Sharing some thoughts

One of my favourite Biblical images is the contrast between light and darkness as representing good and evil, or life with or without God, and also the concept of God being a light shining in the darkness, and calling us to be a light for others shining in the world today. It’s an image that is used quite a lot and one that we heard again in our reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:1-18) this evening. In the letter to the Philippians Paul is writing to a Church that has been a great blessing to him. Although he was writing the letter from prison, it is a letter of joy – in just 4 chapters, he uses the concept of joy or rejoicing 16 times. But even in that Church it seems that there were some problems and Paul addresses these problems by calling people to focus on Jesus as their example for Godly living. He calls for unity and he calls for humility and abstention from selfish ambition or conceit. And he goes on to describe the character of Jesus himself, who came to earth, n...

At this time of the swine flu pandemic and the suspension of distributing wine at communion it seems particularly appropriate that we should have 2 readings which concentrate solely on bread ! (Exodus 16:2-4,9-15 and John 6:24-35) In the Old Testament we have the account of the bread coming down from heaven to feed the Israelites as God had promised. This was something that satisfied a physical hunger but which pointed far more to a greater message that God will provide for his people. And then in the gospel we have Jesus being followed by many people, and they are following him because they have seen or heard about his miraculous feeding of the 5,000. And Jesus knows that’s why they are there ! They haven’t come to be spiritually fed, to hear Jesus teaching, but they have come because Jesus has become associated with drama, or even with throwing a good party with plenty of food for everyone ! Groucho Marx once said on leaving a dinner party, ‘I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening… b...

Tonight’s Old Testament reading from the 1st Book of Kings (3:1-15) gives us a wonderful picture of Solomon. Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba and when David died, Solomon became the King of Israel. The name ‘Solomon’ is believed to come from the Hebrew word for peace – and this was particularly appropriate, considering that Israel did indeed enjoy relatively high security and prosperity during his reign. He was born approximately 1030 B.C., the tenth son of King David, and the second son of his mother Bathsheba. Solomon was the first king of Israel born to a reigning king. He turned out to be the third (after David and Saul) and last king of the united kingdom of Israel - the ruler of all 12 tribes. David chose Solomon as his successor over all of his older sons and his reign of 40 years was generally a great success. On his deathbed, David gave parting instructions and encouragements to his son (1 Kings 2:1-9, 1 Chronicles 22:7-16). It certainly seemed to help - Solomon, wit...

Today we celebrate the Patronal Festival of St James’ Church – earlier this week a similar festival was celebrated in St Mary Magdalene Church. At any such celebrations, as with any birthdays, it’s natural to reflect on what has happened in years gone by – and a recollection of such events even from people gathered here today could, I’m sure, fill up many hours with memories. In the reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (4:7-15) we heard of how Paul wrote to the Church there about the troubles they were experiencing as they grew as a Christian community. He wrote of the need to persist, to never give up, just as God would never abandon them, and he reminds the community that the reason they continued with their work through suffering and adversity was because they believed in God – ‘I believed in God, and so I speak’, wrote Paul. It’s one very short sentence, but a tremendously important motivation for our actions. As we reflect on our Churches in years gone by, one of t...

I always have mixed feelings about celebrating Saints Days, or even making a big deal about Patronal Festivals of Churches – on the one hand, it’s wonderful to celebrate the years that God has blessed the Church, the work done and the people who have passed through the Church, on another I think as Churches we really do need to celebrate more as we seek to share the love of Jesus, but on yet another (and it’s really confusing because you need to have 3 hands really for this !), it is not a single day, or number of days that is important in our Christian lives – it is the way we live and the relationship we enjoy with Jesus that is the most important thing of all, and it is far more important to see a Church consistently filled with people through the year than to have one that is empty all year, but can turn in a good crowd for really special occasions. Special occasions come and go, but the love of Jesus and our response to that love must be ongoing. There’s a famous saying, ‘How the ...

This week the sports news has begun to focus on the new football season. Who will move where ? And, at what price ? Its seems that a small number of clubs have no limit on the amount of money that they can spend and the owners are very happy to oblige. Also this week one of my favourite television programmes, and this isn’t Neighbours, begins a summer break, and it’s a pretty good break as well, 13 weeks in fact. It is of course the weekly prime ministers question time. Week after week people stand to knock, question, appeal to, or in some cases even praise the Prime Minister. It seems that there is a huge confusion in society if we look at things like the news over what really is important. In football terms individuals can be viewed almost as a much awaited Messiah. In the past we will know that many have disappointed. In the political world we will find a number of people who seem to believe that they really are the Messiah, but again all too often we have witnessed evidence to ...

Today we have rather a strange gospel reading (Mark 6:3-34, 53-56), not because of what’s in it, but because of what’s not – you will notice in the verses that a big chunk from verses 35-52 are left out, and they’re pretty important verses too – they include an account of the feeding of the 5,000 and of Jesus walking on water. But what we have is also important – and it draws us closer to the character and appeal of Jesus. And there a number of qualities to focus on. The first is his popularity with his followers. The disciples had been sent out on a mission teaching, healing and listening and now they had returned, and they returned excited to tell Jesus all that they had been doing. One of the great joys of watching some of the end of term concerts and productions in school is watching the children proudly having the chance to show their parents what they have done and what they’ve learnt, and you can almost sense the disciples feeling exactly the same way as that ! And it’s then tha...