COME BACK TO ME

29 March 2019

COME BACK TO ME (Hosea 14:2-10)

Hosea, one of the early prophets, calls the people back to God; to their roots, to the covenant which was the promise of fulfilment, happiness and peace.  This was where they would be at home.  We often speak of ‘centering’ prayer, being still and finding God within; our ‘native’ land is our own heart.  In so far as we ‘come back’ to ourselves, we discover ourselves for the second time, this time in a new light. On Sunday we will read the story of the son who left his home, his country and his religion.  He was ‘lost’.  But then he says ‘I will arise and go to my father’.  He ‘finds’ himself, a new life opens up for him.  Lent is that call to us.

KNOW THAT THE REIGN OF GOD HAS OVERTAKEN YOU

28 March 2019

KNOW THAT THE REIGN OF GOD HAS OVERTAKEN YOU (Luke 11;14-23)

It is a moment of crisis. Will they accept the new life offered by the coming of Jesus or will they retreat into the way of life they were used to?  We know what happened.  They could not accept him and reached around for every excuse they could think of to reject him. They were offered a whole new way of life that would be in-exhaustively satisfying but they opted for what they knew, what they could control, what they ‘were comfortable with.’  It is bleak tragedy repeated and repeated.  Lent is that precious time when we look hard: am I missing something – a way of thinking, a way of life, an openness to the Spirit - that could really make a difference.

NOT ONE DOT WILL DISAPPEAR

27 March 2019

NOT ONE DOT WILL DISAPPEAR (Matthew 5:17-19)

The law expressed what was already there, written into ‘the bones’ of men and women.  The law articulated for the Israelites in the desert their fundamental human nature.  ‘Conscience’ is what reveals to us what ‘the law’ means to each of us and grace is what we call the life of God which comes to perfect what is there written in our hearts and bones.  I wanted to play the piano as a youth but it was not my gift and I never succeeded. ‘If you did but know the gift of God’, Jesus says to the woman at the well.  If we all knew our gift, allowed God to perfect it and lived by it, then we would be happy and all would be well!

HE CANCELLED THE DEBT

26 March 2019

HE CANCELLED THE DEBT (Matthew 18:21-35)

To forgive is to heal.  When we cancel a debt or compromise with another person we build something new. Jesus is insistent; this is the surest way of building a new society. The nineteen nineties saw three examples; in Eastern Europe, in South Africa and in Northern Ireland. And we know how mending personal quarrels is a healing. Our first reading speaks of a ‘contrite heart, a humble spirit.’ (Daniel3) These are the qualities that rebuild.  What we lack, at times, is the desire. We feel it asks too much of us, shows us up as weak, etc. So we stick to our power game. But wonderful things happen when power gives way to forgiveness.

ON COMING INTO THE WORLD

25 March 2019, the Annunciation

ON COMING INTO THE WORLD (Hebrews 10:4-10)

Every time we write ‘2019’ we acknowledge it.  If it is 2019 what happened 2019 years ago? Today we remember what was then known at first only to Mary. God entered his world as one of us.  ‘He dwelt among us’.  He entered into human experience and showed us the way to live. With unbelievable humility he had first asked our permission and in the person of Mary we reached the heights of human welcome and accepted his coming without having any idea where it would lead.  It led to Calvary and Mary was there again, accepting this awful consequence of his coming.  Rejoicing in welcoming the Son of God we ask that we may follow the way he has opened up for us.

STUCK ON ROOF TOPS

STUCK ON ROOF TOPS

‘Those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell and killed them? Do you suppose they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will perish as they did.’

There was a time when, in searching for who to blame for catastrophes, people used to think those who are suffering must have done something to bring on the disaster. Jesus is outraged at the idea. Again, in John chap. 9, they ask if the man born blind was to blame for his plight or were his parents? Again, Jesus was indignant.  It was neither.

No one can look at the pictures coming out of Beira, or read the reports without being deeply moved by the suffering of the more than 500,000 people affected.  The idea that it was somehow their fault strikes one as grotesque.  If we are looking for explanations we can mention those long ago who chose to found a city on such low-lying land, some of it below sea-level, without building the defences against the sea like the Dutch did. How much the cyclone is normal in that part of the Indian Ocean and how much it is a result of global warming is another issue?

In reply to the question about the man born blind Jesus says, ‘he was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him.’ Now, what does that mean? We see limitation everywhere.  There are people born blind and others living with intellectual handicaps.  There are people living in poverty or in war zones or in the path of cyclones.  There are people oppressed in their place of work and so the list lengthens.  Jesus is indignant at the thought that they are somehow to blame.

The people he does hammer are the ‘blind guides’ and ‘hypocrites’ who ‘honour God only with lip-service while their hearts are far from him.’  These are the people who could make a difference to peoples’ lives but they don’t.  They have the power but not the will.  They don’t care.  They are too busy feathering their own nests.     

What is wonderful is the mighty effort made by so many to rescue those in distress.  There were still people clinging to trees and roof tops without clean water or food for days and there is still (23 March) a constant effort to reach the last endangered people.  Helicopter pilots have to concentrate mightily to hold their machine in place while a member of the crew at the end of a rope tries to extricate a starved and weakened person from a tree.  The generosity and dedication of so many is in itself a revelation.  Many of those rescuers might not name what they are doing, ‘the works of God’ but all this is part of the ‘one great act of giving birth’ to a new humanity.

24 March 2019            Lent Sunday 3 C

Exodus 3:1-15             I Corinthians 10:1-12             Luke 13:1-9

A LONG WAY OFF, HIS FATHER SAW HIM

23 March 2019

A LONG WAY OFF, HIS FATHER SAW HIM

Three pillars of the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) stand out: the self-indulgent son, the waiting compassionate father and the uncomprehending elder brother. And of these the loving patience of the father touches me most.  We get into so many difficulties and make so many wrong decisions about our own lives and that of our planet and yet the father waits patiently for the right moment for us when we will turn to him.  Lent is that period when we see that he has been looking out for us all the time.  He cannot force us back, no more than a concerned parent can force their errant teenage child to change their ways, but he waits lovingly for us to realise, to waken – as from a long sleep.