Sunday's coming!

Matthew 20: 1-16 The labourers have been hard at work: all around us there are cut fields, full barns, plentiful stores. And here in church we have the fruits of harvest – carrots, apples, bread. God has blessed us with plenty and we have come to sing our gratitude. So it’s good that we have heard a gospel reading dealing with harvest and plenty. But where we might expect gratitude we hear grumbling instead. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat”. Jesus says ‘the kingdom of heaven is like this’ and we try really hard to nod our heads wisely as Jesus declares the largesse of the landowner, who pours out abundant grace on those who only worked one hour. We know in our heads that God loves us all with a love so outrageous and so generous that it cannot be described as ‘fair’. This parable may be trying to convince our heads that this is a story about God’s grace and we should accept that, b...

Matthew 15: 21-18, Isaiah 56: 1, 6-8 Sometimes I wonder whether to keep watching the news – it certainly doesn’t aid restful sleep, some nights. The coverage of the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia have been particularly disturbing. White supremacists, upset at the proposal to remove a statue of Robert E Lee, a general from the Confederate – pro-slavery – side of the American Civil War, marched through the streets with flaming torches chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!”. It is not surprising that anyone who was not a Southern, white, young or middle-aged man would have felt they were being warned to get of off the streets – they are ‘Our streets’ chant the mob, not your streets. Meanwhile other groups want to protest that they are also their streets, that the USA is also their country, that history should record their stories too. You will even find extremists   - in the US, in Islamic countries, in the state of Israel - who want to say that God is on t...

  Matthew 14: 22-33, 1 Kings 19:9-18 As a united church – sharing in the traditions of both the Methodist church and the United Reformed Church  - you might be aware that things are not looking too good in either part of the church at the moment. Numbers are falling, churches are closing, ministers are getting harder to find… and we are wondering what the future holds. It is easy to relate to Elijah, especially in the part of his story we heard today. Things are not looking too good for Elijah. The people of God have abandoned worship in favour of idols, many prophets have been killed, and Elijah is threatened too. “I alone am left” says Elijah, and he’s ready to give up. Then the earthquake, wind and fire pass by, followed by God’s presence in the stillness. And Elijah is told to go and anoint new kings, and Elisha as a new prophet – and God promises “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, who have not worshipped Baal”. Elijah feels alone, rejected, ...