Two nice walks in fair weather this morning, the second with Janet. Lots of life, even in winter.
Meanwhile with Sunday’s Lectionary, it seems to me there’s always been reasons why faith in Jesus Christ is at least a bit shameful – the cross itself, which would have been horribly shameful as well as horribly painful to the people of the times; the upside-down beliefs about who matters in the kingdom (clue: not the rich) – as seen in the Magnificat, the beatitudes and many of Jesus’ sayings. So how odd it is that church has become a byword for respectability – although that now carries its own kind of stigma. Anyway, there are powerful reasons to be ashamed of Christ, and yet he commands us not to be ashamed, but to stand up and be counted.