the crude Catriona translation says " even though the world is in turmoil and earthquakes, wind and fire disturb you" ... "shut up, stop what you're doing and listen... I AM still God and I AM still in charge" 

It isn't that God abandons us to the consequences of the earthquakes, wind and fire, I am sure God is very present within them, it is that God is sometimes silently present.  Maybe we'd like God to say 'desist' to the storm, like Jesus did on Lake Gennesaret, but most likely God says, silently, "I AM here, I AM with you, it hurts me too..."

"Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, oh still small voice of calm."

Let's pray for people affected by these latest human tragedies that they will not feel abandoned (by the world as well as God) and for ourselves that our responses will bring lasting transformation and not be mere, soul salving rhetoric.

Not a lot to say today - spent half the morning shivering in a cubicle at the hopsital waiting for various people to do various things to me.  Not entirely sure why the waiting room is at sauna temperature and the treatment area rather chilly but there it is.  All is well and everyone was happy with what they saw/did/whatever.

Lots of mildly medical contradictions though...

(1) when I left hospital a month ago... 'keep your arm moving and especially bending and straightening it' whilst 'resting it on a cushion untill the swelling goes down'

(2) in caring for my scars... 'massage them with E45 (or moisturiser) regularly' whilst 'keeping them covered with tape' (the taping is meant to continue for three months to assist in making flatter, smoother scars)

(3) on managing the seroma in my back whilst caring for my reconstruction... 'wear something with lycra to provide pressure on the seroma site' whilst 'avoiding pressure on the reconstruction'  (anyone come across a lycra half-garment?!)

So, today I was injected with what my consultant termed a 'magic injection' which is meant to stop the seroma (which had just been drained) recurring, saw a physio who was as bewildered as I as to the cause for concern over my arm movement five weeks post surgery (she was impressed by my climbing the wall!) and a consultant who was very happy with how my scars are healing.  So, onto mega-stretching arm exercises, needing to find a husband to massage the muscles whilst I stretch them (! that's extrapolated from what the physio said...) and hoping my flatter back stays flatter.

Meantime my hair continues to grow back steadily and I have the cutest little eyelashes you ever did see beneath my gently regrowing Healy-brows (just maybe they'll be a little more ladylike now?!).  All is going well and all medics are happy... a good job jobbed!

Last week my Bible notes took a fairly close look at Matthew 6.  What struck me most, and which never seemed to evoke comment, was the frequent use of the word 'reward,' at least in the translation I was using.  In each little set of cautions the general gist is 'don't do it where people will see it to get an earthly reward but do it privately and God will reward you.'  This left me wondering about the whole concept of doing things to get a reward anyway... surely we ought to give alms, say, because it's the right thing to do not because people or God will give us a medal (or however we understand the reward).

Checking an online interlinear, the Greek is evidently more subtle... the public displays earn "misthon" whilst the private approaches lead to divine "apodosei".  Alas my Greek isn't good enough to discern the difference, all my Greek books are at church, and the www isn't helping much.  Anyone out there able to give me a hint as to the significance (or otherwise) of the choice of words and their better translations?

Still doesn't help me with the reward aspect as a potential motivation for doing the right thing, not yet what the reward might be understood to be, but it may move my thinking along just a little bit.