Pilgrim

I have a confession to make.   I spend a seemingly inordinate amount of time on computers.   That may sound surprising to some as I am a Physiotherapist, and for a lot of people that creates a vision of infra-red lamps and massage (all sorts of things that I or my colleagues hardly do any more).   Actually I suspect that I spend at least 50-60% of my time working at a keyboard.   Then there is the inevitable work at home, including preparation for this very sermon, not to mention the apparent absolute necessity of social media sites such as twitter and facebook.   Some of you may be thinking what really is the point of all this, and how does it impact on God’s message to humanity.   Well, for my part   I am inevitably exposed to opinions from people both Christian and non-Christian about a range of issues.   Some of that opinion can be inspiring, and can lead me to reflect deeper about my own relationship with God, a lot of it sadly is the opposi...

Just imagine for a moment that the Church hired people to help clean up the grounds and paid them the living wage, and then ended up paying those that had turned up for an hour so the same as those who had been at it all day.   If you had turned up at 9am and worked until 5 in the afternoon, would you feel OK about it? Somehow, I think the majority of us probably wouldn’t.    This story from Matthews Gospel would have been clearly understood by the audience.   After all we are talking about people who lived day to day on a subsistence level.   They knew how much they ought to be paid, how much they needed to be paid.   Their continued existence would have depended on it. Jesus wasn’t talking to the equivalent of City Millionaires here, he was talking to the working classes; even the Pharisees would not have been rich.   Money in 1 st Century Palestine was like today, held by the few; i.e. the rich and powerful. So, there is something ...

One of the problematic questions that challenge the church intermittently surrounds the question of miraculous healing, particularly why it is that some people apparently experience the wonder of healing experiences and others do not.   The argument that suggests that people who don’t experience healing lack sufficient faith is at the least unhelpful and at the worst harmful.   Many people have given up on the church because of unfeeling comments by those who claim a Christian faith.   Other arguments include a Christian version of the Insha' Allah   of Islam.   Sadly we are left with an image of God who chooses capriciously who to heal and who to leave.   I have just finished reading “Simply Jesus” by N T Wright, a book that doesn’t focus on healing miracles specifically.   My understanding of the book is that the author is suggesting that this thorny issue be set within the wider context of the rescue of the whole of creation. With the fall,...

The Lord cries out “Have you forgotten me? Have you forgotten justice, righteousness and love Where are you going? Some of you have an obsession with guns And you act surprised when young men lay dead on your streets, or a child kills a teacher by accident These are consequences of an inability to walk with me Selfishness, nationalism and anger breed extremism You kill those unlike yourselves Borders are argued over; killed over. You kill in my name. You drag my name in the gutter, depositing your sin on me You extremists, your activities are repugnant to me You Fundamentalists, you make me want to cry out in frustration You are all so full of your own ego I know longer recognise you You call out Lord, Lord but I don’t know you. Stop the Killing, do you think I want sacrifice Stop the Killing, I want justice peace and honesty I spread my arms in the gutter for you once Absorbing all your hate and vile You don’t need to carry on Hav...