29 January 2012

It’s an interesting collection of readings this week that could lead us in a number of different directions. The wisdom & power of God’s laws, commandments and teachings or the freedom that Christ offers would be two options. But a third, and I find more compelling, option would be to explore the authority and power of Jesus, especially in the light of Paul’s comments on how we deal with what he calls "weaker" brothers and sisters. There is no question that the power and glory of God that is revealed in Christ is a very different thing from the way we usually understand those terms in our world today.

May our worship this week give us a new vision of the power and glory of our God.

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05 February 2012

There is both comfort and challenge in the Lectionary for this week. On one hand there is the assurance of God’s care, and the particularity of grace as God meets each person at their point of need. On the other hand there is the call to extend a similar adaptive particularity to one another – willingly becoming what others need from us – in order to carry the Gospel’s grace and restoration to the world.

May we find the grace we need, and learn to become the grace others need as we worship this week.

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12 February 2012

The healing narratives continue this week – with a twist! The connection between the healing of the man with the skin disease on Mark’s Gospel and the healing of Naaman in the Old Testament is clear, but things get very interesting – and a little uncomfortable – when the Epistle reading about discipline and focus is added to the mix. Could it be that the nature and extent of the healing we receive differs according to our willingness to submit to Christ? This is the disturbing but life-giving question that the Lectionary asks this week.

I pray that our worship may lead us into a deeper commitment to the ways of God’s Reign this Sunday.

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19 February 2012

Once again Epiphany closes with the Transfiguration of Jesus – the turning point, the final affirmation before Jesus set his sights on Jerusalem and the coming confrontation and sacrifice. The challenge of this week is for us to learn to recognise God’s glory – in Christ, but also in all people and all things. It is this capacity for glory that can make a massive change to how we live in the world, and then through us, make a change to the world itself.

May God’s glory fill our eyes, our hearts and our lives as we worship this week.

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