Showing everything tagged as Luke

Mum’s are not always easy. I know that. But they are still your mum. Sometimes they say or do terrible things mums do, stuff that other people could never say or think of saying. But they are still your mum.  And of one thing I am certain, that none of us would be here in this church without them. And children are not easy either. Think of the problems Jesus caused Mary.

Well, when it comes to giving up something for Lent, I didn’t expect to be giving up St Martin’s. It’s a big ask!
Perhaps what I am doing today, with Loren, rather than giving up St Martin’s is ‘disembarking’.

There were fifty young Norwegians in this church yesterday asking me questions about St Martin’s and the question that always gets asked in this church is what does that east window mean? And my answer to those young people was. “What do you think it means? Look and see. There is no explanation better than the experience of you yourself.” When asked what they saw they were full of ideas. What do we see in today’s Gospel? 

We are living in turbulent times. Jean-Claude Junckner, President of the European Commission said this week. ‘When it comes to Brexit, it is like being before the courts or the high seas; we are in God’s hands.

Our Gospel today is from Luke and Jesus is presented at his most outspoken and challenging. He presents us with stark contrasts. First the poor and then the rich. Notice unlike in Matthew’s Gospel he doesn’t say “blessed are the poor in spirit.” He is much more direct than that. He says: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

I want you to imagine that you’re having a bad day. Not the kind of bad day where you lose your keys, leave your phone on the bus, forget to post the red-letter bill payment and spill coffee all over your clothes the moment you get to work. I mean the kind of bad day when the frailty of existence all crowds in on you

‘Outside my house is a cactus plant / They call the century tree / Only once in a hundred years / It flowers gracefully / And you never know when it will bloom’

I have just been reading a book called The Character of Virtue that I received for Christmas. It is a book of letters that the American theologian Stanley Hauerwas wrote to his Godson Laurence Bailey Wells. When Lawrence was born Sam Wells asked Stanley to be Lawrence’s Godfather. At that time they were living on other sides of the world.