tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91204174974546296802024-02-20T11:12:50.168-08:00Matthew in the MarginsMIM is one of a series including Marginally Mark, Laterally Luke, & now, Jottings on John; the first three originally on a different host. This or a similar Introduction appears in each of them.
Gathered in 'church', most congregations look surprisingly like pages of Scripture. Set in lines, row by row. Here, a stop, there a comma, an exclamation!, a question or two?? But congregational life, like real life is lived mainly outside these rows of pews & aisles. (read more...)Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-88406282503676955062020-04-23T19:44:00.001-07:002020-04-23T19:44:27.258-07:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>MATTHEW 28: 8-15</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Easter 3…Revised 2020</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mary & Mary can't get away from the tomb fast enough! Maybe some of us still can't get away from the Easter Event fast enough because it's too hard? M & M, though, have a foretaste of great joy, based, at this point, only on what they've been told. But they ain't seen nothin yet! Not even Jesus Himself raised from death. In our reading they're just racing off to tell the other disciples something they've been told. Hearsay. Not admissible in court. The sort of thing at the root of a lot of poor religion. Then Jesus Himself greets them. “G’day”, He says. As if nothing much has happened since they were together last. M & M can't hide their emotion. Then He tells them not to be afraid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Fear, of various kinds, blocks progress in our faith journeys more than just about any-thing else! Reassured, the women go off to tell the other disciples this glimmer of even better news to come. That the Raised Christ first entrusts His message to the womenfolk who've already proved themselves more reliable than His male disciples during His lifetime is a rebuke to patriarchalism! In any form. Under any guise! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Has the Raised Christ appeared to <i>us</i> in some meaningful way? Have <i>we</i> stopped being afraid? Do we believe? Are we freed enough from any fear of being scoffed at to pass on the Good News? The Greatest News of All Time?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">'What is truth?' a certain person once asked when Truth was staring him in the face (JN 18:38). That there was a plot along the lines MT claims stands up better than most alternatives. It sounds very human. It makes sense. If we are honest, might any talk of susceptibilities in v. 15 be more likely to be of own susceptibilities than those of Jewish people today? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Differing accounts of where Jesus appeared look very much like plays in the game of getting the edge over an opposing faction within the emerging early church. Gaining control. Playing Religious Monopoly! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we can't preach Jesus raised & alive among us more meaningfully than often passes for an ‘Easter Message’ today, are we simply joining forces with those priests of old whom MT says hatched a lie?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Brian</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: If you could ask Jesus one question, what would it be?" If I were game, I think I'd like to ask, “Was it all worth it”? Yet God persists with us. In dogged love. Hoping against hope. Loving, as against lack of loving! Still appearing where <i>we need</i> <i>God </i>to be rather than where we might like God to be.</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-7843733034949306572020-03-24T19:41:00.001-07:002020-03-24T19:41:37.864-07:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 21: 1-13 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Palm Sunday Liturgy…Revised 2020 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The point the procession makes is the <i>kind of rule</i> Jesus comes to bring, & the <i>kind of religion</i>! The procession may end at v. 11, but we need Jesus to reach the Temple in v.12, & throw down the gauntlet in v.13 for it all to come together. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Clive Sansom (‘The Witnesses’) contrasts Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey with Pilate ‘bouncing the same road on that horse of his…armour shining…half Rome trotting behind him’. Jesus is acting out Zechariah’s prophecy, deliberately & provocatively! He’s <i>driving </i>what’s going on! Not simply letting Himself be carried away by an event set in motion by others. Not yet!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">W.H. Vanstone</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> argues a case for Jesus being the 'subject' of the situation until he becomes the 'object' by allowing himself to be handed over to His enemies in the garden. I wonder, though, if Jesus isn’t setting in motion this ‘letting Himself be handed over’ process earlier still; on Palm Sunday. Or, has it started even sooner, with His raising Lazarus? His secrecy in borrowing a donkey today strongly suggests He’s not going to prejudice His calling the shots without interference until it’s time to let go & let God. Who’s calling the shots in our Palm Sunday celebrations with Corona Virus in our midst? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The introduction of a colt into the story as well as the donkey simply reflects the parallelism of the Hebrew poetry of ZECH [9:9]. There is no second donkey! But it’s an example of how things creep into our stories. What incidents, do we embroider, allow to take on new life in re-telling, face to face, or, say, on Twitter, or Facebook? Would we lend Jesus <i>our</i> donkey - or anything else - on the strength of what sounds an embroidered story of His being Messiah? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">MT wants us to see people who follow Jesus as able to recognise a true king, of a new & different kind, when they see one. Liturgy puts those words of recognition on our own lips with its: ‘Blessed is he……' But are we prepared to go further than just cheering Jesus’ procession on? Will we go on to enter the city with Him, & do what needs to be done there? Till we reach that ‘green hill far away outside a city wall’? Are we up for what that may entail these days, inside or outside our own city walls? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Words from a hymn by John Bell & Graham Maule</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>2</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> sum up the Jesus who declares his hand on Palm Sunday: ‘Praise the Son who feeds the hungry, frees the captive, finds the lost, heals the sick, upsets religion, fearless both of fate and cost’. Well may we say, or, preferably, sing: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” And mean it with every fibre of our being! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The Stature of Waiting’,</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup> </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">DLT, ’82 </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>2 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Wild Goose Songs 1, Wild Goose Publications</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-51453350957001936802020-02-25T17:54:00.003-08:002020-02-25T17:54:53.661-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MATTHEW 4: 1-11 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Lent 1…Revised 2020</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The ‘Temptations’ are both preview & overview of what Jesus will face in real-life as He carries out His ministry. I'll use the word ‘testing’ from here on as I see ‘tempted’ as too theologically biased. Can a fixation on ‘tempting’ lead us to negative preach-ing, even escapist attitudes? How often do we hear the excuse, ‘The devil made me do it’? ‘Tested’ seems to me to open up more creative approaches to preaching Jesus' formative experiences in <i>His</i> wilderness, & <i>our own </i>wilderness experiences. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If MT's ‘led by the Spirit’ lacks the vigour of MK's ‘the Spirit <i>threw Him out</i>’, are <i>we</i> sometimes ‘thrown’, in that we dismiss some genuine testing because it doesn’t seem tough enough? Before we expound on the evils of the ‘devil’, shouldn’t we be mind-ful of being 21st C people, not 1st C ones? Might preaching a 1st C Middle Eastern world view to a largely Western (?) 21st C church encourage escapist views regarding questions of evil today? Isn’t Evil too important an issue to be controlled by the flat earth society?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus’ testing connects us back to Moses’ & Elijah’s testing for their ministries. Let’s keep our spiritual eyes open to all the biblical connections. Here, isn’t Jesus’ testing to prepare Him to be the True Messiah, rather than some phoney one? And ours, to prepare us to be faithful, genuine disciples? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Might turning stones into bread symbolise a legitimate passion for social justice? Might jumping from the Temple represent getting high on religion rather than God? Might the world view from high up represent getting to the top as an end in itself?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus' refutation of His testings by quoting Scripture isn't an invitation to proof text-ing. Scripture is in every fibre of Jesus’ being. He draws on it deeply; not to be relig-iously correct, but because He<b> </b>Himself<i> </i><b><i>is</i></b> God's Word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The devil(s) defeated, they depart, & Angels, whether heavenly, or earthly ones, come & care for Jesus. Have they not been in the offing the whole time, yet keeping their distance till God's time comes for them to intervene? Angels, visible & invisible, can be a great strength in our own times of trial. More, why not ask if there are times when <b><i>we </i></b>are designated by God to be a ministering angel to someone in their testing?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Brian </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Jesus’ testings are cleverly portrayed in the film ‘Jesus of Montreal’ if you can get hold of a copy.</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-35128091795051583102020-02-19T00:43:00.001-08:002020-02-19T00:43:58.807-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 17: 1-9 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…The Transfiguration of Our Lord…Revised 2020</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Paradoxically, is the key to preaching Our Lord’s Transfiguration bringing it down to earth for today’s hearers? What does it mean for us today that Jesus is transfigured ‘up there’, ‘back then’? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Jesus’ glowing goes one better than Moses when he comes down from the mountain after receiving the Commandments. Nor does Jesus have to strain to hear a ‘still small voice’ as Elijah does. Moses & Elijah both go through running away from God phases. Jesus, on the other hand, comes up the mountain to face what God requires of Him. Anything Moses & Elijah can do, Jesus can do better. Because of <i>Who</i> He is! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the Holy Mount, Moses represents the Law, & Elijah the Prophets. Here, now, they 'pass the baton' to One who will carry it further than they ever could; far beyond both Law, & Prophets. True religion's always a matter of moving on. Spend too much time looking back, or looking up, may we find ourselves colliding with our present?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Does Jesus’ taking with Him Peter, James & John suggest He sees them as ‘leader-ship material? Who would we take with us on such an expedition, & why? Let’s not rubbish today's Peters who want to prolong great religious experiences. Isn’t it more important to come to terms with <i>ourselves </i>as God's ‘tent’?<i> </i>That today <i>we</i> house God's glory?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To go back to that mountain top, the apostles are scared stiff. The ‘fear of God’ isn't ‘in’ these days, but if we lose that sense of awe we all need, can we survive as a truly complete human being? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Transfiguration confirms Jesus' self-understanding of Who He is, & points the apostles in the same direction. While <i>we're ‘</i>up there’ with Jesus & co. it's timely to remind ourselves that genuine religious experiences point to God at ground level too. Religious highs that are no more than that, can't prepare us for the journey either up or down the mount; nor for whatever we must face at the bottom. For Jesus, the Apostles, & for us, the Transfiguration is a rallying call to, & an equipping for, the on-going, earthed, hard slog of true Messiahship & Servanthood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Brian </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Long years ago I climb a small mountain in central Victoria. I look out upon a forest of trees & a river - a splendid sight - & I could have stayed up there for ever. Reality, though, meant I had to come down. Reality also means I have kept that experience within me ever since. In a sense, Transfiguring me still! </span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-57027581815355758512020-02-11T20:09:00.003-08:002020-02-11T20:09:28.907-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 5:21-37</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Epiphany +6…Revised 2020 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus is giving a kind of revision lesson on His ‘Sermon on the Mount’. It’s also a bringing-together of the heart of Jesus’ teaching throughout His life as the New & Greater than Moses. He assumes His hearers know what it is from the past He’s building on. They hear it often enough in their synagogues. These days, should we probably not assume too much knowledge of either Testament, by our hearers? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus moves on from the ‘Letter of the Law’ as it’s been passed down from Moses & interprets it anew. One of our jobs as preachers is interpreting how all this applies (or, in some cases, may not apply, today. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says somewhere</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> ‘Jesus was crucified so we don’t have to crucify each other’. The Nazis eventually ‘crucify’ him as ‘pay-back’ for his constant refusal to have anything to do with their evil ways. Are we ever conscious of ‘pay-back’ of any kind, hopefully not so drastic, in response to our preaching Gospel? If we’re not experiencing at least the odd push-back, may we have a few questions to ponder regarding our effectiveness? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the heart of today’s passage is Jesus’ awareness of the damage done to everyone involved when relationships - family / neighbourly / community / world - are broken. In His new community, what we know as ‘Church’, we’re all family, & suffer when relations are broken. It’s then that violence is freed to break out & feed on itself, damaging or destroying people whether church members or not. None of this can be solved by enacting tougher & tougher laws. Does Law do much except fill our gaols? Jesus is offering us a different kind of law here; a Law of love as strong as His. Is Jesus implying, too, that YHWH’s honour is at stake, as Head of the world family, not simply the Church, when people dishonour <i>Him</i> in any way?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In an age where ‘data-bases’ have become so vital (= life-giving!) is Jesus giving us here an alternative, very person-to-person, ‘data-base’ living on, living out, Godly relations?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What issues can we find that we need to interpret anew in today’s Church & where that Church is in our world? Does today’s world often turn its back on us because it recognises our failure to re-interpret Ist C teaching in 21st C. terms? Until we do this, & do it effectively, how many are missing out on the powerful reality to be found in the Rule of God on earth!?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: To quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer once more, ‘In Christ crucified & in His people, the extra-ordinary becomes reality’.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Quotes from Bonhoeffer are from ‘The Cost of Discipleship’, SCM, London, 1964 </span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-80698351852788865882020-02-04T20:28:00.003-08:002020-02-04T20:28:25.229-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Epiphany5…Revised 2020</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Does Jesus ask Mary one day why her stews always taste so good? Does she answer “It’s because I always add a little salt - dear as it is - to make it zing.” May this kind of domestic discussion lead to Jesus calling us in our turn to become Zing? In a world that’s lost its taste for God, & needs to rediscover, savour, what God ‘tastes’ like?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As a teenager, we lived close to a Salt Refinery for some years. Water was pumped from the bay into big holding ponds, dried, harvested, taken into the factory, refined, with packaged, & sold to us in the grocers. Salt was pretty ho-hum!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Years later, my wife & I are introduced to salt with real zing in it. Pink, & mined from ancient OZ deposits. We’ve bought nothing else since, for our grinder on our table. Jesus, though, isn’t interested in what kind or colour of salt we eat, but that we <i>become </i>the best-possible salt for the world! People zinging with the flavour of God! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Originating in LEV 2:13, the idea of salt being an essential part of sacrifice flavours not only our passage, but our working & worshipping lives. William Barclay</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> refers to a practice in some synagogues that apostates wanting to be received back into the fold had to lie across the doorway of the meeting place, & that some early churches copied that idea. The point being that salt that's lost its ‘saltness’ is fit only for trampling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Could we sneak, ‘A Form for Stomping on Penitents’ into our next P.B? Seriously, let’s avoid such a fate by zinging with God as we keep covenant with <i>Him</i>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In Jesus’ day dark is dark & light is light & never the twain shall meet. This contrast lies behind all the dark / light imagery in the Gospels. Similarly, there’s no mistaking ‘salty’ Christians lit with God from within. Christians who zing with God!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Smith’s Crisps apparently didn’t take off in England until a paper twist of salt was included with each packet of crisps. Maybe we could imagine the Church as a giant packet of crisps including us as the salt that makes it - us - zing?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup> 1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> Daily Bible Readings ad loc., Church of Scotland, undated, p.117</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-32221484875083847882020-01-27T20:21:00.002-08:002020-01-27T20:21:54.482-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
Matthew 5: 1-12</div>
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Matthew in the Margins…Epiphany 4…Revised 2020 </div>
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(It may be helpful to re-read LK’s ‘Beatitudes’ before launching into MT’s.) </div>
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William Barclay’s comment ad loc., ‘the beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be, but congratulations on what is’, goes to the heart of the matter. It reflects Jesus’ consistent teaching that the Kingdom of God (‘Heaven’ in MT), is now on earth, ‘as it is in Heaven’! Not unlike the Celtic approach of the line between heaven & earth being a very thin one indeed. ‘It’s now or never’! God rules right now among those named ‘blessed’ by Jesus.<br />
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Do we need to unveil both our hearts & eyes to the world’s increasingly growing numbers of those who are poor in this world’s goods, rather than simply (?) poor in Spirit. Can we join the ranks of those Jesus calls ‘Blessed’ - in either sense - except by showing compassion to them? Compassion remains meaningless until it’s put into practice for someone.<br />
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Maybe we need to become mourners, not just at physical deaths, but the death of values that God in Jesus represents? Is talk of ‘closure’ (increasingly common today) really a form of escapism from death’s realities? What does this passage have to offer those who are spiritually dead although physically living?<br />
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Let’s not ever preach a Jesus who is ‘meek’ let alone mild! What a travesty! Can we make the earth more worth ‘inheriting’ by living out Jesus’ gentleness?<br />
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Are we hungry enough to do what’s right in God’s eyes & not simply mourn the lack of righteousness among us? (N.B. LK’s alternative form, also Thomas 54 & 69:2.) Could the old, discredited term, ‘God of the Gaps’ take on a new lease of life when we fill gaps, including stomachs? What do we need to do to go beyond mere pity to mercy & compassion?<br />
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How do we recognise a heart that’s ‘cleansed’ today? Is ‘cleansed’ a term that comes to mind about anyone round us, churched or not? Are we ourselves cleansed in heart, & able to see God clearly enough, to preach Him?<br />
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Can we break the cycle of talking, talking, always talking about peace by actually making it happen through living it? Let’s make ourselves worth persecuting & reviling by standing for God as revealed in Jesus!<br />
Brian<br />
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Afterthought: Barclay gives another insight for our preaching when he sums up these Beatitudes as, ‘Jesus’ teaching distilled’. However we approach this passage, reflecting that the Beatitudes are ‘now’ as well as ‘then’ things, will serve us & our hearers well.<br />
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-15563317842477868142020-01-20T23:59:00.003-08:002020-01-20T23:59:45.740-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Light, introduced in vv.15-16, is the heart of our passage. Is this MT’s equivalent of JE’s, ‘I am the Light of the world’? To get to the heart of the matter we need to go further back than the IS passage MT is quoting. Right back to GN 1:1-2, where Light is the first thing YHWH creates. Making all else possible. Jesus, as God’s Light come into the world, makes the New Creation possible today! In the Light that Jesus is for the <i>New </i>Creation, &, God is calling <i>us</i> to be for the world!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus’ testing out in the wilderness is immediately put to the test in the new situation He finds Himself in when JB is imprisoned. Jesus isn’t interested in mere theorising! How can we preach in down-to-earth terms, how can we live in down-to-earth terms rather than ‘in theory’? Live in a Way that lets Jesus’ Light shine out through us? If people stir over what they see as something that needs to be put right, do we jump in with both feet, either for, or against? Or, do we examine it in the Light Jesus shines on it & us, & act accordingly?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Change your ways / repent says Jesus. God’s Rule, the Light YHWH throws on every -thing through <i>His</i> Son, Jesus, has come near & remains near. As integral to the New Creation as God’s Light is to the original, ‘In the beginning…’. What keeps it so? Or, better,‘<i>Who</i> keeps it integral? You & I do, as we absorb the Christ Light deeply.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God's Rule of Light certainly envelops the four first followers! Some of them have been ‘casing’ JB. Now they’re casing Jesus, too. Jesus, though, has been sizing <i>them</i> up, & turns the tables on them. Calling them so they have big decisions to make about their future direction. Does God's Light, God’s rule, ‘grab’ them & us enough to want in?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It's a big ask, still, to leave today's equivalents of boats & nets, & family. Proclaim-ing, teaching, & healing, though, all need to happen out there in the margins as well as in our churches.<i> Out</i>side the protective walls of our religious establishments. If people can't see the Light of Christ in us out there in life’s margins, not only are they living in darkness, but so are we!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: There're at least two key differences between the way Jesus operates & the way JB did: You have to go out to JB, whereas Jesus makes home visits. And, where JB talks about sin, & repentance, or punishment, Jesus majors in compassion, acceptance, & healing.</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-42718045126792607622020-01-06T23:56:00.003-08:002020-01-06T23:56:43.639-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MATTHEW 3: 13-17 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Baptism of Our Lord / Epiphany 1…Revised for 2020 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">John is right to refuse Jesus baptism, & Jesus knows it. By insisting He demonstrates there's more going on here than meets the human eye. In the end, JB defers to Jesus. He knows, or is at least pretty sure, Who this really is, & has met his match! There is a pastoral question here: When do we dig in about something, & when let go for the sake of God's longer term plan for us?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the outset of Jesus' ministry MT foreshadows what an enigma He’s going to be, & not only for JB. Is Jesus as Messiah still an enigma to some of us? What of those we are called to minister to who can’t get their head, let alone their heart, round Jesus any more than JB can at this point? Can we open people up to all the Jesus possibilities by being more open to them, & to Him? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">MT tells us Jesus sees the Spirit coming upon Himself after the heavens open. MK uses the term ‘torn open’, as MT does later of the Temple veil. How can we help our people grasp Christian Faith is no spectator sport. It’s a Spirited participation in the things of God, even the uncomfortable bits! Have we yet found our own personal point of entry to become a participant rather than a spectator?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In GN, the Divine Wind hovers over the waters as the Word calls Creation into being. Now, the same Word, but in flesh this time, calls into being a new chapter of God's eternal, ongoing plan for the restoration of a ‘fallen’ people. How can we ‘dust off’ the ‘old, old story’ & tell it on a stage further through our responses. When we stop telling it out in our own lives, the story stops with us. Stops short!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The voice of God acknowledges Jesus as ‘Beloved Son’ [PS 2:7], & ‘Servant’ [IS 42:1, etc.] as He accepts the role of the Anointed One. As beloved daughters & sons of God, we, too, are also to be servants, even suffering ones if necessary. Anointed in our own Baptism. God’s approval today is still “I'm delighted!” How well are we responding to God's loving delight in us?’ A relationship with Jesus that lacks enthusiasm is to damn Him with faint praise - or praise him with faint damns. Is there a hymn in there somewhere?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For all his greatness, JB is an enigma. He points to Jesus but doesn’t follow Him. So far as we know, JB never goes any further, comes any closer, than his enquiry, “Are You the One who is to come?” Are some of us, & some of those to whom we minister enigmas, too? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Brian</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Maybe JB is too individual a character to function within a group he himself doesn’t lead? Think of any group we belong to, church or otherwise: how is our ‘participation rate’?</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-71125828812656287652019-12-25T21:32:00.003-08:002019-12-25T21:32:27.818-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MATTHEW 2: 13-23 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… Christmas 1…Revised 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we were to take a survey, many would tell us two of the most important issues facing our world are Climate Change, & the Refugee Crisis. Our passage speaks to the latter. To preach the flight into Egypt with relevance to today, we need to draw people’s minds beyond the challenges of Israel’s past to the challenges posed by today’s international Refugee Crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Joseph represents those of us tuned into God enough to see the relevance of the Holy Family’s experiences in <i>their </i>day to today’s trials & tribulations. Are <i>we </i>representing today’s myriad refugees fleeing wars & persecutions, personal & larger scale. Last night’s news told of 80,000 fleeing one area of Syria alone!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How might YHWH see, & expect us to see, the myriads of ‘Boat People’ as so many contemptuously dismiss them? Having <i>His</i> own earthly family go through the trials & tribulations they do, equips God to understand from <i>inside</i> the experiences today’s refugees face. Will God then not expect us, <i>His</i> people to be accepting & pro-active in our dealings with them?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We could also explore our own various personal captivities & escapes & how these follow in the Holy Family’s footsteps. Are we prepared for life around us to become a kind of ‘enemy’ territory when we differ from the popular anti-refugee stance?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Are we ready to don 'wings' (or, shed them?) should God call us on Dial an Angel when someone needs our guidance & protection?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Joseph is the protector of his little family. He is a positive & wholesome role-model for today's males, many of them confused, &, maybe, angered by changing societal expectations. As Moses flees <i>from</i> Egypt (to Midian) to escape an avenging Pharaoh, the Greater than Moses flees with His family <i>to</i> Egypt to escape Herod. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The flight into Egypt & back - reversing Hebrew history from long before - gives us opportunity to revisit our own personal history & find new God-given possibilities for our future. To be stuck in some ‘Egypt’ of our past is to hamper God’s plan for our future, wherever that may be, ‘kicking in’ with all the new life in Christ it brings.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: As a class, angels are too valuable for us to pass them up so readily as we often do today. Bad spirits are very much 'in' in a lot of circles. Allowed to take over, rule the roost. Help the good guys & gals make a comeback. For starters, why not become one?</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-44642682444494691392019-12-18T01:45:00.003-08:002019-12-18T01:45:29.834-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…<b> </b>Advent 4…Revised 2019 )</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So we think we know what it is to face a dilemma? May we need to re-think that when we read about the one Joseph & Mary, each in their own way, face here? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They are having a tough time. But they are tough customers. Not the almost un-believably pious ones we tend to turn them into come Christmas season. To connect with them at the deepest level, do we need to identify with the tough time they are going through? And what about some possible ‘Marys & Josephs’ in our church? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Does today’s reading of their dilemma speak to someone in our congregation’s personal dilemma? To someone’s sexual dilemma? Perhaps to an inconvenient & unwanted pregnancy, or fear of it, in their personal life today? Or in someone in their extended family’s life? The outcome YHWH God wants, & needs from us, is that we ‘hang in there’ with <i>Him,</i> knowing <i>He </i>is hanging in there with us, too?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Isn't it the right of every child to be ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit’ if not ‘born of the Virgin Mary’? What prayerful, emotional, practical support, ‘all meanly wrapped’ in love, if not in swaddling bands, do today's soon to be parents & children need. Can we see through the figures of our traditional Christmas Crib to those facing dilemmas of one kind or another this Christmas? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It takes a person of great Spirit to be open enough to move away from their original intention to ‘dismiss’ any other person quietly’ as Joseph has considered in Mary’s case. But he can do better than that, understanding the part he has to play in bringing Jesus to birth for God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A lot of today’s would-be ‘Marys & Josephs’ are stuck in the muckiness of the world's many & varied stables. Not in some pretend nativity scene, but in real life. How can we help bring somebody to birth for God from such circumstances?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> We can’t just dismiss them, can we? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: If you can find a copy of John Irving’s ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ - it’s worth searching out - a highlight is an unbelievably amazing crib scene - one worth pondering deeply!</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-47072969613688026622019-12-09T23:55:00.004-08:002019-12-09T23:55:54.203-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… Advent 3<b>… </b>Revised 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Is JB’s musing about Jesus: “If you're who I think you are...what am I doing in prison ...get me out of here!” at all unreasonable? What if that One who came <i>then </i>doesn't appear to be taking up <i>our</i> cause today, either? Are we ourselves imprisoned in any sense? Don’t <i>we </i>deserve to be set free from whatever kind of ‘prison’ it is? If ‘God mysteries’ still puzzle us, why not explore them as openly & honestly as JB is doing here?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What kinds of things are <i>we </i>hearing & seeing that give us the responsibility to tell of them? Are we telling of the blind seeing again, though in different ways now? Telling of the lame walking, skin diseases being healed, deaf people hearing again, & at least the seemingly dead being raised to life through modern medicine if not the physically dead? As well as <i>telling</i> of these things, are we also playing our part in making them happen today when we can, where we can? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When it comes to caring for the poor by ‘proclaiming the good news’ to them, are they still in the too-hard basket? If we’re setting up caring agencies to serve others, without down-playing these, can we go further than this? Agencies can't love people. Only people can love people. Being loved is the way the poor, or anyone else, can discover the ‘Good News’. Can we truly proclaim Jesus as Good News to the poor - or anyone else - except by becoming that good news in person? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A reed, a fancy dress show, or a Prophet? There's a lot of bending this way & that in today's church, sometimes in a good cause, sometimes not. Not to mention dressing up. How does one recognize a genuine Prophet among the reeds & fancy-dressers? Whatever nurturing we may be giving others, is anyone nurturing <i>us </i>in becoming a recognizably authentic, prophetic, compassionate, hands-on <i>word-of-God</i> for each other? That we all need what the Celts call an ‘anamchara’, or soul friend, comes to mind. Why not explore that with a view to implementing it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus says JB ‘is the greatest human being’ up to that stage of history. At this point in the Gospel, though, even JB fails to recognize God's Rule present among us in Jesus. Rather than be discouraged by his failure, why not learn from it & grow stronger in faith as a result.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: The Gospel of Thomas Ch.46 [Complete Gospels, Harper Collins '94] may help us see where <i>we</i> come into all this with its: ‘whoever among you becomes a child will recognize God's Rule & will become greater than John.’</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-70053644283779592542019-12-02T17:52:00.001-08:002019-12-02T17:52:08.357-08:00<div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MATTHEW 3: 1-12 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…Advent 2…Revised 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Can John, fascinating character that he is, also be a distraction? Long after his death, there were those who persisted in following him rather than the Jesus to whom JB pointed. Not helpful! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Is true wilderness a matter of interior, spiritual geography? If that’s true, & I believe it is, is there any point in desperately seeking physical ‘Jordans’ of one kind or another to cross in the hope of deepening our spirituality? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">JB speaks to the people in heart language, not head language. Heart language is directed to the heart of our human problem: sin (separation from God) through disobedience, rebellion. Are we ourselves speaking ‘heart language’ or just the old head stuff? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Without pre-empting next Sunday’s Gospel, is Jesus a ‘puzzlement’ to JB, as the King of Siam might have said to Mrs. Anna? And, maybe, vice-versa? How much is either Jesus, or JB, a puzzlement to the other? Or, to us & those round us today?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I think it was Dom Crossan who said somewhere that JB preaches God as coming where Jesus models God as already present. What JB is on about out there in his wilderness is <i>telling</i> people about God, & <i>preparing</i> us for God, whereas Jesus is <i>showing</i> us what God is like by <i>being</i> God! As we go about our daily lives, are we doing more <i>telling, </i>or more <i>showing </i>through <i>being</i> the Body of Christ? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When I started primary school I was in ‘Beginners’ in one half of a divided room. Miss. C, the teacher on the other side of the partition was always shouting at the kids & belting them with the leather strap Victorian - in both senses - schools used back then. We littlies all lived in terror of being promoted. But, God is good! I developed a severe dose of Whooping Cough, & by the time I’d recovered, our family had moved & I went to a different school where no-one shouted at you! If I’m unfair hinting JB shouted at people, I guess he did, compared with Jesus <i>showing</i> people how to live? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When Jesus asks for baptism, the heavens open, & God acknowledges <i>His </i>beloved Son<i>, </i>JB recognises Jesus as the Lamb of God. The One who is going to pick up all our pain & division & separation & broken-ness & put us together again. How well are we living out our put-togetherness as distinct from simply re-telling it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Turning <i>from</i> something or somebody without as a consequence turning <i>to</i> something, or, better still, Someone, is an invitation to a <i>vacuum </i>to possess us. If that sounds a contradiction in terms, don’t let’s put it to the test.</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-28113799420923877012019-11-26T23:23:00.001-08:002019-11-26T23:23:27.466-08:00<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MATTHEW 24 : 36 - 44 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… Advent 1…Revised 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It makes sense to begin with some lead up rather than jump in cold as the lectionary does. Choose what makes sense to you & your congregation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Astro-physicists & the like theorise about a universe expanding forever, not one that collapses into itself when some point is reached. Can we explore such ideas in the light of Faith rather than be scared off by fundamentalism or insecurity? What things are happening today making heaven & earth teeter on the brink? How can we help our congregation identify them, & respond positively?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Early disciples under persecution understandably opt for an Intervening God over a ‘Son of Humanity’, a fellow Suffering Servant. We can take just so much of this suffering business, can't we? Ever walked the beam of a see-saw? Go too far towards either end & we come down to earth with a jar! How are we to balance both Divine & Human ‘sides’ of God so we become complete humans with a complete God? Are we letting the Spirit keep our theological see-saw well balanced?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the flood story from pre-history Noah represents those who have the discernment, to read the truth in what's happening round them, on earth & in the skies. When we feel sodden to the eyeballs & the flood is still rising, is trying to wring ourself out any real help? Why not, instead, build a new Ark, the Church, to God’s plan revealed in Jesus? Not out of timbers this time, but out of people. Is there any mileage for God or for us in our waiting for a Cosmic Christ to drop from heaven & snatch us from a watery grave? Might it be better to use whatever sails, or oars - or motors - God provides to keep our heads & the rest of us above water? Let’s not diminish God or ourselves in looking for an ark that never existed except as an important parable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Noah tale is a great & valuable religious parable, but, as Ian Plimer, then Professor of Geology, University of Melbourne, puts it in ‘Telling Lies For God’ </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> ‘Despite efforts by creationists to salvage a credible ark & flood story, the story just doesn't hold water.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Do we tend to read into the next bit that it's bad news for the one from the field, & one of the grain grinders to be chosen or taken? But if God's doing the taking, & these folk are ready, isn't this maybe <i>the</i> experience of Good News for them? OK, as long as it's them and not us, are we still thinking?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: Would you believe the Ark, from our cosmic memory bank, still sails the seas of life today? Amid our rebellions against God? A reminder that though we flood ourselves with all kinds of destructive things, God is the Ground of our being. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Random House, Australia, '94, p.73</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-43930674794585367042018-01-01T19:25:00.004-08:002018-12-31T17:56:22.332-08:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MATTHEW 2: 1-12 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…The Epiphany…Revised 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Might we best preach the visit of the Magi as illustrating the way to find a meaning-ful God is by finding the One who still reveals <i>Him</i>-Self at ground level today? In unlikely places & among unlikely people? Through Jesus, & en-Spirited Jesus People? Isn’t this a basic meaning of ‘on earth as it is in Heaven’? Can we preach this in <i>today</i> terms & through <i>today</i> experiences? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For instance, let’s try thinking of ourself as a today’s Gaspar setting out to follow the God-Star. At the first frontier we come to, the Border Protection Force wants proof of our identity, complete with photo-ID. They don’t like the colour of our passport; nor some of the stamps already in it! When we tell them we’re following a Star to find God, they can’t let us through fast enough!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What if at the next border, we meet up with a today Balthazar - but, instead, let’s call her Bathsheba - also searching for The One the Star is pointing to. She’s had a hip-replacement, the metal of which sets all the alarm bells ringing! She’s taken aside & strip-searched, but when they find nothing dangerous, & she tells them she’s also following a Star, will they be able to resist letting us both through as quickly as possible to get us off their hands!? At the next frontier, what if the two of us meet up with a Melchior, also following the Star! All three of us are told to put the gifts we’re carrying through X-Ray machines which react to the gold-wrapped chocolate bars Melchior has on him. Then the sniffer dogs go mad scenting Bathsheba’s Chanel No. 5 & my, Gaspar’s Hugo Boss for Men! We all have to do a lot of fast talking about carrying gifts for some King they’re never heard of! In the end, though, they let us through with sighs of disbelief! (After sampling a few of Melchior’s chocolates - just in case! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We hear them muttering about building a great wall to stop people like us. Someone yells out, ‘Turn back the camels!’‘Chase their horses away!’ ‘Drive their donkeys into the bush!’ All this kind of talk is about keeping God in God’s place as much as keep-ing any of us earthlings in ours! And we’ve not yet come face to face with Mr. Evil himself! Not Herod, this time; but do we need to face the fact that many of us are being ruled by someone as dangerous as him? A President, Prime Minister, Monarch, Tsar, or the like? How <i>must</i> we journey on to keep our rendezvous with God? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Brian </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Afterthought: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How many kinds of barriers / borders / frontiers do we personally face? Some of them human ones. Like the Magi do, & the Holy Family will soon need to. Once we see that God-Star, though, we’re called to journey on in different ways & in different company as that Star leads us. Step by risky step! Despite any barriers others set up!</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-69241755682986608362017-11-19T23:32:00.003-08:002017-11-19T23:32:20.459-08:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 25:31-46 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Matthew in the margins…Reign of Christ / Christ the King…Revised 2017</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No matter <i>how</i> we expect the Cosmic Son of Humanity to come in His glory as King we have to hold our expectation in tension with the Earthed Son of Humanity glorified by being named & crowned King on the cross. (JN makes this point strongly.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But there’s more! There’s yet another tension. This self-same Incarnate, yet Cosmic, King has never left us (as He promised!) Physically, maybe, yes; but in the Person & Power of His Spirit, the Spirit of God, He’s always <i>present tense</i> among us. As He is, too, in the Person of those who say, Eucharist by Eucharist, “We are the Body of Christ” & get on with the job of being that Body in the world at large. Apocalyptic aspects of Christ’s reign may appeal. But lose sight of the crucified, glorified, Christ earthed in & among us by His Spirit & His people, & we lose the plot of God's agenda for Planet Earth - for humanity plus. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Praying, as we do, “Your Kingdom come on earth <i>as it is</i> in heaven” means embracing the Crucified King, serving the Raised Everyday King, & expecting the Apocalyptic King. It’s a package deal, or no deal at all! Many international folk tales, not necessarily from a Christian background pick up on the thrust of Jesus’ allegory Jesus; the Unknown who comes among the simplest of folk unrecognised & is either provided for or rejected.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The great attractiveness of the Kingship of Christ for me is the inclusiveness of His Rule. By God’s grace there is room in Christ’s Kingdom for a lot of people who might be thought unlikely candidates for finding a place at Christ’s right hand. Me for starters! The way we treat others especially those at the bottom of life’s pile, not least the persecuted, the poor, refugees & asylum seekers, & how we serve them, is a litmus test of the kind of Christ the King we believe in & serve. If we’re choosing the wrong kinds of leaders, & serving those same wrong leaders in wrong ways, we’re simply fulfilling Jesus’ teaching by proving ourselves to be more goats than sheep! Choose, at all costs, Christ as King above any other would-be contender. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though He speaks of judgment, Jesus makes clear we choose our own present & future state & fate. Christ reigns through us being little Jesuses to others or He doesn’t rule at all! More, when we feed the hungry Jesuses, give drink to the thirsty ones, welcome those who present as strangers, clothe the naked ones, minister to those who are sick, visit the ones imprisoned then we’re speaking Jesus’ language by doing it; for all who are marginalised. God's Rule always includes looking out for & looking after God's 'little ones'. Again, not to do that is to place ourselves at Jesus’ left hand rather than His right! Goat stuff! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Is ‘everlasting punishment' anything other than choosing to live without the King of the Cosmos by choosing to live without the Crucified, Raised, Earthed One here & now? Who needs hell-fire & damnation (if that's your line) when such a fate looms? Speaking of looming, Christ the King’s Passion looms in the very next verses!</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-9182119747811894002017-11-12T22:54:00.000-08:002017-11-12T22:54:10.916-08:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 25: 14-30 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins …24th S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sums involved in today’s story are huge. Beyond the dreams of Jesus’ hearers & most of us, too. Like all good teachers, & Jesus is the best, He wants us to work out for ourselves what this story’s all about - just like the rest of His tales. A useful way to think of & explore parables is to discern them as being about the Kingdom, the Rule, of God. About how God’s Authority is respected & His Rule applied ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. Let’s not go down the path of a ‘stewardship’ sermon; not in a monetary sense, anyhow! What we might call ‘Kingdom Stewardship’ takes us back to the fundamental nature of our human relationship with God. Every day of our lives needs to be a Stewardship Day in which we audit how well we’re using YHWH’s provision of life & love for us & make any modifications that show up as necessary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s easy to lose our way in this process. We once had a neighbour selling up & moving lamenting he’d once buried a stash of money in his backyard, but now can’t find it! (He never did!) Is that what we sometimes do with the life God’s entrusted to us? Trust lies at the heart of this story; but for that kind of trust to work, it has to be a two-way love affair. What does God have to show for His trust in us? (Why not ask, also, What do we have to show for our trust in God?) Let’s not bury our hearts in our backyard sand & not be able to find them when we really need to dig them up!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The greatest gift God gives us is God-self; made inescapably & confrontingly human in the person of Jesus. Who spends His life, & indeed his death, loving & serving. As he still does by His Spirit. Does our spiritual audit reveal us walking in Jesus’ steps that far?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Many of us are good enough at managing physical assets of one kind or another. But how good are we at managing our spiritual assets? Whatever earthly interest we may have earned during our lifetime, the only interest that will count on ‘That Day’ is the spiritual interest on the love God’s invested in us & we in others<span style="font-size: 14px;">. </span></span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-9031821718464564792017-11-06T23:48:00.001-08:002017-11-07T17:32:20.162-08:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 25:1-13</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…23rd S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus is a great storyteller. The greatest. Life is a collection of stories. God’s & ours. After reading / hearing any story, in this case His story of the wise & unwise brides-maids, the question is, ‘But what happens next’? For the participants in the story, the answer lies within the story; all’s well that ends well for some, & poorly is as poorly does for others. The acid test of a Jesus story is always, ‘Where & how do <i>we</i> take it on from where He leaves off?’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Not long before, Jesus has been warning of the coming destruction of the Jerusalem temple & the inauguration of God's Rule consequent upon this. Eschatology, though, if not interpreted well enough can all too easily lead to faith becoming ‘pie in the sky in the sweet bye & bye’! Jesus Himself, though has already given us the necessary perspective when He tells us to pray for God’s Rule, God’s Authority with a Capital A, to be implemented ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. The bridegroom is always present. Always inviting us to celebrate with Him now, not one day. We don’t have to wait for Him or anyone else to arrive in ‘the middle of the night’.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Jesus is careful to point out that all the bridesmaids trim their wicks. The foolish ones, however, fail to see trimming a bit here & bit there can’t make up for the fact they’re out of oil. There’s a lesson for our spiritual life today here!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Think of our lives today being our ‘lamps’. Are we living them full of God’s Spirit, ’oil’, ready for anyone & everyone we need to be there for? Looking out for, looking after? There’s no such thing as being ‘half-full’ of Holy Spirit! When God fills, God fills! There are no half measures with God, nor does God settle for any half-measures on our part. If I’m right in exploring ‘oil’ as representing Holy Spirit, Jesus reminds us being half-full of Holy Spirit is a no-go! No use to anyone. Not just five unwise bridesmaids. If the five wise bridesmaids were to share their oil with the unwise ones, we’d end up with the whole ten bridesmaids with half-full lamps running out of oil. Their lamps would all be useless, leaving the bridal party, the community in total darkness. What kind of darknesses are our community living through today as a result of us or anyone else running low on, or running out of, the ‘good oil’, the God oil? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Holy Spirit isn’t a commodity we can top up at our local church, or ‘revival centre’. The ‘good oil’, HolySpirit, is God’s own life <i>He’</i>s<i> </i>always<i> </i>sharing with those of us who know we need <i>Him;</i> with those ready & prepared to receive <i>Him</i> totally into the lamps of our lives to keep them filled.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Celebrating God’s being married to us all the hours of every day & every night is God’s wedding present to us; God’s own way of keeping our lamps alight & burning brightly for <i>Him</i> & each other.</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-56762113695514939482017-10-29T23:57:00.003-07:002017-10-29T23:57:48.781-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 23: 1-12 & 37-39</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… 22nd S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For ‘scholars & Pharisees’, try ‘bishops’, ’priests', 'pastors', 'elders', ‘wardens’, ‘church leaders of all shapes & sizes’! Jesus’ use of the term ‘Moses chair’, his ‘kathedra’, again raises the question of Authority implicit in our recent passage about the coin & ‘rendering to Caesar….’! There’s a clashing of far more than cultures here. The ‘A’ question probes much more deeply than that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus tells crowds <i>&</i> His disciples in general, "Look at these Pharisees & Scholars! Do what they teach, but don't do what they do!” In saying this He’s underlining the importance of the Authority God delegated to Moses & that those He’s complaining about are heirs to. As we are, too, now. Back then they’re undermining that authority by blurring the lines between God’s Authority & their own. They’re wind-bags. Full of hot air. As Jesus sees it, some of them are more interested in dressing for show than being clothed in righteousness. Once, long ago, an archbishop asks me to ‘vet’ a ‘nomadic preacher’ wanting authority to preach in the diocese. Sadly, I have to report back that the fellow is a puffed-up windbag! Full of self-importance! Are we, any of us, more interested in being celebrities than servants; rather than getting our hands dirty at ground zero in life’s margins alongside Jesus? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We all live in cultures using some system of honorifics to mark contributions to civic, political, military, or other areas of life. I take Jesus to mean that any title we’re given needs to be one that indicates a commitment, a) to God’s Authority &, b) to His own Servanthood. Is it time to cut ourselves back to size before God does that for us, one way or another? Perhaps that hymn, 'Brother, sister, let me serve you, Let me be as Christ to you’ could become the ‘Christian Internationale’ for those who inhabit the margins of life & those who serve them out there? Sing it loud & clear in what we do for God & each other? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus has many harsh things to say about the Hebrew church as He experiences it. Maybe it's just as well we're skipping most of the rest of this passage today in our Christian sanctuaries! Weigh up the stones we’re about to cast before they bounce back on us! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A mural / icon of saints dancing above & circling the interior of the church of S.Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> incorporates a lot of people as unlikely as Jesus himself! Can we see our-selves there? Dancing round our own churches? Inside them & outside? Blessed, indeed, is everyone who, like Jesus, comes in the Name of the Lord!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">You can see this mural / icon through your search engine.</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-26699787030072321722017-10-22T21:18:00.003-07:002017-10-22T21:18:19.094-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 22:34-46 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… 21st S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pharisees rush in where Sadducees have not feared to tread. Those who live by Law rather than Love seem to slip into that habit rather easily!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In an old movie I once saw, a benefactor donates a rug to make the recreation room in an old-style ‘mental asylum’ a touch less bare & forbidding. But carers insist the patients not walk on that rug! Only walk round & round the outside of the rug so it doesn’t get dirty! So, day after day, patients dutifully circle round & round that rug until it becomes set in law that that rug must be circled. The <i>purpose </i>of the gift of the rug becomes lost on both attendants & patients! Today’s passage raises the whole question of the <i>purpose of the Law of God</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Legal experts, or would-be experts, roll out that same rug in front of Jesus, daring Him to walk on it! He calls their bluff of course! I was about to write ‘in His inimitable fashion’, but the whole point of this passage is that Jesus <i>IS</i> <i>imitable</i>! That’s the whole point of the Gospel! JS enemies are trying to entice Him into mis-interpreting these Laws central to both Hebrew faith & the Gospel by turning them into that carpet on the floor of the ‘asylum’. Embedded in DEUT & LEV, these God-given laws have always been laws at their best because <i>they need no explanation</i>. It's not the interpreting that's the problem; it's the doing! As G.K. Chesterton once put it, ‘Christianity hasn’t been tried & found wanting; it’s been found difficult & not tried!’</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Today, many are ignorant of the heritage that is our Hebrew Bible. (Sunday by Sunday listening to passages often lacking context isn’t much help.) If we remain ignorant, though, how are we to recognise the Two Commandments that all the Law & the Prophets hang on? Being a disciple of Jesus involves going on from where the Hebrews left off, carrying their old & precious treasures along with our new ones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">First round of this bout goes to Jesus. He doesn’t dismiss the Pharisees' question despite its clear intent of bringing him undone. Questions need to be explored. Jesus asks His question-ers to apply the ‘Great Commandments’ to Himself & themselves, rather than just theorise about them, or Him! Finding the right questions to ask in life comes before finding the right answers to them!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus appears to change the subject, but if He is the Anointed, David's son, then the answer about the greatest commandment is physically standing in front of them! Unrecognized. The One who loves God & neighbour perfectly. “I’ve done it!” He’ll go on to shout from the cross! Loving God & others that far doesn't come out of Bible quotations or sermons!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The verses about whose son is the Anointed is another of Jesus’ hard riddles. But as long as we get our heart round His question, as well as, even more than, our head, the answer will be revealed! Let’s put following Jesus the Anointed into practice & not just keep circling Him like that rug on that floor.</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-85704982957081745192017-10-15T20:25:00.003-07:002017-10-15T20:25:56.216-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 22:15-33 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… 20th Sunday after Pentecost…Revised 2017. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Never<b> </b>play Two Up with Jesus! Heads He wins, tails we lose! What do we constantly learn about His enemies in the Gospel? That they never learn! Have <i>we</i> learned from Jesus as we write our own new pages, chapter by chapter, extensions of Gospel today? One essential is never to try outsmarting God!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Which reminds me of one of those old rather unkind stories told against the Irish: Mick & Paddy are stumbling home drunk after closing time late one night. Taking a short cut through the cemetery, they fall down into a newly dug grave. Try as they might they can’t climb out. After calling & calling for help, & with no response at all, they decide to pray! Mick prays, “O God, if you get Paddy & me up out of this hole we’re in, I’ll give you my fine fat pig!” But Paddy says to Mick in a stage whisper, “Mick, you can’t pray that to God; you haven’t got a pig, let alone a fine fat one!” “Will you be quiet, Paddy! Can’t you see I’m only fooling him!” Trying to fool God is like being stuck down in some hole we can’t get out from! Digging our own grave?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of those who try to trap Jesus with their One Coin Trick, The Complete Gospels</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> has it ‘They were dumfounded'. Of the crowd who see & hear how Jesus bests those who try to trap Him over ancient Levirate law, it translates, ‘They were stunned.' Whether we're a religious heavy, or simply one of God's ‘little ones’, are we as dumbfounded, stunned, by God as we ought to be? Learning to be dumbfounded, stunned, by God may be a helpful jumping off place for the next stage of our spiritual journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Whoever it is Jesus tricks (yes, he does trick them!) into producing that Roman coin makes a fool of himself as he would make a fool of Jesus. Such a pious one oughtn't to have such a pagan coin in his possession, except to actually pay the hated tax. Maybe that's what he's about to do when Jesus asks to borrow his coin. Caesar’s coin! Just having the coin is the man's own answer, ‘Yes’, to the question they pose to entrap Jesus. Whether Jesus answers ‘Yes’, or, ‘No’, they’ve got Him, <i>or so they think</i>! We know better! How do we ourselves set about discerning our responses to the big ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ questions of life?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pharisees allying themselves with Herodians is an ‘unholy’ alliance. The Sadducees then also join in the game of ‘Let’s Gang Up On Jesus’ with their question relating to levirate marriage laws [DEUT 25: 5+]. He answers, “You have missed the point again, all because you underestimate both the scriptures & the power of God.”</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>2 </sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> Today some are still missing the point of, & under-estimating the Scriptures & the power of God, trying to make their own point rather than God’s! Pray, guided by Holy Spirit, to discern issues as Jesus, God, might see things, rather than pontificating on them to make our own specious claims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">God’s Name isn’t 'I AM' for nothing. So, let’s live for God, & with God, & in God. That’s the way we become who We Are, too!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Polebridge, 1992, ad loc. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>2 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Complete Gospels ad loc. </span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-88550306235896764532017-10-09T00:18:00.000-07:002017-10-09T00:18:02.150-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 22:1-14 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins<b>…</b>19th Sunday after Pentecost<b>…</b>Revised 2017<b> </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">However we discern we should preach this parable / riddle / allegory, & focus on prepared-ness, ex / inclusiveness, light & darkness, whatever, it’s vital, life-giving, that we bring it out of 1st C. Palestine & into today where we live. Vital to bring God out of that Palestine, out of this Book & freed into our own world, into our lives now. MT starts off, ‘God’s Rule is like…” & essentially that’s what it’s all about. But there are inconsistencies. Not least that God, the King, ends up acting as violently as the earthly rulers whose ungodly acts regularly court God's indignation & condemnation! Perhaps what JS originally says has been tweaked in the telling before it takes the shape we know today? In both LK 14, & TH 64 (it’s often worth checking TH) it’s simply <i>a</i> <i>person </i>giving the feast, & neither contains the ‘throwing out’ bit!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let’s look at the wedding garment. In an earlier edition of these notes I suggested Jesus Himself is our invitation to His own wedding & that it’s <i>Him</i> we’re being invited, required, to put on; <i>Him</i> we need to be wearing all the time. To reject Jesus, God’s gracious invitation to us, then, is to throw ourselves into outermost darkness. A form of Hell, surely, is meant. Excluding ourselves from loving God & celebrating God day by day is to live in a darkness of our own choosing. But I’m grateful to our son, Andrew</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">, for illuminating that approach further based on Augustine of Hippo’s Sermon 90. Augustine equates the missing ‘garment’ with ‘Love’. Not any old common or garden love, but the self-giving Love of the Gospel. Agape Love, Augustine tells us love is both our invitation to the feast & the way we’re to come prepared to join in. To ‘put on’ the wedding garment is to clothe ourselves in love. Let’s be clothed in love all the time. Love isn’t something to be donned only for special occasions! To act like that would be to bring love itself, Love Himself, into disrepute. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When we give God the brush-off, we’re putting ourself outside God's gracious presence. That is outer darkness indeed. God doesn't put us outside; that’s a choice we make for our-selves! (After saying this I still find myself questioning whether there <i>is </i>anywhere outside God's presence, God’s grace.) Maybe one way to experience outer darkness is just to think we're outside God. We can fool ourselves into thinking we are. But we can’t fool God! In the midst of so much darkness & depression today - outwardly & inwardly - is there a clue here, for how to mount a <i>spiritual </i>counter-attack against the pain such darkness brings? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s been well said that God's wrath is simply God's love experienced from the wrong side! Also worth pondering is the question of whether there’s any evidence God invented outer darkness, or Hell, under any guise. Compared with a great deal of evidence we go on re-inventing it over & over again, for ourself or for someone else. Best to take up the invitation to the great feast - & turn up! Fittingly clothed in love! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Preaching in All Saints, Margaret Street, London, Oct. 12th 2014</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-13897651633258229062017-10-02T00:37:00.003-07:002017-10-02T00:37:55.194-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 21: 33-46 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…18th S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Can we almost hear Jesus singing Isaiah’s beautiful old love poem about YHWH & His vine -yard to His critics today? His critics certainly recognise the poem. And, like those long before them fail to recognise themselves in it. Can’t grasp that when it turns into a lament it’s doing so because they in their turn have become the villains in the piece.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Rather than holding a post-mortem on what was happening in Isaiah’s time & comes to a head in Jesus’ day, we need to find ourselves in the story too. Today. Are our spiritual ears tuned well enough to God for us to be faithful servants, slaves, even? Can we hear the warning in the lament & heed it if it applies to us? By this stage of His ministry Jesus is identifying with the Son who falls victim to rebellious share-farmers in His Father’s vineyard. The powers-that-be are dismissive of Him because they’re too sure of themselves. Religiously learned, maybe, but religiously ignorant. Best we discern the key Jesus is singing in to <i>us</i> & sing along in the key our part calls for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Politicians are probably the ones who most obviously appear today as those who have an exalted view of themselves & their self-entitlement. They’re not the only ones, of course, but they’re easy targets when they get their comeuppance - or should that be come-downance? - for rorting the public purse, for instance. The fall from grace & power of those caught out comes to mind as I meditate on Jesus’ yarn. It is a tale, but how well He captures the vineyard lease-holders sense of self-entitlement! There’s no way they’re ever going to inherit that vineyard! Do <i>we</i> have any such air of self-entitlement as we go about whatever job God calls us to do in <i>His </i>vineyard in partnership with <i>Him</i>? If the answer is, ‘Yes, we do have such a sense’, we have work to do! We have work to let<i> God</i> do on us & in us as part of the vineyard, too!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though portrayed in this parable / riddle as an absentee landlord, God is not, & never has been separated from His world. Creation is a labour of love on God’s part. Labour in which God calls us to be joint-venturers. Faithfully joint-venturing with God keeps us celebrating God, rather than usurping <i>Him</i> in any jumped-up way.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Does God have any more to show for His investment in the vineyard of Creation with us as under-managers, than under the older regime? Let no false sense of entitlement on our part mean we’re simply trampling the grapes of wrath all over again.</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-33861212058742036112017-09-24T19:54:00.001-07:002017-09-24T19:54:15.972-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 21: 23-32</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins…</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">17th S. After Pentecost</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">…</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The question of Authority keeps raising its head in Scripture & Church, Hebrew, then Christian. Suzanne de Dietrich</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> wrote: ‘True authority isn’t proved by arguments; it is recognised, it authenticates itself.’ Has there ever been a more authentic person than Jesus? How’s our authenticity in comparison with His?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In Jesus God shows how <i>His </i>Rule works from the bottom up; so it happens ‘on earth as it is in Heaven’. Authority must be recognised & exercised, tested to see if it’s consistent with God’s; in communion with God. The authentic God, though, isn’t to be found locked up in the pages of <i>His</i> own book. Lock God up in there, & we lock ourselves in there too - on the wrong page! On the wrong authority! As is happening here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s just after Palm Sunday. The religious heavies are alarmed at what Jesus is up to: riding into Jerusalem as He does with adoring followers; healing the blind & lame; &, shock, horror, cleansing the Temple itself! "By what authority....?" They ask Him. He looks them straight in the eye, &, in effect, says, ”Well, <i>my own </i>actually!" He may be playing them along, but He’s deadly serious!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s no use us saying ‘Yes’ to God if we don’t <i>do</i> that yes. Make our ‘Yes’ happen. Make God’s will happen. Jesus has the ‘authorities’ over a barrel & they know it! Instead of showing Jesus up, all they’re doing is showing themselves up as unable to discern God’s authority, Jesus’ authority, any more than they discerned the Baptiser’s!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus is fond of vineyard metaphors. He doesn’t call Himself the ‘True Vine’ without good reason. No doubt He passes many vineyards on His travels. All have some story attached to them. As do all the vineyards of our lives. Versions of this story differ, with the two sons responding to their father in different ways. Evidence of a story being passed down by word of mouth & being modified in the process. 'Chinese Whispers' we used to call it. A warning to literalists! What’s Jesus’ point for us today? How can we bring that out of the Book & into the realities of our own ‘vineyards’, including our congregation? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To accept God's Authority, God’s Rule the Lord’s Prayer speaks of in its beginning & at its end, means accepting that earthly ways of looking at things need to change. And, change is possible. Like the brothers in the story; even like those who work in fields that may raise our eyebrows &, maybe, our hackles today. To despair of change is contrary to all Jesus is, & all He’s on about. All he stands for. True branches of the True Vine always have a future for God.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1 </sup></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">St. Matthew, SCM, London, 1961 p.110</span></div>
Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9120417497454629680.post-30308159654408351552017-09-18T20:48:00.001-07:002017-09-18T20:48:42.488-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">MT 20: 1-16 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Matthew in the Margins… 16th S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In this passage Jesus repeats the lesson & punchline of Ch.19 : the last will be first & the first last. It’s also an extension of His teaching about ‘little ones’. He’s not really on about new converts to faith being welcomed & rewarded as much as ones who’ve always been faithful. There are other aspects to consider. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At heart, today’s parable isn't about money, work practices, labour relations, or any of that kind of thing. It’s bigger than that. It’s about, Jesus is on about, the topsy-turvy World we’ve made out of what YHWH God created; & the topsy-turvy way God<i> </i>rules this world. What God is out & about looking for round the clock are faithful workers living according to God’s topsy-turviness rather than the world’s ways. Even when we don’t understand; when we may not agree; when we don’t want to obey! I see three qualities of God’s Rule here: i) God is maddeningly Generous. ii) God is mind-bogglingly Just. iii) God's Generosity & Justice are inescapably Present Tense. God is always the God of Now, never yesterday, or even tomorrow. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus’ own life reflects an ongoing struggle with all three of these issues. Who better, then, to be our Guide through the vineyards of life? But what about those who’d love to live in reach of a fruitful vineyard where they could work for a living, but instead are condemned to survive in slums, on rubbish dumps, take cover in war zones or live under plastic sheeting in refugee camps? Or those trafficked by their own or other countries along life’s way? Those always at the mercy of disease & poverty & human predators?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus doesn't use the word 'compassion' in this story, yet it underlies the whole tale. The compassionate God is always out & about, one way or another, looking in one place or another for those who’ll work for <i>Him.</i> Work <i>His</i> way for <i>Him.</i> We know the Good Shepherd is always out & about looking for sheep that have strayed. Jesus, though goes so far as to be on the look out even for sheep no-one else wants. Those that others pass by, pass over, pass up on in the queues of life. Most of us think of there being four directions: North, South, East & West. Celts think of five: the above four plus Here! And ‘Here’ is where God is, just as God is always ‘Now’ time-wise! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So the Good News is not only that even those late out of the starting blocks can be winners, but they are, we are, winners Here & Now. God's Rule isn't competitive. Everyone who genuinely wants to, comes first, Here & Now!</span></div>
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Brian McGowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10574820878745413035noreply@blogger.com0