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...