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ttle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind then god said let us make humankind in our image according to our likeness god said and it was so what god says happens and nothing can stop it from happening total freedom from any restraint and that i think is his image his defining characteristic and it s that freedom that he imparts to his creation the freedom to be the freedom of a human body cell to be cancerous the freedom of a person to take another s life the freedom of the earth s tectonic plates to shift and cause earthquakes now that would be scary if it were the end of the story b ut we re not at the end we re just partway through the process and the process is driven not by randomness not by whim not by accident but by love god s word is spoken in love his will is achieved by love and creation is perfected through love so i m with st paul on this rom 8 18 21 i consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of god for the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of god salt and light 5 february 2011 in uncategorized tags law light salt senses leave a comment jesus said you are the salt of the earth you are the light of the world mt 5 13 14 i went to london last thursday for a meeting with a general synod working party about the formation of a professional association for clergy in the cofe pretty boring stuff for ordinary mortals the meeting was in the covent garden area not far from trafalgar square and an area with quite a lot of theatres i arrived there a bit early for the meeting so i popped into st paul s church covent garden the actor s church a pretty unremarkable church but when i went in i was hit by the smell of incense it was the morning after candlemas and i guess they d had a service there the evening before so the smell was still quite strong i love the smell of church incense and i was instantly transported to somewhere wonderful i find that many smells have a similar effect on me they transport me somewhere i remember my first trip the other way round from london to manchester interview for my first curate s job and when i stepped off the train at manchester piccadilly the smell of hot oil and diesel hit me and i was transported back to the steel works in my home town transported back by smell alone i think that our sense of smell is connected directly to our memories hardwired in our brains so i think that it is significant that jesus in today s gospel when he tells us what we are he tells us that we are to be two things that impact directly upon the senses salt and light you will note that he does not tell us to be preachers or teachers or philosophers people who make their impact upon the minds of others instead we are to make our impact upon others senses specifically taste and sight both salt and light are pretty hearty things as far as our senses are concerned salt both in deficiency and in excess can either make or totally ruin a meal some christians can be so lacking in salt that they make no impact upon us at all while some can be so over salted with the gospel that they make us run a mile and light a vital component for all sight without light we are all in the dark and there is no sight nor colour nor vision we as followers of jesus are to be salt and light giving flavour and colour to the world and hitting people where they know they ve been hit as it were without of course getting up their noses we are in other words to by pass their minds and aim for something deeper something much more visceral within them to be something that tickles their taste buds and lights up their lives notice that in this gospel account jesus goes straight on from telling us that we are salt and light to talking about the law the ot law the law of moses the law was a preoccupation for the jews of jesus day as indeed it is for those of today of course and it was a particular problem for matthew the writer of the gospel matthew is writing particularly for jewish converts to christianity who might be a bit loath to tinker with what has hitherto been at the heart of their faith the law the problem with the law was that it did not work it did not create good and holy people it created lawyers and the task of the lawyers was to find ways of getting around the law in both senses of getting around and it all became a kind of game the law says this the law says that but this bit maybe affects that bit so you can do this but not that but if you do that then maybe you don t need to do this the law became the subject to interpretation it became an intellectual exercise a mind game jesus knew that the law would not could not save anyone but he also knew that it was a gift from god a gift that was to draw us closer to him something to be lived rather than obeyed the law was a collection of pointers commandments that pointed us to something greater for i tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven mt 5 20 the real law lives in our guts rather than in our heads it is all about sensing the rightness of the written law and translating that into our everyday thoughts and actions it s about seeing the light and tasting the truth we are salt for the earth we are light for the world what is myrrh anyway 1 january 2011 in uncategorized tags epiphany life of brian love monty python myrrh leave a comment on entering the house the magi saw the child with mary his mother and they knelt down and paid him homage then opening their treasure chests they offered him gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh matthew 2 11 i don t know how familiar you are with monty python s life of brian a spoof loosely based around the life of jesus it was released in 1979 with some controversy it was even x rated at one stage by quite a few local authorities i remember seeing it in london not long after it came out i had to cross a picket line of christians in order to get in it starts with a star moving across the sky followed by three men on camels and continues with these three riding down a dark back street and arriving at a hovel with mother and child whad do yu want screeches the mother played by terry jones we were led by a star say the first wise man john cleese led by a bottle more like retorts the mother eventually the three wise men get around to offering their gifts to the child gold frankincense and myrrh the mother is not to sure about the myrrh the third wise man michael palin has to explain that it is a valuable balm which she immediately thinks is some kind of wild animal until the wise man explains that it is an ointment she gladly accepts the gold and the frankincense but is diffident about accepting the myrrh anyway the three wise men worship at the manger and exit only to re appear almost immediately to reclaim all three gifts and dash back out the camera follows them as they cross to the other side of the alleyway to another hovel this one surrounded in light and peace and with the baby jesus meek and mild asleep on the hay but the film continues to follow the mother mandy cohen and her son brian what is myrrh anyway mandy screeches in those opening moments of the film what and why we too may ask it seems that st matthew was playing a little fast and loose with the old testament in his story of the wise men gold and frankincense were to be expected as was the wealth of the nations as indeed were the camels we have it all in the first epiphany reading from isaiah 60 gold and frankincense were both in themselves powerful symbols gold of kingly wealth and earthly power recognised even today frankincense of priestly worship and prayer rising up to god but what about the myrrh why did matthew feel he needed to add that extra detail into his story if you read a biblical commentary it will tell you that it represents jesus future death and burial myrrh was indeed used by the egyptians when embalming bodies myrrh is offered to jesus on the cross as a sort of pain killer and myrrh was brought by joseph of arimathea to jesus tomb as part of the burial all very plausible but all neatly evading the fact that in a hebrew context myrrh was all about love and not just spiritual love it was the old testament equivalent of chanel no 5 myrrh is mentioned in one particular book of the old testament exactly twice as many times as in all the other 38 books put together and that book is the song of songs sometimes called the song of solomon a love song and quite clearly a love song could myrrh be a symbol of that love you are unlikely to hear any of the song of songs ever read at a sunday eucharist it just doesn t figure in the sunday lectionary scheme but part of it is one of the readings set for the feast of st mary magdalene now i m not trying to get all dan browne ish there is no davinci code magdalene plot in all this but i do think that there is a misreading here of the significance of myrrh in the epiphany story there is a much more obvious meaning in the traditional epiphany hymn earth had many a noble city one verse runs sacred gifts of mystic meaning incense doth their god disclose gold the king of kings proclaimeth i am happy with that but less convinced by the final line myrrh his sepulchre foreshows i think the myrrh may be an affirmation of jesus down to earth humanity of his intimate involvement in the life of this world of his immersion in love with the humanity of us all rather than a reference to his death sacred gifts of mystic meaning incense doth our god disclose gold the king of kings proclaimeth myrrh his love for us he shows today you will be with me in paradise 20 november 2010 in uncategorized tags heaven hell kingdom paradise leave a comment jesus to one of the criminals crucified with him luke 23 43 today you will be with me in paradise biblical imagery generally speaking was very concrete and grounded in reality biblical people generally speaking didn t usually go in for airy fairy stuff collectively they were all lancashire folk they liked to call a spade a spade and certainly didn t go in for harps and halos clouds and angels at least not angels as we generally regard them take hell for instance hell was a real place called ge hinnom the valley of hinnom just south of jerusalem it was a rubbish dump were people dumped and burned their rubbish and where too the unclean dead were likewise dumped a real place a smokey smelly horrible place ge hinnom a hebrew name was know in biblical greek as gehenna usually translated as the hell of fire so when jesus in the new testament spoke about hell which he does only 10 times everyone knew exactly what he meant the bible also talks about another sort of hell hades in greek sheol in hebrews which was the old ancient greek underworld dark and dank but boring rather than horrible it was a waiting room rather than a final destination i have been there crewe railway station on a very cold christmas eve in 1976 waiting for the one train through that day paradise on the other hand was also a real place the word paradise of persian origin means a walled garden or park it was the garden of creation situated somewhere in the east or more precisely in the ancient fertile crescent between the rivers euphrates and tigris commonly called the garden of eden paradise was where the tree of life was located interestingly the whole biblical story starts in the book genesis with the garden of eden paradise containing within it the tree of life and ends in the book of revelation with a city the new jerusalem containing not one but a whole bunch of trees of life oh and a throne heaven in biblical greek simply the word for sky is where god lives heaven is not a place for mortals although it is the place there our hope is laid up the place from where our citizenship derives and the place from where the new jerusalem descends we mortals are to keep our feet firmly planted on the earth albeit a new earth a redeemed renewed and righteous earth an earth that contains the city the come down out of heaven from god city the city with the throne of the lamb and of god at it s heart the city with the tree of life paradise within it which all basically means that the christian hope is not for a pie in the sky fairy tale escapism from reality into a wonderland of angels and harps but the establishment of the rule of christ in our hearts in the here and now and in the realities of our own lives jesus words to the crucified criminal today you will be with me in paradise come in response to the crucified criminal s request to jesus to remember me when you come into your kingdom this exchange happens at the place that is called the skull not i suspect a green hill far away without a city wall no one would use a prime piece of real estate for an execution site it was more probably maybe a rubbish dump a gehenna of sorts and it s from within the heart of that hell that the promise of the kingdom is proclaimed today you will be with me in paradise a wordle of tomorrow s sermon 14 august 2010 in uncategorized tags wordle leave a comment you shall see and your heart shall rejoice 4 july 2010 in uncategorized tags jon venables love sight sin vision leave a comment you shall see and your heart shall rejoice isaiah 66 14 sometimes we do look at things and people and what we see does make our hearts rejoice but not always the recent re emergence into the news of jon venables one of jamie bulger s killers from all those years ago also brought out again those eerie photographs of both of the killers aged 10 eerie because to look at those photographs again knowing what we know now is really quite disturbing and certainly not something that would make our hearts rejoice and yet they are two human beings created by god two human beings who have committed a terrible act but is there anything left there to make our hearts rejoice it is one of the great clichés of the christian faith that we should hate the sin but love the sinner but can we do that with thompson and venables or indeed with peter sutcliffe or myra hindley or harold shipman sin obscures our vision of the person of the sinner so that when we see them we see not the person but the sin the sin clothes them with a new identity disguises them this is obvious and understandable in the case of thompson and venables and sutcliffe hindley shipman but it s also true of all people we all carry our own sins and shortcomings with us our own loads and these loads become part of our own self image and of our image of other people we become clothed what we have done the good as well as the bad but especially the bad we see the sin in ourselves and in others an...