Dear Friends,
“Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near”
Matthew 4: 17
The best stories are those that keep you gripped until the last paragraph when it is finally revealed ‘who did it!’ I read a long story last week and at the end found out that I DID IT!
RACIAL JUSTICE WITH LOVE…
This is Racial Justice Sunday in the church calendar, but with a Valentine celebration so is delivered with a message that LOVE is justice in action. The gospels are the unfolding story of Love that invites people to belong to the Kingdom of God as one family regardless of race, faith or culture. It is Love beyond our understanding because it embraces differences we don’t understand into one diverse family. So you are invited to meet God of the rainbow where colours merge as one in the sky and to meet the Artist who paints flowers of many colours into the beauty of our gardens. Different colours bring energy and vibrancy to the world so that we can celebrate the beauty in our differences.
Dear Friends,
Many boats, one storm on the same sea!
Mark 4: 35-41
I am a little uncomfortable with the thought of us all being in the same boat. It has become a much heard phrase during the pandemic, but I think there are too many of us to be in one boat. It will sink and I can’t swim!
Dear Friends,
Welcome the Chinese New Year
in the right spirit…!
It’s the 40th anniversary of my first and last taste of whiskey! I remember because it was Chinese New Year and it was offered to me with a warm smile from a Vietnamese woman in a joyful songful voice:
THE WORD WAS BROKEN!
Read: John 1: 1-14
The first Word was spoken;
then the Word was written;
before he Word was broken
for a story to be told…
In the beginning the Word was spoken and it was heard by the Spirit and light appeared in the darkness to reveal something good in the chaos and confusion. The spoken Word became story and poem to be remembered and retold or captured in song.
Dear Friends,
All we need is a rucksack!
Mark 6: 6-13
We almost always reminisce on the time we shared a flat many years ago when I talk with my best friend. He recalls leaving home with all his belongings in a rucksack, but when he moved home recently he filled three furniture vans!
Dear Friends,
If I asked to lean on you many of you might say I’m too old and fragile or I don’t have the strength to take your weight. I’ve got news for you because you are stronger than you thought: I’m already leaning on you!
When we were younger we used to play a game of trust in which we would fall backwards to be caught by someone behind us and that’s the real life situation we are in right now, however old or fragile you might feel. We are called to trust each other to catch us as we fall. (Please, don’t try it for real now because I don’t want anyone doing themselves serious harm!) What we have is a spiritual trust in each other that when we fall someone will be there to catch us or pick us up.
Revd. John Sutcliffe was our guest preacher at the weekend by Zoom with the theme:
CRISIS IS A TIME OF OPPORTUNITY
(I am told that in China the word for crisis is the same as the word for opportunity. Perhaps Albert Einstein drew on that when he coined his saying, ‘in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.’)
Dear Friends,
Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find
knock and the door will be opened to you…
Matthew 7: 7
I have turned the clock back to my teenage years and am doing what I did then: knocking on doors praying one will open with a welcome. I remember some doors remaining closed when I knocked, others opened but quickly closed when I said what I was doing and a few opened with a warm welcome. That was the opportunity to do what I needed to do!
Dear Friends,
Inspired by a favourite poem of many I hope we can be encouraged to know that the Lord does more than walk with us in these difficult times, but carries us through the challenges of Covid lockdown. As I walked through the snow yesterday I was reminded that we are not on our own and the footprints are not ours, but those of the Lord who will carry us through.