Virtual Methodist

Thought I would take another short break from my current strand of posts to offer something more appropriate for Fathers' Day, but I haven't written anything new. But in trawling through my back catalogue I found this piece from pre-Facebook days, which I had completely forgotten. It is a straightforward contemporary retelling of the Parable of the Prodigal/2 sons. Given that I am sidestepping the Lectionary this morning and preaching from this story at a baptism and the focus of our President David Nixon on "God’s Lavish Love " as portrayed in this passage, I thought it was worth a tidy-up and reblog.  Jesus : There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Son 2 : Hey Da!, Since it seems like you’re ne’er gonna die, gi’es my slice of the inheritance now, would ye!?' Jesus : Surprisingly, the man divided all he owned between his 2 sons. But not long after that, the younger son packed his gear, and headed off across the sheugh and...

For various reasons I haven't watched much of the Jubilee coverage but I did see th is wonderful anecdote by a former close protection officer of the Queen, Richard Griffin , about a time when she went unrecognised by some American tourists near Balmoral. It made me laugh. H e has clearly told this story on a previous occasion or two , understandably, but I hadn't read or heard it before. But it also chimed with a story I told at our Jubilee service in Copelands on Thursday about "The King in Disguise". This was based on the ancient trope of monarchs/princes going out in disguise (like Henry V in the run up to Agincourt in the Shakespeare play, as pictured in a 2015 RSC production) to see what life is like for their people. This seemingly has happened in real life relatively recently  BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Jordan's king of disguise . I told it  together with the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 and Mother Teresa's description of the poor as Je...

This is a slight departure from my proposed series in Holden Village, but this morning my friend Father Martin Magill asked me to contribute to the "First Thoughts" series he has developed for the Parish of St. John the Evangelist over on the Falls Road, offering daily reflections on the Gospel reading from the Catholic Daily Lectionary. This morning it just happened to be Matthew 13: 18-23, Jesus' "explanation" of the Parable of the Sower, so it seemed appropriate to include it here. Normally when I do a "Thought for the Day" or even my Sunday sermon I prepare a relatively tight script to avoid me disappearing off on tangents... But this morning, as per my brief from Martin I performed without the benefit of such a safety net... so these are my unexpurgated first thoughts.   Selah

"The Red Vineyards near Arles" Vincent Van Gogh (1988) Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow Returning to stories firmly set in the agrarian setting of 1st century Palestine, the theory was that today at Holden Village I would be looking at the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard later in Matthew's Gospel, under the title of "First Century Socialism?" with the "s-word" always an interesting one in the context of the USA. For a change the dramatic introduction I planned to use would not be a new piece but one I wrote for my friend Micky Youngson's installation as President of the Methodist Church in Great Britain that year (hence MCGB News), and if I can crank my old computer into gear I may post the video we recorded for the event. ps. I'm back to using Van Gogh images to illustrate, having failed to find an appropriate one for yesterday's Parable of the Leaven. This one "The Red Vineyards near Arles", was painted in autumn 1888 ...

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...

We're celebrating "Home Mission" Sunday a week late in Belfast South Methodist, but as part of it we are exploring what loving our neighbour means for us seeking to love our neighbourhood on the Lisburn Road... As part of that we are trying to hear what Jesus said in a story based on another road 2000 years ago. I originally wrote the following dialogue, which we will be using this morning, for the "Connexions on a Journey Event" at the 2004 Methodist Church in Ireland Conference in Dublin, as a partner piece to the " Companions on a Journey " poem I have recently reposted. I went back to find this dialogue and discovered that it got a whole 2 hits the first time I posted it... It's probably due a reblog... Voice 1:  A lesson on the road… Voice 2:  A dangerous road… Voice 1:  A difficult lesson… Voice 2:  One which we haven’t learned 2000 years later… Voice 1:  What must we do to inherit eternal life… Voice 2:  That’s easy “Love the L...

My life is measured out in words... words typed on a computer keyboard... words spoken from a pulpit or stage or over the airwaves... words arranged in huge blocks of prose or shaped into carefully crafted poetry... words thrown across a room like weapons... and words read from a page or screen. Recently I've been reading some of the wise words of Eugene Peterson in "The Contemplative Pastor" and they have sparked off a veritable torrent of words in my mind on this blog... I've already written, among other things, on the role of parable not only in communicating ideas but stimulating communion. Peterson himself, where he is writing of the creative word of God says: "Not all words create. Some merely communicate. They explain, report, describe, manage, inform, regulate. We live in an age obsessed with communication. Communication is good but a minor good. Knowing about things never has seemed to improve our lives a great deal. The pastoral task with words in...

Following on from yesterday and  Peterson's   comments on the subversive power of parable, his comments on subversion itself are worth noting: "Three things are implicit in subversion. One, the status quo is wrong and must be overthrown if the world is going to be livable. It is so deeply wrong that repair work is futile. The world is, in the word insurance agents use to designate our wrecked cars, totaled.  Two, there is another world aborning that is livable. Its reality is no chimera. It is in existence, though not visible. Its character is known. The subversive does not operate out of a utopian dream but out of a conviction of the nature of the real world. Three, the usual means by which one kingdom is thrown out and another put in its place — military force or democratic elections — are not available. If we have neither a preponderance of power nor a majority of votes, we begin searching for other ways to effect change. We discover the methods of subversion...

In his book " The Contemplative Pastor " (I'm only 20% of my way through this so there's plenty more to come on this strand) Peterson says: “Jesus’ favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. Parables sound absolutely ordinary: casual stories about soil and seeds, meals and coins and sheep, bandits and victims, farmers and merchants. And they are wholly secular: of his forty or so parables recorded in the Gospels, only one has its setting in church, and only a couple mention the name God. As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren’t about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded!... Parables subversively slip past o...

I loved Jackanory as a child - for those who are not from these shores or my generation, it was a piece of cheap TV for children where a "celebrity" read a story every afternoon for about 15 minutes, over a period of a week. Well following on from my reflections on Brueggeman's "Prophetic Imagination" a couple of days ago, I've been prompted to think about the importance and power of story, not just for entertaining children, but to bring about change. Part of that was a result of another book I was reading "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, which, for those who haven't read the book or seen the film, is about a young white woman in the early 1960s collating the stories of black maids in the epicentre of segregationism, Jackson, Mississippi. I've posted reviews of both the book and film on facebook recently (via Goodreads and Flixster respectively) and in the review of the film I explored, briefly, how the book was not only shortened but a...

This Sunday those who follow the lectionary will travel down that well worn road from Jerusalem to Jericho in the company of the so-called " Good Samaritan ". What follows is a short excerpt from a longer show entitled "I Witness" which I wrote a number of years ago for New Irish Arts . It looks at this all too familiar story through the eyes of Simon, the Samaritan who had suffered from leprosy before Jesus healed him and nine others, and Jacob, a Pharisee. Simon: Jesus healed me of leprosy… But he didn’t heal me easily of my prejudices… I was still suspicious of Jews… Just as Jews are of us… Jacob: I have nothing against Samaritans… as individuals… But they are heretics… sadly misguided… Simon: Even his disciples didn’t like us much… Apparently on one occasion, some of my countrymen weren’t very hospitable to them on the way to Jerusalem , and they were all for calling down fire from heaven to wipe the offending village off the map… I never heard they so keen t...

A sketch for children requiring 2 readers, 2 builders, 4 children acting as “walls” for the wise builders house, all the same size with small umbrellas, 4 “walls” for the not so wise builders house, of various sizes with napkins, 2-4 children acting as “rainclouds” armed with water pistols. Reader 1: There was once a wise builder… Builder 1: Good morning! Reader 2: And a not so wise builder Builder 2: Bout ye! Reader 1: And one day Reader 2: Both of them decided to build a house Reader 1: The wise builder studied the plans Reader 2: Tested the ground carefully Reader 1: And dug the foundations deep down on to solid rock Reader 2: He built slowly and carefully with the best of materials Reader 1: Because he wanted his house to last Reader 2: Meanwhile the not so wise builder Reader 1: Got started as quickly as he could Reader 2: He built his house on a nice level piece of sandy ground Reader 1: And he used anything he could get his hands on Reader 2: So he could get finished as soon as ...

Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead.... a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' Luke 10:30, 33-35 (ANIV) Its a good job that the Samaritan didn't have to cope with privatised health provision or 2 silver coins wouldn't have been enough. According to the Sunday Times last weekend, German driver Resul Mor was flagged down by a man who asked him to take his desperately ill wife to hospital in Hamburg. On arrival hospital staff asked Herr Mor...

A lot of ink and its virtual equivalent has been expended the credit crunch recently... and, from a Christian perspective, what the church's response should be... I've been reflecting on it myself recently with my own congregation as we have encountered pertinent passages in the lectionary... It is remarkable how this liturgical tool provides us with appropriate resources for contextual preaching if we are willing to work with it... For example in its recent meander through Matthew's Gospel we have had: The parable of the workers in the vineyard... which we often see as a parable of the one-size fits all grace of God, but which involves a situation where the employers employment practice involved promising and paying everyone a living wage regardless of the work they had done. The justice was not in paying proportional to work done, but according to need. (Matthew 20: 1-16) The passage where Jesus instructs us to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but to God what is Gods....

With my first Sunday "off" since arriving in Grand Rapids, it was our first chance as a family to worship in the Shed, which, for those in the know, is the Sunday meeting place of Mars Hill Bible Church ... the Rob Bell one... You know... NOOMA ... Velvet Elvis... Sex God etc., not the Mark Driscoll one in Seattle... Don't, whatever you do, ever get them mixed up... Rob hasn't been there all summer so I didn't get the chance to meet up... I had planned to mosey across a few weeks ago when Walter Brueggeman was speaking, but something else came up and I couldn't... So that is why I was particularly keen to take this final chance to experience Sunday in the Shed. And a Shed it is. A big warehouse space with 2000-odd seats arranged around a central raised platform. There is nothing... Absolutely NOTHING, that marks this out as particularly sacred space... And the build up to worship doesn't help that... There was a distinct lack of welcome (indeed the only gu...

I am a huge fan of Dr. Seuss... The sad thing is that my boys are now at the age where they are putting such chidlish things behind them... So I'll have to wait another 20 years or so until I unearth them again... I have used a couple of them in various ways within talks and church events in the past, and have previously blogged a version for 2 voices, but I have never attempted to discern an overarching "Seussian Theology". However, Robert Short, tired of mining the Peanuts cartoons for theological nuggets, has, and has just published "The Parables of Dr. Seuss" which seems to read FAR too much into them (just as he did in his former books). When will people learn that good parables (e.g. those told by a certain carpernter from Nazareth) are generally metaphorical, NOT direct analogies, and are to be inhabited and appropriated by the reader!? Sorry, just got side-tracked into a litero-philosophical rant... The reason I was posting was to direct fellow Seuss fa...

At the end of this month I am heading off to the US on 5 week exchange programme with Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Hayes from Grand Rapids in Michigan, and one of the things I have been at pains to explain to him is the colossal price of fuel here… Americans are worried about it being just under $4 a gallon there, whereas it is thought that is may top the equivalent of $13 per gallon here by the end of the summer. So I hope his heart doesn’t give out when he finds that it might cost him as much as $140-150 to fill up my car… Now for the sake of the planet we could probably do with burning less oil… But the world as we currently know and enjoy it is entirely dependent upon petro-chemicals… And its increasing price is creating huge waves right across society. Airlines are going out of business or putting enormous fuel supplements on pre-booked flights… Lorry drivers are protesting because the rising costs may cripple their industry too… causing knock-on effects at the supermarkets, who have essenti...

Preaching on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (again) and I dug out this dialogue I wrote for the Connexions on a Journey Event at the 2004 Methodist Church in Ireland Conference in Dublin. It was actually a partner piece to the " Companions on a Journey " poem I posted earlier. Voice 1: A lesson on the road… Voice 2: A dangerous road… Voice 1: A difficult lesson… Voice 2: One which we haven’t learned 2000 years later… Voice 1: What must we do to inherit eternal life… Voice 2: That’s easy “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;” and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Voice 1: Correct! Eternal life to the smart alec on my right! Voice 2: But who is my neighbour? Voice 1: That’s typical of the breakdown in a sense of community in the world today… Imagine not knowing your own neighbour… Voice 2: No seriously… Who do I have to love? Voice 1: Who do you have to love? Th...

Jesus: There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, Son 2: Hey Da!, Since it seems like you’re ne’er gonna die, gi’es my slice of the inheritance now, would ye!?' Jesus: Surprisingly, the man divided all he owned between his 2 sons. But not long after that, the younger son packed his gear, and headed off across the sheugh and blew the lot on having a high old time. But just when he had spent his very last penny, a recession set in, so that the whole country was looking for work to put food on the table... So, in desperation he went and got himself a job with a local yokel who sent him out to look after his pigs. A great job for a good Jewish boy. But there he was sitting in the slurry with the pigs… Looking at the pigswill with longing in his eyes and a rumbling in his stomach. At last he woke up and realized how stupid he had been: Son 2: What on earth am I doing? How many people of the people who work for my Da have more food than they can eat, yet ...