Month: August 2020

In Sunday’s Lectionary passage from Romans, my favourite word is ‘therefore’, in the first verse. Paul has gone on at great length about what Jesus has done. ‘Therefore’ connects all that to the next part of the letter, what we must do… Although good behaviour does not buy us a seat in heaven, it is a necessary and human response to what God has done for us. (Also Paul is concerned with the togetherness of the Christian community).

It is great to live with that sense of gratitude, but it isn’t always easy – there are two obvious reasons that it’s hard sometimes. One is that it is sometimes far from obvious that God has been good to us – whatever Paul says about God’s penal and accounting system, simple observation of a world of disease, disasters and personal tragedy suggests that for all its wonder and goodness, the world also sucks sometimes. There is no answer to this, only our solidarity and the solidarity of the crucified Christ. The other problem with the calculus of “God has done this for us, therefore…” is that God’s side of this has often been colonised by the institutional church, which sometimes, very humanly, falls into the habit of laying unnecessary obligations on us. The character Amy Farrar Fowler in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is rightly bemused by the notion of a deity who ticks attendance. Of course, the church has practical needs, but at all times it needs to approach people with God’s gracious love, unending mercy, and unsilenced call for justice.

Blustery walk this morning. Yesterday was lovely and I had an extra walk because Janet dropped me off again on the way somewhere. This time I walked part of the Transpennine Trail on the Upper Don (Yorkshire) side. It had been years since I last went that way, and the surface is now excellent, and there’s lots of public art and a children’s play wood and all sorts of good things … and in yesterday’s sunshine it was well used, with plenty of young families, and pensioners on electric bikes…. and plenty of width to pass safely. 21 miles all in all yesterday, so a bit less walking today I think. Some of yesterday’s pictures should help me add to Prayers for Places.

A sparkling blue morning, calm at first, but with a very slight haze. Maybe it was salty droplets carried over from distant stormy seas.

Signs in the news of distant and not so distant governments undermining democracy, and I feel as if the world has slipped out of my hands – my voice no longer matters, maybe it never did. In Russia, any opposition to Putin gets attacked physically, it appears. In America, the government is trying to sabotage the postal service so it can win the election, and in our country, the government seems to spend more time blaming its loyal servants than it does running the country. But the new thing for me is, all these strategies work!

I can’t get out of my head the image of young Johnson farting in the dorm, and learning how to point the finger at someone else, a skill that will stay with him for the rest of his life.

Those three countries are very different, but one thing they have in common is that at the very highest level, money talks,

I believe this is God’s world – but I’m not always sure just how that works. But then, no world is so God-forsaken as was the world of the brutal Romans who executed Jesus.

Walking a bit later this morning, and a different walk because Janet kindly dropped me off at Windle Edge. Strange to be wandering around on these hills without having walked here. Anyway, I walked home, which was largely downhill…

On this walk I didn’t see one of these. I just mention it, because there is said to be one who has strayed into this area.

I thank you God,
for this remote, but not-so-remote place,
full of activity,
full of the noise of traffic, windy weather
and startled lapwings,
and full at times
of emptiness and quiet.
I thank you, God.

It has been wet this morning, with rain of the old-fashioned sort, steady and wet. It’s been easing lately, but still cloudy. Rain brings forth smells from the ground and from cagoules. Speaking of rain, can I just mention that there have been three test matches at Old Trafford in this constrained and odd year of cricket, and all three have produced a result.

The phone/camera stayed in its plastic bag all the way round this morning – no pictures.

Meanwhile, the qualification system is in a mess. I don’t like criticising incompetence, because I know I probably wouldn’t do any better. But having the wrong priorities is fair game. If the government hadn’t been so keen on news management and reassuring people that everything was under control (haha), they might have been able to get interested parties into a debate about 4 months ago when it became obvious this was going to be a difficult problem.

A couple of bits from next Sunday’s Lectionary…

From Isaiah 51:4 … “Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.” and from Romans 12:2 … “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

We are the people of God, and we dance to the sound of a different drum. It doesn’t mean that we shall always be perfect, or even consistent. Hypocrisy will creep in sometimes. But we are led forward by the justice and the will of God.

There’s no haze now, and a little rain has fallen. Good to be in church in person, but a little strange (though necessary) to observe all the anti-infection protocols. The roof opposite seems to have become a place for pigeon(s). I doubt whether the latest A-level mess is a conspiracy to hand advantage to students from privileged schools, but it does at least smack of thoughtlessness.

Living God, give to all of us,
separately and together,
the mind of Christ,
care for others,
love for truth,
hope for humanity.

PS also had a bit of a walk later and saw what I think may have been a kestrel, from above, when I was walking along the top of the dam.

Wind from the east still. Also a large group of cyclists on the Trail coming from the east … very kind and considerate. I hope they had some fun – although cycling the opposite direction would be less fun, wind and slope against them.

There’s always a lot of variety to be had walking around here, from the damp and slippery darkness of Old House Tunnel, to the airy walk back down the road through Padfield.

A brief glimpse of the white bottom of a bird as it flew away. It occurred to me that a white underneath would suit a bird that lives by coming down on its prey from above.

We thank you God for the energy industry,
which helps us achieve so much more
than we can do by muscle-power alone.
We pray for your influence this industry,
because we want energy to be made
in ways that do not harm the planet,
and we want it to be used wisely and
for good, not harm.
God bless all our human relating
with your justice;
and with your care, honour and love
for people who are
poor or vulnerable.

Walk up to the old quarry this morning to try and get among the clouds. Some cloudiness, but not as complete as I’d expected…

In the Lectionary, the Isaiah reading offers an inclusive vision of the people of God, based on doing what is right. It’s not the only way of seeing things in the Old Testament – but it has connections with belief in Christ and the movement of the early church into all nations.

In Sunday’s Lectionary we read about Jesus and the Canaanite woman. ISTR that ‘Canaanite’ is an intentional anachronism (like it would be to call Sandy Toksvig a ‘Viking’), maybe to remind us about Jesus’ call to the historic ‘house of Israel’. Of course there’s issues here – was Jesus a racist who was persuaded out of his racism – what does it mean for a nation to be called by God – for instance does it excuse the genocide of pre-Columban Americans? It’s hard to pick the bones out of all that stuff at this distance of time and space.

But there’s something more necessary and more simple to be taken home from this, something which is present in a lot of Jesus’ encounters – and that is about faith. Faith is very close to need, or even neediness. Faith that is used by one generation as a tool to impose its will on the next generation has lost its essential need, as it had for the Pharisees. Some churches are full of people whose faith is like this, and when you look into the content of it, it’s about little more than keeping your nose clean and liking Classic FM.

But true faith, I believe, starts from the acknowledgement that I need God, and will always need God, and need God as desperately and embarrassingly as one might need a long-lost lover. Not only do I need God, but my community and my world needs God. We need God.

Whovians will be able to correct me on this, but I think it was Angel Bob who said ‘We have no need of comfy chairs.’ But God is not a comfy chair. It is said that Laplace said of God, “I had no need of that hypothesis” – and indeed we don’t need God to explain the nature of the universe. It’s not for explaining nature that I need God, but for God’s sheer Godness.

Back home now after our time near Ashbourne. Just after midnight as we were trying to sleep in the Bambi, we were clipped by the eastern edge of some spectacular thunderstorms. At first it was quiet, there were distant flashes to the west every second or so, and no sound inside Bambi. As it got closer, the sound increased and eventually the rain came. The going was not like the coming. It just seemed to be dissipating as it moved away. By the time it was out of earshot, there was only an occasional flash. The morning was hot like yesterday, but a good deal less hazy.

Now the clouds to the west are quite nice, although AFAIK we’re too far east to get a huge lot of storminess…

We pray for all people who have been affected by this weather
especially those who’ve been hurt and bereaved
by the derailment in Scotland.
Christ, have mercy.