A man’s reach

I will be away for three days but here are some thoughts for Sunday

A man’s reach

“Oh, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

or what’s a heaven for?”

So wrote the poet Robert Browning and the words serve well to remind us that life is all about striving for the more, the greater. Sports people and artists show us constantly the peaks of human effort. We see the near perfection of their performance on field or stage or on the screen but we pass over the hours of training and striving that went before. Any achievement costs “fishing all night and catching nothing” and then an occasional haul in the morning.

Jesus used hyperbole to jolt us into knowing what he was calling for: “unless a person hates his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, they cannot be my disciple.” What could be more radical than turning your back on your closest relatives? It sounds outrageous if you take it literally but, of course, Jesus did not mean “hate” in the way we mean it. For him it was making the Father the total centre of his life. We have glimpses of this when he stays behind in Jerusalem at the age of twelve, much to his parents annoyance, and when he replied to the man who said his mother and brothers were outside and wanted to talk to him, “who is my mother and brother? Anyone who does the will of my Father is mother and brother and sister to me.”

These are the words of one who puts a radical choice before us. Are you prepared to reach for the stars in your ambition? Or do you just vaguely want to succeed in a general non-taxing kind of way? What do you really want? Are you prepared to strive and sweat for it? Or do you just hope that soon everything will be OK if I have patience and wait? If history and politics teach us anything it is that change does not just happen like the rainy season follows the dry. We know it doesn’t work that way. In human affairs there has to be a striving, a struggle, for the better to emerge. We see this in nature. We see it everywhere.

We are a peaceful people and we laugh a lot. It is our way of coping with setbacks and disappointments. And there is a place for patience and waiting. But I know in my own life how easy it is to do that to excess; to avoid any sort of confrontation and pain and just go with the flow. That may make for my comfort but it will not bring about change.

8 September 2013       Sunday 23 C

Wis 9:13-18                 Phlm 9-10, 12-17        Luke 14:25-33 

NEW WINE, FRESH SKINS

PRAYER MOMENT

Friday 6 September 2013

NEW WINE, FRESH SKINS

Pause. Be still in the presence of God

Reading. “Nobody puts new wine into old skins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost.” (Luke 5:33-39)

Reflection. As a boy Jesus had often observed how wine was stored in specially prepared containers made of animal skins. Every new harvest of wine had to be stored in new skins. It was an apt image for his message about the reign of God coming into the world. To be a Christian one cannot hold onto the old ways; the traditional beliefs and practices that do not fit with the new wine of the kingdom. Something new, “something greater than Solomon is here.” Jesus who is “the image of the unseen God and the first born of all creation” (Col 1:15-20)  calls me to a totally new way of thinking and acting.

Prayer. Almighty Father, it is wonderful to reflect on the new world you are making through the words and actions of your people, formed in the image of your Son and living in your Spirit. Teach us to rejoice in your activity and bend our minds and hearts to your work. Amen

COMPLETELY OVERCOME

PRAYER MOMENT

Thursday 5 September 2013

COMPLETELY OVERCOME

Pause. Recall that you are in the presence of God

Reading. “Peter and his companions were completely overcome by the catch of fish that they had made.” (Luke 5:1-11)

Reflection. Peter and his companions had “worked hard all night and caught nothing.” Now they caught so many fish that their nets began to tear. Peter is overwhelmed. He instantly realises that something beyond the world we know has happened; God has dramatically shown his hand just as he had to Moses in the burning bush. He falls on his knees overcome. We quickly say that Jesus is teaching Peter that he is to become a “fisher of men” and that is true. But we can also say that God reveals himself to us in our work. We try our best but the results can be beyond our own making. We have a sense that, yes, I did what I could but the results of what I did are far beyond what I expected. They are pure gift.

Prayer. Father, teach us to do our bit, to put our hands to the plough. But teach us to too to know that it is you who make things grow. You crown our efforts beyond our imagining. Help us to be ever expectant, ever thankful. Amen

HE CURED THEM

PRAYER MOMENT

Wednesday 4 September 2013

HE CURED THEM

Pause. Remember that you are in the presence of God

Reading. “At sunset all those who had friends suffering from diseases of one sort or another brought them to him and, laying his hands on them he cured them.” (Luke 4:38-44)

Reflection. The early ministry of Jesus is filled with energy and enthusiasm on the part of the people. Jesus starts in the family, the family of his closest follower, Simon Peter, He cures his mother-in-law. Then he moves out to meet and cure the people of the town and district. Finally he moves beyond to the “other towns.” There is an ever widening circle of his activity which will eventually embrace the “whole house of Israel” and ultimately the whole world. When he rises from the dead Jesus is no longer restricted by the limits of a human body here in this life. He is able to reach and cure every person in every age. He started in Capernaum, which I once visited – it is now a ruin, but he now has a “cosmic” outreach to all creation. And so have we. Our life and our prayer start in our family and grow as we meet more and more people. When we come to die our capacity to reach others will expand to an unimaginable extent. We will share in the divine embrace of all creation. It would be good to get used to it now.    

Prayer. Father, you love your creation and you sent your Son to heal us, one by one, and lead us back to you. Teach us to respond in love and thanks and open pour hearts to our brothers and sisters. Amen

A DEEP IMPRESSION

PRAYER MOMENT

Tuesday 3 September 2013

A DEEP IMPRESSION

Reading. “His teaching made a deep impression on them because he spoke with authority.” (Luke 4:31-37)

Reflection. In the early days of Jesus’ ministry the people are astonished. “He speaks with authority.” And what particularly struck them was his power over evil spirits. A real engagement, a battle, with the forces contrary to God had begun. And the evil spirits knew it and were alarmed. “This is the beginning of the end for us.” But for Jesus the battle would have to take place in the heart of every person and would not be so simple. The evil spirits would not give in easily and would  try to spoil his progress - and ours - at every step. For the people of that time, and of ours, the struggle would be continuous and hidden.  

Prayer. Lord, teach me to struggle against the evil within me and in the world. The wheat and the weeds grow together. Teach me to be alert to the urgings of the good spirit and of the evil one. Amen

FULFILLED TODAY

PRAYER MOMENT

Monday 2 September 2013

FULFILLED TODAY

Reading. “This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.” (Luke 4:16-30)

Reflection. Today we start our annual readings from Luke’s synopsis of the public life of Jesus. He begins with this word “today” in his home town and announces that the prophecies of Isaiah – good news to the poor, liberty to captives, new sight for the blind, relief for the oppressed and a time of favour for all – are to be fulfilled “today.” It is a theme rooted in the psalms – “O that today you would listen to his voice” (Ps. 95) – and reminds us that that is all we have. We do not have yesterday, we do not have tomorrow. We just have today and indeed just this very moment – now! And this is the moment God is acting in my life and in the world, bringing good news, freedom, new sight, relief and favour – if I can but recognise his presence.

Prayer. Lord, teach me to recognise your presence in my life today where you gently “draw” me (John 6:44) to yourself through the people and events of my day. Give me “new sight” to see you in my life today. Amen

Break down the barriers

Break down the barriers

If you are from the country you can feel out of place in town. If you are from Bulawayo you can feel out of place in Harare. If you are from Zimbabwe you can feel out of place in Paris or London. The first time you leave home can be unsettling. We like to be where things are familiar and we feel secure.

So when Jesus says, when you have a celebration invite the poor, the lame, the blind and the handicapped it is a disturbing call. Many societies bar such people from full citizenship.  Scrolls of the strict Jewish community that lived in Qumran in the desert about the time of Jesus were discovered in a cave in 1947, and they excluded the deformed, the lame, the blind and the deaf – even those with defective eyesight (which applies to me!) – from the banquet in the kingdom of heaven.

Margaret Thatcher used to bluntly ask the question, “is he one of us?” when she was told someone wanted to see her. We can smile but in one way or another we do the same. We like to be with people who are like us.

This is understandable but it doesn’t actually open us up to the prayer of Jesus “that they may all be one.” When the English first came to Ireland they built a wooden wall of posts (pales) around their settlement in Dublin, which became known as the Pale. So the Irish were “beyond” the Pale while they were “within” it. That was 700 years ago. The Israelis have done the same today. They want the Arabs to stay “beyond” them and our history in Southern Africa is riddled with similar feelings and actions. We have not yet learnt to accept each other and let the barriers down between us. We find it so hard to listen to the words of Jesus: “do not be afraid of people who are different. Invite them into your life and listen to what they have to say. Do not reject them because they do not share your views or they come from another place or have voted differently from you in the election.” Do not build walls. Do not put others “beyond the pale.”

When the Americans say “get real” they mean many things, but it  is an attractive expression. Ben Sira says, “the greater you are the more you should behave humbly … there is no cure for the proud man’s malady.” That is being real. To be humble is to be real, to have your feet on the ground. The poet Hopkins has a line, “generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
and all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
and wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.”

“Nor can foot feel, being shod.” Maybe when we started wearing shoes we lost touch with mother earth! At any rate it is an apt image of division creeping into society. We lose touch with reality when we close our doors to others.

1 September 2013                   Sunday 22 C

Eccl 3:17-20, 28-29                 Heb 12: 18-19,22-24               Luke 14 1, 7-14