Last after Trinity

Jeremiah 31:7-9 and Hebrews 7:23-28 and Mark 10:46-52

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:46-52

Jericho. The oldest walled city on earth. A place that knows what it is to wait, at times defeated, thrown down, waiting decades, even centuries, to be restored. In classical antiquity, it was the Las Vegas of its day, the playground of the rich and powerful; a city of mixed fortunes. Alexander the Great made Jericho his own private estate. Later, it came into the hands of Roman triumvir Mark Anthony, who gave it as a gift to his lover Cleopatra. When they were defeated by Mark Anthony’s fellow triumvir and former brother-in-law Octavian, Octavian, now styling himself Emperor Augustus, passed control of the city to Herod the Great, who spent his summers there, and had his brother-in-law drowned in the palace swimming pool during a party thrown by his mother-in-law. What happens in ‘the City of Palms’ – as they might say – stays in ‘the City of Palms’…

Sitting in the dust by the side of the road that leaves Jericho to climb up out of the lowest point on the surface of the earth, up, up to Jerusalem far above, a blind beggar. This man, too, knows what it is to wait. He is dependent on the fortunes of others. He waits, hoping that someone has been lucky at the gaming tables, and might share that good fortune with a beggar on his way home. ‘There but for the grace of God go I’, and all that. He waits, hoping that no one has had such a wretched visit that they might rob a blind man just in order not to go home empty handed. Bartimaus sits, and waits.

Who knows how many blind beggars there are out there in their own private darkness? This one has a name. Bartimeaus, son of Timeaus. That is Timaeus’ son, the son of Timaeus. As in, McGregor, the son of Gregor. Or, O’Connor, the son of Connor. Why name Bartimaeus twice? To what is our attention being drawn? ‘Bar’- is the Jewish ‘son of’. ‘Timaeus’ is a Greek name. Bartimaeus – the Jewish son of a Gentile father, or grandfather. The Jews had been called out, from all the peoples of the earth, in order that through them all the peoples might be blessed. This one man restates that call: the Jew, called out from the Gentiles, but remaining intimately connected to them. A child, a blessing to his father. And yet, at some point in his story, there has been the tragedy of losing his sight, of moving from the place where Bartimaeus can act to bless his father, to the place where Bartimaeus is dependent on the blessings bestowed on, and by, others.

In the dust by the road out of Jericho, Bartimaeus sits and waits, day after day. Then, one day, Jesus passes through the city gates. Jesus of Nazareth, they called him. But Bartimaeus calls him something different. The Son of Timaeus calls him Son of David. Why? Perhaps because a descendant of King David – whose grandmother and great-grandmother were both Gentiles; indeed, whose Gentile great-grandmother came from Jericho – might understand what it meant to be Bar-Timaeus? Or perhaps because a Son – an heir – of David knows what it is to wait. You see, David had waited. From when he was first anointed king by Samuel, he waited some seven years serving the king he would replace; then another seven-odd years on the run from that king, hiding from the insane wrath of Saul; and then yet another seven-or-so years between being crowned king of Judah, after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, and being crowned king over all Israel.

David was king, but refused to take the throne from Saul; refused to depose the one whom the Lord had appointed, even if the same Lord had since rejected Saul for acting independently of revealed instruction. And now, here comes the Son of David, on his way to Jerusalem, where he will refuse to presume the throne by strength, refuse to depose either king or high priest…

Son of David, have mercy on me! You, who understand my waiting, enter-into it with me.

And then three words, three beautiful words: Jesus stood still. Jesus stood still.

Everything stops. You can almost see the camera pan round him, 360 degrees, as time itself is commanded to wait, is halted in its ceaseless motion, and Jesus enters-into Bartimaeus’ waiting.

Then – and only then – does the Son of David order those standing around to help the Son of Timaeus to come to him. Their eyes opened, they speak for Jesus, take heart! Take heart. The wait will soon be over.

The man throws off his tattered outer-garment, and rises from the dust to come to Jesus’ side. And Jesus asks him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ There is incredible tenderness in those words, a wonderful attention to this man’s dignity. ‘My teacher,’ he replies, ‘let me see again.’ My teacher. Let me see again. Not, you who goes around healing people, restore my sight; but, you from whom I have chosen to learn, let me see and understand in a way that I have never seen before.

Go, says Jesus. Go forth from this place, having been made whole, through faith.

Immediately, he regained his sight, and followed Jesus on his way. On his way to Jerusalem. On his way to die. Jesus, you see, is also waiting. Waiting to die. Knowing that his time has drawn near. Waiting, not with resignation, but that deliberate waiting that involves both making sure that everything that needs to be said and done is said and done, and yet at the same time letting go of being the one who does things for others and surrendering to being the one who has things done for, and to, them by others. The Gospels slow right down from here until their end. Days pass like years, decades even.

Ours is a society that can no longer bear to wait. We are conditioned to have everything in an instant, even though we feel the tyranny of that false god: even as it prevents us from giving ourselves to one another; even as it prevents us from beholding one another with mercy. But there are times when we have no choice but to wait; and it is in such moments that Jesus, the Son of David, steps into our waiting and stands still, in order that – together – we might take heart; in order that – together – we might hear him call us to him, and stand in his healing presence. Son of David, have mercy on us!

Bartimaeus passes from our sight, as the crowd carries on its way. But, up ahead, he still walks beside his teacher, with a renewed spring in his step. May we follow after in due course; but for now, it may be all-sufficient grace simply to hear those beautiful words: Jesus stood still.

18th Sunday after Trinity

Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16

I don’t know what you make of the early chapters of Genesis. Certainly, it matters what we make of them; and I am of the opinion that they have been misread in order to keep women in a secondary and subservient place to men. But the account itself is one that I find wonderful. It isn’t, of course, a scientific text. It isn’t concerned with the question ‘How?’ but, rather, with the question ‘So what?’

Our excerpt this morning begins with the human – not the male man, but the human. God has been creating, and has seen that his creation is good and ultimately very good. But now God identifies something that is not good: it is not good that the human being should be alone. Instead, God determines, the human being is in need of something our translation describes as a helper and a partner. Helper is best understood as one who will contend for the human, a warrior: it is a term that God will also use to describe him- or her-self in relation to the human beings. Partner is best understood as one who corresponds to the human, as one bank of a river corresponds to the other.

God presents before the human all the other creatures. Some, perhaps, fit the bill more closely than others: the dog, the horse; but none quite hits the mark. And so God brings from the human two humans, one now identifiably male and the other identifiably female. In the Hebrew, the image is not so much removing one rib as tearing apart two sides, two equal halves.

This pattern is repeated through the generations.

It is a very particular pattern, which describes for us what it means to be human.

First, the human is taken by God. Taken, from among all the other animals, with whom it shares a common origin, of being formed ‘out of the ground’.

Then, the human is blessed by God. Blessed, in no longer being alone. Blessed, in a special position in relation to all the other creatures.

Next, the human is broken by God. Broken, into two corresponding halves.

Finally, the human is given by God. Male and female presented to one another.

And repeat.

A man and a woman are taken, set apart to bring new life into the world. They are blessed, in having a son, or a daughter. In the fullness of time, they are broken – broken in birth, which tears male and female alike from their mother; and, perhaps, broken in marriage, which tears child – male, as much as female – from its parents (this taking a human from a human is not a matter of subservience; it is fundamental to our common nature). And they are given: given to another in marriage, given to the animals and the birds to contend together for the welfare of all creation.

This pattern defines what it means to be human, within God’s wider creation. The human is made to be taken, blessed, broken, given.

That pattern, at the heart of our humanity, is the pattern at the heart of our communal worship. When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give – and receive – it, we are enacting out what it means to be human.

First and foremost, we are remembering Jesus, the fully-human one, who took, blessed, broke, and gave; symbolising his own life, his own full embodiment of what it means to be human, taken hold of by the Spirit, blessed by the Father, broken in accordance with divine will – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in agreement – and given for us all.

But as we do this, as we remember Jesus, he takes us – his Body – and having taken hold of us, he blesses us, breaks us, and gives us to the world. That is, for the sake of humanity and of all creation, he restores our humanity to its original pattern, over and over again.

In our Gospel reading, we saw how seriously Jesus takes our humanity. First, he opposes those men who send their wives away once they no longer find favour in their eyes – that is, who take and break, without blessing or giving. Then we see Jesus rebuking his disciples for seeking to break apart children from their parents too soon, and, in particular, before they had been blessed.

The pattern is not some combination of being taken, blessed, broken, and given; it is this pattern, repeated. It is right there from the beginning, and right there at the heart. And if that mystery doesn’t capture your imagination, I wonder whether you have a pulse.

So, as you come today, to share in the remembrance that Jesus was taken, blessed, broken, and given; and to enter-into that mystery as Jesus takes us, blesses us, breaks us, and gives us; which of these repeating actions strikes you afresh?

Perhaps you are struck by the realisation that you have been taken. That, in Jesus, God has taken hold of your life, and set you apart for a particular purpose. Perhaps you are experiencing a greater clarity in that purpose; or perhaps simply a greater desire for clarity.

Perhaps you are struck by the realisation that you have been blessed. That, whatever your condition, whether unmarried or married or widowed or divorced, you are not alone but blessed with relationships and blessed by the presence of Jesus. Or perhaps you are struck by that reminder that we are blessed in order to bring blessing to others, and the Holy Spirit is prompting you to offer a particular blessing, in word and/or in action.

Perhaps you are struck by the realisation that you have been broken. It may be that today you see the partings in life in a new light, and want to give thanks for those we have loved and no longer share our lives with. Or perhaps a particular breaking is still raw, and you come asking God to heal wounds and bind up a broken heart.

Perhaps you are struck by the realisation that you have been given. And today you want to give thanks for those you have been given to, whether family or neighbours – or a neighbourhood, an environment – or colleagues or even strangers and aliens, or to pray for them in their need.

Whatever it is that the Holy Spirit is stirring in you today, the invitation is this: come, offer yourself again to God, and in return God will create you afresh, forming you from the ground and breathing life into you.

Trinity 14

A Syrian Mother and a Syrian Son: these are extended notes, but not an exact transcript, for my sermon on the occasion of baptising Sienna, aged 4.

The other day, Sienna and I were talking about the latest Disney Pixar movie, Inside Out [hold up character bag, to illustrate]. The story concerns a young girl, and the emotions that exist inside her. The emotions are called Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger. They influence her actions, and they colour her memories [hold up yellow, and blue, hi-bounce glitter water balls, to represent memories coloured by joy, and sadness].

In the story we heard this morning about Jesus, we met a mother who had a young daughter. And this story, too, is full of the emotions. Imagine the emotions inside that woman. Sadness is sad for her daughter, whose plight no one can help. Anger is angry that this situation should be inflicted on an innocent child. Disgust does not fail to notice the way other people look at her child, and judge her. Fear imagines the worst for the future: where will this end? Joy hears the word on the street – Jesus has come to town. Maybe, just maybe…

The woman finds Jesus, and begs him to help. And he responds by saying that it wouldn’t be right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs at their feet.

Her emotions look at one another. Anger explodes “Did he call us a dog? Did he actually say that out loud? Why…!” Disgust answers back “You Jews think you’re better than everyone else, but you’re not so special yourselves.” Sadness sighs “Well, we tried. It was always a long shot. Let’s go. I’m feeling sad.” Fear adds “Let’s go quickly, before they all start laughing at us!” And Joy says “Did you not see the look in his eyes? That was a look of love, not hate.”

In effect, Jesus says, “Why would you even ask me for help? Don’t you know that my people consider your people to be sub-human [to be dogs; to be a swarm]?” and the woman replies, “Yes, but even your people aren’t completely devoid of compassion, of humanity…”

Following Jesus means, among other things, training our emotions to look to him, to learn from him.

You will have seen in the media this week images of children of around the same age as Sienna.

Sadness can respond, “What a mess. But what can be done?”; or sadness can respond, “Lord Jesus, you promised that those who mourn will be comforted; would you please surround these people with your comfort; and show us how we can express that too.”

Disgust can respond, “How can these people be so greedy that they are willing to sacrifice their children?”; or disgust can respond, “How can we live with ourselves while we ignore our neighbours?”

Fear can respond, “They want to take what we have from us!”; or fear can respond, “Father God, these people must be very scared. Would you surround them with your protection, and lead them to a place of refuge; and may we welcome them.”

Anger can respond, “Who is to blame?”; or anger can respond, “We must stand up to injustice!”

And joy can respond, “Count our blessings that we live in a pleasant place”; or joy can respond, “We can do something to help; and while it will be hard, it will be fun too; it will build up our community as we embrace others.”

…

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18 and Ephesians 6:10-20 and John 6:56-69

 

“...but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

This morning, I want us to think about households and about serving.

In our first reading, we heard Joshua, who led God’s people into the Promised Land, setting before them the choice, who will you serve?

In our Gospel reading, we heard Jesus (incidentally, the name ‘Jesus’ is the Greek version of the Hebrew name ‘Joshua’) set before his twelve closest disciples the choice, who will you follow? who will you serve?

And in his call to stand against the devil and take upon ourselves the armour of God, Paul, writing under house arrest, asks the same question, who will you serve?

You will always serve something, or – more accurately, beneath the outward appearances – someone. Why? Because you were created to serve.

We are created to serve, not because we were created to be God’s Minions, but because we are created in the likeness of God, who comes ‘not to be served, but to serve’ (as hymn-writer Graham Kendrick put it).

We are not masters of our own destiny. We can ignore, but not change, this reality. So you will always end up serving someone, and the question is, who will it be?

Joshua is clear that he, and his household, will serve the Lord.

Peter is clear that, having come to know Jesus, they could not imagine serving anyone else. By the way, like Joshua, Peter is speaking on behalf of a household: his household was the first household to serve Jesus (in the Gospels we see both Peter and his mother-in-law leading by example), and the house at the centre of that household remains to this day, preserved beneath a twentieth-century church with a glass floor enabling you to look into the world of the Gospels.

Paul is held under house-arrest, but even there he is serving God, and not only through his writing. In one of his other letters written while under house arrest, he informs us that his circumstances have allowed him to make the gospel known throughout the whole imperial guard (Philippians 1:12, 13) and that some of them (some of ‘Caesar’s household’) have come to faith in Jesus (Philippians 4:22). There is a beautiful irony there, though also a very real tension for those involved. Their outward, external identity was located in a household serving the self-proclaimed divine-man Caesar; but their true identity was as a household who had chosen to serve Jesus as Lord.

We are created to serve, and unless we are able to serve, we will experience frustration. However appealing the idea of being waited on hand and foot might sound, it could never satisfy us. So why is serving God so hard? Why is putting others before ourselves so challenging?

We must be freed to serve. Joshua helped the people to remember that God had brought them up ‘out of the house of slavery’. Remember, we serve because we are created in the likeness of a God who first serves us; but there are things that enslave us so that we are unable to serve. Things like pride, or fear, or listening to the voice in our head that says we don’t have anything to offer and while God can use others he couldn’t use me. Things like resentment, or loss of hope, or...

Just as we were all created to serve, so we have all ended up in the house of slavery. God had come and set his people free, in the hope that they would use their freedom to bring freedom to others; in the hope that they would have compassion on those who lived as slaves to harsh masters. Freed not only from something, but also freed for something. Our experience of freedom is meant to have the same impact in our day; but the fact remains that we cannot free ourselves: we need to be set free.

The good news is that in Jesus, God has come and set us free to serve. That Christ has set us free to be as we are made to be. Either we experience this, or we are yet to discover it, or we have somehow forgotten and have reimagined our chains; but in Christ that freedom is available to us every day.

You were created to serve, and you have been freed to serve. But even that is not the whole story. And it comes back to being made by God and for God, not to be his Minions but to be his family, his household, sharing life together. We do not serve on our own, but alongside God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit living in us.

We must be empowered to serve. This is what the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit enables Peter to see that Jesus brings fullness of life, though not everyone could accept it. According to Paul, the Spirit strengthens us; speaks to us through even the hardest and most immobilising circumstances; enables us to pray at all times, regardless of what we are going through; and helps us make known the mystery of the gospel.

To serve in our own strength would be overwhelming. It might win us admirers in the short-term, but it would be utterly exhausting, and ultimately futile. The good news is that we are empowered to serve, wherever we are and whatever we are facing. Either we experience this, or we are yet to discover it, or we have somehow forgotten and have exhausted ourselves; but we can be re-filled with the breath of the Spirit every moment of every day.

Over the summer I have been greatly encouraged by so many examples of so many members of our Minster household serving God and the people of Sunderland – and one another – through being part of the Sunderland Summer Specials, through the Recovery event that took place on Friday (where we celebrated lives being set free from some of the more visible and less socially-acceptable addictions), and in many other ways. You are a living sermon illustrating what it looks like to be created, freed, and empowered to serve. And if you are here today because you are intrigued by what is going on, but you have yet to discover these truths, or you have known them to be true but somehow or other you have forgotten and want to discover them afresh, then please don’t go away today without speaking with me or Fiona or someone else who will be happy to pray with you.

Next Sunday morning we shall have a service of celebration giving thanks for all that God has done through the Summer Specials in particular. There will be opportunity for some to give short testimonies of your experience of serving the Lord over these past weeks. But why wait a week, when you can go out and tell someone today, or tomorrow?

Evensong : Trinity 7

Deuteronomy 30:1-10 and 1 Peter 3:8-18

Recurring themes running through our readings today:

blessings and curses;

being scattered and gathered,

(or, turning from and turning to);

deep and mysterious matters of the heart...

and the overarching theme of Covenant, one of the great structural themes of the Bible.

What is a blessing? Anything in your life that is good, anything – be it a skill or a relationship – that by practice bears fruit. Whatever is life-giving to you, and through you life-giving to others, bears witness to your response to God’s invitation to enter into fullness of life. And when we bless others, we speak that same invitation to them: ‘Be fruitful!’ Something within them will always respond, however complicated that response might be, because it is the nature of creation to do so.

What is a curse? A curse is not the opposite of a blessing, or even the absence of a blessing, but a particular form of blessing that places temporary constraint* on fruitfulness, creating room for others. Let me illustrate it like this: if you hold out your hands in front of you – palm facing palm, like a fisherman recounting the size of his catch – to represent a blessing, and then widen them to represent further blessing, and widen them again to represent yet more blessing, by now you are hitting the person sat next to you in the face. Sometimes blessings need boundaries – boundaries that help us re-examine our blessings in the light of the blessing of, and for, others – and that is how curses function. They humble us in our pride, in order that, in due time, God might lift us up again. When we hit up against such boundaries, they are an invitation to turn back to God.**

The images of being scattered and gathered are another way of describing curses and blessings. What feels like being abandoned by God, and being reconciled with God, are both expressions of God’s fidelity towards us – and reveal the fidelity he longs for from us in return. You see, the overarching theme here is covenant fidelity.

In the Ancient Near Eastern world, tribal chieftains would make life more secure for their people by entering into covenant agreement with the heads of other tribes. They would cut animals in two, creating a corridor of blood between them, and stand at either end. Then they would pass each other, taking one another’s place, symbolically identifying themselves as the chief of the other tribe, before returning to their own place, their own tribe. And they would often mark themselves with a cut that would leave a scar, as a permanent reminder of the covenant they had made: becoming blood brothers.

From then on, if either tribe was attacked, the other would come to their aid. This is the covenant that God – as chief of the heavenly beings – and Abraham – as chief of a nomadic group of herdsmen – entered into. It was the covenant restated when the people of Israel created a door of blood, as God passed by them into Egypt to fight for them and they passed out of Egypt to Sinai to meet with God and to travel together through the wilderness and to the Land of Promise. This is the covenant restated when Jesus came into the world, smeared in blood, and gave up his life, again smeared in blood. And even though death could not hold him, Jesus bears his covenant scars on his wrists and ankles for ever.

So, where is our covenant scar? It is not on our body, but on our heart. In the symbolic language of the Bible, the heart is the seat of our will, our decision-making. And that is where God has marked us with a scar, a tender place, a permanent reminder. If you have a significant scar, you can feel it long after the sharp pain of the initial wound is a distant memory. Not all of the time, but at certain predictable times, such as when there is a change in the weather. In a similar way, at turning-points we feel our covenant scar. When we face a decision, a choice that will move us closer to Jesus or further away from Jesus, our scars are a reminder of our covenant – as his scars are to him.

So, where do you see evidence of blessing in your life? Remember to give thanks. Remember to include God in the circumstances, so that you share the fruit together: Jesus loves a celebration! Remember to include others, so they might benefit too. Remember to tell others, so they can learn what it looks like to have God as our covenant partner in an uncertain world.

And, where do you experience curse, constraint? What isn’t flourishing as you might hope? In what part of life does it feel like you keep hitting a brick wall? Here is an opportunity to ask God, as Jesus did from the cross,

‘Where, O Lord, are You to be found in this place, this circumstance?

When will you come and rescue me?

And what unseen work are You up to, in my heart, in the meantime?’

*In the symbolic language of the Bible, curses stretch for 3 generations, while blessings stretch for 1000 generations.

**Even when people malign others – when we curse others or are cursed by others, with no intention of blessing – God works to bring good out of the circumstances, ensuring that curses are a particular form of blessing even where blessing was never the intention of the one who curses. Jesus’ covenant scars exemplify this.

Trinity 6

Amos 7:7-15 and Ephesians 1:3-14 and Mark 6:14-29

This week, I have been at the Durham Diocese Clergy Summer Gathering, where our theme was children and young people. Among other things, we reflected on biblical images of children. In our readings this morning, we are referred to as God’s adopted children; but we also heard the story of a young girl who was exploited, by men for whom she was brought in as a sexualised fantasy object and by her mother who manipulated her to manipulate her step-father in order to bring about a murder. That seems very contemporary to me. The Bible never shies away from holding a mirror to ourselves, in our beauty and our brokenness. And in some of the free time around the margins of our time away, I reflected on today’s readings in the light of all we were considering.

I was struck, reading Amos, by the question, who does God speak through? It is clear that there is an expectation that God speaks through those in power – the priest, and the king – and that they mediate God’s word in such a way that their interests are protected – the king’s sanctuary, and the temple. If they were to look at the vision God showed Amos, they would have seen an impressive wall, a sign of strength. But Amos sees a plumb-line, which reveals that the wall has been built without necessary care, and has become precarious.

Amos’ voice is dismissed. He is not qualified to speak here. He does not have the right background, the right training. And yet, he replies, the Lord had spoken to him and sent him.

We need to listen to the voice of those on the margin of our worshipping community, the ‘untrained’ who speak from a different experience, from everyday life – and who may bring the word that brings us life by putting to death our self-importance. And those on the margin include our children.

In our reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul repeats the words ‘us’ and ‘our’ and ‘we’ and ‘you/your’ [plural] again and again. At the heart of the passage Paul states that ‘With all wisdom and insight he [the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ] has made known to us the mystery of his will’ which is ‘to gather up all things in him [Christ]’. But this is not made known just through the few: God speaks to us through us. We need to listen to what God is saying through one another – again, including our children.

Our Gospel reading stands as a warning, of what it looks like when those with power seek to silence the voice of one speaking from the margins – and even exploit others, vulnerable others, in order to achieve this. It is a desperate situation – and one that, ultimately, does not achieve its aim. But it is easily done when we believe that the role of the priest is to speak rather than to enable each to find a voice.

We discern what God might be saying to us – as a community and personally – as we listen to one another. So that is what we are going to do. First, take a moment to reflect: was there anything in particular that stood out for you as the lessons were being read out today?

... Now take a couple of moments to share that thing with the people sat next to you. Don’t worry if you have nothing to say: the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak through everybody on every occasion; but the Holy Spirit does speak through everybody over time, if we create the space for that to happen.

... If someone shared something, they have already acted in response to the Holy Spirit’s question ‘What do you see?’ and prompt to, ‘Go and tell’. But it may be that there is a further response that is necessary, either for them personally or for us as a community. Let me encourage you to discuss that further over coffee after the service; and if you feel that there is something that we need to hear as a community, to write it down and/or share that with myself or Fiona or Sheila. Thank you.