Bob Warwicker's blog

The Lectionary for Good Friday is here. A couple of notes … Isaiah 53:8 “By a perversion of justice he was taken away.” I would want to associate this with Jesus and say that there is nothing fair or right about Good Friday: it was horrific. But read on … Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain.” That’s something harder to associate with Jesus. How could God will such a thing? Maybe there’s a clue in the words of the Lord’s prayer (old-fashioned version for no good reason except that it’s easier to remember)… “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” … which suggests that there’s a way God’s will in heaven is different from that currently on earth, and it needs to be prayed for, for it to happen on earth. God’s will on earth is circumscribed by the painful and messy realities of life with billions of other people on this planet. I don’t know. But this week, we remember one who suffered, and whose suffering, I believe, gives hope and offers solidarity to the millions who suffer today, Monday the 6th April 2020.

Jesus has walked into Jerusalem, the great and holy city. But he has come to confront the darkness there and everywhere… he meets darkness, not with more darkness, but with love. This is the struggle within us too, and I believe he is our companion.

God of love,
we do not know what battles you had to fight,
we cannot imagine.
But we believe that you are a close and loving presence
for us in our battles.
O God, do not be far from us in this time.

Even when they are behind you, the crowd can be terrifying. They are so powerful – and you cannot be sure where they will turn next. I can’t really imagine how Jesus and the disciples felt going into Jerusalem, and each of them saw the future differently anyway. Consider it possible that alongside the joy and exhilaration, there was an edge of fear.

God help us when we are fearful, comfort us in sorrow, and affirm us in our happiness. Amen.

When Saturday comes, it seems very much like Tuesday … or Monday … or any other day. There’s no sport, and not very much else to give shape to the week.
Except that for these few months, Janet is measuring the days against her End to End walk on the same dates last year. You can find this at her LEJOG blog. There’s a fresh thing to think about every day.
…and at least in my head and in social media, Sundays and scriptures mark another fixed point in every week.

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” – so it says in tomorrow’s Psalm.
Who would have thought that underpaid and under-respected care workers would turn out to be essential?
Who would have thought that the despised Jesus, the donkey man, would turn out to be crucial in people’s lives and in the life of the world?
How will this happen, though? If the builders rejected this stone; who sneaked in, in the middle of the night, to put it back in place? It’s only a metaphor, though, I don’t want to push it too far: but who will give Jesus the same honour and ‘sexiness’ as for example cars or cosmetics, and who will walk his way?
The crowds honoured him when he walked into Jerusalem, but that was only temporary – it seems he may not have been the messiah they were looking for after all.

It cost me over £5 for a 100g jar of coffee this morning: someone’s doing alright out of this business. I can afford it fine, but some can’t. I hope Tesco staff get some kind of bonus at the end of this.

Living God
give us the grace to walk the Jesus path,
to live as you call us to live,
to give and forgive
as you do.
Sometimes it’s hard to do,
and we ask for strength.

We pray for all people
who are affected by COVID-19,
and we lift up this suffering world to you,
trusting, hoping,
that you know and care for
all your children,
that you love all of your creation.

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!” … this is from Sunday’s Lectionary.

Prayer
“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!”
Merciful God,
please bring the day
when we can say those words
and mean what we say.
Please bring the day
when all people, both those currently rich,
and those now poor
can give you thanks
with honest and open hearts.
Wipe away our tears, we pray,
help us to heal one another,
strengthen and inspire us
to bring an end to the diseases that hurt us.

Give us the Spirit of Jesus,
humble and sat on a donkey,
yet big enough to tell the truth
to those in power.

Living God, through our tears
we thank you for
mercies we do not yet know.

It seems that the goodness (the proportion of viable cells) in dried yeast undergoes exponential decay. So maybe the five year out of date packet I tried to use yesterday may have had just a tiny bit of oomph left in it.
Now I have taken another old sachet of yeast and put it in some nutritious flour and sweet water to see if it will undergo exponential growth. Maybe in a few days it’ll be enough to leaven some bread with: you never know.
Meanwhile, I am eating small rolls of neutron bread. Janet very graciously had one, but I am left with the remainder.
COVID-19 is also growing exponentially, but maybe now not quite, which could be a sign of hope. It’s helpful to see the logarithmic plots, but they don’t appear in the media so often as the linear ones.
It’s amazing what you learn from TV quizzes. I used to think that ‘e‘ stood for ‘exponential’, but actually it’s named after Leonhard Euler.
Also, words change their meanings. Now, ‘exponential’ means ‘very rapid’, which is confusing for those who found the original meaning useful. And ‘epicentre’ means ‘centre’, but with more drama.
And ‘social distance’ – what we’re actually talking about is physical distance in social situations. Oddly, there sometimes seems to be a kind of intimacy in online communicating — which is absent when you are face to face talking with someone in church.

We thank you God
for all the ways that technology can bring us close to one another.
We pray for all who don’t have access to that technology,
and ask that they will not be alone.
We ask you to forgive us
for allowing the world to become such a place
that technology can be exploited in bad ways.

God bless all people
for whom today is a day of decision,
a day of parting and grief,
a day to summon up courage,
a day for tears and exhaustion.
May your strength,
and the love of Christ,
and the hope of your Spirit
give energy today.

Among the tons of other stuff on our wall unit, we have five tiny pottery houses, all roughly the same shape and size.
I put them in a row.
Janet noticed.

I’ve been trying to make bread. The dough will not rise. Maybe I killed the yeast (or the five years after its Best Before date did for it). I’ll give it another hour or two, then I’ll flatten it and we’ll go as if it were unleavened. Maybe sometimes some natural processes just are, like the Spirit of God, untameable.

I still persist in believing that God is good. However, the ‘invisible hand’ isn’t. There’s no profit to be had in planning for the future.

Living God,
Christ crucified,
we pray for those who put their lives on the line
so that others may live;
especially, now, workers in health and care.
God save them, we pray.

Someone I used to know at university had a very powerful and expressive way with words when he was frustrated, especially at table football. One of his favourites was “Christ on a bicycle”. Maybe a bicycle is the twenty first century equivalent of the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem. The ‘humble’ symbolism of Palm Sunday is a bit undermined by the fact that the deed was done – and the story was told – intentionally to reflect prophesies about the King. If Jesus was the king, he was at least the people’s king, travelling like an ordinary person. He was for a day or two anyway, until his support drained away.
I was pleased to hear that for the duration of this pandemic, bicycle shops are considered essential – it’s a serious form of transport. It’s also a Christian form of transport, a kingdom form of transport, which considers the needs of others and of the planet above one’s own ego. “Blessed are the meek”, says Jesus. And, FWIW, despite the fact that you have to share the road with some people who drive like ani, your bike will help you to live longer.
This bike picture is from 2013. I haven’t ridden since July 2018, which seems to help my knees. I’m hoping to get started again gently, now we’re here, and when we’re allowed out a bit more.

Funny word, ‘essential’. It seems to mean now what it ought to mean, but for most of the recent past, you’d have been able to read it in the Sunday supplements describing things that were the opposite of essential.

God bless you in all you do,
in your looking out and your staying in,
in happiness and mourning,
in your fearfulness and in your hope.
May God bless you beyond your dreams
and beyond your knowledge.

Janet’s prediction is coming true. I’ve seen the disease described online as ‘Corvid-19’. Covid is a new word, so I guess some spellcheckers have corrected it to Corvid.

Prayer..
We pray for the people who are now in more danger
from domestic violence,
confined at home with their abusers.
God, protect them we pray.
Lord, in your mercy…
…hear our prayer.

God protect all people from this virus,
and give strength and wisdom
to those who are working so hard
to protect us all.
Lord, in your mercy…
…hear our prayer.

Comfort those who mourn,
give hope to the fearful,
and remember all people
who do not have the advantages
of wealth and health.
When the aftermath comes
and we reflect,
help us remember the priorities of your Kingdom.
Lord, in your mercy…
…hear our prayer.

Palm Sunday Prayer…
God give us more faith:
not the noisy faith of the ever-changing crowds,
but the slow, hard, long faith
that walks with Jesus all the way.
Lord, in your mercy…
…hear our prayer.