Sharing some thoughts

Today is often known as Creation Sunday and in the Church in Wales this year as you’ve heard it has been designated as  Fairtrade Sunday. The Church in general has increasingly become involved in the campaign to promote  Fairtrade  and our Bishop has been very active in this work. In this parish we have the opportunity to purchase  fairtrade  products each Sunday at coffee in the hall and of course there’s the chance to enjoy some  fairtrade  wine next Friday too, but many people still wonder why  fairtrade  is anything to do with the church. And our readings today go some way towards answering that – firstly the long creation reading (Gen.1 :1 -2:3) reminds us of the wonderful gifts that God has prepared for us all in his creation.  a  world of beauty, a world of challenges certainly but a world crammed full of resources and gifts to be used by all his people. It i s a world where men and women a re created equally in God’s ...

From Helen. I am not renowned for my creative skills. I can picture the way that I would like something to look but then it never looks quite as I imagined. There is an exception though. If I have some cross stitch fabric and a needle and cotton I am very happy, I will follow patterns but sometimes I just go into free flow and see what comes out at the end, I have a plan and generally get pleasant results. Our readings this morning  have  spoken of the most perfect creation ever a creation that caused amazing joy, a creation that can still provide amazing joy. Our readings  began with the story of creation and you can almost imagine God creating the world with sheer joy as He looked at what He had made and saw that it was good.  There was a real joy. In Romans we heard of the concerns of people as they waited for God to help them as they looked at the world around and the creation and knew that things were not perfect and full of joy as God had intended them to...

From Helen... In  our readings this morning we have heard  about  many things  including the problem of anger.  There was a passenger on an airplane from Los Angeles-to-New York, as the plane was making a stop in Dallas the passenger told the flight attendant to wake him if he fell asleep and make sure he got off in Dallas. The passenger awoke just as the plane was landing in New York. Furious, he called the flight attendant and dema nded an explanation. The attendant  mumbled an apology and, in a rage, the passenger stomped off the plane. "Gosh, that man was angry!" another crew member observed. "If you think he was angry," replied the flight attendant, "you should have seen the guy I put off the plane in Dallas!"  The section within which we hear this teaching about anger is one of teaching by Jesus of the right way to live, it is part of a section which encourages us to seek to be more like Jesus as we approach the world and Him. This section is...

The question of conscience is one that we face time and time again in our lives – what about the person who finds £100 lying on the road – do you pick it up and take it home, or do you take it to the police and hand it  in ?  What about the little bit of gossip that you hear – do you keep it quiet or do you share  it ?  What about the wrong that you know someone has done – do you confront them o r tell someone or do you decide  it’s best to mind your own  business ? I once read a small boy’s definition of conscience – that is ‘something that makes you tell your mum you’ve done something wrong before your sister  does’ !   Conscience is about choice – do we follow what’s good and right or do we follow the easy  path ?  Do we follow what we know to be just however hard it may be or do we turn a blind eye to an  injustice ? Day after day we are faced with challenges as to how we live – and in the Book of Deuteronomy we hear some h...

Our readings today  are very much a call to look at  ourselves,  a kind of pre-lent preparation -  and that can sometimes be a bit painful. In the church today we tend to be very polite – we hopefully have an idea about right and wrong and about good or bad, and we expect others to do the same – we tend not to be critical of others. And in many ways that is a good thing. But it was a concept that people such as St Paul, and even Jesus himself would not have understood well. When they saw an issue that needed dealing with they went straight in and did  something about  it.  And the readings today from Isaiah (58:1-9), Paul’s 1 st  letter to the Corinthians (2:1-12) and the gospel of Matthew (5:13-20) contain some pretty straight talking. In  the gospel   Jesus said to the crowds, ‘You are the light of the world…’ (Matthew 5 : 13-20) And he went on just a little bit later, ‘let your lights shine before others, so that they may see you...

Today in the church calendar we celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. It was Jewish ritual that a new child  be  brought to the Temple where the  parents would offer a sacrifice , and a first born child would be dedicated to God. There is a huge amount going on in the gospel reading (Luke 2:22-40) this morning. There is the obedience to the Jewish rituals, the comment that Mary and Joseph brought a pair of turtle doves or pigeons, suggesting they couldn’t afford a lamb. There are the incredibly prophetic words of Simeon who sees Jesus and knows immediately that he has seen the Messiah, the one who has come into the wor ld to change everything. Now Simeon  could die in peace – the world had received an incredible offer of salvation. And then there was Anna – an old lady who we are told was a prophet. If you go around any of the big cathedrals in Europe you often see old ladies wandering around and it doesn’t seem that they’re doing anything. That ...