There’s a moment in the reading from Genesis (2:15- 17;3:1 -7) that always makes me think . It’s the moment just before everything seems to fall apart - Adam and Eve are standing in a garden overflowing with possibility , with beauty, abundance, freedom. God has given them everything they need, and more besides. And yet, in the middle of all that goodness, there is one tree they are told not to touch. It’s a strange detail, isn’t it? Why put the tree there at all? Why allow the possibility of failure? But perhaps the point is that love always involves freedom. You cannot have a real relationship without the possibility of choosing otherwise. God doesn’t create robots, God creates people. And people, as we know from our own lives, have a remarkable capacity to choose our own thing even if that isn’t always good for us ! Back in that garden, t he ser...
Today is the last Sunday before Lent, and that always feels to me like a kind of gentle tap on the shoulder from God. It’s a reminder that Lent isn’t meant to be a gloomy endurance test, but a gift — a season that invites us to grow, to pay attention again, to rediscover God who has never stopped paying attention to us. And our readings today help us do that by taking us up a mountain. Some of you may have visited the Holy Land, and if you have, you might have been to Mount Tabor — one of the traditional sites of the Transfiguration. Whether or not it’s the exact mountain, it’s certainly a place where Christians have remembered that moment for centuries. It’s a beautiful spot, with views that stretch out for miles. I once spent a night in the monastery up there, and it’s one of those places where the peace of God feels intermingled with the air. But the journey up is… well, memorable! There’s only one road, and you go up in minibuses that take the corners at a speed tha...