Rev elations

Jesus turns water into wine, the wedding at Cana John 2:1-11 Like the feeding of the five thousand, this sign shows us that God’s action in the world is one that is about generosity, grace, abundance: there will always be enough of what God is offering. God is always thinking about feeding us, and in this instance not only feeding, but giving us great wine to drink! Perhaps this is the most Jewish of signs, one quite difficult for us Christians in 2013 to understand. What do we know of Jewish marriage feasts and culture? What can we understand from this Gospel reading? There are such odd things about this reading, Mary’s appearance, for instance, unlike the image that we have become so familiar with over Christmas and over the years – the young women – obedient and accepting. Here, to me she seems much older, familiar with her son – he’s a grown-up after all. Used to referring to him for help – ‘they have no wine’; expecting that he has the answers/solutions: ‘do whatever he ...

T he Baptism of Christ, Epiphany 13th Jan 2013 The wise men offered gifts of great value to the Christ child and they travelled from afar to make that offering. On the second Sunday of Epiphany, we celebrate Jesus' Baptism and th e gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given to all believers at baptism.    Through the gifts of the Spirit we are enabled to live as Christian and therefore the gifts of the Holy Spirit are really important for our common lives as Christians. They are given by grace and not for our own credit, but to the glory of Christ and for the building up of the whole Christian community. Unlike talents that are so celebrated today to the glory of celebrity, and the individual - gifts are given so that all may take their part in the kingdom of God . It is our duty then as Christians to stir up the gifts within us that we have been given and in turn offer them for the health of the whole community of Christ of which we are a part. As Christians each one ...

‘And the word became flesh and dwelt among us’ …… If anyone has seen a child come into the world, they will know something of the magic of seeing the moment when what was not becomes what is. The moment when new life takes on flesh in the external world and is made known to its parents, is a revelation. This new creature, suddenly alive, embodied is a whole new reality. What was only a heart beat, a rounded belly, black and white sketches on a scan becomes a real creature with a face you can touch: it is the magic and mystery of life itself. The moment of Jesus’ birth was just the same, except what was coming into being at that moment, was not only another human life, but it was a divine-human life. Christmas is a celebration of God’s birth – His birth into our world, a world where things come into being – take on shape and form and live – a world different from the divine world. The two worlds mixed – and Jesus was born. Some cynical voices, some agnostic voices, some at...

In Advent we are presented with the great figure of John the Baptist. So humble and so sure of Jesus’ greatness – a short life lived solely to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. As we wait for Christmas this year, in what ways can we truly prepare ourselves?  I’m reminded in this idea of preparation for pregnancy: the nine long months of growing a child within you – with the necessary preparations, practical, emotional, spiritual, medical etc. I remembered thinking one very key thing about being pregnant and that was it took such little effort – unlike other things that I had prepared for in my life - exams, job interviews, ordination - it was my body that grew this child and did the work. I just had to let it. And perhaps God’s relationship with us, could be a little more like this: this sense of gift or grace if we let it be. Because I know that good things require a lot of work and commitment, but I have a sense that God’s love is something we are asked to receive rather...

This week we saw the General Synod of the Church of England narrowly defeat the measure to allow women to become Bishops. I am fully in favor of the consecration of women as bishops and am thoroughly disappointed and shocked that the measure has been voted out at this late stage; a measure that has been the result of many years of prayer, discussion and compromise. And many people in wider society are asking themselves whether the Church of England has lost credibility and legitimacy because of its failure to introduce this Measure. As the Archbishop said this week: We have, to put it very bluntly, a lot of explaining to do.  Whatever the motivations for voting yesterday, whatever the theological principle on which people acted, spoke; the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society. Worse than that, it seems as if we are wilfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society.  We have some expl...

Wilfrid Owen’s poetry (see below) introduced me to the reality of war as a student at secondary school, along with Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves these were the writers that helped me see the sacrifice that we ask others to make on our behalf when we send them to fight for us. These writers showed us what they suffered in war, as well as revealing their courage. It is young men and women just like them who today continue to offer their lives for us that we may live in freedom that we honour and respect on this Remembrance Sunday.  All of us have some contact with war today, even if it isn’t with the actual experience of fighting. One experience that stays with me is visiting the S21 prison in Cambodia and seeing the remnants of the appalling Pol Pot regime. It was an experience similar perhaps to those who visit Auschwitz, a chilling and frightening one to witness to the remnant and memory of what people do to one another in war. The element that I found so sca...

Another Angle on the Book of Job Of course, the story of Job is very familiar, at least in terms of its basic parts. The Book of Job is usually considered as a book about the ultimate question: why do we suffer? [See below!] What I want to explore in this blog post is, how the story presents to us what happens when we are confronted with the limitations of our world-view and how a conceptual mind-shift can occur. Most of us have a certain way of thinking about the world, about how things work – and we interpret our day to day experiences with reference to our wider concept of ‘how the world works’. For Christians and other believers, God takes a central place in that appreciation of ‘how the world works’. Who we think God is; what we think God is like, will inform our world-view, and our actions. Well, one centrally important thing that the narrative of Job shows us is what happens to a man or any person when their worldview is demolished by something that happens to...