Rev elations

Most of the time it’s possible to live quite happily with the absence of religion. Our lives are full and content without it, indeed most people would probably say less restrictive and less judgmental. But then Christmas arrives with its magical talk of angels, a miraculous birth and God with us . The nativity at school, the lit candle in the darkened church and the carol service remind us of a time when going to church and believing in God made sense. The tune of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ is grasped like an old friend – and it takes us to a place of remembered community, of solidarity, of a secure identity and experience. It gives us a story, which stretches way back, that we can be a part of. Our memories, faded and nostalgic as they are, nonetheless are full of hope, reminding us of an identity that we’ve lost, encouraging us to claim a future that will always be ours. Like the Queen’s Speech, Match of the Day, Strictly Come Dancing – Christmas is the photo frame which colle

This 5th-century mosaic from Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna depicts the Last Judgement in which Christ separates the sheep from the goats.  It is considered among the oldest mosaic depictions of a New Testament scene.  Photo by Lawrence OP    https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/156700138 L ast week we looked at Judgment and the End Times in the ‘Parable of the Talents’ and I alluded to the fact that the lengthy passages of teaching in Matthew’s Gospel on this subject ended with the story of the sheep and goats. It is this story that we will look at more closely today. The story itself, in rounding off the passages on the End Times, introduces the main drama of the Gospels – the plot to kill Jesus, his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection (Matthew 26-28). The ethical reasoning in the sheep and the goats’ narrative demands further exploration. It seems to pose the question: why should humans treat each other with compassion, love and charity? The answer gi

The Parable of the Talents Matthew 25:14-30 'The Harrowing of Hell' by a follower of Hieronymous Bosch, date unknown The Parable of the Talents comes near the end of a series of parables and teachings on the end times and judgment in Matthew’s Gospel. It is most helpfully read in this context, as an apocalyptic parable. Apocalyptic teaching generally addresses: ‘signs of the end of the age’, ‘the end times’,  ‘the coming of the Son or Man’, ‘the necessity for watchfulness’ and ‘judgment’. It is in this context that we get the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, for instance. They are waiting with their lamps for the bridegroom: 5 are foolish and 5 are wise. The wise take flasks of oils with their lamps, the foolish don’t. Whilst the foolish ones go to buy oil they miss the bridegroom and are locked out of the banquet. It ends with the words: ‘keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour’. There is also the Parable of the Faithful and Unfait

  1.    The Bible       The Reformation was about the re-discovery of the Bible as a text that individuals could read and interpret themselves. As Luther wrote in Article 62 of his 95 theses: ‘ The true treasure of the church is the most Holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God’. John Tyndale (1494-1536) translated the Old and New Testaments into English for the first time. A job he had to complete in hiding in Germany. Nonetheless he was found, persecuted and sentenced to death, being killed in 1536. He is a founding father of the Reformation and his English text was the main source document for the King James Bible. The Bible emerges in the Reformation as a radical and contested text; one that is not just the property of an elite religious class. As it was translated into vernacular languages it could be read and understood by ordinary Christians – or at least ones that could read! This development coincided of course with the advent of the printing press. When we

The 18th October is the Feast Day of St Luke. And what a lot we should be thankful for! It might seem blindingly obvious to say, but, we know about Jesus because people who met him, encountered him and believed in him, wrote about him . Without their testimony and witness, we today, would know nothing about Jesus. It makes me feel a sense of awe and wonder – we stand in a great line of witnesses. By Anonymous Russian icon painter (before 1917) Public domain image (according to PD-RusEmpire) - http://www.museum.ru/alb/image.asp?12822, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3597619 It is often said that St Paul created Christianity as we practice it, but St Luke is also without comparison. St Luke wrote the Gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles, which means he wrote 25% of the New Testament. Now, consider this, without St Luke we wouldn’t have Mary’s narrative and story. It is St Luke who tells us about Mary’s feelings and her co

St Francis was born in 1182 in Assisi to a wealthy textile merchant – he was a well-loved and well-provided for child and young adult. As a young adult he was the leader of a band of unvirtuous drunkards, wealthy and gluttonous! He hated the sight of lepers, who in that time had to live on the margins of the city. English:  St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata, detail from a four-foiled plaque from a reliquary. Engraved, chased, enameled and gilt champlevé copper, Limoges or Italy, 1128–1230 (?). The times that Francis grew up in were unsettled, with growing wealth through trade but also with many armed conflicts. His ambition was to be a knight. Assisi was at war with Perugia- and so he went to war and was imprisoned for a time. After he came home he also experienced a period of ill-health. This was to be a turning point in his life. In1208 his life was changed by hearing a sermon- in which he heard the commission to preach. At another time he was praying in the chu

Our reading from the Gospel of Matthew (18:21-25) today is a lesson in forgiveness. Most importantly the story highlights our responsibility to be humble in receiving and giving forgiveness. If God is merciful with us, so should we too be merciful with one another. Perhaps you would like to cast your mind to the last time you said sorry to someone, or to the last time somebody said sorry to you. How hard was it to say sorry and how hard was it to put aside the hurt that somebody had caused you? An assembly I remember from Primary School was one in which the teacher spoke about the hardest word there was to say in the world; the word he was talking about of course, was the word ‘sorry’ . Putting aside hurt is one thing when somebody has said something out of turn, or snubbed us in some way, but the work of forgiveness and repentance only gets harder when the hurt escalates; the nature of human failing means that the level of hurt and damage we can do to one another is almost