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Showing posts from January, 2010

The unwelcome prophet

Luke 4:21-30 Jesus began to speak in the synagogue: ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips They said, ‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?’ But he replied, ‘No doubt you will quote me the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside.”’ And he went on, ‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country. ‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’ When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They spran

And again, Snow

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A smattering is the idiosyncratic parlance of the Met office. A smattering of sharp, cold, ice white flakes dancing in the easterly wind ; a dusting of sparklingly bright crystals fallen from a heavy pink clouded sky; outlining the angles and convolutions of the landscape; catching the eye again –‘Look, look’. This was a sudden smattering, and, as such, has had a dramatic effect. The radio warns of hazardous driving conditions and recommends only necessary journeys, sports events are cancelled, shoppers with empty pockets, still suffering from the Christmas excess, decide it is a day for the fireside. God claims His Sabbath back as a day of rest. Later in the day only a hardy few regard a walk in the frozen countryside as a ‘rest’; and are favoured witnesses to a pageant of stark beauty – browlines of skeletal trees outlined against the hard china blue sky – a pictogram of ‘Winter’. Walking among the trees, the suffering is apparent; bark turned ashen grey, evergreen leaves tinged wit

Be extraordinary

Luke 4;14-21 Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him. He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written: The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ ‘as he usually did’ So, there was a time when Jesus was just one of the crowd – an everyman in the ev
Stone Jars Sunday Gospel - John 2-11 There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited. When they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the wedding was all finished, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ Jesus said ‘Woman, why turn to me? My hour has not come yet.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews: each could hold twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’, and they filled them to the brim. ‘Draw some out now’ he told them ‘and take it to the steward.’ They did this; the steward tasted the water, and it had turned into wine. Having no idea where it came from – only the servants who had drawn the water knew – the steward called the bridegroom and said; ‘People generally serve the best wine first, and keep the cheaper sort till

God I snow here II

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There are always lessons to be learnt from a gift from God. They tend to be power packed, working on many layers; some deeper than others; some almost hidden and some we would prefer to keep that way. The snow is definitely a case in point. It is difficult to keep up the enthusiasm, the sense of wonder, the simple physical and emotional energy that it takes to deal with such enchantment. It is hard to pay attention all the time; - to be warm enough, to eat well, to walk gingerly through furrows of snow over ice, to drive well on gritted roads and then to find yourself sliding uncontrollably, backwards, down a side street coated in black sheets of ice. It’s impossible to stay home, the ‘snow-go’ challenges not the nation’s economy but the day to day living of families reliant on overtime, daily rate pay, self-employment. Sixth formers have exams to take; everyone needs an education; the local hospital is seeing 300 people a day with ‘snow’ injuries; clinics are closed; tragedies have ha

Godisnowhere

God is nowhere In the walking past of Big Issue Sellers In the jangling of Christmas frenzy In the rush to the January Sales In the slamming of doors In the closing of hearts In ignoring need In saying ‘No’ God is now here In coming together in community In the smiling face of a stranger In random acts of kindness In the words ‘after you’ In hearts open to love In relationships In saying ‘Yes’ This was our parish Christmas Card this year – a clever visual word trick that contrasts the manic worldiness of Advent against the real reason for this season of preparation – preparation of the ‘self’ rather than the selfish; a criticism of an attitude that thinks ‘Christmas would be much more fun if we didn’t have to think about God’ Trying to be clever, myself, I picked out another wordy option ‘God I snow here’. And God decided to play along. I have always thought that, if God goes to all that trouble of making every snowflake unique, He must like snow too. Now I apologise to all thos