Month: July 2021

God of love,
give us such love for our planet
and for each other,
that we do everything we can
to look after our atmosphere,
to refrain from burning fossil fuels,
wherever possible,
to support the efforts of scientists and engineers
trying to make the world a safer place.

We pray for your protection on all people
who live in places vulnerable to bad weather.
We pray for the people who, this month,
have been affected by floods, storms,
forest fires and extreme heat.
God help them through these times, we pray.

Living God, may your love and peace
fill this whole earth.

In John’s gospel in Sunday’s Lectionary, Jesus tells people he is the bread of life. He tells them they have only come because they want literal bread. But he offers them ‘bread from heaven’, a metaphor for himself and his way that comes from God, which sustains people.

However…
All bread comes from God – earth, sunshine, rain, energy, human labour and skill all come ultimately from God.
The Kingdom of God which Jesus proclaimed is a state of human being in which all people have literal bread too, because they care about one another, from the greatest to the least.

Anyway, on top of all the other lovely things about H&T’s wedding last weekend, it was great to sing a well-known Welsh hymn on that theme, the first real singing for a year and a half (though behind cloth).

In Sunday’s Lectionary, the Ephesians reading is an appeal for unity. Just as important is the diversity of gifts and roles in the Christian community that people have. These differences are meant to exist, and shouldn’t be a stumbling block to togetherness. Oddly, the most successful present-day political leaders seem to gain from sowing divisions in our national community.

Today there are some spells of drizzle. Drizzle does something beautiful to the landscape.

Back now after a stressful, beautiful and emotional weekend.

…see what you have done.
In Sunday’s Lectionary, Nathan confronts King David with the reality of what he has done. First, hats off to Nathan for speaking the truth to power, particularly knowing David could’ve got Nathan killed for confronting him with the unpopular truth.
Second, hats off to David for not killing Nathan, and for taking to heart what Nathan has said, and repenting.
Third, forgiveness is good, but there’s a necessary prior stage; of the person coming to an understanding of what they have done wrong. This is especially hard (but necessary) if the person’s culture doesn’t see the problem with what they are doing wrong. For instance petrolheads kill reasonable numbers of innocent people every year without realising that excessive speed and aggro is in any way wrong. Cars and social media are similar technologies in that they remove us from feeling the consequences of our actions. Modern cars are so smooth and sound-insulated that the driver has no idea what it feels like to be the person outside the box.

May God give us the grace
to know what we have done.

Short pause coming up….

In Sunday’s Lectionary, Jesus feeds a lot of people with a small amount of food. This being John’s gospel, there are layers of meaning. It is presented as a wonder, and it is also a sign. One thing I suggest would be worth thinking about is that the community of people who are together in Jesus Christ is a place where no-one is in need. Everybody eats and has their fill. The resources are already there.

In next Sunday’s Lectionary, we read of the way King David pulled strings to try and cover up the fact that he got a married woman pregnant. In the end he sends her husband back to the front line to be killed. Each dark deed breeds a darker one.

I don’t know what message we’re supposed to get from this – at least in the end David was repentant and acknowledged God’s way and is a hero in that sense. Maybe we’re supposed to admire that he was a bit of a jack-the-lad. He’s not the kind of hero I could ever identify with. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have the power to embark on that chain of nasty deeds.

I feel about him the way I would feel about a St Augustine or a Malcolm Muggeridge, having a whale of a time when they were young, with no care about treating other people right, and then in their older years taking it upon themselves to tell other people how to behave.

There are people who live their whole lives with the consequences of men’s wrongdoing.

There are questions of what does forgiveness mean in these circumstances, and what is repentance.

It’s better in the mornings these days, before the hot sun gets to work. By world standards, or even British standards, these high temperatures are not exceptional. – Sometimes, some places, even nights and early mornings can be hot. But it’s plenty hot enough for me. I like the comfort of cool.

I went to a good service this morning, lectionary based.

Tomorrow is Freedom Day. No hurrahs from me. We must be constrained by care for our fellow human beings.

According to tomorrow’s Lectionary, “As [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” (Mark 6:34). My impression is that most people now are not lacking in shepherds to guide them. But whether those shepherds can be trusted is another matter. There are all kinds of advantage to be gained from persuading people to see things your way – financial (‘buy this’, ‘buy that’); political, although that may be similar to the first; the affirmation that comes from feeling people are on your side; the desire to fight and win a ‘culture war’; etc..

Even church people like me want to be ‘shepherds’ possibly for selfish reasons. It often seems to me that the church is treated as an engine for compelling a new generation to follow the ways of an earlier generation, and more often than not the new generation will see through that.

So what can I do to see that the ‘great crowds’ are looked after? To feel I can do it is patronising. but what I can do is to point to Jesus. As DT Niles said, “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where bread is to be found.”

Modern living, eh? Burning stuff from underground. Going huge distances to get together. Communal roar and breath and closeness.

Unwanted consequences.