Sunday's coming!

  Ephesians 6:10-20   I wonder if any of you have ever worn armour? I have only tried on the odd piece of armour at National Trust houses – balancing a helmet on my head; picking up chain mail – so heavy!; trying to imagine how hard it would be to move with a breastplate on. I’ve more than once come to the conclusion that armour is not for me – I’m very glad I’ve never been required even to wear full armour, let alone to fight. I’m too feeble, probably too cowardly.   So I’ve never really been drawn to this passage about putting on the whole armour of God – until this week. I read in a commentary that the author of the letter – who may have been Paul or may have been one of his closest associates - decided to use the image of the armour to sum up the whole of the letter.    I decided to read the whole of the letter to the Ephesians and see what it says altogether, and how the image of the armour fits in. In some translations, the passage we heard starts ‘Finally...

Proverbs 9: 1-6 John 6: 51-58   On Friday I was listening to Radio 4’s book of the week ‘Hamilton and me’ – actor Giles Terera’s account of the staging of the musical “Hamilton” in London in 2017. He describes rehearsals, staging, lighting, music.. and the fact that before each performance a group of actors put their arms around each other – and prayed to God for ‘strength, safety and joy’. As we meet this Sunday – as we take in the news of the shooting in Keysham – as we read our Bibles and sing our hymns: God offers us strength, safety and joy. Yet again the lectionary reading from John presents us with Jesus saying ‘I am the bread of life’. If we ask ‘what does the bread of life mean’, there is no simple answer – there are many answers, or many layers of answers, and it seems that John’s gospel wants to take our understanding deeper and deeper. Alongside the listeners of Jesus wondering ‘how can Jesus be bread?’, we heard today from the book of Proverbs.  This contains a co...