the adventures of retirement
When I was a new minister, one morning shortly before Christmas, I found a bottle of wine on my doorstep. It was from a local firm of undertakers. It made me feel deeply uncomfortable, and I couldn’t wait to put it in a raffle to get rid of it.
Now it seems that people in positions of influence gladly, even eagerly, accept gifts from those who would persuade them. It’s a different world. Maybe it always has been.
Had second dose this morning. Feeling fine so far. Last time got a bit flu-y towards the evening, but minor, short-lived and very much worth it.
Bright this morning after yesterday’s rain, which freshened up the land and puddled up the Trail. Birds belting it out anyway.
A day to make you sing; but poverty, war and COVID have also made our world a place of suffering. God forgive us and heal us.
Lovely semi-sandwich walk today, rain only for half an hour, beautiful. It was dull and so on – but there is a need for much more rain – although personally I don’t complain when my boots come home mud-free. Only a little over a fortnight now until the boiler gets fixed. Hooray! We have a modus vivendi with the faulty boiler, keeping the heating water temperature low, topping up when needed and turning off when it won’t be supervised for a while.
As to Sunday’s Lectionary and Philip and the Ethiopian – I have a kind of romantic imagination about the days when the church could make it up as it went along – if only it could be like that now – although I can see the reasons why it can’t. Also I don’t think Christians exactly made it up as they went along. It had to be what the Spirit of God was leading them into. There were tests.
In Sunday’s Lectionary, after a conversation, the Ethiopian says to Philip, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Just like that. No rigmarole. Just, let’s do it. We church people like to do things in an orderly fashion – it may help prevent the abuse of power – but maybe sometimes this causes frustration. And this is a big step for the early Christians too: this was an Ethiopian! (…although he had been to Jerusalem to worship and was reading the scriptures). And he was spoilt goods, lacking the ability to have children. So a big step – but no pausing on the brink – “What is to prevent me…?” There was enough in that conversation for him (and Philip) to know what he was getting in to. In any case, it seems to me that we have to make the big steps in our lives with incomplete information. – much as I would like to know everything first.
Took lots of boots to the recycling centre this morning – all of them completely knackered – that’s lots of walking, much of it memorable – Janet’s LEJOG and more besides.
From next Sunday’s Lectionary… “Beloved, let us love one another…” No further comment necessary.
Please pray for India
Just a quick note from tomorrow’s lectionary… Jesus announces himself as ‘the Good Shepherd’. The prophets of old in the Hebrew scriptures had criticised the national leaders for being rubbish shepherds. Jesus himself criticised the religious leaders of his day. Being a bad shepherd is not about incompetence, so much as a lack of commitment to the people (and to God). But the clue is in the name ‘shepherd’ – Jesus is the leader who really cares.
End of time away … exchanged the wide skies of Holderness for the more restricted views of familiar and lovely Longdendale.
Holy God,
may I love the nation’s varied landscapes,
and her varied people,
as much as you do,
Creator of Everything.
From Sunday’s Lectionary…, 1 John 3:18; “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Rather more than ‘ouch’. These words stand to make us think seriously about how we live.
God give me strength this day
to love my fellow human beings
by what I do.
Sunday’s Lectionary includes the part in Acts where Peter tells the religious authorities that Jesus, the stone that the builders rejected, has turned out to be the ‘cornerstone’ of God’s hopes for saving the human race. Rejection is a common human experience, and sometimes there is good reason why a certain career path or life partner may not be for you. But rejection (as thousands of aspiring novelists will tell you) is not always the end. Sometimes what we have is so different, yet so important, that we have to stick with it. Jesus was rejected, and that may seem strange to a Christian whose faith is celebrated by millions of people in big, expensive buildings. But even in the churches, those who call Christians back to the core of the radically new life of following Jesus may experience that feeling of rejection and being an outsider.