Sunday's coming!

     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...

           Ezekiel 47: 1-9     John 7: 37-39   At last.. the rain has come. In a total reversal of the usual way of things, where the rain seems to come just as the schools have broken up for the summer, we had a very sunny dry summer – including just about the whole of the school holiday – and now the rain has come for a rather damp ‘back to school’ feel.   But this year, more than ever, we have been glad to see the rain fall. Everywhere grass was looking not just dry, but bleached white – I seriously wondered whether the grass could recover. But we’ve all noticed the green shoots appear, once the rain started to fall. Life was just waiting for things to change.   The Orthodox Church has invited all churches to join them on this first Sunday of September to mark a “feast of creation” in the churches.   This marks the beginning of the season of creation, when we have our harvest festivals ...

 Romans 12: 1-8;    Matthew 16: 13-20 It was great to be at the County Show this last week  - my fourth time.  I am almost used to the question now “which church are you at?” and have learned to answer “I’m involved in 5 chapels, all outside Haverfordwest”. The fact that I am URC - and not Church in Wales - is important to some people, and ‘chapel’ is still a useful term to help people know where I’m from. But the New Testament doesn’t use the word chapel at all, but only refers to ‘church’ - and it means neither a Medieval church nor a historic chapel - but the coming together of God’s people in the name of Jesus Christ. Ans the tent at the County Show had signs declaring we were ‘churches together in Pembrokeshire/ What does it mean to be ‘the church’ or churches together? I had fun this week putting ‘the church is like..’ into a search engine on my laptop. The church is like…     a table                 a...

           Matthew 14: 22-33, 1 Kings 19:9-18   If you ever have one of those days when you feel down and sorry for myself   - “it’s all up to me” “I’m the only one bothering…” “no-one else cares”... I recommend the life of   Elijah, and especially 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 of God’s 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 anoint Elisha as a new prophet – and God promises “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, who have not worshipped Baal”.   Elijah feels alone, rejected, threatened, but in fact he is NOT alone. God has a plan, and there are 7,000 people on God...