Sunday's coming!

Acts 8: 26-39        John 15: 1-8 In one Manse I lived in – about 20 years ago  - there was a vine growing up the back of the house. The previous minister warned me that he had once tried harvesting the grapes, and treading them, and storing the juice – hoping that he might be able to make some homegrown wine. He was a Methodist minister, so perhaps it was a risky plan in any case, but his plans were thwarted because the grapes were incredibly sour – there just wasn’t enough sunshine falling on them to make them sweet enough to eat, or drink.   Suitably fore-warned, I never tried to eat or drink the grapes. But one Harvest festival I did decide to use the branches of the vine as decoration. The church had a rather fine Victorian stone pulpit with carved vines around it and I thought that for harvest it would be nice to augment the stone carving with some real vine branches.    I went out into the garden with my secateurs, chose some really lo...

Acts 4: 5-12; John 10: 11-18   What do we mean when we use the phrase ‘in the name of Jesus’?   We have probably all seen scary film footage of sharp-suited evangelists shouting a blessing at people kneeling for healing. ‘In the name of Jesus I heal you’ – hand on forehead, knocking them over.   A few weeks ago I saw a Facebook notification of someone stating that their church will be ‘praying the name of Jesus over the city’. It felt a bit  like an incantation or a spell. I wondered how the residents of the city might feel to have the ‘name of Jesus prayed over them’ in that way?   Of course for some people the name of Jesus is used as an expression of surprise or shock – it becomes a swear word ‘ Jesus!’   Meanwhile in our quieter corner of the church, we may find ourselves reluctant to speak the name of Jesus much at all. I think for many of us the embarrassment factor begins at ‘church’.. goes up for ‘God’.. up again for ‘Christian’ and is highest ...