Uncertainty Principle

Life is uncertain. We would rather it wasn’t, but it unavoidably is. We live in a society that invests huge amounts of resource into trying to make things reliable. But not matter how hard we try, the uncertainty remains. For many centuries, we have had a fantasy of a perfect world where all uncertainties are brought under control. Within Christian cultures, we have tended to think of heaven as such a place. We would be wrong to do so. Uncertainty isn’t an expression of things going wrong; it is a fundamental feature of God’s creation.
Nearly a hundred years ago, a german scientist called Werner Heisenberg came to an understanding that uncertainty is woven into the fabric of the universe. Some things, he concluded, simply cannot be known. It is known as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
A very long time before Werner Heisenberg, Jesus’ disciple, Thomas, was having his own uncertainty dilemma. Thomas’ colleagues were telling him that Jesus - who had been expertly executed by the Roman army - was alive and well. This contradicted everything that Thomas knew and understood about the world. He was justifiably uncertain about his friends’ claim.
Nine days after Jesus’ undoubted death, Thomas met him in person - alive and well. Jesus did not criticise Thomas for his uncertainty. Instead, he urged the confused young man to take a different approach: to trust. “Don’t be suspicious,” Jesus said. “But trust.” Trust is a positive response to uncertainty.
God has not created a predictable universe in which we can rely on everything running to some unchanging plan. God’s creation is not like that, and neither is God. God created an uncertain universe and has given us intentionally unpredictable lives. He has done it because uncertainty is the crucible in which we learn to trust. And trust, like love, is the stuff of God.
Jesus wanted Thomas to trust him. Trusting Jesus is not a random spiritual mental twist. Trust is always specific. We trust that Jesus is God’s message to humanity. We trust Jesus that God loves us and cares for us (even when things seem to be going wrong). We trust Jesus that loving other people is always the best course of action. And we trust Jesus that there is another life beyond this one.
And that other life, which we call ‘Heaven’, will be uncertain too. You may not want to hear that! But without uncertainty there would be no room for trust. And trust is the stuff of God.

Recently published:

'The Scruffy Disciple'

the life and loves of a disciple of Jesus 

by Robert Harrison

Called to be normal

There’s a big gap in the story of Jesus’ life - a gap that stretches for eighteen years. At the age of twelve, he decided to stay in Jerusalem after Passover in order to learn at the feet of Israel’s most famous rabbis. His plan didn’t last long. Mary and Joseph tracked him down and insisted that he return with them to Nazareth. Next we hear, Jesus was thirty years old as he began his public work as a rabbi. What had he been doing for eighteen years?
A few months into his teaching ministry, Jesus returned to Nazareth, where - as far as we can tell - he had spent those eighteen years. Nazareth was a tiny village, the sort of place where everyone knows everyone. His old neighbours were astounded to see what, for them, was a totally new aspect of Jesus. They said, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?”
It seems that for the first eighteen years of his adult life, Jesus’ primary calling was to be ordinary. It seems that for those eighteen years, the neighbours who saw him every day didn’t notice anything exceptional about him.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews reflected on this: “He had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God.”
If normal life was a calling for Jesus, then it can be a calling for us too. We easily undervalue our daily existence, but human life is - in fact - remarkable. Even the every day routines of cooking and washing up are remarkable. There is no other known creature in the universe that does anything like it.
God honoured and sanctified the day to day routines of our lives when he chose to live them out for eighteen years in an obscure hillside village on the edge of the Roman Empire. So, next time you stand at the sink or the washing line, doing what has to be done, pause to reflect that God’s call reaches us even there. Do it well!

Recently published:

'The Scruffy Disciple'

the life and loves of a disciple of Jesus 

by Robert Harrison

Looking in the Right Place

Whatever you may be looking for at any point in your life, this is certain: you won’t find it unless you are looking in the right place. (I once had my entire family searching the house for a set of keys, which I eventually found….in my own hand!)
God called Simeon (an old man) and Anna (an 84 year old woman), to keep an eye out for his Messiah. Simeon and Anna were not only Jewish people looking for God’s Messiah, lots of people were. They however, were only one's who had worked out the right place to look.
I suspect that the priests were busily looking for God’s Messiah amongst their fellow priests, the rabbis looking among the rabbis, and the politicians looking among their political colleagues. Anna and Simeon knew better.
Having been nudged by God’s spirit to visit the Temple, Simeon spotted a poor, young couple and a tiny baby. He quickly took a closer look. Could this be what he had been looking for all those years?
If you want to see what God is doing in the world, you have to tune into God’s wavelength. Simeon and Anna were not looking among the rich and powerful, nor were they looking among those who were steeped in religion and highly educated. They saw a young couple, carrying a 6 week old baby, and four pigeons for a sacrifice. And they knew they were on the right track. The pigeons identified Mary and Joseph as being poor (families of comfortable means were required to bring a lamb). Knowing that God has a special love for those who are weak and disadvantaged, Simeon knew this was God’s kind of family. He stepped forwards, greeted Mary and Joseph, and delivered the message that he had been waiting to pass on. Anna was on the lookout too, she realised what Simeon was doing, and told the people around her that God’s Messiah had finally arrived.
One of the most common callings that any of us will receive from God is the calling to look out for what God is doing, and bring people’s attention to it. It is a calling that can come to anyone of us at any time. If we’re going to be any good at it, we need to be looking in the right place.

Recently published:

'The Scruffy Disciple'

the life and loves of a disciple of Jesus 

by Robert Harrison

99.6% Loving & Forgiving

We are all familiar with the world of advertising. Whether it is in print, sound or vision, businesses seek to attract us with carefully constructed messages that convey the essence of their product in a just a few words. Though the intensity of the advertising around us may be unprecedented, the idea of a short and punchy sales pitch is nothing new. God himself has done it.
Shortly after rescuing the Israelites from Egypt, God needed to introduce himself to a frightened and bewildered people. After the drama of crossing a divided sea, the Israelites needed to know what kind of a god it was who they were following. This was God’s pitch: “The Lord: a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving transgression, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation."
There is a deeply ingrained belief among Christians that the God of the Old Testament is a harsh and judgmental god, whereas the God of the New Testament is gentle and loving. This common prejudice draws our attention to the idea that God would punish children and grandchildren for the failings of their parents. We read it, and dislike what we read. But that is only a fraction of God’s self-description. He may visit the iniquity of the parents on the children to the 4th generation, but he keeps steadfast love for the 1,000th generation. In mathematical terms that means God is 250:1 loving, and plans on being so for at least the next 20,000 years.
This is God’s own understanding of himself and of his dealings with humanity. He’s not a total pushover. He has his limits. But when he handed his proverbial calling card to Moses, it read: “God: 99.6% loving and forgiving."

Just published:

'The Scruffy Disciple' 

by Robert Harrison

the life and loves of a disciple of Jesus

Utterly Lovely

There’s a famous hymn which goes: “Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.” It’s the kind of Christian hymn that I was brought up on. It presents God as a being of unreachable grandeur - a God who is beyond understanding, beyond human reach; who is to be feared.
At the same time, as I grew up, I was reminded every Sunday that this unimaginable God expected me to love him, first and foremost, above all else. It presented me with a problem: this all powerful, all knowing and ever living God did not seem very lovable. He was frightening. How unfair that he should command me to love him!
Jesus didn’t have this problem.
Jesus didn’t have this problem because he knew a very different kind of God. Jesus knew God to be like a doting father who, when his wayward son had gone astray and got into trouble, looked longingly for his return every day, and then ran down the road in expansive delight when the young man finally returned, showering him with gifts. Jesus knew God to be like an excited woman who threw a party for her neighbours just because she’d found a coin she’d been looking for all day.
Jesus didn’t know God as a being that is ‘unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, nor wanting, nor wasting, and ruling in might.’ He knew God as the kind of person who gives big hugs and throws impromptu parties, who wears his heart on his sleeve and forgives huge offences in the blink of an eye.
Jesus knew God to be thoroughly lovable.
Underlying all Jesus’ teaching is a confident knowledge that God is utterly lovely. Once we grasp that fact, loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength isn’t so daunting a prospect.

Just published:

'The Scruffy Disciple' 

by Robert Harrison

the life and loves of a disciple of Jesus

Enough is Enough

Saving up for a rainy day is a long-established human custom. We mammals have a natural instinct to save up spare resources. Squirrels get busy squirrelling away spare nuts to last them through the winter. A leopard will haul spare meat up into a tree so save it for the next day. However, we humans are the global specialists the art of hoarding. We fill our cupboards, fridges and freezers with enough food to last many days. And, since the invention of the stock market, we have taken the science of storage to a whole new level. Many people have enough saved up to feed and clothe themselves for several lifetimes, but still they keep on hoarding more.
God is not a fan of our saving habit. When he fed the ancient Israelites during their journey across the Sinai desert, he made a point of only providing enough ‘manna’ for one day at a time. Those Israelites who thought they could work the system and gather an extra helping of the mysterious food, discovered - when they got back to their tents - that they had exactly one omer per person. While those who found the daily collection a struggle, returned to their tents to find that they also had exactly one omer per person. Everyone ended up with just what they needed and no more. When some of them tried to keep some food overnight, to save themselves from having to go gathering before breakfast the next day, it turned rotten and became inedible.
God was making a point: enough is enough. You only need what you need.
This same principle features in Jesus’ teaching. In the ‘Our Father’ - the most repeated piece of Jesus’ teaching - we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Tomorrow doesn’t get a mention. As long as we have enough for today, that is enough.
The last of God’s iconic '10 Words’ takes us onto the advanced course in godly living. "You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, or wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”
God is challenging us. He knows it cuts across our basic animal instincts. But he wants us to face the challenge and to learn to be content.
We will know we are making progress when we can say with St Paul. “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

Just published:

'The Scruffy Disciple' 

by Robert Harrison

the life and loves of a disciple of Jesus

Self Justification

"You shall not murder.”
Out of God’s ten famous instructions, this is probably the easiest for the majority of us to read. Most people have never murdered anyone, nor even come near to doing so. So we can give ourselves a satisfied pat of the back…at least until we start reading the New Testament.
Jesus launched a concerted campaign to stop religious people from administering satisfied pats to their own backs. Armed with a strong understanding of God’s forgiveness, Jesus made it his business to cast each and every one of us in the role of “sinner”. He said, “You’ve heard it said from way back, ‘Don’t murder’ … But I say to you: anyone who makes their brother/sister angry is liable to judgement.”
We human beings have a natural instinct to self justification. Without pausing for thought, we cover over our failures, make up excuses and point the finger of blame at other people. It’s not pretty, but we all do it.
When we consider God’s 10 instructions our natural instinct is to justify ourselves, attempting to tick as many boxes as possible to reassure ourselves that we are good people.
Jesus’ advice is: don’t bother! He wanted every person listening to his Sermon of the Mount to walk back down the hill understanding themselves as a sinner in need of forgiveness. OK, you may never have murdered anyone, but you have annoyed plenty of people, and insulted them, and spoken ill of them behind their backs. That hurts God too.
God did not give us those 10 simple instructions with the expectation that we would all live faultless lives. That was never likely to happen. God gave us 10 simple measures to help us understand how far short we consistently fall. He is not inviting us to justify ourselves, he is inviting us to turn to him for forgiveness.

Top of the Range

If you are familiar with Britain’s major supermarket chains, you will know that they have three levels of own-brand products: a low-cost basic range, a mid-cost range, and for those who are prepared to pay the extra there is the top of the range, ‘taste the difference' / ‘finest' range.
When God gave his ten top tips for human society, number 5 on his list was “Honour your father and your mother.” The word that we translate as ‘honour’ is an ancient Hebrew word that expresses the same thing as the labelling on the top of the range products in our supermarkets. God is asking us to consider our parents with high regard, to value them and ensure that we care for them. If we do that, he promises, we will all live longer.
When St Paul turned his mind to his particular divine instruction, he realised that it wasn’t setting parents above their children but was requesting equality. St Paul suggested that children should listen to their parents, and that parents should not exasperate their children. Extending this idea to slaves and masters, Paul requested that both slaves and masters should listen to one another. (The passage in Ephesians 6 commonly uses the term ‘obey’, but the word Paul used means ‘listen to’, which is more open ended.)
The over all picture, from Moses to Paul via Jesus, is that everyone is of value. Whether we are children too young to work, or are too old and frail to work, we are of value, we are top of the range in God’s judgement.
In all human societies, some people are valued more and some less. But this is not how God would have us be. To God, we are all of great value, whatever our age or state of employment. You, and everyone you meet today, are in the “God’s Finest” range. Value them.

God's Name

I grew up with a wonderful great-aunt, who was called Ezal. Ezal wasn’t her actual name, it was the best my uncle could manage as a small boy, and the new name stuck. Everyone called her Ezal: my parents, me, her sister, my cousins - even the vicar. When I visited her in hospital as she was dying, with the name “Ezal” written on the board above her bed, she confided in me that she wished that someone would call her by her proper name before she died. Her name was Ethel Wash.
When God was preparing to rescue the Israelite people from Egypt, he announced a name for himself, a name by which he wished all generations to address him, for all time. It’s a fairly clear instruction. Some years later, in his 10 key instructions to the newly rescued Israelites, instruction number three was: “Don’t mistreat my name”. God’s name was important; he didn’t want his people to lose it’s value.
Tragically, God’s carefully chosen name has indeed been mistreated, and for many generations - ourselves included. We mistreat it by completely failing to use it.
When Moses asked God his name, God replied, “I am what I am. That is my name. Say to the Israelites, ‘I am’ has sent you.” Because the meaning is the key part of a Jewish name rather than the word itself, if God called himself “I am”, the people were to call him, “He is”. And that is the name that is used throughout the Old Testament - 6823 times in all. When David sung his famous 23rd Psalm, he sang, “He is, is my shepherd…”
However, after calling God by name for a thousand years, the Jewish people stopped using it, and started calling God other things instead. By the time Jesus was alive, they had the name in writing, but they never spoke it, so no-one knew how it was pronounced. Then, when the Old Testament was translated into other languages, the name was lost altogether.
In the English language tradition, we have replaced God’s name, 'He Is’, with a totally different phrase - the LORD. It's a mistake we inherited from the Romans. Some churches have reverted to the four letters of the name in Hebrew - YHWH, which no-one knows how to translate. Some have adopted the anglicised version - Jehovah. But none of these are God’s name. God’s name exists in careful translation, and it means: “He Is”.
It is our loss. We have lost the key emphasis that God himself chose to give us, that he is not above us, or greater than us, but that he simply IS, for all time and for all people. Whoever we are, wherever we are, God is right there with us.

Making 'The Cut'

In the sport of golf, at top level tournaments, the field of competing golfers is cut down at the end of the first two days’ play. Depending on the score of the leader, and the spread of scores below them, a golf score is declared to be ‘the cut’. Those who have that score or better will continue to compete in the second half of the competition. Those who cannot match the nominated score pack their bags and go home. If you are a golfer, you know exactly when this cut will be applied, and you can work out for yourself roughly what score will be needed to progress.
God’s dealings with humanity work nothing like that!
Jesus firmly believed that there will be a ‘cut’, that there will come a moment when God will separate humanity into two groups: those who make the cut (as they say in golf), and those who don’t. In Jesus’ stories, the contrast between the outcomes for these two groups is extreme. In one story, the neglected beggar, Lazarus is welcomed into Abraham’s bosom while the unnamed and uncaring rich man who never helped him is tormented by fire in Hades. In other parables the contrast is expressed within the terms of the narrative: for example, the good fish caught in the net are placed in baskets, but the useless by-catch is thrown away.
The expectation of this cut is unavoidable in Jesus’ teaching, and - unlike in golf - God is not going to give us advanced notice as to when it will take place. Jesus is quite clear on the fact that if you want to 'make the cut’ you have to be ready at any time and at every time.
This is serious business. And if we are to trust Jesus, we need to take it very seriously indeed.
The key question for all of us, then, is: what do we need to do to make this cut, to pass this test?
In many of Jesus’ parables on the subject, he is silent about such specifics. He leaves it to us to work that out. It isn’t rocket science, we should assume, and our culture and instincts should point us in the right direction.
However, Jesus did give an clue about what God is looking for in his story about the rich man and Lazarus. He follows that up more comprehensively in his parable about the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. God’s ‘cut’, which will determine who is kept and who is discarded, boils down to how each of us care, or don’t care, for the vulnerable and needy people we encounter. There is no mention of belief, or worship, or spirituality; practical care for those in immediate need is the key.
If you want to make the cut, you know what is expected of you.

Solar Powered

Every summer I look forward to my annual camping trip to Wales - a couple of weeks away from electrical appliances and gadgets, cooking my food over a fire, hopefully something that I have caught from my kayak during the day. There is one little gadget though, which I don’t go camping without: a small, pocket sized, solar torch. During the daytime, my trusty torch soaks in the sunlight, so that when night comes, I can lie in my sleeping bag and read. No batteries required. No winding needed. My little torch absorbs the sun’s rays and returns them to my chosen book at the flick of a switch. Fabulous!
Jesus said to the ordinary folk who gathered to hear his teaching, “You are the light of the world. No-one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.” In today's terminology: we are torches. We are called, as human beings made in God’s image, to shine God’s light into the world around us. As usual, Jesus doesn’t define what he understands this shining our light to involve. He leaves it to each of us to work that out in our own situation.
Whatever it is that we are going to be shining into the world around us, we are going to need to get ourselves charged up on a regular basis. If we are going to shine God’s love, we need to soak in God’s love. If we are going to distribute God’s forgiveness, we need to accept God’s forgiveness. If we are going to live out Jesus’ wisdom, we need to learn Jesus’ wisdom.
Being part of a worshipping community is one way that we can recharge our batteries. When a place of worship is doing its job well, it is a place where we can experience the light of God in our own lives, in order to then shine that light for the benefit of others.
When I’m camping I can’t just toss my solar torch out of my tent in the morning and trust that it will charge from simply being outside. I have to make sure that it’s solar cells are facing towards the sun. To do that I have to prop it up at the right angle and move it round as the sun travels across the sky. In the same way, attending worship doesn’t automatically fill us with God’s light. We will recharge our lights much more effectively if we are purposeful about how we soak up God’s rays.
How are your batteries doing?

Just Good Friends

The nature of our relationship with God lies at the heart of all religion. In the long history of organised religion this has been understood in a variety of ways. Those religions that have left the clearest mark on human history are those that have built the grandest monuments or ruled the largest empires. Those religions which have taken a lowlier path have left fewer clues for historians to note.
Christianity has certainly left its mark on the world since it joined forces with the Roman Empire in the 4th century. Western history is as thickly strewn with Christian empires as the western landscape is with Christian monuments. However, the central figure of Christianity - Jesus - does not fit this grand profile at all.
Jesus did not claim any land, rule any people, build any monuments, fight any battles or write any books. He seemed quite disinterested in politics, law and ritual. He lived a simple life, focusing on those things that leave their mark in the daily lives of ordinary people, not in physical or social landscape.
When it comes to the nature of relationship that Jesus sought to have with the people around him, he did not live an elevated or separated life. He simply lived among the people he taught, as their neighbour and their friend. Just hours before his death Jesus reminded his core followers: "I do not call you servants ... but I have called you friends.”
Friendship should rightly be the defining relationship of Christianity - friendship that spans different cultures, different beliefs and different lifestyles; friendship that unites people with their neighbours and also with their God. There is absolutely no place for hierarchy in the life and teaching of Jesus. The true mark of Christianity is good friendship.

Spiritual Refreshment

When we feel thirsty, for those of us who live in the towns or cities of the developed world, a refreshing drink of clean water is never far away. Walking to a well to fetch water is not a feature of our lives. It is piped directly to the rooms where we need it, and readily available in plastic bottles.
Jesus lived in a society for whom the daily trek to the well and back was an essential part of life. Whether it was for food, for washing or for watering crops, everyone knew the sheer hard work of hauling water out of the ground and then carrying back to the place where it was needed. Everyone know what it felt like to be thirsty and there not be a drink within easy reach.
This was the backdrop to Jesus’ statement, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who trusts me drink.” He wasn’t - of course - handing out bottles of spring water at the Feast of Tabernacles. He was referring to the availability of God.
The Temple in Jerusalem marketed itself as the only reliable source of pure spiritual water in the world. Jewish people were obliged to travel great distances at considerable expense to get the required spiritual refreshment offered by the Temple priests. Jesus consciously undermined that priestly monopoly. His message was that if people would only trust him, they would find the love of God piped directly to their own homes and immediately available.
In our day and age, there is no single outlet monopolising spiritual refreshment. There is an increasingly crowded marketplace of teachings, beliefs, spiritualities and practices - all offering us spiritual refreshment (often at a price).
While some of us cling onto the familiar practices of our earlier years, and others shop around in search of a fresh buzz, Jesus’ offer still stands. Jesus offers us a direct experience of God - no mumbo-jumbo, no complex or costly rituals, no rules and regulations, and no expense - just God’s love, ready and waiting for us wherever and whenever we need it.
Jesus invites us to his well, to drink, and to be refreshed. But the process doesn’t and mustn’t end there. Once we have refreshed ourselves there is one more essential task - we must fill up our containers and carry some refreshing water back to our homes and communities so others can also be refreshed.

Family Business

You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family - so the saying goes. I remember some teenage angst around that theme!
In Christian communities it is common for people to talk in terms of being a family of Christians. At baptisms, the newly baptised are welcomed ‘into the Lord’s family’. In some congregations it is normal for church members to refer to each other as ‘sister’ and ‘brother’. It reinforces the sense of common identity.
How does one get to be part of this Christian family?
St Paul, in his letters, consistently refered to his fellow believers as ‘brothers’, but he didn’t only address fellow Christians in that way. He called his fellow Jews brothers, whether or not they followed Jesus. He even used the term to address those members of the Jewish council who attacked him, attempted to kill him and then campaigned to have him executed. (See the opening sentences of Acts 23).
Paul used the word 'brothers' very broadly. Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t use the term very often outside his own immediate family. On one notable occasion, however, he was teaching in a house when he was told that his mother and brothers were outside, waiting to see him. Pointing at the disciples seated around him, Jesus said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
The assumption of the baptism service is that people become part of God’s family by being baptised. But that’s not what Jesus said. The assumption of many Christian communities is that we become part of God’s family by virtue of our shared belief in Jesus. He didn’t say that either. What Jesus said was, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Membership of Jesus’ family comes from doing - not from rituals or beliefs, but from what we do. Anyone who does God’s will is in.
Jesus isn't asking us to talk like family, or to feel life family. Jesus wants us to be doing his family's business.

Risky Business

I believe in God. That’s not a very challenging or informative statement. Commonly, it expresses that I believe that God exists; you may also infer that I consider God to be generally a good thing.
In English translations of the New Testament, there is a lot of talk about believing. Jesus repeatedly encouraged people to 'believe in' him. But Jesus wasn’t asking people to believe that he existed - that would hardly have been difficult for them - or even to believe that is was the Christ or the Son of God - those ideas were only just beginning to be associated with him. Jesus was asking people to trust him - thats the meaning of the word he was using.
Trust is subtly different from belief. Trust is specific. You may be willing to trust me with a small amount of money, or trust that I am a generally well-meaning person. But you would be unwise to trust me to style your hair, and utterly foolish to trust me to perform routine surgery on you. We trust specific people to do specific things. The same needs to apply to our relationship with God.
What are we trusting God for?
Often, talk about trusting God is unhelpfully vague. Trust is a decision to embark on a particular action when the outcome of that action is, at least in part, beyond our control. I get a mechanic to service my car because I don’t understand how my car works. When I next drive my car, I put my trust in the mechanic’s understanding and integrity.
So what do we actually trust God for?
Trust requires action, and it involves risk. When I sit on a chair, I trust that it will hold my weight. If it doesn’t, I will end up on the floor. We trust God when we perform certain actions which rely of him in a way that is beyond our control - actions that we would not perform if we didn’t trust God.
Jesus asks us to trust him. He asks us to live differently in this world, trusting that his way is a better way, even though it may be costly for us.
How often to you really trust God?

Explosive Forgiveness

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This is not a philosophical comment about human behaviour; it is one of the fundamental principles of the physical universe as described by Isaac Newton in 1687. It is known as Newton’s 3rd Law. The ground on which you are standing, or the chair on which you are sitting, is pushing you upwards with exactly the same force that your weight is pressing down. If it isn’t, then you are either sinking or taking off. It applies to all physical forces everywhere in the universe. They always work both ways.
Jesus was not a physicist. His genius was in the things of God and the things of human relationship. When unfolding his model for everyday prayer -  the ‘Our Father’ or ‘Lord’s Prayer’ - Jesus drew attention to the fact that forgiveness, just like physical force, is fundamentally a two way process.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" does not set out a contractural arrangement of conditional forgiveness. Jesus was describing the very nature of forgiveness. To mimic Newton’s 3rd Law: every act of forgiving as an equal and opposite act of being forgiven. Forgiveness does not, and cannot, operate in just one direction.
This was clearly important to Jesus; he stressed the point immediately after the prayer. "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” He isn’t telling us that God is picky about who he forgives. God’s not like that. Jesus is stating a universal principle about forgiveness. If you are not forgiving, you cannot be forgiven. And, to look at it from the other end, if you are truly forgiven, you cannot help forgiving.
Jesus observed this same principle when a prostitute interrupted a dinner party in order to cry over his feet. He said to the embarrassed guests, “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
Forgiveness cannot be hoarded up. It is explosive. If you choose to forgive someone this week, you will cause a chain reaction which cannot be stopped. Someone else, somewhere else, is going to end up being forgiven too. That’s how forgiveness works.

Being Yourself - Sunday 11th February 2018

There is an intriguing story from the final days of Jesus’ life, that relates a moment when one of the many Marys anointed his feet using some staggeringly expensive perfume, causing a embarrassed debate amongst his disciples. John’s account of the incident states that the perfume was worth a year’s wages, and identifies Judas as the disciple who questioned whether it would have been better for the perfume to be sold and the proceeds given to the poor.
I find myself to be firmly on Judas’ side in this. Surely, to pour such an extravagance over Jesus’ feet was a pointless waste of resources which could have been used to much better effect elsewhere.
Jesus, however, defended Mary - boldly and strongly. And so I find my own attitude to be lovingly rebuked, along with Judas.
The story shows Jesus to be a man who is very comfortable in his own skin. Most of us would be hideously embarrassed to have someone attending to our feet in the middle of a dinner party, but Jesus seems untroubled.
Despite the moral outrage being expressed, Jesus allowed Mary to be herself, and to proceed with the action that she, in her own wisdom, had chosen. He made no attempt to control her, or correct or redirect her actions.
This is a consistent theme throughout Jesus' life. He did not attempt to control people, or tell them how they should behave. He allowed people to follow the paths that they have chosen, and continued to love them. Even on the last day of his life, Jesus did not interfere with the actions of the high priests, Pontius Pilate or Herod. He let them be themselves, even though that would lead to his death.
The history of religion (including Christianity) is very much a history of control. Religion regulates and restricts people’s lives, telling them what they may or may not do. Yet Jesus does not. He defended Mary’s choice - outrageously extravagant though it was - and commended her for it.
Our religions seek to limit and control our choices in so many ways, but God - it seems - loves for us to be lovingly and generously ourselves.

Good for the Universe - Sunday 7th January 2018

God exists in the universe with good purpose, and that good purpose extends to planet Earth and to the human race. The life and teaching of Jesus was, and remains, an eloquent expression of God’s good purpose. If you want to know how God engages with his universe and with humanity in particular, then the life of Jesus is an expression of that in terms of reference that we minuscule humans can grasp.

The life and teaching of Jesus is just as pertinent today where we live, as it was in Galilee two thousand years ago, though the immediate example of Jesus himself is no longer there. But we needn’t panic; God has a plan for that. God has a plan for there to be a living example of his good purposes, this very week right where you are. That plan is you.

We would all be wise, at this point, to remind ourselves that there is no way that any one of us can be the living continuation of Jesus. We can’t. But we can be the living continuation of one small but significant part of what Jesus did and represented. And then, if we link together with other people who represent other aspects of Jesus’ life, God’s good plan is still in business.

St Paul understood the effectiveness of godly people as being akin to a human body. Each one of us is like a particular limb or organ. Each one of us has a significant part to play. And each one of us needs the others around us to play their different, significant parts for the whole organism to operate effectively.

God exists in the universe with good purpose, and that good purpose involves you. When each of us does what we can of Jesus’ work, in active partnership with one another, God’s universe is a better place.

Ready for the Future - Sunday 31st December 2017

Each of us has hopes and expectations for the year ahead. We hope - of course - that our lives will be fruitful and comfortable, but we don’t actually know what awaits us on our journey through 2018.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Bible's story knows that God doesn't promise an easy path for his people. Jesus said on the matter, “The gate that leads to life is narrow, and the road is hard.” So please forgive me for pointing out this obvious truth: there will be challenges and difficulties in the coming year.
When Jesus was a small tot, his mother, Mary, had been through a tough year. In addition to the usual discomforts and indignities of pregnancy, she had seen her proposed marriage teeter on the verge of divorce; she had been forced to relocate to an unfamiliar town, 100 miles from home; and she had ended up laying her newborn son in an animals’ food trough because there was no space anywhere else. She must have been hoping that the coming year would be a bit easier. Little did Mary know that the paranoid ruler of Judea, Herod the Great, was about to order the execution of every baby boy in Bethlehem.
God doesn’t promise an easy path for his people. Not even for his own son.
However, God doesn’t simply abandon us to disaster. He may not protect us from difficulty, but he does provide for us when it comes. The day before Mary was forced to flee, a group of wealthy priest/magicians turned up at their home. These unlikely visitors affirmed Mary in the importance of her little child. They also provided her with valuable trading goods (frankincense & myrrh, along with gold). Little did Mary know, as she received those unexpected gifts, how useful they would be in the very near future.
God was not going to spare his loved ones from life’s difficulties, but he did ensure that they were suitably provided for as they fled to Egypt in the middle of the night.
We have no idea what lies ahead of us in this new year; it won’t all be easy, for sure. God won’t insulate us from difficulties, that’s not his way, but he will ensure that we have what we need to get through them.

God's New Brand - Sunday 17th December 2017

Names are always important. Whether it’s parents choosing a name for their child or the launch of a new business, a name says something. The internet age has brought us a new generation of sassy and witty company names, designed to express the ethos of the brand, to be easily remembered and to appear at the top of the search engine lists. Back in New Testament times, names were no less important.
In ancient Jewish culture many people were given names that were a complete sentence in themselves, in much the same way that some on-line businesses do today.
In English, the name ‘Jesus’ doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just a word. But if you scroll back through the Latin (Iesus) and the Greek (Iesous), you get to the name that Mary and Joseph actually called their son: Yeshuah. They didn’t choose the name themselves; it was picked by God, who gave specific instructions through Archangel Gabriel. “You shall call him Yeshuah”.
To an English speaker, the name Yeshuah has no more meaning than the name Jesus, but Mary and Joseph weren’t English speakers. To them the archangel’s instruction was, “You shall call him ‘God Rescues’". Just like many companies today, God chose a name that went straight to the point.
Imagine the scene: on a hot, sunny day in ancient Nazareth - countless times - Mary must have stepped out of her kitchen and shouted for all the village to hear, “God Rescues, your supper’s ready!” Years later - also countless times - Mary’s son would have done the ancient equivalent of offering an introductory handshake while saying, “I’m God Rescues.”
God’s choice of name doesn't specify what he rescues us from. Like much of Jesus’ teaching, that is left open ended. It is enough for his name to assure us that God is on our side, and cares for us, and doesn’t want to leave us in the mess or a muddle of our lives.
God chose a powerful brand name. It's rather a shame that we have lost its impact through the meandering journey between languages.