Easter 5A 2023 -7th May

We’re still working through the season of Easter. After the first few weeks of fizz and celebration, the lectionary is taking us into times of doubt and questioning. That’s probably exactly where the first followers of the Way were in the days and weeks after the Easter happenings. If we think our lives were turned upside down by earthquake, mass murder in our city and pandemic,  however do you imagine they felt? Their leader was dead. No he wasn’t. Some of the first group of followers had seen him. Some hadn’t. Some found themselves fronting up to the scholars and teachers they’d been used to listening to, and arguing with them in public. Some of the women were finding themselves in an entirely new way of being part of a community – they were finding public voices. And these upheavals went on and on.

Today’s reading from Acts was about the first martyrdom. Stephen a Jew killed by fellow Jews, not by foreign rulers. There was uproar in the synagogues. The psalm for today is a good one for people at the end of their endurance. And overall, the readings are still engaging in the challenges of finding a new way of being, a new community, a new faith.

In these times we’re in danger of ‘information overload’! We get more and more opinions and more and more theories about what’s happening, and more and more questions:  what should we do next, who’s right, who’s wrong. And in the age of social media there’s less and less substance, and more and more hype and headlining. And, unfortunately, rather more sloppy research and lack of thought before rushing into print or on line. Continue reading Sunday 7th May -Starting Points →

Sunday 16th April

Reflection/Teaching “Resurrection Witness”

“Seeing and believing” is an ongoing theme in the book of John, and it is a key part of the Thomas and Jesus encounter.

At the opening of this gospel, Jesus asks Nathaniel, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” When two of John’s disciples begin to follow Jesus he says, “Come and see.” And the story of the man born blind in John 9 is also filled with nuances about sight and belief.

In this passage, the only blessing spoken by Jesus and recorded in John falls on those who have not seen but believe. That blessing reflects the life situation of the original community addressed by this gospel. Most, if not all, of John’s first readers would not have seen Jesus. And yet they believed. And Jesus’ blessing of them is Jesus’ blessing of us as well.

This story about Thomas is often used to berate doubt, based on verse 27, where Thomas wants to touch and see. But the word translated as “doubt” is not one of the common Greek words for doubt. It is ‘apistos’, whose literal meaning would be closer to “without faith” or “unbelief.” So what Jesus is actually doing is graciously providing Thomas with what he needs to move from unbelief to belief.

As we know now people learn in many different ways. Thomas, like many of us, needed to see, to touch in order to move from his previous thinking to knowing that Jesus was alive.

Touch,” writes well-known author Margaret Atwood, “comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last and it always tells the truth.”

Again, recent research has proven the importance of touch. During the many Covid lockdowns physical isolation was one of concerns of mental health professions. We could use on-line or distant interactions to feed our need for sight and sound interactions but we couldn’t touch. People found it physically painful when couldn’t hug the grieving friend or hold the hand of the dying relative.

Thomas needing to touch Jesus was part of his letting go of grieving and truly believing in the living. And it worked. Thomas become one of the most well-travelled apostle. His story didn’t get into our bible and so like many I thought his journey to India and the subsequent Christian community there a myth. But I now have a neighbour who comes from that tradition. And it the evidence is compelling that there has been a Christian presence in India for over 2000 years.

Continue reading Sunday 16th April- Resurrection Witness →

12 March 2023

Readings

Exodus 17:1-7

Writing of this Exodus reading Maurice Andrew suggests that:

Creation does not of itself liberate an oppressed people, but a liberated people must also be able to live from creation, as we see when, after only three days in the wilderness, they find no water.  After liberation, people become migratory and their wandering is characterised, not by the will to go forward for life, but by the desire to return to security.  In the difficult period between liberation and the gaining of land, which the wilderness wandering represents, the limitations of the people are witheringly exposed. ^[1]   We could call this episode ‘the whinging in the wilderness’ and there is a lot of it about.

John 4: 5-42

We often get long readings from John’s Gospel because, in John’s Gospel, Jesus makes long complicated theological speeches and the teaching is in those speeches rather than in the description of events.  In this episode we get the vision of the inclusive Christ who will accept a drink from a woman who is of a race considered unclean. Jesus also teaches this woman and sends her out on mission and she in turn brings people to Christ.

Sermon

Through the magic of Facebook, I recently saw a picture of the Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti, with the Ministry of Education interns who were finishing their 12 week paid internship.  What initially stuck me about the group of smiling young people about to return to their studies was that we are obviously a nation of immigrants.  If you took a DNA swab from everybody in the group and sent it off to Ancestry Dot Com the results would pretty much cover the globe. Continue reading Liberating Christ Into our world →

26 February 2023

In the scripture version of the Matthew reading, unlike the paraphrase we just had, it opens with this phrase “the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness”

Wilderness implies a place that is not tamed by human occupation. In the physical world, it might be a desert, mountain, forest, or ocean. Within our own lives, it may involve times of uncertainty, experiencing the unknown, or having to make choices with no clear outcomes. Even urban areas can produce wilderness times as the high incidents of modern loneliness shows. Continue reading “Into the Wilderness” →

Sunday February 19t^h 2023 : Transfiguration Sunday

Musings: The Passing of Time (Note merging introduction to Exodus reading)

 Time has slipped by since I last stood in front of this congregation. People have come and gone, you have known bereavement and joy, health and sickness, pandemic, lockdowns, change, as have I. We could draw a timeline of the past three and a half years since I left St Ninians and mark off the events for this congregation, not least the movement around the buildings and now back here in the church, but also in your own personal lives.  I for one have become a grandmother of two delightful little boys in Australia. Such a timeline would be Chronos time.

There’s another kind of time – Kairos time – or deep time. Something that Robert Macfarlane conveys so well in his book, Underland. He writes that deep time goes below the surface – in his case, literally as he explores various underground locations from a burial ground in Somerset, UK; to the catacombs in Paris, to under the ice in Finland and various other sites in between – sites where eras and epochs put human time in perspective and where he feels deeply the interconnection of life on this constantly evolving and changing planet. When viewed in deep time, that which appears inert, becomes vibrant. Our ‘flat perspective’ deepens. I highly recommend. Continue reading We Wait Upon the Mountain →

REFLECTION:                                                                                                        

We are very familiar with the Call stories from  the gospels, stories which also signal  the beginning of Jesus’ Ministry.  Here we are again, this time from Matthew,

In reading the early chapters of Matthew we learn that by chapter 4 Jesus has a new hometown for a  third time – each  in fulfilment of  various prophecies. Have you realised just how transient Jesus’ whole life was, even from the beginning?

Born in Bethlehem,  the family’s first move tells of Joseph and Mary and Jesus  fleeing Bethlehem and Herod’s fury, before  arriving in Egypt – another prophecy fulfilled. We can start to see Jesus’ life following a similar pattern to Moses’ journeys. Continue reading Called →

15 January 2023

Introduction to the Bible Readings

There are many call stories in scripture – to older couples, to teenagers, to people involved in their work, to those opposed to God’s hopes for them. Yet, we rarely hear stories from those with whom we worship about the calls they have heard.

I’m not going to embarrass anyone by asking for a testimony today but consider as you listen to these scripture readings who you would like to approach. Perhaps over a cuppa after the service or in the next days and weeks you could ask them to tell their stories, to share their journeys, to talk about their struggles with this thing we term a “call from God.”

Reading 1 Isaiah 49:1-7

Reading 2 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Response (you are invited to look your neighbour in the eye and like Paul say – “I give thanks for you”)

Sermon “To be called by God” Continue reading “To Be Called by God’ →

SERMON/TEACHING

St Ninians

18 December 2022

“Joseph – patron saint of step-dads”

Please turn to the picture at the front of your church bulletin. It is one of many Renaissance paintings of the Holy Family. You’ve probably seen similar pictures on Christmas cards. It is a simple family portrait; Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

But notice how old Joseph is in comparison to Mary. One of the stories that the church developed over the centuries was that Joseph was much older than his wife Mary.

This had no basis in the biblical narrative but solved a few problems for the Church. First, Joseph is not mentioned after the story of Jesus in the temple at twelve. He has no part to play in his ministry even though his mother is mentioned several times. But if Joseph has died from old age that explains it. Continue reading “Joseph – patron saint of step-dads” →

Readings

Isaiah 35:1-10

In this section the return of the exiles is expressed in terms of the transformation of the wilderness and the transformation of the environment which coincides, or perhaps is linked, with a transformation in humanity.

People transform their environment and are transformed by their environment.

Maurice Andrew remembers that his grandparents had the text ‘streams in the desert’ on their bedroom wall and he goes on to say that they lived by the Waikato River and he doubts if he could ever have imagined what a desert was like.

He thinks they had the text on the wall because everyone realises, whatever their circumstances, there are times when transformation is needed and that even people in their own country may still need to return to their land and find their way back to where they belong. ^[1] Continue reading Bring Joy To The World →

There is a television story,  Reasonable Doubts, about a woman defence lawyer representing a man convicted of brutal assaults. This man was asking the Parole Board to release him after serving a 14 year prison sentence.  The lawyer was successful and the man was  released.

A policeman who was present at the original crime scenes gave the lawyer a rough time after the hearing, telling her she shouldn’t represent such people. This man was nothing but scum.

Subsequently, the police officer discovered that the lawyer’s mother had died from cancer the day before the hearing. So, the next time he saw her he apologised.  I’m sorry, if I had known your mother had died I would have been easier on you. Continue reading If Only I Had Known →

Sunday 23 October 2022

We’re coming to the ending of the Church Year, and with this comes what we call the apocalyptic readings with their dramatic pictures of endings and calamities. That word ‘apocalyptic’ has been somewhat distorted by dramatic films about the end of the world, but that’s not the word’s meaning in the scriptures. It does include the end times, but it doesn’t stop there. The theme underlying apocalyptic scripture is that of the reversal of privilege and oppression – a message that Jesus continually hammers out. But apocalyptic scripture doesn’t stop with doom and destruction; it also sings of restoration and renewal – of God’s new creation. Today’s reading from the prophet Joel fits into this latter category very well. Continue reading Ending – or new beginning? →

16 October2022

You would think after years of women’s lib and the recent ‘Me Too’ movement there would be no more incidents of  injustice for women and yet we are now seeing a pushback from elements who justify poor treatment of women (and pretty much everyone else) as “Making America Great Again” or a part of their culture, or “just a bit of fun”. Of particular concern are the religious leaders, and their followers, who preach that certain toxic behaviours are part of their traditions and beliefs, and that to change would offend their god. And the sad thing is these religions include Christianity.

It seems like just when the persistence of previous activists’ results in some wins something else pops up. That no sooner we get comfortable with those successes that a new battle field appears and we have to fight for the same injustices, or new iterations of those injustices, all over again. It can make you despair – is God’s kingdom never going to come? is a just world ever going to happen? Continue reading ‘Never Give Up’ →

Your creation, my creation, our creation,
science’s creation, God’s creation
Whoever, whenever, whatever
One thing’s for sure
It is a marvellous creation
Full of vibration
Full of attraction
Full of energy
Full of parallels and opposites
Natural laws, manmade laws, religious laws,
spiritual laws
One thing’s for sure
It’s a wonderful mystery
slowly being unfolded
Some feel they have all the answers
Some are still searching and others are
just not interested
A magnetic equilibrium of antitheses
Life and death
Day and night
Positive and negative
Richly abundant and barrenly dry
All exist
While we wonder, why, why, why???
Rurkinder-Kaur Sidhu. Kim10@min.com

When I was growing up, the word ‘cosmos’ wasn’t part of my vocabulary. We heard ‘universe’ and ‘galaxy’ spoken of in relation to the world around us – and those ideas were challenging enough to get your head around. My particular world – and yours – has expanded in more directions than one during my lifetime. We were told in high school that electrons and protons were the smallest particles. Now we know that’s not true. And, as the known particles of creation get smaller and smaller, the cosmos gets larger and larger. Everything is constantly on the move. The stars we see in our night sky are not the stars that our first ancestors saw. I still remember an astronomer friend of mine telling me that she always quite enjoyed telling people who believed in astrology, and who rang the National Observatory to get advice from astronomers, that they were a month out of date with their star signs. That’s how far things have moved in the hundreds of years since people began to tell their fortunes from the signs of the zodiac, never mind how far they’ve moved in the thousands of years of human history. Continue reading Cosmos and Catholicity – Creation →

Jeremiah 4: 11-12, 22-28

We read two sections from Jeremiah this morning and, the section in-between that is missed out, gives imagery to the Babylonian invasion.  In an interesting twist the blame for the invasion is placed with the invaded rather than the invaders.  This is real social comment where it is understood that bad national policy makes invasion a real possibility.  The second part of this morning’s reading is a lament over the devastation caused by the invasion. and Maurice Andrew points especially to the line in the second half of verse 25.

‘And all the birds of the air had fled.’ Which reminded him of a character created by the New Zealand author Owen Marshall who was ‘so tough that the birds stop singing as he passes’.  ^[1] Continue reading Lost and Found →

04 September 2022

We’ve just moved into the season of Creation. It’s a newish season of the church year, but it has rapidly become an urgently important season. It’s intended to be a time when we deliberately make connections between our interpretation of Scripture and our awareness of “creation.” This isn’t something we do easily because most of us have inherited traditional ways of reading and interpreting scripture through the lens of our humanity. This is, we focus on the personal – (what does this passage say to me) and also social justice. The Season of Creation challenges us to reconfigure our thought patterns and to ask: “How does this passage affect my attitude towards the Earth and all its inhabitants?”

The season began on September 1 – Creation Day, and today is Ocean Sunday. But I needed to start at the beginning because of those amazing images coming to us from the James Webb telescope. We are getting images that have travelled through billions of years – thousands of millions of years. From before the time when our planet first came together. It’s hard – no it’s impossible to comprehend the time scale. My brain can’t cope with more than a few millennia. I know that life began on this planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, but I can’t easily grasp these timespans, let alone the cosmic ones! Continue reading Creation’s Challenges. →

A sermon on Luke 14: 1, 7-14. . August 28 2022

Luke’s Jesus sometimes seems to be preoccupied with meals. There are more references to eating, banquets, tables and reclining at tables than in any of the other Gospels.  Luke suggests that, for Jesus, the table is a key place for teaching, and for encountering the marginalized. Jesus also uses the meal table as a focus for some of his parables. Sharing a meal, sitting round a table, is a principal site for fellowship and for teaching. So, here we go again, with a meal within a meal.

On the surface, this looks like a straightforward little story. Don’t ever assume that you have a right to the place of honour. It’s not status that counts, it’s service. You may think you are important – but that won’t necessarily be the way God sees your rȏle. That’s the obvious message of this little parable that Jesus told. It’s the upside-down kingdom again – and let’s be quite clear about this – it’s seditious stuff. In Jesus’ world, status was important and status underpinned the established authority. This is Mary’s song all over again: ‘He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts……… he has brought down the powerful from their seats, and exalted the humble and meek.’ We’re so familiar with this theme, and possibly with this story, that we can slide over the provocation, but be very sure that his fellow dinner guests would have got the point. Continue reading Open Tables →

21 August 2022

Readings

Jeremiah 1, 4-10

This morning’s reading is about God empowering Jeremiah, God puts the divine words in Jeremiah’s mouth.  This is known as word-event formula and although it is not found in earlier prophets it occurs 30 times in Jeremiah, 50 times in Ezekiel, and 12 times in the Deuteronomistic History.  Maurice Andrew suggests that it indicates that Jeremiah is a prophet to the nations, like the servant in Isaiah, and he is also a Deuteronomy prophet like Moses.

Jeremiah is the prophet most identified with doom, and this is supported by verse 10 where he is commissioned ‘to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow.’

Maurice Andrew says he often thought that Jeremiah is the journalist’s favourite prophet and he recalled a TV programme where Hamish Keith spoke of ‘the Jeremiahs of journalism.  Keith was referring to predictions of the fall of the government of the time and indeed predicted the downfall of governments as journalists still do.

Dr. Andrew goes on to suggest that Jeremiah is really inclined to be a realist who can always see the potential for disaster. Continue reading The Call to Prophecy in words and action →

Readings for 14 August 2022

Isaiah 5, 1-11

In this passage from Isaiah the people of Jerusalem are provoked into accepting judgement on themselves. The friend has done everything possible to cultivate a vineyard and would expect it to produce grapes.  At that point the people of Jerusalem are called to make a judgement between the friend and the vineyard.

Finally, the friend is identified as God and the vineyard is the people of Judah.  God expected justice but received bloodshed.^[1]

Luke 12:49-56

Fred Craddock says that Jesus is the crisis of the world and by that he does not mean an emergency but the moment of truth and decision about life.

As an image to help the understanding of that comment he suggests a gable of a house where two raindrops strike the gable and could run off either way.  If instead of a gable, we think of a ridge in a mountain range the raindrops could indeed, end up oceans apart. To turn towards one person, goal or value means turning away from another.

According to the sayings in this reading God is acting through Jesus in a way that creates a crisis that produces difference even in families.  Peace, in the sense of status quo, is disrupted and historically this has proven to be true.

Sermon

‘Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!’ (Luke 12:49). Continue reading Loving God by Loyalty to All Humanity →

August 7 2022

Is there anyone who doesn’t hope for peace. I don’t know of any nation that doesn’t give at least lip service to the words inscribed on the front of the UN building in New York. ‘They shall beat their swords into ploughshares.’ Those words have sat there for over half a century, and how many of the nations that send members to sit in UN meetings have known even one decade when their people all sit under their own vines and harvest their own crops? What do they think they’re doing, all those wise men and women who debate the ways forward for the world’s countries – including their own? We might be forgiven for thinking: very little.

We might be forgiven for thinking that, but are we then shifting the responsibility onto someone else’s shoulders. Anybody’s but mine. It’s not my job to work for world peace.  Others will do that, somewhere other than the place I sit in. Just let me go on sitting quietly in my own garden and dreaming of peace, but don’t ask me to do anything about it. Is that where we’re at?  Continue reading ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ →

31 July 2022

Here we are, in your beautiful and beautifully strengthened and renewed church. What next? How will you use your treasure?

Strangely enough, the readings chimed in with these questions. We had Paul insisting on the universality of Christ’s new kingdom, and Luke reminding us about the futility of accumulating possessions, and challenging us to find and hold our real treasures. (As one of my favourite hymns puts it: ‘The pearl of great price and the treasure of heaven’, i e the great love of God.) Continue reading Millennial dilemmas →

Sunday 24^th July 2022

St Ninian

Text: Deuteronomy 6: 4-9, Luke 5: 17-24

In 3 weeks’ time I am preaching at St Cuthbert’s, the mother church of Edinburgh. It is part of a trip as Moderator to connect with the Church of Scotland as Moderator of the PCANZ. It is also a personal pilgrimage, linking with my own family roots in the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. The day after I preach at St Cuthbert’s, I make my way up to Iona, homage to St Columba and his impact on Celtic Christianity. I hear that some of you did a similar pilgrimage to Scotland in 2016. That on that trip the author of a book on St Ninian told you: “Forget Columba – Ninian was the spring from which the river of Celtic Christianity flowed”

That is, indeed, a claim to fame that you can be a part of. From those beginnings of Celtic Christianity with St Ninian in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, here we are in 2022 reopening a church that bears his name! Continue reading Maintaining the Chain of Religious Memory →

“Learning from Mary and Martha”
July is Bible Month. A time when the Bible Society encourages a focus on the Word of God. As ‘people of the book’, as Presbyterians claim to be, it seemed to me to a chance to share a ‘proper’ sermon, unlike the reflections and such that I have done with you previously.
The readings today have been read and preached on for centuries, especially the story about Mary and Martha. In fact I am tempted to declare that this is one of the few stories where a tale about women has influenced men as well. The contrast between the service of Martha and the contemplation of Mary became the foundation of difference between the secular life and the ordained. Continue reading Learning from Mary and Martha →

Amos 7:7-17
Maurice Andrew suggests the idea of Yahweh holding a plumb-line against the people could be referring to dilapidated city walls. However the plumb line might also be a metaphor of assessing the people’s trueness. Are they true, straight and upright in their loyalty to the divine laws and just living?
Amos’ words are not well received and Amaziah tells the king that Amos’ words are too harsh for people to bear and he instructs Amos to desist.
Amos notes that he is not a prophet or a prophet’s son which Andrew says probably means that he is not one of the band of professional prophets that can be ordered around by the priest. He was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. The sycamore was a type of fig tree which was inferior to the figs we know but was very popular with the poor because it had three crops a year. A dresser made an incision in the fruit before they were ripe so that the juice ran out and the rest fermented, giving the fruit a sweet taste Continue reading Plumb Line →

Luke 9: 51-62. June 2022

Today’s Gospel is a real challenge! What on earth does Jesus mean? What does he call his followers to do? Is he really saying, it’s OK – it’s more than OK, it’s the right thing to do – to take off suddenly into the blue, leaving family, responsibilities, friends, work, and everything that makes up a life in community. And don’t even stop for a few moments to tell them where you’re going or why? We’ve all heard stories about missing persons in our society, and the heartache they leave behind. We wouldn’t dream of calling this responsible behaviour, if one of our friends or relations just took off. We’d be calling in the police and putting advertisements in papers and on line and going out and looking ourselves. What are we to make of this gospel reading? Continue reading STEP OFF YOUR WORLD →

12 June 22

One of the incessant commercials we endure currently has a man interrupted while painting his fence and told about the tiny cable under his feet.  He is then teleported into a massive tunnel under the berm where small streaks of pulsing light flow down the middle.  ‘You said it was a tiny cable he protests’. ‘It is, this is a metaphor.’ voice-over replies.

A metaphor that tells us that the tiny tube carelessly stapled to my fence can carry far more data than its size might indicate.  Trinity is a bit like that.

The Rev Dr. Robin Meyers recently argued on Facebook that the doctrine of Trinity is a metaphor that evolved as a way to try and understand God. Continue reading Trinity →

05 June 2022 Pentecost 2022 St Ninians.

Do you ever stop and think about something you just said, and wonder, now just exactly what did I mean by that? We have our routines of greeting and parting. ‘How are you?’ we say? ‘How’s life?’ Do we really want to know – in detail? How about supermarket staff with their: ‘How’s your day been?’, or: ‘Have a good day’ when we know perfectly well they don’t want to know.

And we also  do things without thinking what we’re doing – even in church. We often begin worship by affirming the presence of God’s Spirit. Whenever we celebrate communion, we tell the story and we invoke the Holy Spirit – we call on God’s Spirit, using a prayer of transformation. Do we really know what we’re doing when we call on the Holy Spirit? How would we respond if God’s Spirit was made known in a truly dramatic way? Continue reading Winds of God →

Easter 6

Acts 16:6-15, John 14:23-29

‘As one door closes, another door opens…’

To most of us, I imagine that’s a pretty well-known phrase.

Although it’s usually meant to reassure, for me this little proverb raises a number of difficult questions, such as:

Just who is it that is opening and closing those doors?

Are the main points of entry and exit in our lives controlled entirely by ourselves and other human beings?

Do they function randomly?

Or are they under the remote control of a supreme being;

Are our doors indirectly opened and closed for us by God?

Does God have ‘a plan’ just for people of faith, or for every human being,

And where is God when everything seems to be going wrong?

I’m aware that last question sounds more than a bit melodramatic,

And I can’t help recalling ‘ Where there’s life, there’s hope’ – another helpful proverb I learned at some point in my distant past.

Continue reading As One Door Closes … →

Readings: Acts 11: 1-18

This section of Acts is significant because the early followers of Jesus saw ‘the way’ as a reform of Judaism and all their cultural conditioning would encourage them to keep it within Judaism.  ‘Luke’, says William Barclay ‘sees this incident as a notable mile-stone on the road along which the Church was groping its way to the conception of a world for Christ’.^[1]

It seems to be a strong group building practise to limit diet, dress or behaviour as a distinguishing mark that encourages our ‘in group’, ‘out group’ instincts.  But the early church seems to have overcome that tendency even though later sections introduced new sanctions.

John 13: 31-35

This passage begins immediately after Judas has left and is the beginning of Jesus’ farewell speech which repeats the theme of love several times, intensifying the love commitment each time.  Raymond Brown writes that Jesus gives the disciples a command that, if obeyed, will keep the spirit of Jesus alive among them.

Love is more than a commandment; it is a gift from God.

Sermon

Continue reading Inclusive Christianity →

Introduction to the readings

Acts 9:36-43

This is clearly a reflection of Jesus raising Lazarus and the leader of the synagogue’s daughter.  In his commentary on the passage William Barclay includes the previous section about Peter’s healing of a paralysed man.  In that passage Peter says ‘Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.’  Although we are not told what words Peter used in his prayer in the raising of Tabitha it is fair to assume, as Barclay does, that both healings were carried out by Peter ‘in the name of Jesus Christ so Peter is shown allowing Christ to work through him and not through any special power of Peter’s.

The passage follows a series of sheep and gate parables, and Raymond Brown writes that, in this place in John’s narrative, the demand that Jesus say plainly whether or not he is the messiah makes perfect sense.  He has referred to himself as a shepherd, a metaphor which traditionally has been used of the Davidic kings and of the expected messiah.  However, Jesus is always anxious to qualify what messiahship might mean because it had strong nationalistic and militaristic overtones.  Jesus’ concept was entirely different, and he answers by giving examples of what he is doing, in his ‘fathers name.’ and in verse 30 that is summed up, as is common in John’s Gospel, in a theological statement ‘The Father and I are one’.

Jesus is the good shepherd but only his sheep recognise that, he is not going to force that recognition on others as a military messiah might be expected to do. ^[1] Continue reading Mission Now but Mission How →

Our Gospel reading is challenging. First of all, it almost looks like an appendix – an afterthought. If you look at the ending of Chapter 20 in John’s Gospel it says: “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Now that sounds like a final ending to me. So Chapter 21 is almost as if when the author – or maybe some other author –read out what was written to his community, someone said, “Oh, but you’ve left out a really important bit. You’ve simply got to put it in. Everyone needs to hear it”. So, if the writer agreed that it was important, let’s think about it a little.

The companions of Jesus found themselves in a totally new place of living. They reacted as we almost always react at first to dramatic change. They wanted to blank it out – to go back to what they were used to. Just as we do in these days of lockdowns and mandates and sudden changes in the way we communicate with our families and communities. The apostles probably wanted to be with family and friends in the place they had called ‘home’ for most of their lives. They wanted to find themselves doing familiar things. Possibly they may even have decided that before they made any radical changes, they needed to think things over; to weigh the risks. Also, of course, they wanted to remove themselves from a volatile danger zone. Back home in a small village was much safer than in Jerusalem. But – and this is always the result of change – they found that the challenge wasn’t going to let them alone. Jesus wasn’t going to let them alone. The changes followed them home. What had happened was going to change the landscape.

Continue reading Crossing the Line →