Simon Says ...

I want to speak about that most Advent of subjects – sunbathing.   Just the weather for it, don’t you think?   Let me be perfectly honest, I’m not a natural sunbather.   I seek out the shade and the only thing that can keep me sitting on a beach for any length of time is a good book (and even then I’d rather be inside with a beer).   But as we reflect on light this Advent, the thing that came to mind was the best Thought for the Day that I had heard in a very long time.   Giles Frazer, back in August when sunbathing ought at least to have been topical, spoke about prayer as sunbathing.   It was an image he took from Rowan Williams, and it emphasises the way in which in prayer God acts on us far more than we act on God.   C. S. Lewis put it this way: “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God – it changes me”. Going to the...

Isaiah 50.4-9a ; Mark 8.27-38 So there I was, in a cafe on a Saturday afternoon nursing a beer.   I was there with two old friends, to who m I was very close.   One had written a reference for me for whatever they called BAPs in those days, but neither were Christians.   And then the husband of one of my wife's colleagues came across.   He was, shall we say, less than sober and a bit aggressive with it.   'So why do you waste your time working for the church?' was his opening gambit.   A perfect opportunity for witness, you might have thought.   So, of course, I blew it.   I was absolutely speechless, I could think of nothing to say that would answer him, and that would say something to my friends.   And then Andrew, who I'd lived with for two years as a student, piped up with a most eloquent account of how my faith and my values were intertwined; and how my compassion and my care for others were deeply rooted in m...

--> Jeremiah 7.1-16 ; Romans 9.14-26 Earlier this week the Houses of Parliament hosted an event in which the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar met to discuss the contributions of their religions to peace in the world.  One MP took to Twitter to describe a conversation at the gate to the Palace of Westminster.  A man in a dog collar approached a policeman to gain entry.  ‘You here for the thing with the Archbishop of Canterbury’, said the policeman.  ‘I am the Archbishop of Canterbury’, replied the cleric. In our first reading, Jeremiah is railing against those who look to particular practices and accomplishments as proof that they are safe from the judgement of God.  “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord.’” he warns his people. There is no complex theology in this warning, no difficult to read message.  It is very simple.  P...