Quite often, Jesus talks about things that I don’t know much about. A man may have gone out to sow – but I know precious little about agriculture. A father may have said goodbye to a prodigal son but I know nothing about having a jealous brother. A young man may have been told not to look back from the plough – but my soft hands, have clearly never touched a plough in their life.
However in the Gospel today, Jesus does stray into an area where I know a thing or two.
He is talking about (more…)
As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.
One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).
In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.
Oofft.
I realised at during morning prayer yesterday that in the midst of Heathrow Hell, I had glimpsed a moment of the Christmas story. People were getting grumpy and cross with the airport staff, panic was starting to appear on faces belonging to those who knew they were not going to get home in time for…
The realisation dawns that my dog-collar shirts are mostly in transit. I have a small stock (that is, a stock, not a stock of other shirts – ie a thing, not a collection of things) which I can use stuffed beneath other garments to simulate the bedog-collared look but that lives in the realm of…
Well as of 9 am Thursday… The cat is in Cat Prison The car is in Edinburgh I am in Glasgow having escaped Heathrow Hell by booking a last-minute sleeper My luggage, last seen in Sweden may be in London, Edinburgh or pretty much anywhere. Still, all I need is a quite couple of days…
Many thanks to all those who chose to correspond on the subject of Advent Wreaths. For the record, we don’t have advent wreaths in Sweden, but rather a thingy (adventljus?) which places the four candles in a straight line. These may be decorated with green stuff but are more likely just to be metal. This…
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