This from Sunday’s lectionary…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luke 12:49-56<\/strong> “How I wish it were already kindled”. I used to be OK with seeing Jesus’ promise to bring a sword as a prediction rather than a manifesto. But here he seems actively to be wanting change, division, a sorting out. He must have got so impatient with complacency, hypocrisy, the forgetting of God’s way of living<\/em> for the community as the powers that be managed to keep the religious observances<\/em> going under Roman occupation. These tendencies have troubled the people of God for millennia. We too need to hear what Jesus says, hard though it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Janet and I are now at home, and trying to adjust to the new normality after life on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prayer…<\/strong> This from Sunday’s lectionary… Luke 12:49-5612:49 “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the … <\/p>\n
12:49 “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 12:53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” 12:54 He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. 12:55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 12:56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
God, stir us up and sort us out, we pray.
Help us to see the signs of the times.
Help us to recognise your will and your work
in our generation,
and to be part of it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"