Sharing some thoughts

I think one of the great challenges the church faces today is to balance a message of love with a message of judgement – it is perhaps to balance some of the writing of the Old Testament with that of the New – that balance of a harsh, even vengeful God with the God of love portrayed by Jesus. This evening in our 2 readings we have quite a contrast. In Ezekiel (13:1-16) we heard of the condemnation of false prophets – and this condemnation is fierce. For example ‘Therefore thus says the Lord God: in my wrath I will make a stormy wind break out, and in my anger there shall be a deluge of rain, and hailstones in wrath….’ It’s a tough passage which contrasts with our new testament reading from the first letter of John (3:11-24)… So what should we accentuate – what message should we giving to people ? I think much of the church has actually decided on the side of the new testament message, particularly teaching like we have heard today. ‘See what love the father has given us, that we...

There’s a story told about Albert Einstein in heaven: Einstein was having difficulty finding people on his intellectual level to talk to, so one day he decided to stand at the pearly gates and ask everyone who entered what their IQ was. Before very long he was having a lot of success guessing what people did for a living on the basis on their level of intelligence. For instance, a woman was ushered through the gates and in response to Einstein's question, said she had an IQ of 190. "Why, you must be a physicist," Einstein said. "Indeed I am," said the woman. "I'd love to chat with you about the progress being made in nuclear fusion and in superconductivity, as well as what's going on in space," said Einstein. "Please wait over there." He stopped a man who was entering the gates, and the man told him his IQ was 140. "You must be a physician, probably a surgeon," said Einstein. His guess was right. "Wonderful," ...

I once heard the story of a rather frustrated church minister who announced, ‘there is nothing wrong with my church… that a few funerals couldn’t fix’… I’m sure Jesus would never have spoken so meanly of any of his followers but there must surely have been times when he must have been rather frustrated with them… In the gospel reading (Mark 9:30-37) we heard of Jesus travelling south – he had been to Caesarea Philippi and was now travelling through Galilee – it was a tremendously important journey. It seems Jesus in his earthly ministry would never again travel north – he was heading down through Galilee to Jerusalem – to his trial and his death on the cross. We are told that this was to be a quiet journey, he didn’t want crowds of people – in many ways his public earthly ministry was over… But Jesus did have things to do, and most importantly of all was to try and prepare his followers for what was to come, and so he told them that he was going to be arrested and killed, that he ...

Every 3 or 4 years all the clergy in the Diocese go on clergy school, and this last week Coventry was invaded by the clergy of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon, eager to learn. In one of the sessions we had an afternoon out to the Church of St Martin in the Bullring in Birmingham – that church is centred as the name suggests in the Bullring surrounded by a huge shopping centre and also the big and famous Rag Market. The position that church is in is, in many ways, a perfect merging of the world and God. And that balance or meeting of the spiritual and secular is one that, as Christians living in a modern society, we constantly have to be aware of. And this conflict is one that has gone back to the times of Jesus himself, as we have seen in the gospel reading today (Mark 8:27-38). Jesus, travelling with his disciples, asks them who people say that he is – and Peter replies, ‘You are the Messiah’. But then, as Jesus moves on to speak of the suffering that he must undergo – of t...