Month: February 2022

From Sunday’s Lectionary, “Then [Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God….'”

I wonder what it would look like if one had a lifelong commitment to living by those words and the others in that section (like blessings for people who are hungry; or hated because of following Christ).

Meanwhile, in this world wide web of trading relationships, I wonder how serious we could be about imposing economic sanctions on Russia – we’re too addicted to fossil fuels, and the UK governing party allegedly needs donations from rich people with Russian connections too.

As with China, we all need each other – which is kind of good, but makes for a difficult and dangerous game when nations try and push the boundaries.

And based on Sunday’s lectionary, this song from some time back; “Just like a tree that’s standing by the water side / We shall not be moved”. Those battles are far from over, sadly.

In next Sunday’s Lectionary, Jesus says… “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…” Is he saying something radical – if this kingdom of God is ‘now’? Earlier in Luke’s gospel, where he does the thing with the scroll … “4:16 When he came to Nazareth, where he [Jesus] had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” … suggests it is ‘now’. Or is it the opposite of radical – ‘poor people don’t worry yourselves about setting things right, because it’ll all be fine when you go to heaven’?

What Jesus says later about ‘woe’ to rich people makes me think this speech does have a radical edge. In any case, what Jesus says is very different to what the dominant view seems to be;- ‘It is good to be rich, and poor people only have themselves to blame’. Christians have to go against the flow.

There was some very thin snow/hail right on the tops again this morning – and one or two isolated bits of (probably) soft hail by the Trail down in the valley.

An impressively showery day today here, thunder, small hail, the lot. Nice to have proper showers, with space in between so you can see what is going on.

In the Lectionary for Sunday, we read Paul arguing for the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15). What he writes includes this;- “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…” Sure, it was the grace of God – but this also speaks volumes for the early Christian community, and their acceptance of this man who had persecuted them. It was a hard-won openness.

God of love,
we pray for everyone who fears
not being able to afford to keep warm this winter.
May they have what they need.
We pray that you will help us all
to be serious about looking after our planet,
and making the necessary investment to move away from gas.
God, these are hard decisions:
guide our nation and all nations.

At a gloomy, drizzly dawntime, I saw this ever so slight orange colouration in the sky over the back of Crowden (exaggerated by GIMP in this picture). With such uniform greys in the low, damp clouds everywhere else, this gave me a crumb of hope that there’s a world beyond.

I also took a fuzzy picture of a roe deer’s bottom in drizzle and semi-darkness; I’ll not trouble you with that.

In Sunday’s Lectionary, the Luke passage, Jesus offers more than a crumb of hope to a few fishermen he meets. They get a huge catch, and then they become disciples of Jesus – fishing for people – to tell them about the kingdom of God.

I don’t know the story of these trees, but it must go back a long way. People who deal with trees have to take the long view, maybe beyond their lifetimes.

Faith can give us a way to set our actions in a bigger context and to take the longer view. The end of the Psalm 138 reading in Sunday’s Lectionary speaks of the love of God which ‘endures forever’.