Simon Says ...

A Reflection for Compline using Psalm 13 . David Runcorn tells the story of being in Church and hearing someone pray to God about a famine in India . It wasn’t the normal sort of intercessions that the congregation was used to: ‘God why on earth do you let this happen? Why don’t you do something about it? How can you let all of those people suffer in that way?’ Runcorn comments that the man praying was new to Christian faith and new to the church and so hadn’t learnt what constitutes good manners in praying. He goes on to hope that he never does. What is refreshing about this story is the honesty and the directness that the pray-er has in addressing God. ‘Do something about it, how can you let such a dreadful thing happen?’ The man praying doesn’t have a neat theology of how bad things can happen. He has a healthy and human response to the awfulness of the situation he is praying about. But imagine for a moment that prayers like this were said at...

We have found a fantastic series of Bible stories for very small children. They are called the First Word Heroes/Heroines, and published by Pupfish . They tell the stories of various heroes or heroines from the Bible in 12 words. Fantastic. My favourite is probably David, whose story goes like this: David Goliath Shout Stop Find Stones Aim Throw Splat Fall Winner Hooray! I'm still coming to terms with the skill of telling such a long story in just 12 words. It's a piece of genius. Also available are Noah, Daniel, Jonah, Miriam, Ruth, Esther and Martha. They're great and our 19 month year old loves them. So do I.

At the Eucharist, one of the most important things that we do is we come to meet with God. All worship is offered in the presence of God. We come into God’s presence to make our offerings of praise and thanksgiving and to ask God for help and blessing. Standing behind this is Jesus’ promise that ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’ (Matthew 18.20). In the Eucharist, we are especially mindful of the presence of Jesus among us. In fact, the Eucharist is structured around three particular places or moments when we meet with God. This is not to say that God is only present at these moments, only that the liturgy is shaped to give special prominence to these three places. 1. Meeting God in his Word The first place that we meet with God is in his Word, the Bible. We have three Bible readings at a Eucharist, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament and a Gospel reading. Here we hear the stories of God’s presence with ...

A reflection for compline using Psalm 77 . Some words from the Psalm we have just said together: ‘You are the God who worked wonders • and declared your power among the peoples’. As we consider the Psalms this Lent, it is worth remembering that the Psalms are the ‘Prayerbook of the Bible’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). They are a collection of hymns and prayers that were in regular use in Israel , in the Temple , in Synagogues and in homes, in public worship and in private prayer. The Psalms formed the basis of Jesus’ own prayers, and they, along with the book of Isaiah, are the most quoted book of the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament. The church has used the Psalms since the earliest days. St Paul urges his readers to praise God in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The offices of morning and evening prayer and also of compline consist of saying or singing the Psalms and reading the Bible. Many of the responses that we use in these services are taken from the Psal...

Jesus' temptation in the wilderness is a regular story for reflection at the beginning of Lent. This year I have tried to let my engagement with the telling of the story in Matthew's Gospel ( Matthew 4.1-11 ) guide my Lenten discipline as a preparation for Easter. Some things to note about the story. First, Jesus goes into the wilderness immediately following his baptism, and God's identification of him there as 'my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' ( Matthew 3.17 ). Second, Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit. This is not something that happens despite God's call to him - it is a constitutive part of God's call to Jesus. Third, the story is a retelling of the call of the people of Israel and their being led from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land. Thus the time in the wilderness comes after Jesus' passage through the water of baptism in the Jordan, just as Israel entered the wilderness after they had passed through the...