Sharing some thoughts

A little boy was asked one day if he said his prayers before a meal and he replied, ‘I don’t have to, my mum is a good cook !’  In our readings today we think very much about prayer and about how we live with prayer at the centre of our lives…  Rowan Williams wrote, ‘The Lord’s Prayer is completely fresh, it never gets stale because what it’s talking about is the human condition in the presence of God. It’s about the world we live in and the world God wants us to live in… And what it’s praying for is the most revolutionary change you can imagine in the world…’   As we pray the Lord’s prayer through our services and perhaps in our private times of prayer I wonder if we recognise that what we are praying for is revolutionary change… But when we are praying for God’s kingdom to come, for daily bread, for forgiveness of sins as we forgive the sins of others we are using revolutionary language and that is how it should be… And this revolutionary power is act...

Last Sunday there was a real dilemma for sports fans with a choice of the Cricket World Cup Final, the British Grand Prix or the Wimbledon Final – of course there was the added complication of church services too !  But  that day people were faced with a choice, with setting priorities, and I guess that in that case most of those priorities would have been governed by preference – I love cricket and I enjoy watching the Grand Prix, I’m not so keen on tennis (probably losing to a girl 4 years younger than me when I was about 16 didn’t help !) so I’d have discounted that happily !  All of us are faced with choices day by day and some will be governed what we like, but others will be governed by what is the right thing to do, regardless of whether we like it or not… In the Old Testament reading from Genesis (18:1-10a) we heard of Abraham being visited by God in the form of 3 strangers who called on him… Hospitality was incredibly important and reputations could be ...

There are not many of us who like people who boast – but whether you are in Church or work or taking part in sport or anything else, you will inevitably find people who do ! One who had a bit of a reputation for this was the boxer Mohammed Ali, and the theologian Ravi Zacharias tells a story about him going on a plane.  Passengers on the plane were instructed to fasten their seatbelts immediately. Everyone complied but Ali. Noticing this, the flight attendant approached him and requested that he observe the captain’s order, only to hear Ali respond, “Superman doesn’t need no seatbelt.” The flight attendant did not miss a beat and replied, “Superman doesn’t need an aeroplane either.” The reality is that those who boast very often will, at some point, meet their match – and probably end up being put down a bit…. Today’s New Testament readings offer us some challenges about boasting – in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (6:7-16) he tells us not to boast in anything except the ...

From Helen Do you ever feel like you are missing out ? As children and teenagers I am sure that we all had that moment when we were saying things like, “it’s not fair, I shouldn’t miss out just because .....”. I remember that I hated the idea of sleeping too much in case I missed out on something happening, I explained to my Mum that I would go to sleep it everyone else did because then I wouldn’t miss out on anything.   Jesus had lots of people around Him, lots of people following Him. We only really read about the 12 closest, the disciples. It is a bit like the others were just hangers on. I wonder if some of those following Jesus did feel as if they were missing out. The 12 got to spend more time on their own with Jesus, they got to go and do exciting things with Jesus such as seeing  the miracles  up close.  I wonder if people outside of the 12 really wanted to be in on the action !  In our gospel reading this morning we heard of those who may ha...