Sharing some thoughts

I think that lots of bible passages leave us asking lots of questions. Lent is a time of questioning ourselves in many ways, examining our relationships with God and with others. It’s strange to think of some questions people ask from time to time – the deep philosophical questions such as ‘If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done ?’ or ‘How come abbreviated is such a long word ?’ or there’s always that question when you’ve lost something and you ask someone to help you find it, and so often they begin with the question, ‘Where did you leave it ?’ – If you knew that you may not need the help !!! Jesus often asked lots of questions of people – and perhaps even more often asked questions of us through his words and actions. Today’s gospel reading (John 4:5-42) about the Samaritan woman at the well is one of those occasions. And so this morning I want to think about some of those questions and encourage us to think about answers in our own lives and in our church. The f...

From Helen : There are many excuses that we can find for things in life. My main excuse for most things is that I don’t drive. This is the way that I try to excuse my appalling sense of direction. I am sad to say that there is a truth in the comment that if I have been somewhere once I am unlikely to find that place again ! Even when I have been somewhere lots of times I still have to double check that I know the way, and even then I manage to completely lose myself. I was once given a postcard of a sheep on its own in a field where it is raining, the sheep is saying, “Lost ! Me ? I know exactly where I am… I am here”. I have a certain sympathy with that sheep. As we look at the gospel reading that we have heard this morning, there is a sense of being lost. There is a sense of needing direction and of needing to know the way. In the gospel reading this morning we heard of Nicodemus and his meeting with Jesus. Nicodemus went to Jesus with questions. He wanted some answers. It is possib...

A woman bought an extravagant dress, and the husband asked why did it have to be so extravagant, She said 'the devil made me buy it', The husband asked, 'why didn’t you say get behind me Satan?', The woman said, 'I did and he said it looked good from that side too!’ All of us have faced temptation in our lives - sometimes no doubt we’ve given in and at other times we've resisted it. One of the great traditions of Lent is the idea of resisting something - something that we really like - it might be chocolate or it might be a glass of wine or lots of other things, but another tradition which has become increasingly popular is to take something up for Lent - perhaps to attend one of the Lent groups or reflections, perhaps to read a Christian book or spend more time reading the Bible or in prayer, or it may be helping others in some special way. There are lots of ideas about Lent and whatever we do there is always the temptation to not do  it !  Our reading...

From Helen  I want to begin this morning by saying  Dydd   Dewi   Sant   Hapus i  ti, Happy  St.Davids  day to you. It is a day  late  but  the weekend of celebration can continue ! I also want to say happy final  Sunday before Lent. Lent …  the time when we draw closer to God, the time when we spend moments thinking of things that we can change in our lives, and the ways that we want to see the World change and to pray for the World. It is  a  very serious time  but befo re lent begins I want to  tell you a story about a rabbit.  There is a reason and that is that the story relates to our readings this morning and it is a very good story. The rabbit in the story is called  Mr  Hopewell.  Hope  – well, hop- well ? Mr  Hopewell ha d been born into a particularly cold environment with a lot of snow.  He was always cold but he heard the other rabbits talking abou...

Today is the last Sunday before Lent and it’s a final cry out to think of how we can best use that Lenten period as a way of growing our relationship with God. Two of our readings today provide an insight into this as they describe experiences of travelling up a mountain. I know some of you may have visited the Holy Land and, if you have, one of the places you may have visited was Mount Tabor – some have believed this to be the Mount of Transfiguration and whilst that theory is hotly debated it is a place where the events of the Transfiguration are commemorated. It is a beautiful setting with views for miles around. I was fortunate enough to spend a night up there in the monastery building on one trip there – it is a place where it is very easy to sense the presence and peace of God. Yet the journey up there is far from  that !  Because there is only one road up you travel in occasionally taxis but more likely mini buses which take some of the corners with huge dr...