What do I really want?

Sunday July 25th is the Feast of St James, the Apostle some suggested readings are Jeremiah 45; Acts 11:27-12:3 ; 2 Corinthians 4:7-15 ; Psalm 126 ; and Matthew 20:20-28

The map alongside is the famous pilgrimage journey to Compostela in NW Spain (El Camino de Santiago) where traditionally pilgrims have gone to venerate St James at the great cathedral shrine. Traditionally pilgrims journey for weeks or months from Southern France.

Tarted up
I always find Matthew’s version of the story we read in the Gospel today a little amusing
it has James and John’s mother
asking Jesus
to grant her sons the privilege
of being his chief lieutenants when everything starts to happen

In Mark’s more direct version (probably therefore the earlier, less politically corrected and hence more likely to be accurate) it is the boys themselves that ask Jesus.
Is Matthew trying, as some commentators suggest (eg John Drane), to make the apostles look good by making their mother (rather than them) seemingly crassly ambitious on their behalf.
There is a sort of childish naïveté about the exchange
which makes us suspect that this theory is correct!
Jesus asks them:
what do you want?
It’s probably significant to note that he does not ask ‘what do you need?’ or even ‘what can I do for you?’
The naïf story is a question about what motivates them
What do you WANT?
It is not always nice

and we do not always like to admit
that we would like to be the boss
or that we are seeking our own advantage
or that we are bit selfish
(which is why Matthew is trying to make the apostles look good by blaming their mother)
But God is responding to us where we are
and though we might like to look good in the eyes
of others
or not look as bad as we really are…is perhaps another way of putting it
God responds to us where we are
and as we are
not to some game we might play.

Advice therefore
So some advice therefore is to be authentic.
In reality God knows all about us
so there is no point playing games.
If you feel angry then pay attention to that,
if you are sad or excited
then that is what God is going to be dealing with

Jesus is able to warn James and John
what we all know to be inherently true
that there is no privilege
without responsibility
and that there is no responsibility
without personal cost.
he himself demonstrates this in his own life
they will be required to demonstrate it
if they really want to go this way.

This is important stuff
So it is necessary to be keenly insightful
about our real wants
(as opposed to our politically correct needs,
or what we might blame our mother for)



What do you really want from God?
Can you this week try to tease that question out?
To be a little bit more honest and open
and therefore to maximize the chance
that we might hear what Jesus might be actually speaking into our lives

How do you feel God has treated you so far?
Does this encourage you, disappoint you?
What do you want God to be for you?

The message, we can hear on this St James Day
is that we are “earthen jars” not stunning jewellery.
We, by and large, are dull and flat,
lifeless and characterless.
Yet…we are not without promise and potential
For we are filled with treasure.
But the treasure is not what we imagine
it is how Jesus meets us,
so it is not about unreality
or political correctness
or what our parents might want for us.

This week
What do I want from Jesus?
What is he asking me to be and do?
Can I…will I do it and be it?

Saint James, pray for us
that we may be willing
to leave everything to follow Jesus
as you did.
Help us to be the true friend of Jesus

Come, Lord Jesus

Reflection on John 14:8-13

This morning's prayers:

Come, Lord Jesus!

Bring hope and harmony

to our lives.

when things fall apart

when life is chaotic

and when there seems

no way;

show us that

destruction and death

is often the gate

to new life;

that chaos

is the prelude

to a new way;

and that where there is

no way

we are invited to discover

that the Way, the Truth and the Life

is neither path nor gate,

it is not a test

but a person.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Come my Way, my Truth, my Life!

Life in the Spirit

Readings can include Acts 2:1-21; Ezekiel 37:1-14;Psalm 104:24-34, 35b;Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Although it is difficult to pick any of the events of the Easter mystery as the pinnacle or climax
in a real sense Pentecost is of great significance because it prepares us for our life as Christians
the gift of the Holy Spirit to the faithful and expectant disciples
is the gift of the Father to live the life that Jesus, the Word of God calls us to live.

The readings talk of many things:

    Renewal

    life being breathed into what looks as though it is dead

    Truth

    Peace 

    Joy 

And each of these deserves its own individual treatment.

Indeed this demonstrates to us that the Holy Spirit is not a quick fix...but is about God dealing with us comprehensively and completely.

Why would we expect anything else?

This is about the whole of our life and the whole of the world.

Indeed a prayer we often pray is 

Come Holy Sprit and renew your whole creation

So often we seem to think that God is just dealing with my little patch

It is about "the whole creation"

It is also about God dealing with us deeply

and not just tinkering in a titillating or superficial way.

This JOY that the Spirit brings is not merely an amusement or an entertainment it is about the absolute delight and sense of privilege that we know in being caught up iun the mystery of what God has been doing since before the foundation of the world.

It is perhaps the surest sign of the Spirit’s activity in our lives.

Where do you experience the deepest joy in your life?

It is a challenging question.

So often we mistake amusement for joy

yet often joy is about difficult stuff

about working through the challenging issues of life

and realising that although we are often confronted with danger, struggle, weakness

that the Joy that the Spirit brings transforms our life

This week

●Where has God given you the greatest JOY

●How can I nurture this

●What is God inviting me to be, know and do, by this active power and presence of the Spirit?

Readings for Sunday April 27, Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:8-20, I Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21,


I sometimes jokingly say that we should be careful about what we ask for in our prayers
and particularly when we pray for God to send the Holy Spirit
or to renew us, or something similar.
Because my experience is that that is exactly the sort of prayer---for the Holy Spirit---
that God is likely to answer!
So, don't pray for renewal unless you want to be renewed.

What might 'renewal' be like?
It seems to me that renewal is likely to be about truth
that when the Spirit of renewal comes
it is going to be the Spirit of Truth.
It will therefore be drawing us towards God and showing us what God is like.
In the process of doing this
one might expect we also discover what we might be like.
This classic sort of movement
leads us to say...as traditionally Christians have said...
the Holy Spirit will convict us of sin.
This is not, I think, some vindictive nasty process
but true one.
We will know and be known.
it is in a sense our life's work:
to understand the truth of what it means
to be made in God's image.
The truth draws us on
to move away from sin
and towards the light.
In this process, too,
we will also uncover the truths of God's world.
The eternal truths can often be spoken with our lips
and may take a little while to appropriate into our lives.
How easily we say "God loves you!" and yet do we believe
that God wants the best for us
and for everyone
and how do we imagine that might work itself otu in our lives.
To me, for example, it means that there is here
a command to ensure that others
are goign to be able to experience God generosity
and share in the bounty of the creation
it will mean, maybe, that I need to work to challenge
my own selfishness and greed
and to stand against the aggressive greed of individuals and institutions
which is the cause of so much poverty.

Truth will mean that I try to conduct myself
with honesty, openness and integrity.
That I value these things about myself
and I treasure the vulnerable gifts that others
may choose to share.

The Spirit will lead us into truth
implies that this will take time.
And we need patience and diligence.


The way of the Spirit
LORD GRANT THAT I MAY BE OPEN TO THE TRUTH
GIVE ME PATIENCE, WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING
THAT I MAY BEAR THIS PRIVILEGE
WITH JOY, AND EXCITEMENT.
GIVE ME COURAGE TO SERVE YOU.
FATHER OF LIGHT, SON OF MERCY, SPIRIT OF TRUTH. AMEN

get real - you do not have permission to park your brain

Readings for Sunday 11th November, Proper 27 (24th Sunday after Pentecost) -Haggai 1:15b-2:9 and [Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 98] (or Job 19:23-27a and Psalm 17:1-9 ) 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

The Gospel reading for today is decidedly curious
but perhaps in election time we should not be so surprised or puzzled by it!
Jesus is asked a question by some antagonists
they are neither interested in the answer
nor in any real engagement with Jesus.
They are trying to get him to put his foot in it.
This happens on a number of different occasions in the Gospels,
and we might reflect
it happens a lot in day to day life.
We talk, but are not interested in listening.
We say a lot of things
but we need to also pay attention to more than the words.
Classic Question
The question that Jesus is asked is no doubt a 'classic'
He is asked it by Sadducees, who were one of the major parties at the time.
They differed from the popular party, the Pharisees,
to which Jesus probably belonged
in that they did not believe that life continued after death.
This was a key part of Jesus's teaching.
The question that they ask:
If a person has been married multiple times
and if this resurrection is true
then who will the person be married to after death
when everyone is dead and husbands and wife
are all living happily ever after in this supposed resurrected bliss
It is sort of amusing and clever (on one level)
but simply blind on another.

It is like many of the political questions that we hear at this time.
Not designed to elicit an answer
rather trying to expose a weakness
It is not about hearing the truth;
it is rather about struggling with versions of right.

Are we aware
That we ourselves are like this
that we often choose what is a view of 'right'
to engaging with truth.
Perhaps the infuriating things about the election
remind us of this.
How we are often more judgemental of the person or the party
than what is being said or done?

Maybe that is what politics is about.

It is rather more serious I suspect
when we do this in our lives
when we dismiss our husbands and wives
children and friends
sisters and brothers
workmates and neighbours
because of who they are....
rather than responding to what they do or say.
This encounter reminds us that there can be no end of game playing
(we are reminded of this in election mode )

THIS WEEK
we invite the Spirit to show us where prejudice has become our way of operating
rather than judgment or discernment

pray for the grace and perception to be more discrimnating
and for the will to put it into practice.

And if I tempted am to sin
and outward things are strong
do thou, O Lord, keep watch within,
and keep my soul from wrong
Isaac Williams
Victorian Hymnwriter