Ragamuffin ramblings

Matthew Chapter  5   6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,       for they will be filled. Blessed? This is much more than just the idea of happiness or fortune.  Another way of describing the word Makarios is, ‘God is with you’.   God is with the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst. Righteousness? But what is righteousness? If like me you’ve kind of hung around church circles for a while, you’ll have picked up the phrase that righteousness means ‘ right standing’ with God , which is true, it does, but it also carries within it a much broader picture.   Jesus follows in the footsteps of the prophets, who revealed that God’s number one desire is for everything that's been warped and twisted to be in its right place .    Hunger & thirst? Jesus says, God is with you who hunger and thirst for that kind of world.  But what does he...

You've heard the expression, 'the elephant in the room'.  It simply means  something important or that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to  discuss  because it makes (at least some) people uncomfortable or embarrassed. We've all been in those situations right?  Over the years I can recall all shapes and sizes of elephants, obvious and conspicuous in many diverse settings  The singers that can't actually sing, the man who started singing, "Love...love changes everything" during communion, the lady who would 'in the spirit' ride an imaginary stallion down the aisle. I can also recall more serious and more intimidating elephants that were ignored for fear of rocking the boat or looking foolish.  It's here that I want to focus in on.  I'm certain that along with preaching the good news, healing and redemption Jesus could have added the title 'Revealer of elephants.' Let's go back to Luke 15 ...

I left you last week wondering whether you'd recognise the post-resurrection me or in turn I you.  The feedback I had last week was encouraging and it genuinely boosted my belief that the Father was waking me out of my slumber.  Have you ever noticed though that during that fragile moment of birth and infancy there appears a voice, an opposition that would seek to snuff out  what has been given life? That voice isn't necessarily the accuser, the devil however, it does carry his DNA.  The voice I'm talking about is that inner voice called shame.  When you've made a mistake or been made to feel you've made a mistake you have to wrestle with feelings of guilt.  Shame is different, it acts in a more subtle but sinister way because shame says, 'You are a mistake.'   Guilt says you lied, shame declares you're a liar.  Guilt penetrates the heart, shame infects it leading to self-isolation and separation from sources of true lo...

The gospel, the good news message of Jesus, wasn't just preached by him but embodied by him.  It's message resonated with 3 clear images: death, burial and resurrection.   In our baptism we echo the same pattern and so too our discipleship leads us through the way of death, burial and resurrection - constantly! In so doing we become gospel as our lives repeatedly experience death and loss.  The searing pain of finality can be experienced through the burial of normality (Covid-19), a broken relationship, a lost job and even the deconstruction of some parts of our theology and practice. The burial is brutal because we are left with the empty finality of it.  Yet, even in the most bereft of burials there is a hope, though it maybe at its most diminished it is not yet extinguished, why?  Because even in Sheol, in the depths of hell, Christ has taken its keys so that the place of burial and loss is now under the realm and rulership o...

I've been enjoying the virtual, online services that my friend in Nottingham has been broadcasting each Sunday.   They have stirred the embers and sparked my spirit back to life and I look forward to soaking in thoughtful words through songs, scriptures and sermons.   During a recent sermon my friend Stephen quoted C.S.Lewis.  Nothing unusual there I hear you say, don't all preachers?  However, what made my internal radar lock onto this reading was that I had used it myself a few years earlier. " To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become  unb...

"A Disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Ever wondered what that phrase “ Fully trained ” meant?
 I had two theological degrees and a thriving ministry, I thought I knew.  In 2015 my world imploded and these words of Jesus were going to take on a whole new meaning. In the original language "fully trained" or  κατηρτισμενος (from καταρτιζω) meant to adjust, adapt, knit together, restore, or put in joint. The word was used by Greek medical writers to signify the repairing of a dislocated finger or joint. It meant to mend something and was applied to the broken nets that James and John were mending ( Matthew 4:21 ; Mark 1:19). “Everyone when he is fully mended/repaired will be like his teacher. ” There’s a journey that we go on when we follow Jesus, it’s a healing journey, a healing of the heart, where what was broken and damaged gets repaired.  Jesus wants us to be like him...whole, nothing hidden, ...