Tag: Ian Banks

Here are the opening verses of Genesis… ‘First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared’.

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. The Lord will guide… but often he’ll do that through you and me. We’re the ones who act as signposts for others.

Moses was 80 years old. He’d been tending someone else’s flock for 40 years. One day, he was out with the sheep, probably thinking about his pension plan, when he took a different path – and from there he saw a bush that was burning. His life completely changed direction…

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. But what must it feel like to be defeated in war? Ashamed, frightened, disorientated, demoralized, physically hurt, mentally traumatized, angry at those who promised that you would be victorious, relieved the fighting is over, struggling to survive, cold, hungry…??

As the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, Jesus physically demonstrated the continuity of God, his unchanging love and mercy that we can always count upon. But he also showed us the God of surprises too. He changed what we thought about God and challenged the pre-conceived ideas that he came across. In physical, bodily form – as the body language of God – Jesus re-imagined God for us.

What a lovely idyllic picture we have in our reading from Isaiah today. Woody Allen once said of this vision: “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb. But the lamb won’t get much sleep!”

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

Shortly after the destruction, the cathedral stonemason noticed that two of the charred medieval roof timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross. He set them up in the ruins, on an altar of rubble, with the moving words ‘Father Forgive’ inscribed on the Sanctuary wall…

Into the story comes a tiny, unnamed, Israelite slave girl. She would have been on the bottom rung of society, if she was on the ladder at all. A slave, female, foreign and young. In modern parlance we’d say she’d been trafficked.

Last Sunday we used the ‘Jigsaw’ poem by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner as part of a celebration service at Christ Church Walmersley.

Often we have little idea of either the impact that we have on others or of our interconnectedness.

Sometimes though you can meet someone for the very first time and know straight away that there’s a reason why you met. You’ve changed them and they’ve changed you.

The message from Nigel and I is: go, share your experience, tell about what you’ve seen, testify to what you know to be true. Because whether you know it or not, or like it or not, you’re all preachers! You each have a story to tell, a testimony to give…

I read an article recently that said in the year 2000, TV adverts had to grab a persons’ attention within 12 seconds or they weren’t effective. By 2013 that had dropped to 8 seconds. The attention span of a goldfish is said to be 9 seconds. So, longer than humans now…

My Mum’s family were very keen on taking and keeping photos. Her Dad wasn’t the greatest photographer though and most of them have the top of the heads chopped off, or half a person to one side, or a finger part-way over the lens. However, these photos were precious and kept in a box rather than thrown away.

Can I ask an indelicate question? Who here is in their 80’s? Or 90’s? Anyone older? Today we have that wonderful picture of the 3 visitors who come to bring startling news to Abraham and Sarah. Well, more to Sarah actually. The news is that within a year, the 89 year old Sarah will become pregnant and have that long-awaited, long-promised child.

We’re being asked to choose: What kind of people do you want to be?
“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 mind, and with all your strength”. Moses says: is this how you want to be known?