Bob Warwicker's blog

In next Sunday’s Lectionary, the 1 Samuel passage, the people want God to let them have a king – like the other nations. Despite them getting a rather bleak portrait of what they are letting themselves in for, they insist, and God gives in, and Saul is made king.

Wes Howard-Brook points out that there’s a constant tussle in the Bible between the religion of ’empire’ and the religion of ‘creation’ (which is not over yet BTW). He has written a book about this, ‘Come out my people’. I’ve only just started it, and it’s waiting for me to have a chance to get into it properly. I’m looking forward to it – it sounds like a thesis that could make sense of a lot of stuff. And it seems to me that this passage from Samuel represents this same tussle.

This morning while I was out walking, a posse of sports cars, arranged by colour, came screaming round the bend and across the junction with the Trail. It was terrifying. I don’t want to think what would have happened if a child cycling with their parents had just got it a bit wrong stopping at the road. It was terrifying, but I guess that was the point. Not everyone is nice.

If we say, “God is love”, then we are saying that there’s something dynamic about God, and that’s my way into the Trinity.

Praise God of the working hands,
Creator of the world.
Praise God of the battered hands,
Christ with us, knowing our life.
Praise God of the hands that communicate,
Breath of Life.
All praise to the one God.

Small disruption to the usual plan today.

Meanwhile, trinity Sunday approaches, and we can celebrate how amazing God is.

I’ve tended to think of the Trinity as one of the compromises we make as finite beings trying to understand God, three ways we experience God – but I don’t think that does justice to it.

Maybe the thing is for me to stop trying to say stuff and to let God be God.

Meanwhile, we have wounded God’s world and each other: we still need to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

Went to Kirklees today, for J’s second jab and catch up with family. Not completely sure what we should and shouldn’t have been doing.

According to Sunday’s Lectionary, the Isaiah reading, God commissions the prophet to give a message to his people. In the book, there have already been five chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy, but for some reason this particular display of God’s power is extra special. God shows Isaiah that he’s forgiven and has no need to be ashamed and is fit to take God’s word to the people.

This is accompanied by an amazing, terrifying, overwhelming vision of God’s power. The whole thing starts with, “In the year that King Uzziah died,…” Naturally, the writer wants to anchor this incident in the history of the people, and dates would have been measured by the reigns of kings. But maybe we can see something else in that statement. The vision of God is accompanied by images that the ancients might have associated with royalty. King Uzziah has died – now there’s a new king on the block – God’s own self.

How God’s rule works in practice is a big question. I’ve had enough of theocracies that are actually ruled by violent and domineering men. We see something in the prophecies themselves of what God’s rule requires – fair treatment of others for example.

Wandering around Denton, I walk round the corner and come upon this: surprise!

It’s Pentecost tomorrow – the time Christians remember the dramatic arrival of the Spirit of God in the lives of the first disciples; a few weeks after the events of Easter.

There are times God shows us there’s something more to life than what we can see plainly. Rarely is it as dramatic as the wind and flames of Pentecost. Sometimes there’s nothing at all. Pentecost is not about meaningless display, though. There is meaning – God is doing something. God is bringing nations together (the different languages are a reversal of the Babel story). God is kick-starting the Christians into action. They will no longer only be gathering – they will also be going out, making difficult journeys, speaking and doing the good news of God’s love in Jesus. It’s God’s doing. Often I wonder just what God is doing now. But it will be something: be ready.

Flames and wind may be a visible sign of God’s invisible love. There may be other signs. Sometimes these signs can be seen in the communal life of Christians (like the sharing we read about soon afterwards in the book of Acts). But beware of the institutional church colonising these ‘sacraments’ and being God’s gatekeepers. The Church is great, but must never behave like God’s gatekeeper – despite what we read about Peter.

The BBC has repeatedly shot itself in the foot over with its disgraceful actions over the Diana interview and subsequent cover-up. No, not in the foot, but in the head, because the BBC has powerful enemies who are loving the chance to make it ineffective for ever.

For me, the BBC has always been the best thing about being British, and still is. It is the greatest, strongest pillar of our democracy, maybe the only serious one. Without the information that the BBC supplies, then the propagandists are free to feed us what they want us to hear, and tighten their grip on power for the indefinite future. This is not the country I want to live in for the rest of my life.

The BBC now has to be completely honest and repentant about what it has done. Our one last hope is that the public will respect its honesty and the BBC will be allowed to continue its excellent work. It is a thin hope.