Virtual Methodist

As we continued to "Make Our Way by Walking" at Methodist Conference, we took a slight detour to Writers' Square opposite St. Anne's Cathedral, where in an area literally paved with excerpts from local literature, I was not arrogant enough of offer any of my own writing.  From here we proceeded through an historic but chronically run-down corner of our city, to Rosemary Street and arguably what is the oldest place of worship in the original town boundaries of Belfast, having been founded in 1644. The current building merely dates to 1783, by which time there were 3 Presbyterian Churches in Rosemary Street, a second formed because the first building wasn’t big enough to contain all who wanted to attend and then a third because of a theological split. But as such, the original building and congregation goes back to the days before splits in the Presbyterian church over doctrine culminating in the rise of Henry Cooke, whom I mentioned earlier, and the ultim...

OK I've posted this dialogue numerous times... the last one last year when the theme for the 4 Corners Festival was "Scandalous Forgiveness" and as before I note that it owes its form and substance to John L. Bell and the late, great and gracious, Graham Maule, a soupcon of Riding Lights but mostly the Gospels and specifically Jesus, with his seemingly frustrating obsession with the subject of forgiveness... I'm posting this today because it chimes with tomorrow's gospel reading in the lectionary, so if anyone wants to use is feel free... Peter:        Eh... Jesus...? Jesus:       Yes, Peter? Peter:        How many times did you say I should forgive my brother? Jesus:       Have you and Andrew been fighting again, Peter? Peter:        Oh, you know what he’s like... I know you want us to forgive each other, but I really ...

Another parable of growth, this time set in a more domestic environment. The lecture I had planned to do  today in Holden Village was entitled "In Praise of Corruption", given that a number of commentators point out that leaven (a fermenting "sourdough starter" rather than the little packets of commercial bakers' yeast that were in such short supply at the beginning of lockdown) was usually a metaphor for corruption in the Old Testament and rabbinic texts. Others point out the scandalous nature of using a "woman's task" as a metaphor for the Kingdom of Heaven in a highly patriarchal society.  However, Amy Jill Levine, the Jewish New Testament scholar casts significant doubt on both those readings of the text, perhaps leaving us with a relatively simple tale of someone getting their quantities completely wrong, leading me to imagine to this short scene: He told them still another parable:  “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and m...

"Wheatfield with Crows" by Vincent Van Gogh (Auvers 1890) in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Carrying on from where I left off on Sunday with the next two parables in Matthew's account, "the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds" and "the Parable of the Mustard Seed" (Matthew 13: 24-32). There is little doubt that Matthew, in compiling his gospel has grouped these two parables together with the previous one because they are all about seeds. However, most commentaries, sermons and indeed modern Bibles with their editorial subtitles, split these two up and group the second short parable or saying with the next one "the Parable of the Yeast/Leaven", Actually in the current RCL readings "the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds" was last Sunday's Gospel reading while the two subsequent parables, which I am preaching from on RTE, are next Sunday's. But all of these parables, with their agricultural and domestic origins are about growth, bu...

"Sower with Setting Sun"  by Vincent Van Gogh (Arles 1888) from the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands Had there been no such thing as Covid-19 I should have arrived in Holden Village yesterday to begin a fortnight of lecturing, this year on "Perplexing Parables." My plan had been to offer eight lectures over the course of  2 weeks looking at different parables or groups of parables, encouraging people to see them as they were originally intended, ie. as Eugene Peterson pointed out, something "subversive" , sending our imaginations off in unpredictable spirals that will sometimes be unproductive, but ultimately result in miraculous harvests, rather than the simplistic "earthly story with a heavenly meaning" that sees them as little more than "sermon illustrations". As such the Parable of the Sower and his Seed, in Matthew 13: 1-9 and the subsequent "explanation" in v10-23 is widely regarded as a Parable about Parables...

After a brief, pink-tinged diversion from politics, it is back to a recent recurrent theme, this time in the form of a dialogue we used in worship this morning while looking at the phrase "may your Kingdom come" in the Lord's prayer... It is particularly pertinent at present given the run up to European and local elections over the next week or so and bundles up a lot of the stuff I've been saying recently in a slightly different form, with thanks to (or should that be apologies to) John Bell and Graeme Maule of the Iona Community for the format if not the content...       Peter:           Eh... Jesus...? Jesus:          Yes, Peter? Peter:           Have you ever heard of democracy? Jesus:          Where’d you hear about that Peter? Peter:    ...

An amended  reblog of a dialogue that we will be using today in our Easter Communion service at Belfast South...   Both:     You’ll never believe who we met… Cleopas:     Really…   Persis:        You’ll never believe it… It was amazing… Cleopas:     Astounding… Persis:        We didn’t recognise him ourselves at first… Cleopas:     Now I had a wee inkling from the time he started talking to us… Persis:        Actually Cleopas was really cheeky when he asked what we were talking about…Asked him what planet he was on over the past few days that he hadn’t heard what had happened in Jerusalem… Cleopas:     I told him all that had happened over the previous few days… Persis: I’m really embarrassed… There’s us telling him what had happened… As if he didn’t know!!!...

No Psalm this Sunday... Instead this is a dialogue that I'll be performing with another member of the congregation at our 11am communion service this morning... It started out life as an episode in a piece I wrote for New Irish Arts and the Centre For Contemporary Christianity in Ireland years ago, entitled "I Witness". It was based on the testimonies of various people that Jesus encounters in Luke's Gospel, with this piece being taken from Luke 7: 36-8: 3 . Man:      Although he insisted on associating with undesirables, we Pharisees didn’t wash our hands of him entirely… Various friends of mine invited him to their homes… But the rabble even followed him there… On one occasion a woman came into the banqueting room after the meal and knelt down at the bottom of his couch… She was bawling her eyes out… and with her kisses and her tears she washed his feet, before drying them with her hair and pouring perfume on them… It was disgusting… She was as good a...

HUGE backlog... so much so that when I went back to my list of links I couldn't think why for the life of me I would have wanted to pass some of them on... Ah well, such is the ephemeral nature of the interweb... But there is still a huge collection here... So I will keep my comments to a minimum and just throw them out there under a few broad headings... Some are, as the signpost says, useful, others merely funny, and just because I've put them up here doesn't mean I necessarily agree with everything in them... but they are worth thinking about or will at least give some of you a giggle... OBITS I said the last time that there would probably be lots of pieces on Seamus Heaney in my next Saturday Supplement following his sad demise. Sorry to disappoint. I only offer this one by Roy Foster in the O bserver, as well as another one from the Guardian the next day by Mark Lawson on David Frost who has gone to the great eternal interview...  SYRIA One of the areas ...