Sunday's coming!

Genesis 12.1-3. , Matt 28.16-20. Do you remember the rhyme: Here’s the church.. and here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people. It doesn’t work in Cranbrook, does it – here’s the church, and here’s the people – and there is no steeple & there are no doors! Sometimes we have to rethink what we church is. I was once waiting for someone at a church where I was the minister. It was a very popular church for weddings, with a large steeple. As I waited my mobile rang. “I’ve found Conduit Road – but where do I go next?” She said. “Do you see a big pointy building? That’s the church. I’m here.” No pointy building for Cranbrook! Other people might talk about going to a church they have belonged to all their life –where their parents were married and their grandmother was baptized as a baby. You don’t have that sort of history here. Or people might tell you that you have to be really sorted out to go to church – know what you believe, ready to si...

Luke 10: 38 – 42 The story of Mary & Martha is one you’ve almost certainly heard before. Mary – the good sister, the quiet, prayerful, listening one, come first in the title: and Martha is always second – the fussy one, the complaining one, the one who got it wrong. Jesus is clear “Mary has chosen the better part”. It is easy to hear this as a reprimand to those who favour practical work (many tasks) over listening quietly to Jesus. Those of us who are active, and sometimes overwhelmed with many tasks, can hear in this story a rebuke – we need to sit more listen more, pray more. And perhaps we do. But this is Not going to be a sermon exhorting you to less activity and more contemplation. Because Jesus also says to Martha ‘you are distracted by many things: there is need of only one thing’. We need just one thing. But what? I found myself this week wondering why Jesus didn’t just say what the one thing was. Is it prayer? Is it listening? Is it sitting and not fretting? Wh...