Author: bob

Apologies for gap in these blogs – this was COVID- related. Improving now.

Tomorrow’s Lectionary includes a bit from 2 Corinthians about reconciliation. The writer is on about reconciliation with God. And we do not need to fear alienation from God – however much we feel alienated.

It must follow from this that people will be reconciled with one another. Because one of the main causes of feeling alienated from God is not being able to stand God’s people, Christians have a very important job in trying to connect with those who do not share our faith – or who share our faith, but not our way of expressing it. Try to understand where people are coming from. Do not be unbending, but bend over backwards to be reconciled with others.

No pictures today, as I am confined for a while, having tested positive for COVID.

In Sunday’s Lectionary, the Joshua reading is about settling down in the new land. “The LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.”” … The idea of a national disgrace can be powerful, even dangerous. It is said by some that Putin’s motivation for his violent imperialism is a sense of disgrace over what happened three decades ago.

If you overuse the word ‘disgrace’ you may run out of things to say when confronted by a real disgrace. The state of the European cheese market springs to mind.

Never clocked it before, but this gentleman on a seat by the junction in Mottram is LS Lowry, who spent the last decades of his life nearby.

Next Sunday’s Lectionary includes the parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’. What you see in it depends on whose point of view you take. For instance I have sometimes been a bit irked by people who have a whale of a time when young, then find God in later life and then take it upon themselves to tell everyone how to behave. I read the parable like the other son and consider myself challenged about my attitude. Or you could read it as the son who goes away, and it’s about love and forgiveness and acceptance for those who reach ‘rock bottom’. Or you could read it as the daughter the man may or may not have had – what were her inheritance rights? Or you could read it as the divided audience. Jesus understands the feelings of the upstanding faithful people who are jealous that he talks to sinners. But he also knows that the sinners belong to God.

And so on…

…where would you stand?

In Sunday’s Lectionary, the Psalm speaks of the kind of dependence on God that only those who have experienced trouble in their lives can really know.
However, I don’t say that trouble is good. Some people come through OK, and some don’t. Far better to make the world a good place.

Please pray for;-
Churches, often having to think whether their heritage helps or hinders the work of Christ,
People travelling long distances, especially refugees, and people working in the travel industry,
Farmers, whose fortunes depend so much on the weather, the markets, fuel costs, disease.

However, the world is far from tranquil.  J’s prayer for Ukraine is here.

And Jesus’ world wasn’t tranquil either. At the start of the Luke reading in Sunday’s Lectionary, we read about the violence of the Roman Empire. Yet in this violent world, somehow Jesus managed to preach the Good News of God’s realm in human life – where least become the greatest, and the greatest become least; where love rules; where those in power will her the truth;…

You may not be able to make it out, but the Pennine Way runs just below the top of this valley-side. I’ve sometimes walked along it, and looked down on those rocky lumps on the steep slope, and experienced a small amount of fear…. as a consequence of which I’ve carefully avoided falling off. Fear has its uses.

And so both the New Testament readings in Sunday’s lectionary carry an element of threat. How can a loving God allow us to read such stuff? But a loving God also doesn’t want us beloved children to be complacent and get ourselves into trouble as a consequence.

Complacency can be dangerous. How many people thought that NATO had no purpose any more once Russia was no longer communist? But socialism wasn’t the problem.

Tranquil morning here, anyway…