Posts

Showing posts from August, 2012

A right strawy epistle !

Well that was what Martin Luther thought of James. But I think this week I'm going to go with the reading from it (James 1: 17-27) as my main text. I love the 'every generous act of giving,  every perfect gift is from above' start. The idea of living as creatures of grace: yet James doesn't let us get away with sitting back and letting God do all the work 'be doers of the word, not simply hearers of it'. As I feel poised between holiday & another 'academic year' James feels just right to me... more thoughts to follow.

Still the bread of life!

After a few weeks of not preaching I'm back in the saddle but out of the habit of posting - sorry. Last week I did a sum up of where all this 'bread of life' stuff has brought us, and this week's Gospel reading of John 6: 56-69 STILL seems to be on the same theme - even some of Jesus' disciples have got fed up & gone home! As I had a baptism & communion I did my best to make sense of the 'eat my body' bit... I would forgive you for finding the reading from John’s gospel pretty strange. Jesus says to the people in the synagogue in Capernaum – people gathered to worship God, rather like we are, ‘those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them’. No wonder some people who until then have been following Jesus decide to top at that point. Jesus – this man who has shown himself to be a teacher, and a healer, and someone who can work miracles, seems to have complete lost it and is saying ‘you have to eat me’. Before this, J