Sharing some thoughts

Some years ago, as some of you know, I took Helen to Rome for Valentine’s Day – for a long time after a number of friends were really cross with me as their wives commented on what a romantic gesture this was – of course the trip did happen to coincide with the Wales v. Italy rugby international taking place in Rome that weekend, for which as an extra Valentine’s present I managed to get some tickets ! The match took place in the Stadio Flaminio, at the end of the Via Flaminia, the place where Valentine is alleged to have died… Of course alleged is a very important word when thinking about Valentine, and the celebration of St Valentine has always been a little bit suspect as nothing is really known about him. There are many legends with perhaps the most popular being about a Priest who lived about 250 years after Jesus was born – he lived in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius – Claudius was committed to rebuilding the once-great Roman army. However, he believed it was import...

An atheist was spending a quiet day fishing when suddenly his boat was attacked by the Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the monster tossed him and his boat high into the air. Then it opened its mouth to swallow both. As the man sailed head over heels, he cried out, "Oh God! Help me!" At once, the ferocious attack scene froze in place, and as the atheist hung in midair, a booming voice came down from the clouds. "I thought you didn't believe in me!" "Come on, God, give me a break!" the man pleaded. "Two minutes ago I didn't believe in the Loch Ness monster either!" I wonder whether the disciples in the boat with Jesus in our gospel reading (Luke 8:22-25) experienced that feeling of wondering whether to believe or not… A lot had happened to them already during the ministry of Jesus – they had witnessed miracles, they had witnessed the compassion of Jesus and listened to his teaching, they had followed him in the first place, but now the...

Tonight’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (14:8-17) includes one of the first examples of people preaching to listeners who really don’t know any background about what they’re talking about. Today we sometimes have visits from school children into Church, and it’s surprising how many people have never been in a Church before – some don’t know basic prayers such as the Lords Prayer – but most people we come across will still have an idea at least who Jesus is. Paul and Barnabas were on a missionary trip to an area untouched by the message of Jesus – people had never heard of him, he simply had made no impact as far afield as the two men had travelled. And they had preached, and the gospel message had been enough of a threat to those in authority to have chased out of various places before and now they have arrived in Lystra. Lystra is in what we now know as Turkey and Paul we know preached there on a number of occasions. This time he and Barnabas were speaking and Paul noticed a m...

On Tuesday in the Church calendar the Feast of Candlemas is officially celebrated – at one time it was a hugely important festival but it’s importance now in this country at least seems to have diminished quite a lot. It has become associated with rhymes such as, “If Candlemas day be sunny and bright, winter again will show its might… If Candlemas day be cloudy and grey, Winter soon will pass away.” But the importance of candlemas is certainly not restricted to superstitious rhymes about the weather, or even to the pagan festivals often associated with it. It falls 40 days after Christmas and the Christian celebration can be traced to at least 543AD. The message of Candlemas remains tremendously important. For some countries Christmas decorations are left up until candlemas as a kind of reminder that whilst the Christmas season may be over the light of Christ is a light that shines beyond the Christmas season, beyond epiphany and even candlemas and out into the rest of the year. This y...

I don’t know whether any of you watch the reality TV show ‘Popstar to operastar’. Helen has a rather strange liking of Jimmy Osmond so I have had to watch it, but one of the judges on there made an interesting point. Each of the popstars has to learn and sing an operatic aria, and most of those tend to be in another language. However one person was asked to sing the song ‘Summertime’ – obviously very well known and obviously sung in English. As one judge commented that it was easy because of that, another said actually it was the most difficult because it was so well known and any errors in words would be easily picked up as people didn’t need to understand a foreign language to judge it. Familiarity can indeed lead to contempt – people can actually know things too well, and when they do, they can often ignore the true meaning of what is being said or heard. Today we heard one of the most well known passages in the whole Bible from Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians (13:1-13), and it...