What Do We Have to Offer God

‘I gave you a land you had not tilled and cities you had not built to dwell in.You have eaten of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’ So said the Lord to the Israelites, and so might He speak to us all. Everything we have: life, breath, family, hopes, dreams, loves, and every sort of gift and talent. God gave it all to us, all unearned. He gave it and He continues to give it day-by-day even when we're at our worst.

When we catch a glimpse of the immensity of God's gifts and how little we've done to earn them, our minds stumble. From the depths of our souls, we want to say thanks and give thanks, but how do we do that?

We shrug our shoulders and shake our heads. What do we have to give to God? Just one thing: the very gifts that God is giving us, we can give to His people. God is a good father and that's all He asks: ‘Carry your gifts to those of my children who need them.’

And we must respond: ‘I will, Lord. I will.’


Holy Father, May life grant us wellness of body, spirit, and mind. And in our moments of meaning, may we serve You, so that we may serve others, without restrictions. For each time we give, we give in Your name! Amen

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Faith Is Not A Crutch

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A Roadmap To Freedom

I asked a question of a friend today and I unintentionally ruffled some feathers. I certainly didn’t mean to – it was an honest question that I had not considered for some time; I asked whether American’s were still prohibited from travelling to certain countries - I particularly had Cuba in mind. The question, I believe was misinterpreted, which is a reflection of my fingers moving ahead of the pace of my brain. So my most sincere apology is offered at my breach of entente cordiale!

We Brits aren't noted for our fondness for rules and regulations. And anything that even hints of restraints on our freedoms engenders instant hostility and opposition.

We’re not alone in this aversion to being told what to do and how to live, no matter how gently or wisely it is done. I could only imagine the uproar if the Foreign & Commonwealth Office were to tell us that we were not ‘permitted’ to go wherever we jolly well please. They’re certainly good at advising us, and rightly so, but there’s no doubt a British National is probably sitting in about every corner of our great planet right now. And historically, I have not forgotten that America’s birth came as a result of our forefathers' attempts to control and regulate the people.

Nor did Jesus come to impose another set of rules, but to help us understand that there's only one way of living that really works. There’s only one way of living that will fill all our hearts’ desires by putting us at peace with God and one another. But, no matter what Jesus said or how He said it, far too many of His listeners resisted Him. If He said ‘black,’ they’d say ‘white,’ and the sniping was continual.

In Isaiah, the Lord pleads with us: ‘If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river.’ God’s commandments aren’t a kind of arbitrary obstacle course that we have to survive in order to arrive at the Promised Land. They simply tell us how to live if we want to be happy and live in peace.

The commandments are God’s gift to us. They have in them an inner truth, and they give us a roadmap to true freedom.

Oh, if we could only listen to that inner truth, find a deeper wisdom, and be set free!

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Our Father, grant to us peace in this coming week. Throughout the day reveal Your will to us. And teach us to treat all that comes to us with peace of soul and love in our hearts. In unforeseen events, let us not forget that all are sent by You. Amen

From The Inside Out

I was reading through Deuteronomy last night and came across a curious metaphor: ‘Circumcise your hearts,’ it says. So what does this mean?

The rite of circumcision was instituted in Moses’ time, and it was the means by which male infants became members of God's people. This cutting away was an indelible sign that a man had accepted God's covenant and was a member of His people.

But this was an outward sign, and that wasn't enough. Look to the inside, said the Lord. Look to your heart, the core of your being. That's where the cutting away has to happen. Cut away whatever there is in you that could cut you off from God or His people. It's the ultimate form of open-heart surgery that God is asking of us.

So what is there in us that's cutting us off from God or the people He loves? What fears or habits, or ways of thinking and living may be stealing the real essence of life away from us and keeping us from the full, rich lives that He intends for us?

It’s always easier for us to look at others and judge, but it’s near impossible to stand naked before a mirror and look at ourselves. What others can see in us, we’re often the last to see.

If we trust in God’s love of us, we can look, we can see, and we can take that shrunken, misshapen part of our heart and give it to Him. And when it happens, you will feel the freshness and the renewed power within!

Give it up to God and don't take it back!

He IS our hope and strength.

The Best Waitress In The World

Fast Tracks To Hell

Go Ahead Take Your Best Shot

Anger

The Punishment Is Worth The Reward

My mobile rang at ten till three this morning. It was the girl my daughter and I went to see on Sunday. I was trying to wake up enough to make sense of what she was saying. Her rambling, mumbling words said that someone she had ‘met’ had come to her flat to ‘visit’ her and now he wouldn’t leave and would I come help.

I snapped to enough to realise what she was saying. ‘No,’ was my response. We had already discussed these issues before and I reminded her of what I’d said; that she is ‘wholly accountable for her own actions.’ She responded in a raised voice ‘I swear on my son’s life we weren’t doing anything.’ My immediate reply; ‘that’s precisely what this involves – your son’s life.’ I was going to continue by reminding her that each time she placed herself at risk it would further prohibit her from being able to see her son. But I didn’t get far enough to say this to her. She had slammed the phone down on me.

There's a familiar old saying that says, 'No good deed goes unpunished.' St Paul gives ample testimony to the truth of that axiom. He was doing his very best to share the Good News, travelling all over the Mediterranean, working long days, writing endless letters, and supporting himself by working part-time as a tent maker. His one hope was to help transform people's lives in a healthier and happier direction, but what he got in return, as often as not, was hostility and ingratitude.

There's more than an historical value in his life story, because our own lives inevitably contain some of the same kinds of experiences. Whether in our families or elsewhere, we set out with the best of intentions and do our best, but too often reap nothing but indifference or grief.

It was always thus, so we'd better decide how to respond to such experiences when they come. One option, of course, is simply to disengage and walk away. But that wasn't Paul's choice. Because he believed in what he was doing, he kept doing it, whether he got the kudos or not. That's what it means to care deeply and to be faithful.

It will help a lot to keep Paul's way of living and loving in mind. He got it straight from Jesus.



Holy Lord, may we know that it is the journey that is important. May we never give up on reaching out to others. Help us to see each other through spirit and not through worldly eyes. In Your name we pray. Amen

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Anglicans

It's So Easy To Judge Others

On Sunday afternoon my daughter and I went to visit a girl who is suffering from drug addiction. She’s in that ‘no man’s land’ period whilst she desperately tries to remain off drugs as her doctor tries to find an available bed in a facility. We brought her a cooked meal and provided a few minutes of time to let her talk.

To see her on the streets, our typical human instinct would be to ‘steer clear’ and to keep our head down as we passed her by. It’s much easier that way, isn’t it? We simply judge and dismiss without knowing the facts.

But what happens when the same girl makes a tentative and brave step into a church for the first time? Christianity’s well-washed, impeccably dressed, and neatly manicured, who have gathered for their Sunday service do little more than offer nervous fleeting smiles, fidget with their hymnals, and look the other way. And sometimes, the same happens when someone arrives who simply looks or dresses differently. The clear message, whether intended or not, is 'go away, this isn't the place for you!'

We’d all be quick to defend our churches and say ‘that wouldn’t happen in our church.’ I do hope this is true. But the bigger churches and church institutions become the more chance there is for the creation of an insular atmosphere.

One of the more desirable consequences of growing a little older is that at least some of us begin to develop a greater awareness of our own faults and limitations, and stop projecting them onto other people as often as we did in our youth.

So when we read in the Gospels about the Pharisees berating Jesus’ disciples for pulling off and nibbling heads of grain as they walk through the fields, we perhaps can restrain our instincts to go for the jugular.

No doubt about it, it was both foolish and frankly suspect to call so trivial an act a serious violation of the Sabbath’s no-work rule, but before we rush to judgment, we might want to inspect our own record.

With what frequency do we focus on trivia in our dealings with one another? An eccentric mannerism may entitle some poor soul to our ridicule or worse. A modest physical defect may put someone else permanently outside the circle of our love and concern. And a human soul that has very clearly hit life’s bottom can repulse our senses.

Jesus had a magnanimous heart and a great spirit. He always knew what mattered and what didn’t, and He always found room in His life for one more of us, no matter how small or wounded or lost we were.

May our minds and hearts grow as large as His!

O Lord, grant me the will to greet the coming day in peace. In all my deeds and words, guide my thoughts and feelings. In unforeseen events, let me never forget the teachings of Your Son. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others and always with compassion and love, never judging. And may I never forget that all who walk this earth are Your children and are made in Your image. Amen.

When We're Needed Most

The Power of Words

The Children's Story

Forgiving Our Debtors

This year’s G8 summit doesn’t appear to be riding on a wave of achievements. The press call with Presidents Bush and Putin, despite offering a glimmer of hope, showed stiff and uncompromising body language.

The evolving crisis with North Korea and the potentially more dangerous events between Israel and Hezbollah have created edginess throughout the world. And despite whatever rhetoric we hear, Iraq appears to be rapidly slipping into anarchy.

Indeed, our world leaders have a full dance card this year. And our prayers for them are needed.

But there is still unfinished business to be addressed, like the debts owed by the world’s poorest countries. In addition to paying off their own eleven billion dollar debt, President Putin says Russia is now willing to forgive the debts of the world's sixteen poorest nations.

In Christian thinking, what really matters about a debt is not the amount, but the damage it does to the relationship between the lender and the borrower. Debt creates dependency. Worse than that, it can lead to the debtor becoming dehumanised in the eyes of the donor.

That's exactly what had happened in Israel in the eighth century BC. And that's why God, speaking through the prophet Amos, was so enraged by the maltreatment of the poor.

’For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge.’

The comment about ‘garments taken in pledge’ is a reference to the way that debts were secured. A debtor handed over his cloak to the lender as security.

But the law said that the coat had to be given back before nightfall, come what may, to keep the debtor safe and warm through the night. Keep the coat, and you have the power of life and death over another human being.

Soon you may think of yourself as better than them. Give the coat back, and in the release of the debt, the sacredness of your common humanity is affirmed and celebrated.

Indeed, it's time to give Africa its coat back.

I bind my heart this tide
To the Galilean’s side
To the wounds of Calvary
To the Christ who died for me

I bind my heart in thrall
To the God the Lord of all
To the God, the poor one's friend
And the Christ whom He did send

I bind my soul this day
To the neighbour far away
And the stranger near at hand
In this town and in this land
Amen ................ Amos 2:6-8

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Are You Playing Follow-The-Leader?

Several years ago I went on a 3-hour bicycling tour of the back streets of Budapest. Traffic in Budapest is frenetic at its best. But on bicycles we had to deal with hordes of people, conflicting traffic signs and vehicles that I’d swear were intentionally aiming for us. But the most challenging part of the tour was our guide.

I was certain his full-time job was as one of Budapest’s infamous taxi drivers. He led us the wrong way along one-way streets, through red traffic lights, in and out of fast moving traffic, and up pedestrian-packed passages, sending people flying in all directions. Although I knew the centre of the city quite well, I was completely lost in where he had taken us. So we tried to stick to him like glue, fearful of losing the one person who professed to know the way.

It was some time before we finally switched our brains, as well as our bikes, into gear and began to cycle more intelligently, ever more confidently distancing ourselves from what our guide was doing. But I must admit, the sense of constantly being lost and misguided was, at best, uncomfortable.

I suspect that it's a similar sense of ‘lost-ness’ in a chaotic and increasingly uncertain world that motivates many people to follow unintelligent dogmatic ideologies - religious, political or otherwise - that profess to know ‘the way.’

As the schism continues to grow within the Anglican Communion, we see numerous splinter groups developing, professing to hold true to the Gospels, as well as to the recommendations of the Windsor Report. Some are indeed adhering to the canons of The Church. Others, however, possibly enticed by the opportunity to vest themselves and to build their own fiefdom, appear to have little or no understanding of canonical law and in some instances the very fundamentals of theology.

The irony of it all is that these newly forming ‘Anglican’ communities promulgate the very division that the Windsor report sought to repair.

In St Matthew’s Gospel Jesus teaches that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and that those who follow the hard way are few. In the light of my experience in Budapest, I suspect that’s because few of us are prepared to live with the insecurity, questions, and possibility of getting utterly lost that marks the narrow gate and hard way of wisdom.

Easier by far to follow someone else who claims to know the way, even if it is potentially destructive to ourselves and to those whose paths we cross without warning.

Intent on following our leader we may never get our own bearings, and when, as we did in Budapest, we finally discover that the guide in whom we’d placed so much faith doesn't know the way either, the shock can be severe and lasting.


Oh God of Wisdom, help us to hold to the narrow path, to think for ourselves, to feel compassion for others, to be aware of what happens around us, and to move with grace as we unwind the way before us. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen

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Dodging Salvos

Anglican Prayers

Packaging Can Be Important...But

From my young adulthood I have diligently pursued my spiritual life. There were events early in my life-journey that left me bereft of emotion but with a strong desire to 'know' more about God in my life, as well as my own spirituality.

And as I grew both emotionally and spiritually, there were aspects of religion I found to be fascinating and attractive; the history and music, the philosophical cut and thrust, the ecclesiastical politics and the liturgical traditions and events. But over the years I came to realise that all these things can also become a distraction - a kind of packaging: the true reality of faith is hidden deep inside.

Packaging can be important, but if there is nothing worthwhile inside it's a waste of time. More and more people I meet seem to feel disenchanted about organised religion. Surveys tell us and people often say, 'I'm not religious but I am a believer.' Now, as I've matured over these years, I can say that I better understand what they mean.

Whether it's a deep-seated human instinct or just a kind of cultural itch, people obviously feel the need to try and make sense of their existence.

There are so many questions we can ask about the universe and our life within it. Also many people who stand apart from organised religion find innocent suffering difficult to accept. Why does it happen? And apart from these questions, in the face of life's random challenges sometimes, it seems all we can do is pray.

Certainly the traditions and structures of our Church can be helpful, but there is danger that we can promote it as a substitute for reality. Faith embraces so much more. It is not confined to what happens within the physical walls of the church, what we wear, how we’re vested, or what titles we hold; it has to do with the whole of life.

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Lord in Heaven, may we be diligent in our pilgrimage of faith: may we not reject the things we do not understand, but also not allow unimportant details to keep us from our understanding of Your love and compassion for all Your children and our dedication to serving You and all You love. Amen

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I'm A Worker Bee

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When We Cry Out To Him

The only piece of the Airbus A-310 aircraft that failed to burn was its tail, when Sibir Airlines flight 778 crashed at Irkutsk’s airport this morning. The aircraft overshot the runway, crashing into a wall and bursting into flames, as it collapsed between two storage warehouses. Like an instant memorial to the disaster, the only visible remainder of the aircraft is the blue tail bearing the airline’s logo.

Many of the passengers were children, heading for their holidays at Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake. Witnesses described seeing children, engulfed in flames, trying to escape from the wreckage. As of this writing, the death count has risen to 120.

The horror of this accident, as we imagine the last terrifying moments of this fateful flight, obscures the fact that millions of people fly everyday, in thousands of planes safely and without incident. But this tragedy and every other similar tragedy challenges anybody who's ever prayed - and that's probably most of us, since praying isn't limited to ‘signed-up’ believers.

What was God thinking as He heard the pleas of these and other terrified victims? And for those of us, who've ever felt that God has, from time to time, answered our own prayers, we're in the double bind of explaining why He came to our aid and not to theirs. Our doubts are fuelled by having a picture of God dwelling in some trouble-free paradise watching us sweating it out on this war-torn earth.

Jesus said ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to earth without the Father.’ It could invoke the vision of God himself falling from the skies to the earth to suffer alongside all His creatures. That’s a very different picture from the one of God as the detached problem-solver.

An experienced mother once told me that she reckoned she’d had her appendix out four times; Once for herself and once for each of her children. Such is the power of empathy, the power of compassionate imagination you can so identify with someone you love that you feel the pain yourself.

If God is able to identify so strongly with all His creatures, then in a sense He must never be without pain. Far from inhabiting a trouble-free paradise, He must be totally and always acquainted with our grief and sorrows. Which is the state in which we find Him when we turn to Him in prayer.

Christians and others long for that day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes, when death will be no more and mourning and crying and pain will be things of the past. If we, who suffer from time to time, long for this, how much more must God, who we believe carries the suffering of the whole world, ache for such a day.

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Blessed are thy Saints, O God, who have travelled over the tempestuous sea of this mortal life. Watch over us who are still in our dangerous voyage. Frail is our vessel and the ocean is wide. Steer us Lord towards the shore of peace and safety. Grant peace to all who ask in Your name. Amen

When We're Needed Most

Bereavement Death ChildDeath

Anglicans Anglican Prayers

Breaking The Cycle of Violence

On this day a year ago, I stood with countless others outside King's Cross Station and prayed.

At the time, some thirty meters below, bodies were still being removed from the hell of the Piccadilly line. Posters of the lost - images of ordinary people, smiling and happy, were taped to the back of a nearby bus shelter. The ticket clerk summed up the feelings of many: ‘I hope they find them and string them up.’ As a priest, I just couldn’t agree. But I nodded back nonetheless. His words were the authentic voice of an anger that I couldn't deny, even in myself.

So what am I to do with Jesus’ commandment to love our enemies? After all, it’s one of the central commandments of the Christian faith. You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you... if anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other also.’ What can it mean to speak of forgiveness in a situation such as this? Is it not an insult to the dead to speak too quickly and too cheaply about forgiving those who have murdered them?

I wonder, however, whether the real problem is that we have misunderstood a great deal about what forgiveness means because we have over-sentimentalised it. For we all too often think about forgiveness as coming to have warm and affectionate feelings for those who have done some terrible harm.

Now if this is forgiveness, I'm with the ticket clerk - for a sentimental rendition of forgiveness is surely an emotional impossibility for most of us, and worst still, comes close to the moral outrage of pretending that wickedness is acceptable. The sentimental model consequently turns the religious into pious frauds and offers others a convenient alibi to avoid the challenge that real forgiveness presents.

Jesus suggests something very different. Forgiveness is a means of breaking the endless wheel of revenge, violence being answered by yet more violence, which, in turn, provokes yet more. That's the problem with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - it responds to one outrage by repeating it and thus perpetuating the cycle. Not only that, but those who respond in kind end up reflecting their enemies. All we have to do is look at the past weeks’ mounting crisis between Israel and Palestine to see this in action.

Those who think that the best response to the horror of the bombings is to torch a Mosque or beat up Muslims become a mirror image of the criminals that they hate.

Turning the other cheek is therefore a form of defiance, a refusal to answer back in the same language, a refusal of the idea that the only way to answer violence and terror is with more of the same. Our anger may cry out for a satisfying show of strength, for getting even - but it's only ever peace that will finally honour the dead.

And today, as our nation came to a standstill, to honour those who lost their lives in this needless tragedy, our prayers must continue.

God of Salvation, liberate our hearts from the deadening memory created by hatred and the desire for revenge. Bless us with memory, which inspires and guides us to find forgiveness. By your Spirit, let us always be Your servants, bringing good news, healing, freedom and comfort. Bless those who start their travel to work in fear this week. Protect them. Give comfort to all who have suffered and have lost loved ones from this needless tragedy. Give patient strength to all who survived and have struggled so much over the past year. And Lord, in Your mercy, bring clarity and love to those who may be contemplating an act of hurting others, that their lives may be filled with a purpose of kindness instead. In Your name we pray. Amen

I'm Just Too Perfect For Words

When a boss is at a dead end with an employee, it can inspire some real eloquence. Here are a few samples of frustrated bosses' evaluations of their less than competent employees that appeared on a humour website:

1) This employee doesn’t have both his oars in the water.
2) If he were any more passive, we'd have to water him twice a week.
3) When she opens her mouth, it's only to change feet.
4) Some people drink from the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, he gargles.
5) He is depriving some village of an idiot.
6) It takes her an hour and a half to watch ‘60 Minutes.’
7) And finally: I thought this country outlawed genetic research.

We can only imagine what those employees must have been like. Yet there's not one of us who hasn’t merited a similar evaluation at some time or other. Not one of us! How can that be? We're smart, well motivated, and good-hearted.

It's the mystery that we face every day of our lives, as we look at ourselves, our children, our spouses, our friends! How can such good people strive so hard and still screw up so badly? It's the human condition: God made us good, but we're just not done yet — not near done.

That’s not the best of news! But if we come to terms with it, we know what we have to do: Forget the word ‘perfect’ forever! There is no perfect husband, wife, child, friend, or in-law. No perfect marriage, no perfect family, no perfect anything — and there never will be. So what are we going to do with the messy reality of life, with all the loose ends and gravelly parts of our relationships — all the stuff that frustrates and makes us angry?

Jesus showed us what to do. He had a very clear fix on every one of the people around Him. He knew that Peter was something of a blowhard, but He saw something more in him. He knew Judas was a thief, but He saw something more in him too. So Jesus focused on that ‘something more.’ He walked with them both, and day-by-day and tried to bring out the good in them — it was there in both. With Peter He succeeded in drawing it out. With Judas He failed.

That’s all that Jesus asks of us as we struggle with the frustrations of our own weaknesses and those of our spouses, kids, and friends. Instead of attacking or ridiculing or walking away from them, focus on that ‘something more’ in them.

Walk with them, gently, as Jesus walked with His people. Walk patiently as Jesus walks with you and me. We owe it to them, precisely because Jesus is doing it for us every day.

The marvel is that as we walk with people and leave our judgments and verdicts behind, they’ll get better — slowly. They’ll get better because we’re walking with them and hoping in them. And, almost miraculously, we’ll get better too.

So let us walk kindly and humbly, remembering our own endless need for forgiveness and understanding. Hope and healing are the gifts we have to give. Let us give them with understanding hearts!



Compassionate God; lead us to find the clarity, to see beyond the surface, and to find beauty in every person we meet. Help us to set aside our own petty judgements so that we may always find good in everyone we meet. For when we see weakness in others, we fail to remember our own. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen

Life's A Struggle

Not so long ago, when computers were not half as smart as they are today, a group of experts developed a computer program to translate texts from one language to another. After extensive work, they were sure they had it right, so they typed in the very first text ever to be translated by a computer. It was a familiar text from scripture: ‘The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’

Without a moment's hesitation, the computer printed out the translation, which read as follows: ‘The liquor's still good, but the meat's gone bad.’

Life is a struggle, from beginning to end, and few things ever come easy. At the beginning of life we strain hard to stand upright without anybody holding onto us. At the end of life we're back to the very same task. And in between, the struggles are laid end to end: raising kids, making a marriage, finding our life's work, taking care of those who need us, becoming faithful friends, finding the money to do what needs to be done.

A lot of struggling is done right out there in plain view. But the real struggle is always inside us: the struggle with fear which is always there whispering in our ear, ‘Don't get in too deep; you might lose or get hurt. Save your strength for later.’

At every fork in the road, fear tells us not to invest: in this moment, or in this person, or in whatever is at hand because there's no guarantee we'll win, no guarantee that our kids will be good, that our spouse will be faithful, or that our good work will bear fruit. ‘No guarantee,’ says that evil little voice inside, ‘so, stand pat; sit on your hands. Better safe than sorry.’

Jesus responds to that lying little voice with a warning: ‘Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’

God has given every one of us some very clear life assignments. They're spelled out in our gifts and in the circumstances of our lives. Will we accept God's assignments and do the important work He's given us? Will we succeed in building our piece of His Kingdom? Only if we invest everything we've got — for the long term. But by ourselves that's impossible, because our fears are just too great.

However, we do have an alternative, and that is to look straight into our Lord's eyes — there on the cross — and ask ourselves if He can be trusted. The answer is so obvious. The cross says it all. So, trust Him! Invest your whole heart in every moment. And remember that, in the end, the only absolutely safe and sure investment in all the world is working as His full time partner. You can count on it!


Try me, O God, and search the ground of my heart: prove me and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any wickedness in me, any root of bitterness yet undiscovered; and lead me in the way everlasting life. And lead me to serve the glory of Your name. For it is in You that our life springs eternal. Amen

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Faith Is Not A Crutch

What It Means To Be A Priest

The Childrens Story

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