Second half of Daniel. totally strange stuff going on here. If you're into appocalyptic then you've come home. If you're not into it then how do you read these passages. That's what Sunday is about. Dare you to read it.
We're at that time again to stray away from the lectionary (we should be doing Moses but we've already done that) and wondering who we can explore next. I'm looking for the least known stories, the little people. But if they are least known, they folk are hardly likely to suggest them. But then there are others from our childhood that we don't get to find out more a out as adults. So here's a wee list:
Abigal
Priscilla
Esther
Samson
Daniel
Rahab
Witch of Endor
But there are a million more...
Over to you.
Back with Ruth who has journeyed with Naomi and come to Bethlehem. Here she meets Boaz. And it all gets interesting. And the tall and short of it is that she becomes an ancestor of Jesus.
So what is there to say this coming Sunday. Today was all about welcome. I liked the idea of the Naomi/Ruth thing paralleling the bread and wine thing: We are welcomed by the stranger as Naomi was and when we receive bread adn wine and then we in turn welcome the stranger and Ruth was when we offer the bread and wine to our neighbour. The whole sacramental act in the receiving and then giving in Naomi and Ruth. It worked for me at least. However what of this coming Sunday...?
Answers on a postcard. Hymns too. The whole lot. Go give it a try.
We have a few weeks where we can do anything we want in terms of lessons. The Moses story that we have just finished is now the lectionary passages for the following few weeks. Of course there are the Gospel readings or event the epistle which we could do but I wondered if there are any other stories, themes, ideas you'd like to pursue over the next few weeks. This is not an offer you get very often! However for this once in a life time offer you can reply here on the blog as to some themes or ideas of subjects or passages that may become the text for the following week or so. But don't go picking the hardest most obscure passage you can find because I may just choose that and either you'd be totally bored or lost or both.
So what's new there then from every other Sunday?
Don't answer that. Just the choice of text.
Well we're finally out of Egypt but, hey, what's this great piece of water doing in front of us? And what are YOU going to do about it, Moses? And then there's all the hunger we're suffering. What are YOU going to do about it? At least we have food in Egypt!And then the thirst. What are YOU going to do about it?
And Moses turned to the people and said, "Funny, I was just about to ask you the same question."
I think there is a time for singing in the desert. It's a good place to sing because there is no organ to tell you what to do and you[ve only go you and God to hear. And so when you sing you can sing with your lings full and as there is nothing esle around to interprete what you mean when you sing, like stained glass windows and prim and proper Christians, then you can sing it like it is.
You stip away everything and all you are left with is faith. The hardcore faith that keeps you going, that makes stones turn to bread and rocks gush with water and dew to become manna. You find out a huge amount about God and yourself and neither are as you expected them to do. You have to do a lot for yourself, by yourself. God is the dream that keeps you moving to the promised land, the reason why you left bondage in the first place and the only one left to talk to. As I said, you learn a lot about yourself and about God.
So if it is good to sing in the wilderness, let's sing. But what? Answers on a postcard please, or an emal ,or a comment here for Sunday...
Jusy a wee reminder that Ruth's thanksgiving service for passing exams and still breathing is on Thursday in Faifley Church at 7pm. It's going to be great and you are all invited along. It's got some stuff in it that may be interesting to us all so do pop in if you are free on Thursday and bring your friends.
But of course, she's back on Sunday with us and the Sunday following that. And we're off on a romp with Joseph. Andrew Lloyd webber really doesn't have a patch on what we will be doing.
And in the echo of Sunday, Jospeh, while it may be based on some character in the past, we just don't know. It is, however a perfect short story, and the only story we have that is from one source alone from start to finish without editing. It was told word of mouth for about 1000 years before it was written down during the Exile along with all the Exodus stories and the Hebrews tried to make sens eof their bondage in a foreign land. These stories from their 'mythical' past made sense more in Babykon than anywhere else. They gave them hope and meaning and trust in a God who won't let them go. Rock on Joseph (and Ruth).
You know how last weeks passage wasn't the easiest and I said that next week we'd be back on more familiar ground? Well, I lied. It wasn't intentional, guv, and I really don't know how I managed to think we were doing mustard seeds and stuff like that. We ought to be doing the end of the passage we read last week about peace and swords, remember that bit about offering a cup of water etc? No? Well that was meant to be this weeks passage. we did two weeks in one go.
So that kind of gives us a free week. So, what passage would you like to do?
Seriously, it's an open choice and I'll seriously consider any you suggest as long as you suggest it by Tuesday night, 9pm. What I'll do from whatever passage is suggested, I'll pop them in a hat and draw one out. I promise it will be as fair as that. I'll have an independent ajudicator at 'Saving Jesus' tomorrow evening. So please do suggest a passage you like, or haven't heard before or for a long time. One suggestion so far is Adam and Eve. One of the Sunday School asked me about that a week or so ago so that's first in the hat.
You've got till tomorrow evening (Tuesday at 9pm) to make suggestions either directly to me here or paste them below. You may be able to drum up support, a ground swell of opinion on a particular story, passage, theme, issue etc.
It really is over to you or there is no service on Sunday... (and before you think that's a good idea, people really would be saying I get paid for nothing)
Matthew 10:24-39
Okay, so what do you do with this passage? Major nighmare to interprete. It's all about not peace but a sword; If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household; For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother etc.
I suppose if you are out proclaiming the Good News, you ought to be aware of those things around you that will try and do you down. A wee bit of persicution isn't that bad for the church. No persicution and the church slips into some religious complacancy.
And this bit about dividing chidlren from their parents? Well, I suppose 'flogging and verbal abuse are far easier to bear that alienation from one's nearest kin' as my commentary suggests.
There is also the question about Jesus talking about the cross for his disciples. There is no evidence Jesus imagined his followers would be crucified so it may be a post-resurrection saying. Maybe it is authentic to Jesus, but he didn't mean it literally. You will be 'crucified' by your families, neighbourhoods, communities etc if you follow me.
So not much there then! And how to make sense of it in a contemporary world, and where is the good news for children!? So any ideas at all would be gratefully received. Or a hymn or two. Or a way of reading the passage. It's going to be a long thinking session on this one.
Father forgive me... it has been almost four days since my last blog...
Genesis 6,7 and 8
It's communion on Sunday and I'm very nervous because I'm not sure who is going to be content with it. It's Sunday School prize giving and so the Sunday School will all be there and that's going to be fantastic. It is always the best kind of communion when the whole family comes to dinner.
There are going to be two minor changes (that may actually be major) so that we live our traditions more. One is the common cup will be available and the other the great entrance is making a comeback, but not necessarily because it is right but to illustrate where a very small practical act of getting the bread and wine onto the tables folk used to sit round, has evolved into a great procession that was never meant to be and would probably turn the heads of the reformers.
The service will be about many of our traditions and where they came from and perhaps where they are going. But I still have this feeling it will be cumbersome and not quite the full big familiar service that we often equate with traditional, nor the getting back to basics it perhaps should be. So it's gong to be a bit of a week getting it all in place.
There ought to be a bit of reflective feedback afterwards. There will be space over the coming weeks to do just that.
Anyhow, the passage is Noah. So that works well. Well, it does mainly because it has been told and retold as a children's story (the bits you can repeat that is. No naked Noah's drunk in the vineyards which is how the story ends). It links with the sacrament, the church has the biggest rainbow Craft daft have ever made, and it has an environmental feel. But I'm not preaching as such so can't say what I might have about the story and what we've done to it.
So it's all a very confused service in my head at the moment.
So I am really, really interested in your thoughts, ideas, comments about the Noah passage and communion, the service of communion itself, how it may be constructed and hymns, always hymns. Especially as we are a whole family together on Sunday for one of those all too few times when we share bread and wine together. How come it is so rare that we do that?
If you were asked what part of the Bible is the best known, how many would say Sermon on the Mount? In truth I've no idea but folk think it starts and ends with the beatitudes (Blessed are the peacemakers etc). But there is quite a bit after that and it's more detailed and specific. We look at that bit this week.
However, at the risk of being completely written off, let's try rewriting the Beatitudes as an introduction to this week.
Blessed are the cheesemakers for they...
You get the idea
Of course there space for a few hymns in here too, or ways of doing the reading. Even an idea for the contemporary reading...
Over to you.
Blessed are the... for they shall...
It all seemed to fit together today, we had a bit of a rammy, some noise, some reflection, a couple of disasters, big songs, band led, bad spelling, contemporary images of faith, and quite a relaxed atmosphere were folk just talked out informally. It was a good mix of what worship can be like.
There is of course the argument for a more formal, liturgical close harmony, more poetry and tradition and I'd agree with that too. But maybe that is for next week as we sit uncomfortably with the Trinity. If you thought Pentecost was difficult to describe then welcome to the Godhead. It's not even a biblical concept but something invented 2-3 hundred years later to stop heresy and folk journeying off into the realms and nonsense.
I'm not sure I've ever seen the Trinity as anything more than a roadmap. It's certainly not my experience of God. But then I can't exactly say what my experience of God actually is.
Anyway the passage is Genesis 1:1-2:4. A fabulous, fabulous, fabulous passage. Now how are we going to walk through this? What questions do you want to ask? How does it point us towards the Godhead? What aspects of God does it reveal?
And any images you think might help our weekly reflections? I bet there are a million.
Complete this questionnaire.
The colour of the Spirit...
The sound she makes...
If the Spirit was a famous person she/he/it would be...
If I was to woo the Spirit I know she'd like me to sing...
Her favourite band is...
The bit of the Bible that really gets her going is...
She gets angry and restless and a wee bit dangerous when...
I'd be really grateful if you could reply to me here with suggestions. All confidential. But it would make a huge difference to Sunday if as many could. It can be as quirky or serious as you wish. Names and addresses will be withheld.
So there was this day, in the morning sometime, after all the party people had gone to bed and before they got up again that heaven decided, as heaven can only do, to have her own party to rival all other parties. All the party people were in bed getting ready for the next evening. It was all the workers, the lonely, the hungry and the searchers who were out and about.
hey were minding their own business when out of nowhere came a great explosion of fireworks. There were Catherine Wheels (before St Catherine's death gave anyone the idea of spinning flames), sky rockets (before NASA, Sputnik or Arianne), sparklers before Guy Fox had that idea we'd all like to do sometime with the Houses of Parliament). It was the middle of the day but there was flame and wind and noise and just one big party.
But it wasn't the kind of party where everyone sits round the walls but they started talking and blethering and even shouting, confused by all the language that was going on. Not bad language (it is the Bible after all) but just lots of it. The Party Energy had given voice to folk, deep down inside themselves, words they never knew, colours they had never seen, sounds they had never heard, songs they had never sung. It was a bit of a riot. Clearly heaven wasn't Presbyerian at this time.
And we've been living in the echo of that party ever since. It's been kind of infectious, dangerous and addictive, haunting us for thousands of years, and every so often you are allowed to let go again. This is Pentecost. This is the Spirit. This is now.
So what would you like at Sunday's party? If it's wild enough you might just be God's latest witness to the work of the Spirit.
Are there ever times when you've wanted someone to speak up on your behalf, when you are incoherent, or can't find the words, or someone on the radio says exactly what you feel but with poetry and conviction, or those times when you are so angry about something someone has said that you just want to shout at them and shake them into some sense but just haven't got the words and someone speaks up with just the right words that bring reason to the world?
Long questions. Sorry.
But both these things speak into Sunday's passage, speaking for someone and questions. Jesus speaks of the Spirit, the second in a whole series of passages from this bit of John's gospel leading up to Pentecost and he calls her the Advocate. What a fabulous word. A questioner who speaks up on our behalf.
It's a rich image for the Spirit. Better than doves and rainbows and stuff like that but someone who stands in court and speaks up for you, says what you think on your behalf, speaks with grace for us miserable folk. 'Rich' is not the right word. It's about someone being alive for you when you need it; someone who will breathe your feelings and voice them in the world; someone who gives you vocal chords when yours are tied too tight with anger or pain or anguish. This is the advocate.
Nice.
Hymns?
And how on earth do you read the passage with interest without people losing the thread within the first 10 seconds?
This weeks passage: Luke 24:13-35
Emmaus: that bakers shop that baked heaven's bread. Somehow heaven chose the place as a doorway and every time someone cracks bread there, or a crumb falls, or some yeast goes flying, glory and promise cascade into the gap. It's a bit like Dr Who and the temporal crack under Cardiff that breaks every so often and lets other stuff in.
No one knows where Emmaus is or was but we all know about it. It's a village of strangers and strange things.
A table
A stranger
A loaf
And a meal
A table
A stranger
A loaf
And a gasp of light
A table
A stranger
A loaf
And recognition in slow motion
How was it we didn't we notice before?
Buit where do we notice it now?
O Emmaus
which stranger do you welcome now?
I've been watching 'The Passion' online on the BBC iPlayer. At least I can pause it for a rest every so often. I haven't found it the most exciting retelling, not that it is meant to be exciting but atmospheric. I really don't think people ought to make the isolated and embellished memories of the Gospel into a seamless story. To me it just doesn't work. I haven't yet seen Sunday's episode. I don't know how the disciples react when Jesus appears alive again.
When Jesus appears in the Gospels and Thomas isn't there there is general acceptance. Okay, probably a bit stunned but it's all quite gentlemanly. Thomas of course doesn't believe a word of it. That's me. Totally.
It's not about the honourable 'honest doubt'. It's more the fact I just wouldn't believe it at all. Doubt implies there is belief there in the first place and it gets dented a little. What is the disciples just gave up at the crucifixion? What hope brings life again? What deep down conviction brings Jesus back from the dead? What trust enables you to put you hand in his hand and know he's back?
Thats what intrigues me in this story, that turns, not doubt but unbelief into trusting life again. Now that is resurrection.
And we have the donkey and the king. Pretty awful stereotyping of our faith. It has become so quaint it's lost everything.
The question without an answer this week was what on earth was he doing? You don't imaging donkey's being political animals, but they are, or were, or at least the are political when Jesus rides them. There is something dangerous in a man who has chosen to play out a long death, choosing to start a ball rolling that can only roll in one direction but isn't much in control of it.
Unfortunately the Victorians and turned it into a children's drama, but then who could resist a cute donkey. I'm glad that era is over and they can't touch all the other big stories we've got and they missed. So how do we proceed from here? How do we turn back the donkey from a seaside fairground attraction to the political animal it really was?
And what do we do with the daft songs and stuff?
We need some cool images this week: political action, choosing to sacrifice, crossing the Rubicon, and making the choice for crosses and tombs. Now there's a challenge...
Willie Barclay says the story of the raising of Lazarus is not historically true. He sees it as a metaphor. There seems to be an awful lot of them in tis season. I don't know if it is a metaphor or a story that's true. I'd like to think it is true. I like the Jesus we meet here, who weeps. Well, that's a bit soft. It really says Jesus let out a sound like a great roar. It's wonderful when God is discovered being human to the core.
But it is the unbinding that reveals the bigger metaphor. 'Be Unbound' from the things that bring death. 'Be Unbound' from the things that bind up our full living. 'Be Unbound' from the things that bring darkness, sorrow and brokenness.
What would you like to be unbound from, or the world be unbound from? What songs and hymns unbind us and free us in the journey to faith? Has Lent unbound you in any way this year to discover the living of the hope of Easter?
Boy have we got the big, well told stories for Lent this year.
A man, born blind, gets some mud wiped into his eyes and suddenly he sees again. That’s the easy bit. It’s the next bit that’s really interesting because no one owns up to believing the miracle, expect the man himself. The Pharisees tour half the neighbourhood trying to disprove it or find something to refocus the whole episode so they don’t look foolish. the Parents, when they just shift the questions to the man himself: “he’s old enough…” they say. And the crowd and the whole lot all fail to own up to believing.
What does it take not to believe? Sometimes it seems harder not to believe than to believe.
Harder not to believe bread and wine speak into Jesus Christ than to believe it.
Harder not to believe communion is a political act in a broken world than to believe it.
But we try our damnedest not to believe it, because it means the ground has shifted, or we have to move, or find ourselves in a place where we have to rethink stuff.
Harder not to believe than believe, yet we try not to believe. What make us do that? Should we ask the man born blind? If we believe he was blind at all.
It's about water. Not just any water. This is the eternal variety. Now explain that one to me. How does this image work that Jesus uses? Can you isolate the image from the story and the context of this woman's life?
Here we are at the well with a Samaritan, isolated in her own community, five husbands later, out in the midday sun (mad dogs and Englishmen and all that) and Jesus sitting there offering her living water. So she doesn't have to hide any more? To forgive her and tell her she is back in community again?
Or is the story just a hook to hang a motif of Jesus on? I am the Living Water. There are 7 I Am sayings in John. What came first: the saying or the story.
Or should we just enjoy the story: acceptance of some isolated from community, the welcoming home of a lost child, a Saviour needing water and offering more.
I thought this was foing to be an easier passage than last week. Looks like it may be even harder.
Thoughts?
Lent is the apology season. It's a time of confession and putting things right and finding a way to live in right relationship with god and with others. The Prime Minister of Australia has just apologised to Aboriginals and particularly those of the 'stolen generations'. If you have ever seen the film 'Rabbit Proof Fence' then you'll get a feeling for that. Stunning film of a horrific true story.
However, what about the idea of apology as a political tool to improve the relationships with folk? Should we be apogising to half of Africa for dividing up the nations there right down the middle of their cultural tribal lands? Can this be a time to apologise to folk locally too, our neighbours for example and just set up a time for folk to clean the slate, draw a line, and let new healing take place?
And when do apologies make a difference because verbalising something (like faith, like creeds etc) means nothing until you see that apology in action and how you live anew with folk. There something linking the weeks texts here about being born anew, starting afresh and could apology be the first step?
It's almost clandestine. Under cover of night a leading Pharisee organises a night-time meeting with the rebel Jesus. But when they meet nothing goes quite according to plan because the Pharisee doesn't quite understand the Rabbi. How often is that the way things are with Jesus and the folk he meets. He talks, they listen, they misunderstand, he talks again and opens things out a bit more.
Here the misunderstanding is about being born again. And the misunderstanding has been going on ever since. But the misunderstanding is not the use of the phrase born again. It's misunderstanding is imagining thats the only way you can read it. There are a few other ways to say it. And you know, there a beauty in what Jesus says because it can be understood in a number of ways: born again, born from above, born anew.
That's the bigger things going on maybe, and going on very clearly: there isn't always a one-way, dogmatic understanding of Jesus word. He clearly and effectively uses ambiguity in what he says to mean many things offering layers of meaning we depth of understanding that dogmatism and fear (the two go together hand in hand) will never give. Only when you are scared, and fear your own power crumbling, d you become dogmatic. Here's a story where Jesus isn't and it is only one of many.
Your thoughts where this can take us on Sunday? Words that jump out, music you hear playing in the background, symbols and images...
So now we have to get our feet dirty, or at least dusty. It's wilderness time. Vast, long, awkward wilderness. Of course now-a-days it doesn't mean rubble and stuff but a wilderness of mountains and green plains and meadows and very healthy untouched 'wilderness'. Maybe it's all about being in a space that is vast enough for us to focus a little more on God rather than us. Living in a house you get a disproportionate view of yourself because you are in control of everything from the climate to the scenery on the TV. Stepping into a wilderness, you become small. Very small. And are left to the ambitions of forces greater than yourself.
So when Jesus steps into a wilderness, some of those forces come and play. Personally I don't believe in a devil. A devil is too convenient to pass blame onto but I do believe in the human trait of trying to control everything, and have the power. Volemort in the first book of Harry Potter says: 'There is no good and evil, there is only power and those who are too weak to use it.'
Bet he regrets saying that by book 7 and his failure to recognise what power is. We've just got six weeks to find out. But I bet we've got an idea already. It's a vast wilderness, where we are kind of small in the face of all that's out there. Can you imagine then how Jesus felt? But walk it we will, walk it because we have to, walk it because it calls us to, walk it because there is no journey without it.
And hey, there's a set of footprints in the dust already...
It was today
after the flume
that glorified helter skelter
when the face glowed
with a toothless grin
(the tooth fairy has taken her first one)
and eyes burst with bravery
that I noticed transfiguration.
It wasn't the event itself.
No, no.
While that was cool
transfiguration dances on cool.
It was what was now possible.
After one flume tried
the world just stepped up a gear
It's all about the level at which you engage the world.
Try a flume,
or kite flying,
or hand gliding.
Get the taste
and see what's now possible.
So what's next?
Chocolate Teapots is posted below
Transfiguration. So where do you start with that? Personally I don't go down the line of an exact historical event but a metaphor that maybe the church needs to give it credibility. But for the wrong things. The chruch maybe needs credibility for Jesus being divine, for being God, for being a heavenly being and not of this earth.
Hmmmm.
Anyone wonder if that's maybe focusing on the wrong thing because the more I read Jesus words and read what those on the edge of the church understand of Jesus, that divinity isn't that important. What is important is what happen when Jesus comes down the mountain, which is the bit we theoretically don't get on Sunday (but might read anyway) that Jesus has far more to do with compassion, caring, healing, and including people back into community. There is just sooooooo much more in the Gospel about Jesus helping folk, eating with them round a table, speaking to the excluded, and refashioning the way we do community, giving us new priorities and new folk to be the priority, than any miraculous godly thing.
God is in human form and probably always has been. The Gospel is all about giving worth back to people. But that's not what the church has been seen to be doing or what the legasy of the church has been. I know folk have been doing that all through the ages, but it's the minority.
So, transfiguration. It's a cool story, unusual, weird but there seems to be a big bit of historical psychology behind it that might be worth unraveling sometime. However, that's not what we're here to do with Chocolate Teapots. Any words that stick out? What colour is the passage for you? And a song, any leap to mind? Or a symbol?
How crucial are the call stories of the disciples? Lately I've been re-imagining them since they have come up so often in the last few weeks and recognising in them the very essence of living the faith. You see, you don't get away with following without following. And if you are following, in the true sense of the world it means you are walking in the shadow of someone else, not knowing where they are going. If you knew, you wouldn't strictly be 'following'.
From the very beginning it's about moving on but it never seems to be a once and for all but a continual adventure. No disciple settled down again. Jesus didn't go 'back home' as far as we know but was known, and said himself he had no where to lay his head. So there is absolutely nothing about settling down.
Now hold that thought and now remember the hymns we like best and sing with more gusto. They are the familiar ones. Obviously. We grew up with them. But the questions I need to ask (myself) is do they move me on in the faith? Because it strikes me that needs to be the question we ask of all the 'tools' or expressions of the faith that we use to affirm us and proclaim who we are. Does it move us on for that is what following means.
So, to take that a little further, are we willing to go into unfamiliar ground? Move from the beach to the roadways, from the table to the cross, from the tomb to the garden and life differently. This is something Jesus always insisted on. Think of the Rich Young Man. He did everything right: he was holy, well behaved, gave his money away but that wasn't what it was about. Jesus basically said to him, 'well just go and do something different. Go and step out the box.'
To me this means that unless we actually take up the faith in the contexts of today living, then we haven't yet left the beach. Why is it we still can't have fairtrade tea and coffee in the church as a matter of principle, or change our bulbs to eco-lightbulbs as a matter of course without looking for excuses about mercury? So my take on this weeks call stories is more prophetic and earthy, calling for choices, always choices to follow in the trus sense of the word, into the roadways with jesus, as even he didn'd know where they would go.
John 1:29-42
We're caught between discovery and following. There is Jesus, one moment outed as Lamb of God, Messiah, Saviour, Redeemer, king of heaven by his up and coming cousin and then the whole thing twists round and he's king of the streets now hunting for disciples.
There's lots of theology in part one: the Gospel writer talks of doves and Spirit, baptism and vocation. In part two there's a lot of practical stuff about getting the faith on the move. How do you get an idea up and running? I suppose it helps that you've got a couple of thousand years of expectation behind you as Jesus did through the prophets. The difference is we have twice that but we don't seem to get much going. Maybe you need the language to speak, as John the Baptizer did. Maybe you need 'lamb of God' imagery though possibly in language that folk recognise and can engage with. John's folk could do 'lamb of God' speak. We don't. What would be the alternatives for our contemporary world? What language shall we use to describe Jesus?
So this week we may consider the move between what we think and how we follow. Also there is a wee bit in the second half where Andrew (a good Scot, of course) says, "We have found the Messiah" as if he was lurking round the corner of a fishing boat just waiting to be discovered.
Maybe he still is. Anyway here's the passage from The Message. We'd welcome your thoughts, music/hymn suggestions, images and questions.
Following on from Chocolate Teapots last week, a few images have been submitted to help engage with the text for the week. So I've begun a photo album (you see it under 'Text Images' on the right hand bar) to which anyone can add a photo as long as it is their own so we don't have copyright problems. You can submit it by emailing me here or directing us to your own flickr page or other image site.
This week we float around the Baptism of Jesus and Chocolate teapots will give you a initial thought with more words coming a bit later in the week as always happens on Friday or Saturday as a wee whetting of the appetite for Sunday, it's just they may appear a little earlier if I get organised.
I'm happy to put names to images, otherwise we can just let the images speak but know they are all copyright.
Go find a camera and think the text all week as you look for photos and images. Just image where that may take you on your spiritual journey
If God was ever going to say to me "I am pleased with you' I'd have thought it would be after I'd done some good work, forgiven an enemy, changed all my light bulbs to eco ones, made sure all the food I bought was locally sourced, protested against nuclear arms, or some foolish president or something like that. I wouldn't have expected it after being Baptised. Yet that was when Jesus heard it. I wonder what that means? How was this a good work? Or does heaven organise a mean party every time someone dedicated themselves, or sets themselves up as a fool for God?
Okay, probably there is more to Jesus' baptism than ours, or is there? Jesus the perfect human, sinless, blemish free needs baptism? Well, I hope Jesus had sinned and wasn't blemish free but was saying when he chose to be baptised, this is the sort or person heaven's idea of Justice resides in. And in my mind, if you're going to live in heaven's way, by God (literally) heaven will rejoice, and then some.
And there is a whole litany of things like that: In this kind of person peace resides (note, not the perfect whitewashed saviour but real human being); this is the kind of person in which truth can be proclaimed (yup, yet again not the halo wearing characterless man of sorrows but Jesus the glutton and drunkard as some call him in Luke); this is the kind of person that will welcome you at the gates of heaven and you know, I can follow someone who isn't already three steps closer to salvation by accident of birth, but starts from the same place as me. It makes following possible and transformation likely.
This Sunday the party is on me as long as some hymn suggestion come this way, some images, thoughts, questions, ponderings and stuff. Then you'll have me say, "I'm well pleased" Oh, and you may get a little wet this week...
Well, we ought to be singing Christmas carols all the way through today and right up to next Sunday which is better known in the liturgical trade as Epiphany. It's the time we remember the travelers/Magi/wise ones arriving at Jesus' hoose. But if you read your bible at all you'll notice it isn't the stable they arrive at but a 'house' and it's probably somewhere up to 2 years after Jesus was born because the story of the slaughter of the innocents (which, by the way, has no historical evidence) tells us children up to 2 years were on the list.
Anyway, that is all by the way. I quite like the word 'Epiphany'. We keep trying to explain it but it really stands on its own. Epiphany: the moment the lightbulb goes on. Epiphany: the Aha. Epiphany: when sense comes all over you. Epiphany: when when you see everything as clear as day for that fleeting second. A great word.
However, I'm not into singing carols so late after Christmas and nor am I into talking of the magi so long after the day, so what to do this coming Sunday? The Gospel passage is the visit of the 'wise men'. So we could read that and do something about the meaning of Epiphany. Alternatively we could go with some other passage. Isaiah 60:1-6 is one of the other offerings for the week and is slightly better. It mentions gold and frankincense but also mentions light to the nations too. Maybe there is stuff there about epiphanies, revelations, a-ha moments. 'Look around you and see what is happening'. That's quite good. Go and find the epiphanies. Go and wrestle with the search. Step out on the journey. Don't think it will arrive where you are. It's you who has to move, not the light. (but unpresbyterian if you ask me. I've been in this pew for that last 50 years and I'm not going to move now, not ever for the light of God')
Basically the theme is 'Get off your camel and seek the light.'
So what hymns and words and symbols and thoughts and ideas and images and music and sermon titles? Hey, just answer that last one: if you were to give a title to an epiphany sermon, what would it be?
What must it be like to live with hope as part of your make-up, when hope is latently part of who you are? Maybe we get the impression the Jews in exile lived always with one eye on Jerusalem even though none of them had never set foot in it. Maybe that is how they lived.
But maybe also (there's a lot of 'maybe's in faith - but there are only certainties in religion) all this purple prose from the prophet is a call to refocus. Maybe it's not about the way people have been living, always hoping of return and re-establishing a God-Nation in Jerusalem. The Jews had hunkered down and got on with life, adapting and finding a foothold in Babylon as exiles. They were doing quite nicely in many respects.
Now that damn prophet speaks again and tries to turn them away from their living new homeland with God-talk and God-dreams that are temptingly luscious of vibrant meadows blooming and woodland appearing where deserts once lazed. Let's put God back into the future, Faith back into our living, history back into our present, memory back into our lifestyle. Maybe it is a recall to account, to re-focus and find again the faith-ambition that made them, called them and set them free those millennia ago.
There's something about the prophet speaking of higher things when he's actually speaking of who we are. Hidden in the the high agenda of heaven is a truth about ourselves. What have we become says the prophet, but nicely. Maybe the prophet isn't talking about land and state, but humanity. Meadows can bloom in the deserts... streams of water will flow... dry land will be filled with springs...
Hymns to accompany the arrival back in Jerusalem? Music that will offer us the transformation of the world?
Isaiah 11:1-11
There is surprise in the signs. Maybe the signs themselves are surprising. Here we've got a tree stump. It refers to that wonderful hope Israel had of kingship, but look at it now: it's a stump. It's like being the runt of the litter. Not the most glamorous place to find yourself especially after such hope (there's that word again). But, and here's the faith-filled bit, from the stump, despite everything, there comes a wee shoot. Not much to look at, probably coming out at a twisted and ugly angle. But it's not about looks or topiery. This is promise. Promise isn't in the fashion stakes. It's more about drama, surprise and unbelievable persistence.
So from the stump, the runt of the litter, comes the surprise of the generation. Who would believe God could have done that? Well, of course we all do, but we're on this side of Incarnation. But from that tree we thought was dead at the roots, comes a branch that eventually snakes it's way towards a new kingdom.
Imagine the surprise, the faith it would need, the song you'd have to sing to it, the story you are in the middle of telling, the new enthusiasm it would give to seeking out other symbols and signs of unexpected twists and turns...
Can you see them now? What songs do you want to sing about them? What symbols are you imagining?
Don't hold silence.
Colossians 1:11-20
There comes a time when you have to lay it on the line about who Jesus is and what Jesus means. In that moment Christianity becomes dangerous because either we confess it is all a rich web of lies or we actually believe in this stuff we say about Jesus. I'm not talking about the small details like walking on water or feeding 5000 but that this is the Son of Righteousness, that Jesus is Saviour of the world, that justice is not just until Jesus gets his hands on it. And this is the Sunday, that last of the church year, to come out and say it like you life depended on it.
The passage we are choosing to use this week from the Lectionary is from a book no one knows who wrote, but it is likely not to have been Paul since it was written after his death probably. The passage contains the remnant of a hymn the early church probably knew and that's the bit that has all the fabulous poetry about faith.
The Greek word for image is the word IKON. Fabulous word. So what ikons would you use to illustrate Jesus? What images would you use to say: This is the Christ for me?
And, also quite cooly, the Colossian letter uses a hymn to proclaim faith. Hey, that's the way we do stuff in the church: sing about it so on Sunday what do we need to sing in order to to wake the world up to what this Jesus bloke is all about? If you don't let us know, there's little chance of singing them on Sunday.
What images and what hymns? It will be, or could be, a rich service on Sunday. Bring a friend.
Isaiah 65:17–25
There'a big word in the thought of the BIble. The word is 'remember'. It means taking a past event into the future with all the power of the promise it orogonally had. Some thing that the ancient promises are tarnished because we haven't looked after them, or we have sinned and God's gone off in a huff. That doesn't happen. The ancient promises are just as full of light and future as they always were and there;s nothing we can do about it.
So we have this prophet Isaiah, or one of the various Isaiah that wrote that book over the hundred years it took, and the youngest of them hears one of the promises from the oldest of them and believes it to be true as much in his time as it was in the oriognal setting. A new heaven and earth now. Yep, just as possible now as it was when it originally make the theological headlines.
Here's the same thought 100 years later after the Hebrews had returned from Babylon. Same old truth, made new. A good truth to have echo in the aftermath of Remebrance and on the eve of the church's year which ends not this Sunday but the next before Advent blooms. I bet we'll hear that promise again.
So any hymns, symbols music of Isaiah 65:17–25.
Chocolate Teapots is slightly different this week. It is Remembrance Sunday here in the UK and so that theme takes precident over the scripture themes. Yet in the scripture we find words that speak into that silence. Yet ought anything speak into silence. Can silence not be left to be silent, for there is a greater noise behind it than the buzz of nothingness.
Psalm 145 speaks of God's reign over the world. Lot's of praising going on and God doing what is right. Hmmm, in the context of Remembrance Sunday and the wars we still fight, that sounds a difficult and other worldly word. Indeed a victors word.
There is a theology that speaks of God of the event. Maybe that images speaks into the silence, silently. God of the event. In slaughter the event speaks of God, not what God wills but what breaks. In conflict the event speaks of God, not what God chooses but what God bears. In silence the event speaks of God, not what God explains, but what God has no words to spak of because such memories take your breath away.
In Luke 20:27-38 the Sadducese are getting their knickers in a twist about marriage and eternity (they didn't go for a belief in the afterlife). But Jesus says to them to calm down for all the things we imagine are so important and are stumbling blocks here, are non-existant in heaven. Now that speaks into silence too: all the foolish decisions and selfish power-seeking choices that have been made are not worth the conflict they bring. Just bullies in the playground.
So I don't know how to move towards the silence this week. We normally have some way to allow people to engage with it, respond to it, because of all services this one demands a response. WE normally invite people to use their poppies in some creative way but I am all out of ideas. What do we want to say? What do we need to say? What do we need the silence to be left silent for?
And what hymns, and symbols can we use to help us?
Tree-climbing is a theological response to Jesus. Clearly heaven has no health & safety legislation. So do you just have to take the risk to catch Jesus, or does he catch you when you do take the risk? Hmmmm! And does it always end with a picnic?
Well that last one is fairly likely. Jesus was a bit of a glutton and drunkard according to local gossip. Blimey, even Jesus had that problem. The church was there before Jesus invented it. And it was complaining about a sinner, someone who didn't fit yet just in the awkward person heaven was screaming to burst open. Funny how that happens time and tim again.
Zacchaeus, who has sadly remained a cartoon character for most of us, actually contains an awful lot of heaven for adults. It's just one more image of heaven: full of justice for the little people (not just in height), priority for the ones who don't reach the grade of 'saint' or 'amgel', always on the case of those who think they do, and continually kicking sand in the faces of those who had it all worked out.
This heaven thing isn't working in the chruch very well yet Jesus tore through the place picking up every outcast you can possibly think of. The Gospels are full of them: lepers, women, children, sinners, tax-collectors, foreigners, menstruating women, romans, zealots and a few others. It's just such a priority in the Bible and look how we've institutionalised the whole thing. The wildness of heaven and the chaotic manifesto of grace, and the itinerant love of Jesus who had no where to lay his head has been moulded into straight lines of pews, well-behaved children, quiet adults and Common Metre psalms (which we changed the words of so theu would fit).
There's just something about the danger of tree climbing that speaks so freshly about heaven and the church and I'm wondering if anyone would like to help work out what it is.
By the way the passage is: Luke 19:1-10.
Hymnms, thoughts, music, images etc (we also have a baptism too).
Harvest. What does that mean in a hungry world? What does it mean when some eat too much and don't change their diet and most just starve? What does it mean when few of us see farmers, our headlines are all about Blue Tongue Virus and Foot & Mouth, when we don't grow anything but rather buy it and when farmers are being priced out by the supermarkets because we want cheap food rather than value for money?
Is there a better way of looking at harvest that recognises the justice issues of the world? Can we forget that for a moment and come back to it later once we've done the 'All is safely gathered in' when in clear view of the world, that's just a lie. The church is good a living lies, and many want to continue to live it resting in the romance of Victoriana when none of us live that kind of life. What we buy is deeply connected and intertwined with folk whose names we don't know from coutnries we couldn't place on a map.
Our harvest display is a whole host of images about creation. It is very positive. But the message of harvest isn't quite so positive. So where can we find the good news in harvest?
Well here's the nitty-gritty. We can do justice in the church without too much controversy or guilt even. We can justify not having fairly traded tea and coffee on the grounds of taste. We can do peace in the church too without much guilt attached and support weapons of mass destruction (as ong as we're in charge of them) or sing military songs and talk as if it is a priritual battle and wonder about our armed forces and find grounds to support or protest against them without too much life change going on.
And then there is money. Ah, a little more difficult. One of the letters to Timothy wrestles with it as well as other places. Where are our role models for money management? How do we balance our comforts and security (such as it is) and pensions (such as they might be) with ethics, and balance in the world? What about investing it ethically, paying more for what we know is made more fairly, having the high ideals of that but in reality running into the pound stores and supermarket brands for as much as we can afford knowing they can't possibly be made without the hint of slavery in some distant country.
So can we solve all of that in one sermon? Where do you start? Money and God. Always seemed a difficult combination. Shall we talk of fairtrade coffee? Much easier.
The passage this week from The Message:
1 Timothy 6:6-19 (The Message)
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
A devout life does bring wealth, but it's the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that's enough.
But if it's only money these leaders are after, they'll self-destruct in no time. Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after.
Running Hard
But you, Timothy, man of God: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.
I'm charging you before the life-giving God and before Christ, who took his stand before Pontius Pilate and didn't give an inch: Keep this command to the letter, and don't slack off. Our Master, Jesus Christ, is on his way. He'll show up right on time, his arrival guaranteed by the Blessed and Undisputed Ruler, High King, High God. He's the only one death can't touch, his light so bright no one can get close. He's never been seen by human eyes—human eyes can't take him in! Honor to him, and eternal rule! Oh, yes.
Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.
BBC News 24 and others dedicate themselves to getting the news out. I prefer radio news because the news isn't controlled by pictures, but they too (more sucessfully in my opinion) are all about getting the news out. The Letter to Timothy which is out fun for this weekend, doesn't use radio towers and digital highways. It suggests prayer. But when you read it it is prayer so we can all live peaceful lives without the distraction of oppression and becoming lion food, so that they can preach the good news like there is nothin else to live for.
Do you have a problem with prayer? I do! I can't make my mind up about it: does it really cure all? If it did then why isn't it used more often and why does it take such counter-rational perseverance. I sometimes imagine people imagine answers to prayers or of coincidence allows a particular prayer to be answered then suddenly all the others that never got answered are forgotten.
But, to counter that, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Bhuddits, Zionists, Radicalised, Conservatives, and even some liberals have been doing it for millenia. It's better for you according to life-style surveys. You don't get many thousands of years prayer if it doesn't actually work.
It's not a pill perhaps, but it is something, but just what exactly?
Thoughts? Hymns? But please, please, please don't suggest, 'What a friend we hav in Jesus' because let me state that personally, that I just don't beleive the shallow, easy faith, theology that everything would have been fine with the world if only we had taken it all to Jesus in prayer. Like generations of the human race haven't done that with Ethiopia, Black Death, Northern Ireland, Hitler, Apartheid... need I go on?
1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.
4-7He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we've learned: that there's one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the news is going to get out. This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth.
As long as you can count up to 99 you'll be okay for heaven. Actually it doesn't really matter how much you can count up to, as long as you know there ought to be one more, that's how you recognise heaven and the way to recognise what heaven does. So when you see the person always calling out the name of a lost child, of the one who is always searching then you've just met someone who belongs to the reign of God: aways on the search for that missing one: the missing sheep, the missing child, the missing coin, pearl, tax collector, sinner. This is the eign of God, always missing one.
And that's next week: always one less than you ought to have. So what's missing that would make this palce heaven on earth? What one thing is illuding us to make this the eign of God? Heaven is always one sheep less than a flock, one card less than a suit, one sandwish less than a picic. Does that make heaven a little mad? Probably it does. The whole idea is mad, completely.
So how do we move from here? What missing hymns shall we sing? What missing words shall we say? What missing stories shall we tell, that seek out the lost, and find the lost saviour, wandering this world, seeking his way back home?
THoughts?
There is a wee book called Philemon. There aren't any charpters because it isn't big enough to have chapters. It's a letter from Paul to a guy who has a slave. But there's a lot to it. Wee quiestions like: what does it mean to be the church; what's the cost and the promise of faith? Small things like that. So next week we do the whole book: bring freedom, work out the meaning of the church and live the faith at the same time. So if anyone has any thoughts then blog away:
Whay colour is this letter, or what does it taste of?
If it was an animal, what animal would it be?
If it was food, what course?
If it was a hymn, then what hymn?
Talking of which, what hymns come into mind when you read this passage (better tell you what it is: Philemon, 1-21)? Can you picture anything when you read it because that could be our symbol for next week.
So throw your thoughts this way.
Here's the passage. This is from The Message by Eugene Peterson.
1-3I, Paul, am a prisoner for the sake of Christ, here with my brother Timothy. I write this letter to you, Philemon, my good friend and companion in this work—also to our sister Apphia, to Archippus, a real trooper, and to the church that meets in your house. God's best to you! Christ's blessings on you!
4-7Every time your name comes up in my prayers, I say, "Oh, thank you, God!" I keep hearing of the love and faith you have for the Master Jesus, which brims over to other believers. And I keep praying that this faith we hold in common keeps showing up in the good things we do, and that people recognize Christ in all of it. Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel, doubly so when I see your hospitality to fellow believers.
To Call the Slave Your Friend
8-9In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ's ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn't hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, but I'd rather make it a personal request.
10-14While here in jail, I've fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he's useful to both of us. I'm sending him back to you, but it feels like I'm cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I'm in jail for the Message. But I didn't want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn't willingly agreed to.
15-16Maybe it's all for the best that you lost him for a while. You're getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That's what he was to me—he'll be even more than that to you.
17-20So if you still consider me a comrade-in-arms, welcome him back as you would me. If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account. This is my personal signature—Paul—and I stand behind it. (I don't need to remind you, do I, that you owe your very life to me?) Do me this big favor, friend. You'll be doing it for Christ, but it will also do my heart good.
21-22I know you well enough to know you will. You'll probably go far beyond what I've written. And by the way, get a room ready for me. Because of your prayers, I fully expect to be your guest again.
23-25Epaphras, my cellmate in the cause of Christ, says hello. Also my coworkers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. All the best to you from the Master, Jesus Christ!
Yesterday we had a wee blether about faith not being a whole load of creeds we've got to sing up to and those who sign up to the strangest ones get a better palce in heaven. But what is faith... I said that's what we'd look at this week. Better think about that. So what do you think?
Hebrews 11:29-12:2 is the passage. It's the leftover bit from yesterday, but are there any now insights when you read it? Anything that makes faith into a doing word?
If you have any thought, please do post theme here. Also the usual request for hymns that are suitable, music, images and a way of doing the reading that would make it more understandable and if any are possible (given everything else that needs to be added to a service) then you'll see them on Sunday.
Just a wee reminder of the CAIS:summer night out tomorrow for everyone 7pm-9pm in the church. 50p
So we've just had a month of big stories of the Patriarchs (points for those who recognise that word). We stepped outside the lectionary (more points for recognising that word) to follow our own stream of stories (which we ought to do again for a much longer time possibly). So now that we move back into the lectionary stream it must be Sod's Law that we arrive back at one of the same storieswe've just done. Typical!
Anyway, we meet that nice old geriatric who tasted a bit of infanticide in the name of the faith. But we take the story through Hebrews rather than the Old Testament epic. By faith... Abraham set out on the road; by faith... centuries of religious men silenced women; by faith... the church performed Inquisitions; by faith... we're still here...
'Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen'. The faith has been used for doing to much that is done not in God's name but in the name of power, greed.
Yet the faith has also be used for doing so much more unheard and unknown work that has changed things. Anything that has power is probably going to be used by 'both sides' in the battle as a means of achieving. The really good tyrants use religion because it is incredibly powerful. Why are so many taken in by it? What can't we see the times when the faith is being used for political/personal/terrorist means?
It was by faith... religion was left behind and the People of God built a new world; it was by faith... the faithful dropped 'The Faith' for something more just and closer to God; it was by faith... the faithful looked at the stars and saw a promise, a future and a very long journey ahead of them.
Back from holiday and immediately I'm cynical. So moving into the week, what shouts out from the story this week (Hebrews 1:1-3,13-16) that's a little more positive? Hymns? Symbols? A single word? What does faith mean to you? What images do you pull up? What Biblical story speaks into it? And what person do you recall?
Today was okay. Very much a routine but the wall was good. I thought it looked fabulous so thanks for Josh, Aam, Sean and Katie for spending a moment or two with sponges and lots of paint. Love it.
Next week we move on to David. Bit of a naughty boy really who just couldn't help himself with the women. And he liked dancing much to the chagrin of his wife. Lots of twists and turns which is no great surprise given he was the archetypal king and model for the Messiah. It wonderful how these stories are so rich because of who he was seen to be.
Anyway, for Sunday we have a big arc of the covenant made as the scenery (thanks again to the aforementioned chidlren who have already completed nest weeks homework). Also a baptism so the link there will be the anointing of david and the future hope that created and how it was the most ordinary, smallest, youngest that was chosen to be the greatest.
Not sure what activity we could do this week. We've have bricks, bread and honey, rainbow bookmarks and stars. What could we do for dancing david remembering there is a baptism and a few guests who may think the whole lot is a bit weird?
So it's all over to you. Need some hymns too. Only one or two because the rest are sort of chosen because it is a baptism, and the hymn that links from last week as well as the seasons new hymn so needing help...
Well, today was okay. Story was quite long but then there was a lot of story to get through. Moses had a lot to do but then he did live for a rediculous number of years. Thankfully we managed to get it all lived within the hour. Next week will be a little less long. Joshua had an easy life compared to Moses.
Anyway, that takes us on to Joshua andwondering about his story. We've had big scenary over the last three weeks and it would be good to keep that up. So ideas...? The obvious one would be Jericho and the walls come tumbling down. How would we do that?
Or are there other parts of the story that would make better scenary? Joshua parted the Jordan much like Moses did the Red Sea. Was this ust copycat parting or the same story told twice, or Joshua feeling he didn't want to be outdone?
The other thing to think about is how to tell the story. Today's sort of worked but it was really just a 'This is your Life' kind of thing rather than telling a story which is what was meant to happen. So ideas will always be gladly received.
Again I thought this morning went well. A number of people even positively commented on the hymns as they were going out the door and said they enjoyed them. A couple of people said we should have more services in that style and one said they'd be there every week if we did! So no pressure then!
I have wondered since this morning about doing story services more often where we just tell the big stories of our faith. The same style as today and last week. Just a thought.
Anyway, next week it's Moses. So any thoughts? I have to admit most of it is prepared but any insights would be wonderful. It helps the context, the activities.
Why does Moses appeal or not appeal to you?
Well, I was quite happy with the service today. Okay, the opening responses were all wrong but I didn't realise that until my wife told me after the service. I thought people really didn't like them. We'll try again next week. And the glitter thing revealling next weeks passage didn't work either but everything else was fine. But the whole story thing I think may just work.
Which takes us to next weeks story: Abraham. It was nice having you again Noah but do you know anyone called Abram. We're going for the stars and sand and old geezers having wains. But there's lots of other bits to the story to: sacrificing Isaac (who in their right mind... had that conversation before); passing off Sarah as his sister and letting the king have his wicked way with her; and the stuff about Ishmael and the whole arab cultre that is the Bible's way of explaining that great race. So far too much but lots of scandal and vice. Not so good for all-age. More late night worship...
So what parts intrigue you? What bits could we tell and how could we tell it? And what wee hymns could we sing? What should we work at this week for the servie nd what scenery could we paint on Friday?
I'm in a quandry. Should we go with the passages the lectionary gives us over the month of July which continues the story of Eijah or should we pick different passages that are more summery? Last year we got the congregation to choose the stories if you rememebr by voting in the order of service who they'd like to meet at the cafe the following week. Remember we had Hard Rock Cafe and the uice and stuff as people arrived). So I do't know what to do.
I really don't have a single thought about the five weeks other than a couple of songs that we'll learn. Maybe we could do just that: music but I'll guarantee that won't go down too well.
So what shall we do?
- Siblings in the Bible: Esau and Jacob, Mary and Martha, Moses and Aaron, Cain and Abel, Peter and Andrew, James and John?
- symbols in the Bible: water, bread and wine, cross, stones, light, fig trees, fish?
- journeys in the Bible: Abraham from Ur to Haran, Hebrews from Egypt to Promised Land, Jesus from Carpernium to Jerusalem, Paul from Jerusalem to Rome, Elijah from The north to the south.
- food in the Bible: fruit (Genesis), Bread and wine (Jesus), Lamb and unlevened bread (Exodus), fish and loaves (feeding 5000), oil & flour (Elijah)
- Golden Oldie hymns (all dodgey but folk will sing them anyway): What a friend, great is thy faithfulness, crown him, how great thou art, jesus loves me
- celebrations in the Bible: wedding of cana, passover, return of the arc, the escatalogical banquet...
- Children in the Bible: boy with the loaves and fish, Jairus' daughter, Isaac, Ishmael, David.
So what do you all think? Any of these a possibility for the five weeks in July or is there another tack altogether like having it all in the hall round coffee tables, or have Sunday School type worship with a song or so to start with and then we all do crafts like yesterdays CAOS taster, or we all watch a film together and then discuss, or get speakers in to unpck something (not so good for children). I really am open to every suggestions. The Worship Party has just suddenly taken to cyber space.
You're standing on a mountain and suddenly you hear this great roar of the earth shacking the whole lot. Rocks tumble down the mountainside, and you feel the roar in your being. And once it is gone you think: it was big, dramatic and dangerous, but it wasn't God.
Then the wind starts. It throws any shrubbery around on that mountainside, animals take cover behind rocks that feel as if they are shaking and when the winds dies down you think: it was strong, it was powerful, but it wasn't God.
There the fire stars, a great forest fire, or lightening throwing itself down from heaven. It charges to the growund in great explosions, rocks spark, trees explode and when it all dies down you think: it was violent, it was awesome, but it wasn't God.
And then it clicks: not in the eqrthquake, fire and wind but in the silence afterwards is where you find God. Isn't that amazing. It's the big we linger in afterwards, hearing the echo of what's just happened, is where you find God as if God has been waiting in the background, the ambient atmosphere all along. Just there, not in the drama but in the eternalness.
1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a
Songs, words, colours, images...?
Luke 7:36-8:3
A story for women everywhere, not just that they were repeatedly the ones who recognised the special uniqueness of Jesus but also they were the ones who supported him financially, taking from their husbands funds, enough to keep Jesus going. They were the ones to be decadent with their love for him, over the top in their recognition of the mystery and hope he held for them. Okay you wouldn't ever get a man doing what this unnamed woman was doing to Jesus feet but in a culture that had women silenced in many ways, then this was all they could do.
It's Sunday School prize-giving this Sunday so it's partly all-age and also a we sermon too. So I'm interested in your thoughts about this woman and the others. Could we make it a feminist thing going on in the service this week (led by a man)? You know, when you look at the Bible, every week is about radical inclusion. He never misses a turn to get those on the outside, inside. If only we'd live more like that and let that change us...
I think we'll do the new hymn again that we did yesterday (I like it and at least one other likes it too), but I'm open to lots more suggestions...
Okay, you've got enough flour and oil to do you one more loaf and this wild guy you've never met before comes to your door, looking a bit hungry, as asks to share your bread. What do you do? He's a prophet and running away from the king. Obviously a bit dodgey and certainly not someone to have a cup of tea with, let along your last loaf. Add to the mix that fact the woman is a widow (no support) and has one son. But of course, as nothing is straighforward with God, the son dies. The mad prophet bloke then does some weird magic stuff you probably don't want to know about and the son walks down the stairs alive and well.
So yet again, God is found out on the fringes of society: a land where Baal is worshipped, a widow, a dead son and someone so poor she can't even make more than her last loaf of beard. Good grief, God doesn't even give her the dignity of sharing the last piece of bread with her son on their own to say their good byes before they die.
So what songs and symbols would help speak into this story? Any movement, or creating the worship space? What one thought do you have with this story? What would you want to say to someone about it?
Oh, by the way, the bag of flour and the jar of oil are refilled again, just enough to last another loaf for the next day. And then the same things happens the next day and the day after that. Get the pattern? Just enough. Now there a lesson on sustainability, but hey, that was today's theme.
Today was today. It had some moments but on the whole I think it missed a bit. However, lets talk about the bits that did work. For myself I thought the tryptich was brilliant. It looks fabulous. I thought the balloons were a good moment of celebration. There was laughter too whcih is the work of the Spirit. And I was talking to someone after the service saying that I thought it was a bit flat but she said that's not what she took from it all, but rather there is clearly life abut the place, it isn't stiff but relaxed and lively. So there was a wee lesson for me at least. It doesn't have to be a perfect performance but just living.
The other lesson is to practice more before hand which is a bit of an oxymoron with what's just been said but persomally I think I have to go through the talks more thoroughly rather than just imagin it all in my head.
However, that's not what this blog is meant to be about. Next week: It's communion and Environment Sunday. An interesting but possible combination especially as it is Trinity Sunday too. Works for me, sort of.
So the reading is Psalm 8 which is amazingly appropriate for all three themes. That's the Psalm that has the line: "What are humans that you are worthy of them". Basically the Psalmist is staring up at the sky and recognising the vastness of the heavens. It's all the more vast now-a-days and therefore all the more wonderful that God still has the big moments for us. Any normal God would be busy away doing stuff somewhere out by Pluto or Beetljuis or the Andromoada galaxy (all pretty close in astronomical terms) to be bothered with us lot. But our God isn't normal and kind of has a huge lens magnifying our tiny blue and green planet to a disproportionate size in amongst the much bigger heavenly spheres. Why does God do that?
So there we go. It's vast. It's collosal. It's humungus. It's totally amazing. And so will Sunday (if I practice a little harder!)
We could talk about next Sunday. Chocolate Teapots is all about Pentecost this week. Acts 2. Flame and words and parties and wind. Enough said!
How do you celebrate the Spirit? Is he a she or is she a he? It was rarely mentioned 10 years ago but we've made it much bigger. It's all about red and life. What words would you use for the spirit?
Here's a few: catalyst, disturber, laughter, wisdom, creator, dove, anger... others?
