Sunday's coming!

     Matthew 22: 34-46   A lawyer comes to test Jesus – “Which commandment is the greatest?”.   The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy contain pages and pages, chapters and chapters of commandments – not just the ones we call the ‘ten commandments’, but many more besides, dealing with how to live, how to walk in God’s way, how to serve justice, what to eat, property law, rules of warfare, marriage, money..   How do you choose just one? Jesus’ answer? He brings together the teaching of many of those pages and pages of commandments into this: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”     You shall love.. says Jesus. All of the commandments are meant to bring ...

Psalm 104: 1-12    Mark 7: 31-37    Reflection Today we have an opportunity to rejoice in Creation.   Roger has brought so much into the chapel to help us think about how all our senses respond to God’s wonderful creation outside and around us.   Take a moment to take in what you can See.. Smell… Touch… Hear.. And we look forward to our lunch when we can taste.   Through our senses we can celebrate the wonders of the world around us.   The writer of Psalm 104, which we heard, speaks about the whole of creation as God’s dwelling place –     ‘you stretched out the heavens like a tent, you set your chambers on the waters. The clouds are your chariot, the winds your messengers’.   This world is the place God created and the space in which God lives and is encountered. When we sense the wonders of creation we cannot help but marvel at the creator who made it and who lives in it all. ...

      Philippians 4: 1-9, Matthew 22: 1-14 Through September and into October,   I have really enjoyed the richness of late Summer and early Autumn. We have had quite a few harvest festivals – and still have a couple more to come, and we have been thinking about “the season of creation” and our place as stewards within this world God has made.   But it’s sometimes quite helpful to turn from global issues and huge themes to something much smaller and more intimate. How can we fill our lives with the good things which God wants to give us? When St Paul writes the letter to the church at Philippi, he gives clear instructions ‘All that is true, noble, just, pure, loveable, attractive, excellent, admirable, think on these things’.       If we can fill our minds and our lives with what is good, then we will experience joy – the joy of the Lord, the joy that comes from knowing we are children of God living in God’s wo...

     Matthew 21: 33-46        Psalm 80: 7-14   One of the great things about the parables of Jesus is that you can read and re-read them and they can hit you with different meanings at different times.   Reading this parable of the tenants in the vineyard this week, I was struck by the actions of the owner of the vineyard, compared with the actions of the tenants.   The owner plants the vineyard                   builds a wall and a tower to protect it                    and prepares the winepress ready for the harvest. Then he lets it out to tenants.   All they have to do is move in, care for the vines, water them, prune them, and be ready to take in the harvest. Then they will be able to pay the owner his share from the takings. I...

Matthew 13: 31-32  This Sunday is our chapel anniversary as well as a harvest celebration. As we're currently in the middle of big changes to the building, I thought we might reflect on our 'journey so far' in the light of Jesus' parable of the mustard seed.      Reflection The kingdom of God is like a small pane of glass – which fell out of a window. And when the people in the chapel saw it they thought ‘we’d better get that mended’. But when they looked at the window they could see that all the other panes were in danger of falling out, too. And when they looked at the other windows they realised they were all in danger of falling out. And what started as a small job had become a bigger one.   And the people in the chapel got a double-glazing firm to look at the windows, and the cost of replacement was about twice as much as they had in the bank. So they contacted the Synod for help, hoping that they Synod would give them the money they n...

       Psalm 103: v1-8         Matthew 18: 21-35             We celebrate our harvest today – bringing our thanks to God for all the richness of the earth with which God blesses us every year. It is a time to give thanks and a time to rejoice in God’s love. And yet, however long we have been aware of the love God has for us, it feels as if we human beings need to keep learning what unconditional love really means.   Jesus tells this story of 2 servants and their king to try to help us grasp how God’s loving care of us all works in our lives. And yet we often call this parable the story of the unforgiving servant – and make it into a warning about how if we are unforgiving like that servant, we could get punished like him.   We hold onto the way in which the servant, who has been forgiven a massive debt, pursues a much smaller debt from another servant, because he ha...