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What (the book of ) Ruth teaches us about faith in God

Ruth 1: 1-18 What does it mean to be faithful? The story of Ruth has a lot to teach us about being faithful despite difficult situations – continuing to be faithful to people and to God.   I’m guessing this is a story most of us know fairly well.  It won’t surprise you to learn that, as a Ruth, it’s always been one of my favourite Bible stories – Ruth is the hero, the faithful one, the good friend. So much so that we don’t really know what the Moabite parents of Ruth meant when they named their daughter ‘Ruth’ – what meaning it originally had, because we now know the meaning as ‘friend’ or ‘companion’.    Ruth says what, to me, are some of the greatest words in scripture “where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, your God my God..”.  At its most straightforward this is a story that teaches us what it means to be faithful: we could read this story and simply conclude that we should all be more like Ruth.    But wait a moment – there is the fai
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What prayer is.. and is not

Mark 10: 35-38 (recap) and 46-52.   It’s amazing that we have got to October 27 th  – and this is the first time I’ve mentioned Strictly Come Dancing – it’s week 6 ! One of the highlights this year is undoubtedly the dancing of comedian Chris McCausland – who is blind. The confidence he has to have in his dance partner, Diane, to put his all into each routine when he literally can’t see where he is, is astonishing. I couldn’t help thinking of Chris McCausland when I read today’s story of blind Bartimaeus.   In the time of Jesus, someone like Bartimaeus would have had no real options in life. He can’t see to fish, or farm, or make things. So as Jesus leaves Jericho, the blind man is sitting by the roadside doing the only thing he can do to scratch a living – he is begging. He hears a crowd approaching – we’re told it’s a large crowd – and someone tells him that among that crowd is Jesus of Nazareth. So Bartimaeus shouts out “have mercy on me”.   That could have been his regular shout fo
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Trusting God.

Job 38: 1-7    Mark 10: 35-45   When we had the baptism here last month I realised that it was a while since I had held a baby. I hope we all know how it feels. Making sure the baby is comfortable – that you are giving them a firm support, if they’re very young, supporting the head. It is a great honour and joy to hold a baby safely in your arms. But even the smallest of babies will often grasp your finger, or the edge of your clothing. It’s a very deep instinct that however well you’re holding them, they will hang on to you.   I think in a sense we never lose that instinct in life. There comes a time of course when we leave the security of loving human parents’ arms and learn to cope on our own. But we know that God whom Jesus called ‘Father’ holds us in arms of love the whole of our life through.  But the instinct kicks in: it is not enough to be held in God’s arms – we are always looking for something else to hang onto.     For Job, he tries to hang onto a reason why his life is har
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The joy of being human? (Proper 22)

  Reading:   Mark 10:2-16 Jesus placed a child in the middle of them and said “unless you become like a child you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven”.   What is it that a child has which makes them more able to accept and understand the love of God?   There could be lots of things, I’m sure – but at least one thing a child has that we should all try to find for ourselves is a capacity for joy – and especially joy in the telling of a story.   Those who were at Kate’s ordination here a couple of weeks ago might have heard that as I started to tell the story of creation from the first chapter of Genesis, and held up a card showing the light that God creates on the first day, one young lad in the congregation just said ‘Wow’.   I think Jesus is reminding his disciples that when they stop to think about what God has done and is doing in the world it should make them go ‘wow!’.   Can we bring that sense of wow with us when we listen to our next reading. It’s the second story of creation –
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Who is the greatest?

 James 3: 13 - 4:3, 7-8a     Mark 9: 30-37 Greatness   Imagine the scene: This week the ministers working in URCs in Pembrokeshire met to talk about how we work together in the future.  How do we make sure we listen to the needs of all the churches, and the thoughts of all the ministers? Some of us have been ordained for decades – Kate has now been ordained for about 24 hours! But we need to listen to new ideas as well as old wisdom.  We began by joining the midweek communion at Albany, and I was amused to find that Hugh-John had chosen today’s gospel reading as our reading. Who’s the best? Who’s the greatest? Who should we be listening to most?   I wondered, for a moment, whether as ministers we might relate to the disciples – arguing about who’s in charge, who’s the most faithful, who’s been following Jesus the longest..     You’ll be glad to know that there were no arguments among us. But there was a beautiful moment. There was a baby in the service. In the pram at first, and then o
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Harvest - giving thanks for small things

  Matthew 13: 31-33  Psalm 146   At harvest time we pause to thank God for everything God has done for us.   Psalm 146 talks about praising the God who made absolutely everything – it is a huge thing to think of all that God has made. We praise God not just for our harvest here in Pembrokeshire or even here in Wales – but across the whole world. Everything that grows is a gift from god and so we thank God for everything we have. And we remember to thank God for the people who make it their life’s work to grow and produce our food – we thank God for the farmers who make the harvest possible and bring the harvest in.   Jesus was good at thanking God for all that was – and often reminded his followers to pause and give thanks to God for their food. The Lord’s prayer contains the request to God ‘give us this day our daily bread’;  and at the last supper with his followers Jesus gave thanks to God the Father for bread and wine – before giving it to his disciples as a sign of his life given
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Looking back to the past & rekindling the fire

Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18;  John 6: 56-69  & Church Anniversary. For 210 years people have worshipped in this place. As part of my preparation I re-read John Morgan’s history of Tabernacle Chapel,Tiers Cross.   The story here begins with Arnold Davies – was born Wolfscastle, self-educated, former farm labourer, teacher & traveling preacher. In 1803 came to be minister at Rosemarket and encouraged Christians in Tiers Cross to think of building a chapel here.   In 1814 the members raised funds and did much of physical work themselves of building this chapel.  They named the chapel ‘Tabernacle’ – recognising it as a place to meet with God.   I visited John Morgan this week and we were reflecting on the faith of those early members – they were so sure that God wanted there to be a chapel here –  and for 110 years they only had the land as a leasehold. Yet they worked hard to build and maintain and improve this building.   Then in 1924 the people of the chapel raised the money to purch
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