Sunday's coming!

The Mark reading is particularly knotty this week - so here's a short reflection for the 8am service! Taking responsibility.. for one another Mark 9: 42-50 “If your hand causes your downfall.. cut it off”. Can these really be the words of Jesus? In our world we are a familiar with Islamic Shariah law as a proposed punishment for theft – cutting off the hand of a thief - and the thought of it is awful and barbaric. But Jesus is not suggesting a form of punishment – he is not talking about what we should do to others – he is using dramatic language to encourage people to take responsibility for their own actions. “If your foot causes your downfall – cut it off”. In other words, have nothing to do with the sort of excuse for behaviour which says ‘it wasn’t my fault, it was my roving eye, my lousy childhood, my physical urges – that made me do it. Jesus wants us to take responsibility for our own bodies and what we do with them. But Jesus is also clear that our responsibility d...

27-9-09 Harvest I’m probably betraying something about my age if I say that one of my favourite funny films is ‘Ghostbusters;. I was reminded of a particularly silly line from it when I looked at today’s psalm. One of the ghostbusters , Ray Stanz, is investigating a building and says ‘listen…do you smell something?” Were you struck by the similar line in the psalm ‘Taste – and see that the Lord is good’. Maybe it is a deliberate mixed metaphor – taste and see: or maybe the writer of the psalm means that we can use many of our sense to find that God is good. We have certainly used our senses today. We felt the refreshing splash of the water of baptism – promising Daniel the love and presence of God with him always. We see around us the bounty of harvest – and perhaps smell it, too, if we’re lucky: the apples are always my favourite smell, and the flowers look gorgeous too. Our senses are full of the wonderful things the earth has produced, and we have heard the reading from Joel remindi...

Harvest celebrations on Sunday (27th Sept) and a baptism, so I'm going with the theme of 'taste and see that the Lord is good', and basing worship on the 5 senses 'taste, hear, smell, feel & see that the Lord is good'. we have the water of baptism to feel, the Word of God to hear, the harvest goods to smell, the communion to feel (& taste) & everything around to see... that the Lord is good. I'm taking the year B harvest readings but adding in Psalm 34, so my readings are: Joel 2: 21-24 & 26 Psalm 34: 1-8 Matthew 6:25-33 I want the service to have a really celebratory feel. OK - better go & think some more.

With apologies for late posting! Following Jesus (James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37) Who’s the best? Who’s the greatest? The new Guinness Book of Records has just been published. I know this because various news bulletins have been full of amazing people – the tallest man in the world (8 foot 1), the woman with the most body piercings (4,225) and the person with the longest fingernails (over 28 feet long). I admit I find every edition of the book fascinating: who is the fastest, the first, the best. The first title for the followers of Jesus – even before they were called ‘Christians’ was “followers of the way”. What would it mean to be the best follower of the Way? Jesus’ disciples, in the Gospel reading that we heard, give a great example of what it does NOT mean. ‘What were you talking about while you were on the way?’ asks Jesus. The disciples say nothing – they are ashamed. If you listen carefully you can actually hear feet being scraped on the floor in that reading. It’s on...

Readings for this coming Sunday are: James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37 about wisdom and about greatness, and the values of the gospel. My thinking so far is about walking more closely with Jesus - reflecting on the bit in James 'draw near to God and God will draw near to you' - how do we get close to God, how do we live better lives, how do we nurture wisdom. There is something stirring in me about the dangers of the celebrity culture and the denigration of gentleness and peace... Will hopefully find time to think about this more carefully tomorrow.

Racial Justice (Mark 8: 27-38, Isaiah 50: 4-9a) You might wonder why we need to bother with racial justice Sunday, here in leafy Whittlesford. But I honestly think that as Christians we all have a responsibility towards understanding other people and challenging those aspects of our society which, sadly, are still racist. A few years ago, when I was living in Oxfordshire a member of my church was hosting a young man from the Gambia, Isaac, who had come to the town to have an artificial leg fitted. He had lost his leg when he had broken it playing football and an infection had set in. While he was waiting for the leg to be made after an initial fitting, he used his time to learn about provisions for teaching blind children in the UK – because he was a teacher of blind children back home. He was fascinated by the gadgets available for teaching blind and partially-sighted children and very quickly worked out how he could make those things simply and cheaply for his pupils. But he didn’...

Mark 7: 24-30; James 2: 1-10 Next Sunday is marked by some churches as Racial Justice Sunday. You might wonder why the churches feel they ought to get involved in action against racism. But today’s reading from the letter of James certainly states quite clearly our responsibility as Christians to the ‘other’ or the ‘stranger’. James writes: “If you are observing the sovereign law laid down in scripture ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ that is excellent. But if you show partiality, you are committing a sin and you stand convicted by the law as offenders.” Racism, exclusion of any kind, judging others by their skin colour, or clothes, or background, is a sin. It is laid down in law that we are to love our neighbour, and in the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus makes it crystal clear that our neighbour is the foreigner in need we come across on the road just as much as it is the person rather like us who happens to live next door. And yet what a puzzling Gospel reading we had. This same ...