Tag Archives: church

The Voice, calling all

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The Church door at Llangranog

It is my belief that in every heart, there is that place that is untouched by the world, that is the light of God within everybody. I believe that we need to access that place moment by moment and to trust it so as to flourish. Maybe our hearts are like stone and maybe our hearts are as Jeremiah tells us, wicked and deceitful, but within every heart there is that place of life and nourishment (Jeremiah 17:8-18). We can listen to our hearts I believe and surely God will speak to us and overrule any deceit, just as he spoke to Abraham, stopping him from killing Isaac. I am going to start out angry but hopefully leave you joyful.

It’s important that we can trust in that voice within and recognise it, trust in the light that shines within each of us in the knowledge that God will intervene if needs be in many and diverse ways. Trusting in this voice is trusting in God as Creator, trusting in a God who is Love. He will speak to us through visions, speak to us through dreams, speak to us through scripture, nurtures us through practices of prayer, song and creating. It is God speaking to us directly. We are the ones who are to discern it and to hear it and to obey it. This is such an important message and it’s been so-so lost. The churches become like the places of accusation where you know the voices you’re hearing are not the voice of God because your heart is emptied by the words, crushed. I think that’s probably too much, but often it feels like the light that’s within, the moment you walk through the church door, is dimmed. And that’s sad. 

On this word within we can build various practices that inform our hearts, striving to win the prize of communion with God. Our hearts will teach us which practices are good for us. For example, we might decide as Jesus followers to pray the Lord’s prayer or the Jesus prayer or just be silent. These things will inform our hearts. They will build in us truth. But the reality is that these practices are meaningless and can lead us astray if they’re not based firstly on the Word of God speaking into our hearts directly and directing us.

The danger is that churches stray into directing people, curating and deciding, to ensure that their people don’t end up with wrong things in their hearts, directing their minds. And if the love of God isn’t the basis of those things that are curated, the love of God that is steadfast, consensual, uncoerced and unconditional, the people start to doubt the voice of God and become church followers. The voice that they hear in their hearts directs them to things that are not of God, to a wide way of violence not the narrow way of Jesus. We as the Church need to allow people to fall and stumble and get things wrong so that they grow up. As all good parents we need to let go and not step in.

It’s so important I think that we listen to our hearts, listen to those people around us, listen to creation and we judge and we discern according to hearts broken by love. Read scripture and look for the Christ that tells us to love. From that we build faith. You can’t be a Jesus follower filled with the Spirit of God on your own. You can’t be a Christian without others if that is what you choose to call yourself. But you can make the word Christian into an adjective, describing your practices, describing whatever you do and keep people out. You will find that there are many practices that don’t have the word Christian attached to them that are Christ speaking. Open your minds. Open your ears. 

Listen. Hear all who have ears. Let them who have ears hear. They who have ears, listen. In my list of things to do for the church, I assumed the Christian virtues of love, faith, and hope and that God is discerned by listening.

Listen now.

Jesus quotes the ancient prayer the Shama when questioned by teachers of the law about what to obey. He answers,

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:38-39).

A rich young man was given the usual list of things to do by Jesus and a command.

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”(Matthew 19:19).

In Luke 10, neighbour is defined through the parable of the good Samaritan, an enemy not a brother.

Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.”

 In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus has taught his followers to love their enemies. Just before his death and the last supper, Jesus says in John 13:34-35, he is giving his followers a new commandment, “…love one another as I have loved you. By this all people will know that you are my disciples.”

To sum up, Jesus tells us to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength, and your mind. Love your neighbour as yourself. Love your enemies. Love one another.

In the scriptures, given to us so that we might know Jesus, Deuteronomy 6:45. Says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  And in Leviticus 19:14, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the son of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord,” which is part of a section that begins, “You shall be Holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy.”

To understand the Hebrew words used in the Scripture, the Bible Project has put together a good series of videos ( https://bibleproject.com/videos/collections/shema/ ) which explains the nuances of our translations of hear, LORD, love, soul and strength and tell us that listen is the Hebrew word for obedience, there being no word for obey in Hebrew.

Chris Goddard has produced a podcast that speaks of love, Love God and do what you like . He focuses on the story of Therese of Lisieux, Colossians 3:14 and 1 Corinthians 13:1 where we are encouraged to wear love as a garment and taught the pre-eminence of love as a virtue without which all actions are empty making our actions like a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. As humanity we are commanded to listen and to love.

In a conversation about the podcast, I had after, I explored deeper which is why I have written the above to get to my main point. what is love in this preach. The word love clanged for us like another impossible thing to do.

Over the years, I’ve become used to being told what to do and so I was dismayed how this podcast landed. What do you mean I have to love? And to paraphrase, “..not another thing I have to do.”

Reciting the Shama as a morning and evening practice embedded in the very hearts of the people a framework for life. Loving God does the same I believe. This is what I think we have been called to.

We live in a universe of forgiveness. We are being called to a non-coercive relationship with the light that speaks unconditionally and consensually within each of us, which gives birth to affection and steadfast care for ourselves and others without distinction or favour. This light is the light of life and is wholly inclusive and brings us to truth and abundant life and I believe reveals God. The revelation of God’s love has no end, but we are subject to a capacity to muck up and to evil and are free to turn our backs on love. Our work is to believe in God and to forgive as we are forgiven, which in my faith, is found in the grace of God in Christ’s birth, death and resurrection.

In Philippians we hear the message, work on your own salvation for it is God who works in you. The source of our working is God. It also says I press on to make it my own, it being the prize of the heavenly call, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. So, it’s to a finished work in us, God calls. It’s grace. It’s from a finished work that the prize is gained to follow the light within.

I trust in the light within all people to bring the work of God to its fullness in everyone, not the schemes of people. Read scripture church. People, start trusting the hearts of the people and stop being so boring, inventing services and programs, but begin encouraging us to trust the work that God is doing in us in our everyday life.

Stop making faith an adjective for endless prayers, performing, programmes, buildings and books. Trust the people to hear God speak and give yourself a break. Come Join me around the table, on the streets, in families, at work and at play. Let’s talk together and sing together. Do good to all people! Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. As you are created be creative together

The Pilgrims Cross near Nevern

Am I to be baptised again?

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I visited a London Chapel recently with a couple of Filipino Friends.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ihs77-1b1b185

It was a good day. The meeting was like stepping back into the noughties but more formalized into a sort of liturgy of recognisable movements. God spoke as we sat beside the river. By river I mean the place people meet. Here’s a clue as to where we were.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The message wasn’t in the medium which was very slick by the way. It was in the faithfulness of the listeners.

For myself, one thing was the realization that in these situations I feel watched and the need to perform. Too aware of my own presence, not sure that anything was actual worship on my part. Sitting quietly outside on the stone seats waiting, before the service, gave me pause and a great sense of peace as if I was in a holy place. A small mercy I could not achieve in the service, though I tried. The peace was lost as the service began.

Come on church, people-together what are we going to do? We need to work hard on this. Life teaches us that nothing comes easily. Out of hardship we grow or are destroyed. There’s no formula; our history, the way things have been, should not determine our future. We have to work. We can’t change what has gone, but we can secure ourselves in what we are. Deal with the past in a meaningful way and step forward.

Our pilgrimage will continue with the wounds and the marks of life. But only if we let them be healed into new life will they be glorified. And yes, visible in forms and buildings but not the main thing.

In Jesus, all is well and all will be made well as sister Julian says. Brother Augustine or was it Loyola or neither, says when before God He is all that matters but in our work it is we that matter. Sister Teresa tells us we are God’s hands and feet. Paul in his despair leans on an understanding in Philippians 2:12-13 that teaches us to work out our salvation with God in fear and trembling safe in the knowledge that it is God who works in us.

So, what we going to do? Gaze at our navels? Write books? Keep on keeping on?

Stepping out in twos and threes, maybe we could walk our neighbourhoods and listen to those who invite us to listen. Just listen; become active in works of charity; welcome others into our space and be open to them; build a practice together that holds stillness, praise, and prayer and meet around a shared table with bread and wine. Maybe investigate baptism and agree a rule together and live it. We could make sure the rule is open to all doctrines and that every sinner willing to be transformed is welcomed by it. Let us be chaste in our relationships, rich in generosity and obedient to the word within, acknowledging the person of Jesus, as he’s revealed to the ones we meet, to be the way, the truth, and the life not a book of standing orders.

Sometimes it feels hard to be authentic as the past clouds our minds, to walk and comfortably be in your own skin. Usually, it is because we’re not. I’m not comfortable as I am. I feel watched as I have said, and everything feels like a performance. I feel pretty lost to be honest.

Purpose is very vulnerable thing to have. I’m not sure purpose is a good thing. It takes you away from the here and now of being present to whatever is before you. It makes you make rules and lists as I just have done. A programme. I mean purpose in terms of having a cause, something external to yourself to strive towards. Of course, being present to the here and now is a purpose and carries you through the day, but I hope you know what I mean, let’s not lose the message in the means.

This morning I got up, wrote a letter, and posted it. Each evening, I’ve been asked, “What have you planned for tomorrow?” This is only a question because I’m on a break from school, and there are no calls on my time, no deadlines, no need to prepare, time to get on top of things. I’m being paid to rest. I earned to rest. That’s a good thing about teaching, you get a long break. But Soon I will not be working. In 5 years time my job will be done and presumably I will have earned enough to carry me through sickness and to death. Well, what then? I don’t play golf. I have no roses to tend. I still dream of finding community, a neighbourhood, a new start something like you read in the list above.

I realise I have used the technical word baptism as a way of belonging. It’s in my list! For me, the word carries the message of cleansing and flowing love. It carries a message of being buried and raised to new life; carries a story of the journey through to a new life. It’s a universal, available to all. And where there is water, there’s a promise of a newness; baptism embodies belonging to an ancient past and a new start. Am I to be baptized again? Is this the way the Spirit is blowing?

Well, here’s a poem and a picture to exercise your right brain after all that left brain.

Am I to be baptized again?
Have I journeyed this far to die?
A new life, or tired belonging.

 What am I called to?

I am encrusted.
Covered in life’s dust
Protecting me.

All hangs heavy, domed, enclosed with
No horizon. How can I look beyond if
There’s no rim of hope?

Oh, to be washed again, be
Authentic with a future,
To be me, where
Hope forms, moulds.

My eyes are open to see what the Lord would show to me.
I need a vision that will not fail,
A horizon to explore.

This is my prayer to be fulfilled in the daily
Today.

A picture I painted of Notley Road looking towards a local church in the centre of Braintree.

We hear to listen

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We are here to listen, to discern the truth, to find a truth to live by. We stand up to be counted, we listen for the voice of God in the whisper, the thunder and love.

In Adam I believe humanity is fallen. Adam is all humanity made in the image of God. Each of us succumbs to sin- we fall, we get up, we learn, we grow. Sin is turning our back on God and walking away from him. In life we are born into the innocence of Adam and grow up into Christ, each without exception. Christ is all humanity restored and redeemed, a new Adam who walked in innocence.

We miss the mark our hearts long for each day; the Light of God’s presence shines in the hearts of every person. This is the revelation of scripture and God restores, forgives and redeems humanity each day, a mystery revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. There is guilt: there is shame. When we allow space for despair , it is filled by darkness as we continue the walk away from God, but he stands in our way and calls us back. He reaches out to rescue us. The darkness cannot overcome the light. Every sin is an invitation to the evil one. Sin sits at the door of our hearts as it did for Cain who went on to murder his brother Abel because he was jealous. As a church, we pray, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Why? Because in missing the target we are blinded by our selfish lack, our sense of entitlement obscures the light. The longing God put in our hearts for the good, the beautiful and truth is exploited by the evil one into a sense of lack and we grasp at what is not ours to have. This is the lesson of the garden of Eden where our ancient parents succumbed. Though we choose death God waits patiently to restore us to life.

Not that a sense of lack is necessarily evil. In many ways it drives us to improve our situations,  developing technologies and caring societies. It is when lack becomes driven by disappointment rather than hope that there is a problem, when desires rule.

In Christ is our life and breath; our whole being, our ever-flowing way back to God. In him our being finds its Alpha and its Omega, its beginning and its end: the heart of God to love. In Christ death is no more, there is no longer guilt, no longer shame as we stumble, and surely, we stumble. Jesus seeks us out. Jesus holds us. Jesus is Lord.

Jesus conquers death as a man, by taking his full deity into the death of all humanity and in his deity conquering death for all humanity by rising to new life. Death could not hold him as he shouldered our sins on the cross, perfectly revealing God. Death is defeated for all.

Stir in me, stir in me, Holy Spirit arise in me, new my soul rise-up in thee, clean and pure and Holy, I was taught to sing.

The breath of God creates and forms, restores and heals. From dust we were formed and in common with all, to dust we will return. This is sure. In Christ we know intimately the inheritance of all humanity, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and ever-flowing life. Birth into the glory of God is the way we are drawn along.

Christ is our daily bread, given to all, broken for all, a life poured out for all. Without the drawing of God, we are lost, we are dead in our humanity. The Spirit needs-must invade our reasoning, invade our imagination; we dream and have visions; a vision of one body; one body birthed on a cross; one body begotten in the beginning, revealed as we listen and hear of Christ’s death resurrection and ascension into heaven. All are called into this body, Christ now seated at the right hand of God.

In reading this far, all that has happened is that you have gathered with others to hear; to listen, to sense together with others a longing, a thirst. A thirst quenched in Christ. Jesus is alive, here now ascended to the Father in-the-midst of his people. You can’t follow him on your own, but he meets you as a friend in this shared understanding and experience of good news. There is a hunger to gather; to be together, to know one another. Maybe we have nothing more in common, but we want to hear.

This truth is a powerful truth revealed as we listen. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. To proclaim Jesus is Lord brings ruin in the ways of the world; you become a target. To stand with Christ, to align with him is to make his truth our measure. How can we doubt those who declare Jesus to be Lord; numbered, marked out by their declaration; standing together in an absurd truth; an absurd utterance. Yet you are listening, longing to understand.

Space is created so that mighty deeds of God are proclaimed and enacted, acted upon. from the heart of God as we gather. We prophecy. We know his voice and we no longer call any man our teacher as we know him for ourselves. The Holy Spirit discerns for us and teaches us. We prophecy against injustice and lies. There are all manner of manifestations of God’s goodness and mercy in our midst, and we know his voice. Declaring Jesus to be Lord brings peace and love and not violence; a narrow road to restoration, healing and life. God’s Spirit is given for the common good as we step out into worldly obscurity and trash our reputations. There is one body. There is one Spirit. A body breathed into life by the Spirit that we are invited to become a part of.

The Spirit rests; rests on each one of us: tongues of fire inspire us. Our hearts are strangely warmed as one saint commented. Nothing is ever the same again.

The portion of Christ exceeds that of Moses; not to seventy is it given, but seventy times seventy and more, numbered in Christ, forgiven, restored and poured out, an ever-flowing fount of water for all the world’s cleansing and sustaining.

From his people, from the Church, many thirsts are quenched. The church gathers in many camps, but you can’t be a church alone; no gathering is alone but is complete in Christ; there is only one Church, and we are in it together. The Church is recognised when hearts are gathered, in a death to self, a blessed poverty; a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a heart for peace: two or three who love, who love their enemies. The church brings life.

Humbly we come and draw water from the wells of salvation, we sang, a little flock. But in Christ we are many- a host and one heart, one mind are we, revealed and scorned but empowered.

Maybe in this and in our reading of scripture our hearts burned as they did for the disciples on the road to Emmaus who encountered the risen Jesus in words on the journey but recognised him in the action of breaking of bread at a meal. Maybe as you listen to friends, and engage ideas and experiences something stirs. There are reasons and reasonings, explanations. We can analyse and form rules. But when we encounter God in bread and wine, water, quiet and breath, then we know intimately an infilling of truth. Then we are transformed; 200 years of modern Christianity dissolve and we become church

A young man once asked me to come and speak with him. He wanted to save me from God; he wanted to confound me with his truth, show how I was deceived. I read him a poem I had written for him. It began, The god you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either. Master Eckhart a German mystic of the 13th Century prayed, God rid me of God. This is a stage in the journey all of us must go through, maybe several times as we peel away our certainty, let go the god of our own understanding and creation. God finds a way, through tongues of fire, through babbling tongues. Pentecost heralds dreams and visions, sighs deeper than words that birth love, that flows out for all. As we journey from Adam to Christ all becomes poetry, we appear drunk, in the breaking of bread, in the drinking of wine.

As the poet George Herbert says in his poem Agonie, Love in that liquor sweet and most divine which my God feels as blood but I as wine. Truth is revealed to our hearts and the words become flesh in you and in me.

Grace and peace.

Jesus, beyond gender.

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Humanity is created male and female, the Image of God. Jesus is found in the beginning, the beginning where Wisdom is present, divine companion and creator.

Wisdom is one in the same as Christ, the Creator of all things. Jesus the Christ and Jesus our Wisdom are one: Jesus Christ is Jesus Sophia. Jesus is the incarnation of the Word, there from the beginning, the incarnation of Wisdom.

The incarnation of God is the incarnation of Wisdom that forms, fills and holds the world. This is Jesus, enfleshed in us; like us, the image of God but unlike us being God; calling us to become like God in the humanity we share.

The full counsel of God is found in Jesus dwelling in us, fully God, revealing beauty, justice and mercy. We know joy in one another and weep with the oppressed, called to loving action in the world, in acts of kindness and solidarity.

In all circumstances Jesus’s gift is Peace.

Wisdom is personified as a woman. Jesus is beyond gender yet he is woman incarnate and man, the Father, One in God. Jesus, the Son, is Jesus as Wisdom from the beginning. In his humanity he is a male and in his divinity, beyond male and female: fully woman and fully man yet more.

Just as Love is his essential being so is Wisdom, One with the Father. In Jesus we are formed and sustained. We feed on his milk comforted like new born babes, born into a world of light with strength for the day.

The Son and the Father dwell within us. In him and through him we have our being. As we turn our gaze to beyond the horizon of knowing, we glimpse the fullness of both male and female in him.

In him, we find the beginning of all things. Jesus reveals to us God and in him is both male and female held as one. Jesus is as much woman as man and more.

So how are we to name this? As much as we call Jesus our Christ and Jesus our Saviour, we could know Jesus better as we call on him as Jesus our Wisdom from the beginning, Word made flesh: Jesus Sophia. Peace be with you, go without fear, to love and serve in wisdom.

Down by the river

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The story of Jesus’ visit to the temple as a 12 year old, staying back with the elders and causing his parents to search for him for three days says this

Luke 2:49-50 NRSV
He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/luk.2.49-50.NRSV

If we allow ourselves to see this as a metaphor for today, where is the Father’s house where we must go to to find Jesus?

John 14:23 NRSV
Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. https://bible.com/bible/2016/jhn.14.23.NRSV

So, as we learn obedience to Jesus, firstly, by loving him, there we will find Jesus in the midst. We search for goodness, beauty, and justice and wherever it may be found, find Jesus. Jesus commands us to love God, our neighbour; our enemy, and ourselves. Jesus commands us not to be anxious and draws us to wisdom. He gives us each other to work this out.

All of this formation is experienced face to face with real people: it is found in community. In Paul’s time it was clear where he might find this community.

Acts 16:13 NRSV
On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/act.16.13.NRSV

Where might we find such people in our search? Where is the river for our times? We are if nothing highly connected, but the wise say lack real connection.

Takeley chapel might be a place with religious services. But, as a group of people, we meet for coffee each Sunday morning and soup on Wednesday. And yes, these come first. At about 10am on Sunday, we will read scripture and sing, but the coffee is brewed by 930am. At about 7pm on Wednesday the soup is on the go, all varieties, and at 8pm we will sit in silence and pray. We would be delighted to see you there. What I am saying is, here is a river, here is a place of connection.

So put your phones away and find some real connection with us.

Episode 284: Jennifer G. Bird – The Myth of Biblical Marriage – The Bible For Normal People

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https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/episode-284-jennifer-g-bird-the-myth-of-biblical-marriage/

Jennifer G. Bird joins Jared and Angela Parker to bust the myth of “biblical” marriage. She dives into the ways scripture has been used to enforce traditional gender roles, the cultural assumptions embedded in biblical texts about marriage, sex, and property rights, and how these interpretations have influenced Christian thought.

Us and theming

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Recently, I have been contemplating Matthew 7 with the guidance of Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship. To start at the end, we get the parable of the person building their house on the sand and the one building their house on the rock.

‭Matthew 7:24-27 NRSV‬
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.24-27.NRSV

In a way, it rounds off this whole section of teachings, but for me, it refers quite closely to the way through Chaperer 7.

The chapter begins by warning us not to judge others.

‭Matthew 7:1-2 NRSV‬
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.1-2.NRSV

Bonhoeffer reminds us that the story of original sin was to pick fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To believe ourselves to be the judge is not right as the place of judgement is the cross, and judgment is rightfully the Lord’s. We are to look on Jesus and see all else in relation to his love for all. We are not to judge but to love.

And then this peculiare saying;

‭Matthew 7:6 NRSV‬
“Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.6.NRSV

Apt, in that through judging, we profane the holy; we despoil the revelation of truth that opens our eyes to the right way by misapplication of the truth spoken to us to others. In order to speak, we need to be humbled by the realisation of our own needs, else the measure we get hurts.

Jesus says;

‭Matthew 7:7 NRSV‬
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.7.NRSV

We move from judgement to trust. It is in our hearts to be right. In speaking our own righteousness, we get hurt. The true path is prayer, and with our creator, we can intercede creatively and be transformed and sustained and see things change.

The movement continues laying aside our desire to judge, to love prayerfully and compassionately with kindness.

‭Matthew 7:12 NRSV‬
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.12.NRSV

It’s how we are that leads others to a better way, not our judgement. That way leads only to violence, which is a wide path.

‭Matthew 7:13-14 NRSV‬
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.13-14.NRSV

And here Jesus makes it plain. Only the few will be able to hear this. We are called to be of the few. It is in the twos and threes that Jesus is present. The body of Christ is made up of the few, a community of small communities gathered around Christ. Jesus knows what is in people’s hearts, and Bonhoeffer refers us back to the temptation Jesus experienced in the dessert, to be popular, one leading many.

‭Matthew 7:15-16 NRSV‬
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.15-16.NRSV

The temptations of being popular, gathered around strong leadership, have left thousands on the wrong side of the truth. It’s not the Law and the Prophets that lead us to God. This is death. Encountering Christ leads us to the Law and the Prophets, schooling us in love and opening our eyes to our own pride and arrogance, bringing life. We preach to those we love.

‭Matthew 7:21 NRSV‬
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.21.NRSV

Our distinctive, Jesus teaches, is to love as Jesus loves, self sacrificially and without coercion. If we find ourselves distinct because of our judgement of others then however successful we may appear, we are wrong.

It’s a hard saying, and we are back to where we started; all these sayings are the foundation we build on for the day of trouble. To end at the start, Jesus, before he embarked on this section of teaching, said,

‭Matthew 6:34 NRSV‬
[34] “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.6.34.NRSV

Healing

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God heals. We pray, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Surely, in the healing of minds and bodies and deliverance from oppression, God is healing. In the mystery of God in all things, upholding all things, God is present in a way that wills only good, that brings light and life.
This is the aroma of God, and we see it in the healing ministry of Jesus who says, if you don’t believe in me, believe in the works that I do. Through community, care, and prayer, followers of Jesus embody this. Followers of Jesus are distinctive only because of love, love of God, and love of those around them.
And so in history we see collections for the poor to feed and clothe them, rescuing of the destitute especially children caringbforbthe sick and teaching, and, as medicine develops, hospitals, and in recent times schools for children.
Visiting the sick and clothing the naked is a work of humanity, as is caring for the indigent and those in prison. Jesus calls us to his perfect humanity, accountable to the light he has placed in everyone. He is light, and we are called to be light. God is not divine deodorant. We are his holy aroma recreated and formed by the renewal of our minds. We are called to be holy as he is holy; to be fully human. Kindness and compassion make us truly human.
The place of gathering for those on this journey, the holy place, is a meal, a table where life is shared in its fullness in all circumstances. A meal that encompasses Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. The mystery of faith is, being in Christ, being fully human as Jesus was and is, resurrected, making all things new. All creation is in Christ from the beginning, and Jesus reveals this truth, as he is so are we redeeming, redreaming, all things.
This is our religion, our worship, that causes us to sing and praise and to enter the quiet place of intimacy with God. In him, we look with the eyes of Christ and in all see Christ.



God is ever healing, drawing all creation to the good. Miracles happen, but the miracle of the human endeavour is to be celebrated. What we see in medicine today should bring us to our knees in praise and thanksgiving. Medicine in all its forms expresses the miracle of the light within. Humanity expresses itself in healing and curing. Jesus is revealed in our care for the sick and oppressed and in the advances of science. This is the life we are called to. He is not revealed in turning away from the goodness of science to a spiritual desert of disappointment. Does God heal in miraculous ways? Yes, look around you.
People experience the extremes of genetic collateral, physical attrition, and just plain bad luck. All is in God’s hands but is not God’s will. Jesus’s answer is to put in our mouths a prayer that asks for God’s will to be done and in our minds a will to cure.
Does God intervene? Only in love. We are to pray constantly, expressing compassion and kindness for those afflicted and in need of saving. Open your eyes, love wins. Do not be put off by the charlatans who profit from your disappointment. It’s not your fault.

Before Moses died on the borders of the promised land, he said,

‭Deuteronomy 31:26 NRSV‬
“Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God; let it remain there as a witness against you.

He then wrote down a song, and in it, he sung,

Deuteronomy 32:3-6 NRSV‬
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit, just and upright is he; yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him, a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?

https://bible.com/bible/2016/deu.32.3-6.NRSV

To Christians, this sounds familiar. Jesus had come down from a mountain where his true glory had been revealed, but in the meantime, his disciples had not been able to cure a fitting boy, and the disciples wanted to know why.

‭Matthew 17:17-18 NRSV‬
Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.17.17-18.NRSV

https://bible.com/bible/2016/deu.31.26.NRSV

Jesus words seem to say we are at fault when there is no healing, How much longer must I put up with you? I’m not sure this was directed at the hapless disciples.
Jesus has just communed with Moses, who saw how the people had failed and how they would fail despite the law. He had also communed with Elijah, who in the time of Israel’s deep apostasy did many miracles. I feel that Jesus was constantly bringing the people back to Moses; the heritage they were so proud of, what they felt defined them. We see the practices of the way of the law angering Jesus, and here, he reminds them of the prophecy of Moses.
Jesus heals the lad and then teaches the disciples about faith. I believe he was drawing a contrast, reframing the song of Moses, anticipating an end to the curse of the law and healing the lad. I think Jesus words and healing were a parable; the disciples would see Jesus recalling the song of Moses and speaking out frustration at the way of the Law, then there was healing, then joy, a new way that always was the way, a revelation of the true way..
Afterwards, the disciples wanted to know why they were not able to deliver the boy; their expectation must have been that they could, but nothing happened. Had they not healed people and raised people from the dead?

‭Matthew 17:20 NRSV‬
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.17.20.NRSV

Does this mean their lack of effectiveness was their own fault? What was the lesson? Your faith is less than tiny, but tiny faith can alter stuff. You can read this all as a rebuke or as playful teaching. It was the demon that was rebuked, not the disciples.
The whole incident is redolent with hyperbole. otherwise, he would be denying his own faith. We learn there were occasions Jesus himself was unable to heal.
We have been taught to feel bad about our lack of faith, but Jesus is telling us we don’t need much and encouraging us, not telling us off. Read it again, seeing Jesus after coming down from the mountain, and overjoyed that life was coming, acting out the song of Moses, then healing with a huge smile on his face. Keep coming to Jesus and asking.



Does suffering cease? Only through love, and if our tiny faith does not prevail, we can trust in that love and draw on it, as Jesus stands with us in our anguish. We bear in plastic shopping bags a fullness beyond measure, and yet death and destruction stalk our daily lives and evil picks off the innocent. I hope Jesus is frustrated with that, and we see that he is. I am.

We are to seek the good of all in our actions and in our prayers. This is our work. A prayer for healing is an act of love. We can not be other than fully human in our spirituality. Sometimes, our prayer is a groan, and in this groan, the Spirit knows deeper than we can know what to pray. Every prayer drives the cosmos forward in Christ. We need to realise the power of Christ in us, the light we bear and shine out.
Our hope is that all is in God’s hands. We are taught that hope is not what is seen. Hope, faith and love are our virtues; a growing faith that breaks through the wall of transactional childish ways into a deep trust; a real hope which prays with all our humanity, sure that God is love.
Do not become slaves to events, people, and places but worship in spirit and truth. Do not be those who naval gaze, but become those who act to bring unrelenting good into this held but broken creation.
My dream is that we will break through to a place where we don’t hold God to account for not healing: a place where we can integrate all creaturly experience as being held in Christ.
It is good to ask the question and wrestle with it, but don’t give up praying and meeting together, losing hope. God is healing, and our prayers are effective: God is sovereign in and through love and only in and through love. Love is difficult. All creation, the good and the bad, is perfected in love. Wrestle. Imagine. Dream. We should see more healing, and it is frustrating, but don’t give up or concede a vision of a good and powerful God.

My hope is that we will share spiritual practices that deepen the life of service and maybe take a few up. But I think they are best done together and voluntarily. I think they then feed the multiple personalities and dispositions of the gathered who can choose what to do in their daily life. Only do not then leave the table.
To be authentic, the body of believers minister Christ to those around them in eating together, walking together, and listening. We model a non transactional way where people come and do life together because they are being met by Christ. We resist framing people’s experience of God and killing it with practices.
It is enough that they want to be there. Church is voluntary, and leadership in the body is in teaching, facilitating and guiding; providing the fuel. There is also judgement, routing out hypocrisy and exposing harm, which Jesus shows is directed towards the powerful and is uncontroling.


There is a life worth living, and it first draws us inward to the secret place, and we are cleansed. We become in our lives faithful to Jesus, the one who lived died and rose again, revealing God as Father, Son, and Spirit: Christ for all. In this life God is healing.

Luther

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I have been listening to The Rest Is History

| 433. Luther: The Man Who Changed the World (Part 1) on

Podbean,

https://www.podbean.com/ea/dir-5kfqx-1de25232

Spotify,

https://open.spotify.com/episode/10iZL7NCRAC4rB1EwSYsGE?si=qTv3u2ZDRtqqzqurafoxuw

To say that culture forgives a lot would be to concede too much. Scripture tells us that a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. Jesus was meek and also said it as he saw it, not sparing the blushes of the rulers of his age.

This bears contemplation as we listen. Beautiful hymnody, liberating theology; is it nothing in view of the man and his gutter language and hateful ideas that fuelled genocide. And yet from this root came Bonhoeffer.

How much are you prepared to forgive?

Wholeness

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Catholic means whole; the entirety. To be catholic is to be part of the ever flowing fulness of creation and to embody all in one reality.

My friend Peter being confirmed in the catholic church.

The word catholic attached to the church seeks to express its fulness, its finality, the embodiment of Christ in creation being all that there is. A catholic church is a church that encompasses mind, body and spirit and brings meaning to everything.

In history this wholeness became centred around the bishop, the embodiment of apostolic succession around whom the people gathered. Soon the heavenly hierarchy of angels and archangels achieved its earthly equivalent in the order of bishops, priests, monks and the layity, each afforded its place, each expressing a misunderstood truth, once again obscuring the mystery of the incarnation.

Sadly this system became sanctified and an unholy order was established. The gifts given for the upbuilding of the church became a structure upholding the state and the status quo, so that slaves remained slaves and tribes were separated, patriarchy established. Culture took over and the message of catholicity was lost, a shadow of its original meaning becoming simply another word for universal; permission for men to engage in power struggles; an excuse for men to engage in conquest and colonisation.

Catholic goes beyond the universal and expresses the all that is in all, the fulness of God present in space and time, the body of Christ.

We are so wedded to the visible church, its hierarchy and forms, we miss the coming of Jesus. He is to come and he is here.

Would that we would open our eyes and see Christ not in the picture and the frame but in the reality, the truth and the life, the way we are being invited to live. God is love and in the catholic church heaven is found on earth.