Sharing some thoughts

Two elderly, excited women were sitting together in the front pew of church listening to a fiery preacher. When this preacher condemned the sin of stealing, these  two ladies cried out at the top  of their  voices , "AMEN, BROTHER!"   When the preacher condemned the sin of lust, they yelled again, "PREACH IT, REVEREND!"   And when the preacher condemned the sin of lying, they jumped to their feet and screamed, "RIGHT ON, BROTHER!  TELL IT LIKE IT IS...AMEN!"   But when the preacher condemned the sin of gossip, the two  went  very quiet.  One turned to the other and said, "He's quit preaching and now he's  just  meddlin g ." There is a danger for all of us at times of hearing what we want to hear – and with regard to our faith that is no different – most of us at some time or another  have  interpreted some part of the bible in the way we want it to sound rather than the way we suspect it actually does ! The great...

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent many years in the prison camps of Siberia. Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in all kinds of often extreme weather. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labour and slow starvation, and this intense suffering eventually reduced him to a state of despair. One particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, and no reason to keep on living. He felt his life made no difference in the world. So he gave up. Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners. As he waited, with his head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old pris...

Coming at the end of the harvest season today’s gospel reading (Luke 17:11-19) seems particularly appropriate. We have thought in our harvest celebrations of the need to give thanks to God for all of the blessings we have in our lives, and today we have heard the account of the ten lepers who were healed.  Nine were healed and not seen again, whilst one came back and thanked Jesus – in a twist to the story, the one who comes back is the Samaritan, the one the listeners would expect to come back least of all. It is said that on his retreat from Greece after his great military expedition there, King Xerxes boarded a Phoenician ship along with a number of h is Persian troops. But a terrible  storm came up, and the captain told Xerxes there was no hope unless the ship's load was substantially lightened. The king turned to his fellow Persians on deck and said, "It is on you that my safety depends. Now let some of you show your regard for your king." A number of the men bowe...

I may well have told this story before but as we celebrate harvest I think it's appropriate to repeat. A 12 year old boy named David was born without an immune system. He underwent a bone marrow transplant in order to correct the deficiency. Up to that point he had spent his entire life in a plastic bubble in order to prevent exposure to common germs, bacteria, and viruses that could kill him. He lived without ever knowing human contact. When asked what he'd like to do if and when released from his protective bubble, he replied, "I want to walk barefoot on grass, and touch my mother's hand." Walking barefoot on the grass may not be something we want to do too often but it's good to know we can if we want to. It emphasises the gift of freedom. Add to this the gift of human contact with a loved one and we have two incredibly basic needs fulfilled, and at harvest we are thinking about basic needs being provided for and our need to offer thanks. In the reading...

From time to time Jesus said some difficult things - many things are challenging because they ask us to look at ourselves, at how we truly love and care for one another, or challenge us as to how we work for justice in the world, or defend the needs of those who can't do it for themselves. Today our Old Testament reading from Amos (8:4-7) talks about the greed of those who can't wait to get up and start trading - money is what the people are after and Amos is just reminding them that with riches come responsibility and privilege. The more we have the more is expected of us. And then we have Paul writing to Timothy (1 Tim.2:1-7) urging prayer for those in authority. Lots of us in our own prayer lives might offer prayers for other people, but those prayers often begin with those closest to us and work outwards from there - Paul is not saying this is wrong but is reminding us that those in authority, who may seem a little bit distant from us, are as much in need of our pr...

This weekend we are celebrating the 90 th  birthday of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon, the youngest of the 6 dioceses in the church in Wales .. .   A little boy asked his mother where he came from, and also where she had come from as a baby. His mother gave him a tall tale about a beautiful white-feathered bird. The boy asked his grandmother the same question and received a variation on the bird story. Outside to his  friend  he said, "You know, there hasn't been a normal birth in our family for three generations." The birth of the church in Wales was complicated and  rather  long winded as was the formation of the different dioceses – Swansea and Brecon Diocese was born in 1923 , the year of the first FA Cup Final at Wembley, and 4 years before Cardiff became the only Welsh club to win the FA Cup, though none of that is particularly  relevant ! What is relevant though is that i t is perhaps appropriate that as we make this celebration, we ent...

The evangelist  D L Moody used to tell the story of a conversation he had with  Dr.  A ndrew Bonar  in the Highlands of Scotland. He was told that  a sheep would often wander off into the rocks and get into places that they couldn't get out of. The grass on the mountains  wa s very sweet and the sheep like d  it,  so  they w ould  jump down ten or twelve feet, and then they c ouldn 't jump back again, and the shepherd hear d  them bleating in distress. They may be  there for days, until they had  eaten all the grass. The shepherd w ould  wait until they are so faint they cannot stand, and then  they  put  a rope around  them  and pull ed  th e  sheep  back to safety. Moody asked  w hy  they  d id n't go down there when the sheep first g o t  there? " "Ah!" said   Dr.  Bonar , "they are so very foolish they would dash right over the precipice a...