Renewing

This morning we come to the third in our Advent mini-series on refining, reviving and renewing.

A couple of weeks ago Marg helped us to think about God’s refining work in our lives. We heard about the real live example of a silver refiner, and what that can show us about how God works in our lives. We looked at how God is waiting with us and watching with us in all the heat and fire, and that through the refining process we are made more able to reflect God’s image.

Then, last week, we thought about God’s reviving work in our lives. Using the real life example of the process of reviving someone who has got too cold, we discovered that God’s reviving wakes us up, moves us out of the place of death and gives us life in the Holy Spirit.

Now this week are going to think about God’s renewing work. Given the pattern so far, it might not surprise you to hear that I have a real life example of renewal to think about as well. And it won’t take much imagination to think what it might be either. You can’t wander more than about 50 yards in this city without seeing some kind of sign with the word “Renew” on it.

According to their website:

“RENEW North Staffordshire is helping to create better places to live across areas of Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire Moorlands.”

That sounds great, and I’m sure that there will be different views around the room as to how well Renew is doing, but what I’d like us to think about first is HOW they are going about renewing areas.

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Reviving?

I really struggled this week to work out what I was to say this morning. I really wanted to talk about a particular subject, but the bit of the Bible that we are looking at this morning didn’t seem to say much about it.

Let me explain. Last week, Marg spoke about one of the ways that God works in our lives, with us. We explored the idea that God refines us. She shared with us the story of the lady who went to see a silver smith to find out how silver is refined, and discovered that the silver worker has to stay and watch the silver as it is refined, and that the refiner knows when the silver is ready because she can see her reflection in the silver. And so, we know when it feels like we are going through fire that God is not absent, but is there, with us, closely attentive, and we know that we are being made more able to bear God’s image.

During the week, Keith Harding shared with me that he felt that God was saying that God refines, revives and renews. And so, with Marg having helped us to think about God’s refining last week, I thought that this week we might look at God’s reviving, and then, next week, look at God’s renewing.

But, then I looked at the Gospel for this week, the story we heard this morning of John the Baptist’s teaching to the people in the desert outside Jerusalem. And it didn’t seem to have much to do with God’s reviving. It seemed to have a lot to do with judgement and fire. In some ways, they seemed to be the opposite of reviving, they seemed to be to do with putting to death.

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What King do you see?

Today is the feast day of Christ the King. I wonder what kind of picture comes into our heads when we hear the word, “King”. I wonder how we react to the idea of someone being King over us? What does it mean to have a King? These questions are difficult enough when we’re thinking about a King here on earth, but I think that sometimes they seem even more difficult to answer when we are talking about Jesus as King. But that is what I’d like to do this morning. We’re going to have a look at the three readings, at the things that they show us about Jesus as King, and think about what that means for our lives now.

The first reading we heard is part of the book of Daniel. You probably know him best from the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. Daniel was an Israelite, probably from one of the ruling families in Jerusalem, who had been carried off into exile in Babylon when Jerusalem had been defeated about 600 years before Jesus was born. He was a faithful worshipper of God, who, throughout his exile proved the practical wisdom of following God faithfully.

A few years before the incident with the lions, Daniel had a series of dreams or visions, in which he was shown things that were to come about in the future. The descriptions of the things that he was shown sound foreign and strange, even when they’ve been translated into English. What is it with all these beasts and horns, and wheels on a throne?

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A Call to Action

On the 13th of May, 1940, a new Prime Minister stood up to speak in the Palace of Westminster. It was his first speech to the House of Commons, having replaced the previous leader of the government three days earlier. As the United Kingdom prepared to enter perhaps the most dangerous period of the war, this is part of what he said:

“I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs — Victory in spite of all terror — Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”

The response to this call to action, and others like it, is part of what we remember today. The response by ordinary people, a response of strength and courage. A response that took the call to action seriously, and did something about it. People responded by shedding blood, tears and sweat. And in the end that response did lead to victory.

There was a call to action. There was a response. There was a victory.

In our readings today we heard about other calls to action and the responses that they provoked.

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How much is enough?

He ran up to Jesus.

He knelt. He must have thought a lot of Jesus. He knelt in the road. He must have heard and been impressed by Jesus’ teaching. He knelt in the road, in the dust. How highly must he have rated Jesus.

Have you ever run up to someone and knelt in front of them? Can you imagine doing so? How highly would you have to think of someone before you did that?

Have you ever been asked to do something that was just impossible? Have you ever felt like you couldn’t live up to the expectations of someone you loved? Has someone you respected said that all your hard work was OK, but wasn’t enough?

His face fell. He couldn’t do what was asked of him. He was heart broken. He couldn’t learn the thing that the teacher he rated so highly wanted to teach him. He was shocked. He’d been told that he lacked something, that he wasn’t perfect.

He went away.

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A hot favourite?

Imagine a meeting. With all the words about courts and judges, James is probably picturing a kind of court room, a place where disputes are sorted out, maybe even between fellow Christians. So, picture the scene, the church has gathered to sort out a disagreement between two of its members. The first one arrives, looking very fine. He is wearing his best suit, and his heavy jewellery shows that this is someone to be reckoned with. He is given one of the best seats, so that everyone can see him and he can command the room. The second arrives, he’s not washed for a couple of days. His clothes are tatty and he needs a hair cut. He’s made to sit on the floor at the edge of the room. What do you think the chances of a fair hearing are? How confident would you feel if you were the rich man sat, with everyone admiring you? How much despair would you feel as the poor man, crouching in the corner, overhearing the muttering of rude comments? What are the chances of a fair hearing? They don’t seem to be great, do they?

James then goes on to give three reasons why favouritism is wrong, why it is not to be practiced by those who believe in Jesus and follow him.
1) God has chosen the people you are discriminating against for special blessing. So you’re setting yourself up against the will of God.
2) The ones you are fawning to are the very ones who are attacking you and blaspheming against Jesus.
3) It breaks the law that has been acknowledged as the heart of the law, a status that was reaffirmed by Jesus – love your neighbour as yourself.

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It's the Law

What is happening to this ball? What happens when I let go of it ? Why does that happen? Does it make any difference who drops it? Will it always fall?

Dropping this ball illustrates the law of Gravity. This morning I’d like us to think about some different kinds of law that crop up in our readings, but also in our lives.

The first question is, “What is a law”. I came across a great definition this week from a Chinese Christian teacher called Watchman Nee:
“A law is a generalization examined until it is proved that there is no exception. We might define it more simply as something that happens over and over again. Each time the thing happens it happens in the same way.”

Does this definition work with my ball? Does it happen over and over again? Does the same thing happen the same way each time? Yes, it does.

The three kinds of law that I would like us to look at this morning are; God’s moral law, Laws made by people and the Perfect Law of Freedom.

We start with God’s moral law. These are the laws that God has given people so that they can know how they should live. If we follow these laws then we can live well with each other and with God. They are referred to in both our readings. Jesus is talking about God’s moral law when he talks about , “evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness” all being forbidden. Why are they forbidden? They are forbidden because they prevent us from being fit to worship God. If we do these things then we damage each other, our relationships with each other, and our relationship with God.

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Memories

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week talking to people about what things used to be like. I’ve been with families preparing for the funerals of their loved ones, who remember what family life used to be like when they were growing up. I’ve had conversations with people living in Cavour Street in Etruria who have lived there through all the changes of the last fifty years. Through the closure of industries, the demolition of one lot of houses and the building of another lot. I heard about how close knit that community used to be. To be honest, I suspect that in these conversations there were, in some cases, rose tinted glasses being worn, but, mostly, the memories of the things being recalled were good memories, that make life today seem a bit flat, disjointed, with communities that aren’t as strong and more people that are lonely and lost.

Most of the people that I spoke to seemed to have lost something that they remember having, and they aren’t sure if they are ever going to find it again.

In contrast, our first reading this morning encourages those who hear it to remember in a different way. Rather than looking back, remembering that things were better then and worse now, they are told to look back and remember that things were worse then and are so much better now.

You see, this letter was aimed at Gentile Christians. It was written to those who knew that in the past they had been completely excluded from God’s people. They were without hope, they didn’t know God. They were in darkness. They had no promise from God for their earthly lives, or for what would happen when their earthly life ended. They were all at sea.

But not anymore. Something had changed. There was a shift from the way that they used to live, and now they lived in a different way.

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Say no to cynicism.

Cynicism. Ezekiel faced cynics, Jesus faced cynics, and Paul faced cynics.

Those of little faith. Those who could not see past the ordinary. Past the slightly odd priest who was prone to have visions and dreams that were hard to understand. Past the man who we grew up with, whose brothers and sisters we know. Past the man who built our house. Past the funny little ugly tent maker. There is a lack of imagination, a lack of openness to something new, a lack of vision to see what is here now and what is coming soon, because of the limited experience of the past.

It seems to me that cynicism is one of the hall marks of our culture in this country right now. Throughout public debate and news stories is a deep current of mistrust. There appears to be an underlying assumption and idea that most people lie most of the time, and that we are being misled.

I believe that this is so corrosive to the human soul that it is heart breaking. How can we live in community if we don’t trust people? It seems to me that down this road lies isolation and loneliness. Cut off from each other, with no common ground on which to meet, we end up alone.

And this is not to say that there is not, in some cases, grounds for mistrust and dismay. It is almost as if over the last fifteen years there has been a vicious circle in place in our society. Repeated episodes of deceit and lack of openness by public figures in authority, political and church leaders, have led to a reduction in trust in our leaders, and this in turn has led to a reluctance on the part of leaders to be open about failings and mistakes.

It is one huge mess that is characterised by a lack of truth, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of openness, a lack of generosity and a lack of trust. Our country is in a mess.

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Speaking into Silence

I wonder how you feel about silence. What your story of silence is.

Last week, when I went on retreat before my ordination, we spent a fair amount of time in what we called silence. But it wasn’t really. Although we weren’t speaking to each other, there was still the sound of the pipes rattling as someone got a glass of water, the birds singing and squabbling in the gardens, and the irregular rattling of a train on the neighbouring tracks. And that was just on the outside. On the inside, I was chuntering away to myself. God wasn’t quiet either. God was there, showing me more, teaching me more, loving me more.

Behind the story of the birth of John the Baptist there are two stories of silence.

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Children of God

I’m really pleased to be here, with the opportunity to preach this morning. Of course, I’m always enjoy preaching, especially to such a fine bunch of folks as you lot, but today I’m especially excited. That is because today is Trinity Sunday, and I love the Trinity. I think that it is one of the most exciting and exhilarating aspects of God that there is, and I love talking about it. One of the dangers of this is that I might get a bit carried away. Trinity Sunday only comes round once a year, and there is more to be said about the Trinity than can be said in quarter of an hour once a year. But that is what we have, so hopefully this morning, even if I don’t say everything that can be said about the Trinity, I will say enough to help us to experience one God in three persons in a way that is deeper and more real to our hearts.

One of the reasons that I find the Trinity to be so attractive, is that it seems to me that the idea of relationship being at the heart of God’s identity, who God is, helps us to understand our own relationship with God, and our identity, who we really are.

It seems to me that questions of identity are really important, particularly at the moment. Who am I? I might define myself by my family relationships: I am a husband, a son, a father. I might define myself by my job: I am a curate. I might define myself by my nationality: I am British. But, it seems to me that these ways of working out who we are can leave us very vulnerable. Over the last few decades, as the people have become more able to move around the country, families have become less physically close, marriages have broken up, and people close to us die. If I have defined myself as my grandchild’s grandparent, what happens to my identity when that young family has to move to find work? If my identity and self worth are all tied up with my work, with my job, what happens to that when I lose my job? What does it mean to be British? As we see the disaster area of our national political scene at the moment, is being British something that we want to be?

It seems to me that we all need something more stable, more trustworthy to show us our identity, who we really are, how valuable we are.

I believe that God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, can give us that.

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Chosen?

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last."

Jesus spoke these words to his friends and followers nearly two thousand years ago, and I believe that he continues to speak them to us today. Maybe it will help us to hear them more clearly , and to understand what they mean for us, if we spend a few moments thinking about what they might have meant for some of the people who heard them when they were first spoken.

Mary, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. When you were a young woman, just betrothed to Dad, and that angel appeared to you to tell you that I would be born to you, even though you had never been with a man. You did not choose me. Nobody can ever choose who their child will be, but you had even less control over it than most people. You did not choose me, but I chose you. In some ways I was the fruit that you bore. I am the fruit of your body, but also the fruit of your love and care as I grew and became a man. That fruit will last forever. I will die, but I will defeat death and be raised to live again forever.

But there is more fruit that you will bear. You did not choose me, but the way in which you humbly accepted and obeyed my Father, is an example that will inspire countless women and men forever more. Your witness to my life, death and resurrection will bring life and hope to people across time and places that are beyond your imagination.

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F's for Fruitfulness

As some of you may know, I have a vegetable plot. It’s not a very big vegetable plot, but it has produced its first crop this year. Some spinach. Not very much spinach so far, but enough for a couple of salads and a meal for Liz and me. The rest of the plants divide up into two different kinds. For some of them I can see the process of the produce developing. The blossom has been on the apples and the cherries, and the fruit has set. It doesn’t guarantee a crop, but at least I know we’re on target. The peas are flowering, a promising sign that there might be pods containing sweet, fresh, peas later in the year. But, for others I can’t see what is going on because it’s underground. I can see the tops of the potatoes and the carrots, but I’ve no idea whether or not the roots and tubers are forming in the right way, or if they’re being eaten by bugs, or other nasties. And it’s no good prodding around, digging them up to have a look. That would be completely counter productive. I’ve just got to wait and see. It’s the same with the tomato and pepper seeds sitting in little pots on the bathroom window sill (I know, I started them a bit late). Are they germinating? I have no idea, and I mustn’t go digging to try and find out.

This morning I’d like to invite us to think about fruitfulness. But not really about the fruit and crops that might be growing (or not) in our gardens, but about the fruit of our lives. Some of this is growing out in the open, we can see it coming. Some of it is growing deep in our souls, hidden from general view.

This is also going to be a world first. This is the first time, I think, that I am going to preach a three point sermon, with each point starting with the same letter as the over all theme. Are you ready for it?

Our main theme is fruitfulness, and my first point is, “Forlorn."

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What do you see?

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine upon us,
that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.

The first verse of this couplet is often used in our services, words of blessing, even greetings cards. It has a lovely ring to it:

May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face shine upon us.

There is no question that it is a great blessing, with a warmth to it. But, if we cut it off there, it is incomplete.

Why does the Psalmist ask for Gods’ grace and blessing? Is the request made so that the Psalmist and God’s people can enjoy life having made the most of their divine contacts? No. The blessing of God is sought after, so that God’s ways may be known on earth and God’s salvation to everybody.

I do want to be a bit careful here. I believe that we have a generous God, who loves to give us good things because we are loved. I don’t believe that God blesses us to make God look good. God blesses us because God loves us, and we are encouraged to bring all our needs to God and trust God with them.

Having said that, I also believe that we seek the giver, not the gift. We seek the giver, not the gift. We see beyond the gift to the giver. Having experienced the love of the Giver, expressed in the value of the gift, we want others to appreciate the Giver’s generosity and to receive the gift as well.

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I am Thomas

Good morning, my name is Thomas. You might have heard of me. I was one of Jesus’ disciples, been with him from when he first started going around the Jewish countryside, teaching, telling stories, healing people. Most people call me doubting Thomas because of something that happened to me at the end of Jesus’ time on earth. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I do want to tell you the story of that day, but I’d like to build up to it, it that’s OK with you. Fill in some of the background. It might help to make a bit more sense of it for you.

I’d like to take you back to a few months before the end of Jesus’ time on earth, to a remote wilderness on the other side of the river Jordan from Jerusalem. Jesus had got it into his head that he ought to go back to Bethany, just down the road from Jerusalem. To be fair, we had just had some really bad news. Word had reached us that our mate, Lazarus, was really ill. What was really odd though was that when the message reached us Jesus didn’t seem to be in any hurry at all. We hung around for a couple of days and then, just as we were finishing breakfast on the third day Jesus announces that we ought to go and visit Lazarus.

This went down like a lead balloon. Last time we had been to the area, we had barely escaped with our lives, because the religious leaders had been plotting to kill Jesus. The others tried to talk Jesus out of it, but he was determined. Then, it all got even more bizarre. Jesus said that Lazarus was dead, but how he knew this was a complete mystery, it wasn’t like we’d had any more messages. We maybe could have understood it if he had wanted to go and see Lazarus when we was sick. We’d seen him heal plenty of people, he could have healed Lazarus as well, but no, he waited until Lazarus was dead, and then was in a big hurry to walk into danger. Really bizarre.

In the end I said to the others, “Let’s go with him, at least we can all die together”. But, as we were to find out later, death wasn’t where this story would end.

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Welcome, Travel, Message

I don't know if you have noticed but we have had a special visitor to the UK during the last week. In fact there have been lots of special visitors. The leaders of the G20 nations, the 20 richest, most influential countries on earth have been in London, with their ministers and advisors. But the one that everybody talked about most was the new President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Everybody wanted to welcome this man who has been hailed as a breath of fresh air, a new hope for the western world.

Even Radio Stoke got in on the act. Stuart George on the Breakfast Show yesterday said this about him, “Everybody loves him and he's going to solve the world's ills.” Now, I think that his tongue was in his cheek, but there is that kind of slant to a lot of the coverage of Barack Obama, expectations of what he can achieve are very high. Anyway, in order to mark the occasion of his visit to the UK, Radio Stoke are planning to send him a hamper of things to let him know about Staffordshire and South Cheshire, because he never really made it out of London. They invited people to ring and text in with suggestions of what could go in this hamper. They decided that they couldn't send food because that wouldn't get through customs. But in the end this was the list of things that they decided to send: a recipe for Oatcakes, a piece of pottery, a calendar with views of the Staffs moorlands, postcards showing views of the area, a model train, and two t-shirts for his daughters with a Staffordshire knot design on them. That is the list of things that it was decided represent this region and would be our welcome to Barack Obama to mark his first visit to the UK as President.

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Bending the Knee

I was at the Potteries Museum on Saturday with the rest of the family. Tabitha has been learning about the Tudors in histroy at school, and they had a Tudor day at the museum, so we all headed along to see what was going on. Well, there were a dozen or so people in Tudor costume, talking with lots of thees and thous, and generally being Tudorish. Including, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

They had some Tudor musical instruments, they had a drum, and some pipes and they might even have had a trigon, but I'm not sure what one of those is, so I couldn't swear to it. Having played the gathered company a couple of tunes, they asked for volunteers to teach a Tudor dance to. As part of this, the victims / eager volunteers where taught the correct way to bow and curtsy. The dancing master insisted that gathered crowd ought to learn as well because we all needed to bow to the King. So he showed us all how to do this, and then instructed us to reverence the King. Which about half of us did, the rest being distracted or bored or just indifferent. At which point the King barked, “Those who do not bend to the King will break”. We had another go, and far more people made some attempt at the correct bow.

Nebuchadnezzar did more than bark a pointed comment, he threatened execution, and quickly to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. If they didn't get down on their knees, and pronto they would be toast.

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Disciplined Worship

I wonder if you have house rules? And if you do, I wonder how they came to be decided. Let me give you some examples. In our house it's my job to load the dishwasher and put it on before I go to bed. We didn't need this rule before we had a dishwasher, and after we got one it soon became clear that it was going to be my job, because when Liz did it, I get cross about it not being loaded correctly, and I was informed in no uncertain terms that if it mattered that much, then I could do it. So I do.

We also have house rules about bedtime for the kids, and I expect that as they get older, we will have to negotiate curfew times that we expect them to be home by. I guess the first set of house rules we ever had as a family were the ones that Liz and I agreed to when we got married. The love, honour, cherish, be faithful vows that underpin our marriage and which sum up the values that form the basis for our whole family life together.

The thing that all these house rules have in common is that they all, in some way, are in place to enable us to live together happily and in a way which allows our our relationships within the household to flourish. Not all of them were there to start with, and some of the ones that we will need in the future are not yet in place. As family life goes on, the details of our house rules might change, but the underlying principles of love, faithfulness, and integrity will remain.

In our reading from Exodus, God is laying out some house rules for the family of the people of God God has sent Moses to Egypt, to rescue the people of God from captivity, and they are now three months out from Egypt, and they have reached the base of the mountain of God, Mount Sinai. Previously God had spoken to the ancestors of the people of God, people like Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and made promises that their children would become a nation.

Now God has bought those children to the place in which God will start to forge them into a nation. That nation needed some house rules to enable the people that were part of it to live together with flourishing relationships, with each other and with God.

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The Top of the Hill

During the summer Tabitha and I went on an expedition. We set out at around 9:30 in the morning and caught two buses from the place we were staying to reach the place where we would start walking. The cloud base was quite low and we started walking in the cloud, with grey all around, and droplets of water forming on our clothes. After about half an hour the cloud lifted a bit, and we could see the path, and some of the surrounding scenery, but we still couldn't see where we were going to end up. We continued to climb, back up into the cloud, and the visibility worsened again.

Finally we got onto the home straight, heading to our destination. We still couldn't see where we wanted to get to, but we had met the railway track and knew that that would lead us there. We didn't actually see where we had been heading all that time until we were about 50 yards away, and there it was, the top of .... any guesses.....Snowdon. Even at the top, we couldn't see much, so we sat down and had our lunch and headed home again. Even though we hadn't been able to see it, reaching the peak of Snowdon had been the reason for everything that we had done since we left home, it had overshadowed our climbing, even though it wasn't visible to us.

Jesus and his disciples had been on a three year expedition around Judea. Throughout that expedition, there was also a destination, one thing that overshadowed all that Jesus did, and said. He was also going to the top of a hill, but he was going to the cross on the top of the hill. For most of the journey the disciples didn't know that this was where Jesus was headed, but lately he had begun to tell them, to let them know. Clear glimpses of the destination were breaking through the cloud. In this passage, for the first time, Jesus tells his disciples that he is to be crucified. For the first time on the journey the exact destination is made crystal clear to the disciples. The cross on the top of the hill.

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Fasting

Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.

Jesus is right at the beginning of his public ministry. He had just had one of the most awesome spiritual experiences that anybody could ever have: he had been baptised, the Holy Spirit had descended into him to empower and equip him for the work ahead, and his Father had reaffirmed, in front of everybody, how much he was loved. Surely it's time to crack on, to get out there, he's on a high, time to start flying.

No. Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.

There were a few things that happened in the desert. We know that Jesus was tempted, that he experienced attacks by Satan that aimed to stop him starting his ministry. Now I'm not planning to talk about these temptations particularly this morning, but I want to ask where Jesus got his strength from whilst he was going through this difficult time? Now, it's a bit of a puzzle because we're not told by Mark directly, and neither are we told by the other writers of the accounts of Jesus' life.

Well, it might help if we think about the places where we might look for strength. We might look to friends or family. But Jesus was in a desert, so he didn't get his strength from there. We might look for strength in favourite books or pieces of music – like the castaways on Desert Island discs. But Jesus didn't have those things either, so he didn't get his strength from there. On a physical level we might think that the best way to keep our strength up is by eating healthy food. But Jesus didn't eat, he fasted. So he didn't get his strength from food.

In fact, we could go on like this all morning, but we would run out of ideas before we hit the truth if we stick to looking for physical answers. In one of the toughest times of his life, Jesus strength came direct from God by the Holy Spirit. And it seems to me that it is no coincidence that Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for these forty days. It seems to me that it is when we are in the place where the worldly things we sometimes look to for strength aren't there, that we can experience the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit most.

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What's the choice?

I don't have any choice. You don't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice. These are some of the hardest words that can be spoken or heard in today's culture. In our country it's all about choice. Having the right to choose. The right to choose where our kids go to school, the ability to choose where we live, were we work, who we are friends with, who are doctor is, which hospital to go to. The power of people choosing to buy some things and not others is what drives free market economies around the world.

So, how do we feel when we are told that we can't choose. That we have to continue to live in that house because we can't sell it. That our kids can't go to that school because it is full. It seems to me that more and more people are coming to believe that they have a right to choose in every aspect of their lives, and that if they can't choose then something is badly wrong.

And they'd be right. There is something badly wrong. Actually I think that there are three things that restrict our choice: Illusions, Barriers, and Compulsions.

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What's Missing?

Marmalade. This is the marmalade that I made from some of the left over Christingle oranges. I know that I was warned that they were the wrong type of oranges, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. As you can see, this marmalade is a bit on the runny side. There is something missing, in this case, it's probably not got enough pectin in it.

I wonder if you've ever had the experience of thinking that there is something missing. Sometimes things just don't add up, and sometimes it's difficult to tell what it is that's missing. If you didn't know anything about making marmalade then you might not have been able to tell what was missing from this jar. Just that something wasn't quite right.

Paul had got a strong feeling that there is something missing. He'd been travelling around what is now Turkey and Greece, telling anybody who would listen about Jesus. He has now ended up in Ephesus. Whilst he was there he met up with a group of disciples. Now, in today's reading we only have a snapshot of their conversation, but I think that there must have been more to it than this. It doesn't really sound like the first line in a conversation, does it?, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

Continued here...