Saturday, 29th March

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” Psalm 126:1

“...for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’” Revelation 7:17

Dreams and visions play an important role in our faith story: they seem to give expression to the ways in which God speaks to our instinctive spirituality, rather than to our rational minds.

Of course, many dreamlike and visionary events described in our scriptures are simply primitive ways of interpreting how a particular story evolved; and such ‘magical’ interventions do not fit comfortably with our 21st century enlightenment.

But there is a depth of spirituality to our Christian tradition which perhaps we sometimes overlook: and we overlook it especially when we are overburdened with the mechanics of simply managing the survival of our particular worshipping community.  We may even recognise that we have stopped looking beyond the immediate horizon, or that we have misplaced our capacity to listen for the still, small voice amid all the mundane demands of ‘being church’. Spiritual depression is very real.

Perhaps we need to look around us.  Who are the visionaries in our churches?  Who in your worshipping community can look beyond the end of the current budget, or beyond the present list of planned events, and sense where the Holy Spirit is leading the people of God?  In the words of Desmond Tutu, who is aware that ‘God has a dream’ for us?  Who speaks out for the journey which leads to the springs of the water of life?

Whoever that may be, bless them and treasure them - even when you need to moderate and manage them - for the spiritual gifts they bring to your community.

Philip Jones

The Metropolitan Church

Friday, 28 March

“Let us have no bloodshed,” he said. “Throw him into this cistern, in the wilderness, but do him no injury.” Reuben meant to rescue him (Joseph) from their clutches in order to restore him to his father. Genesis 37:22

See to it that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but always aim at what is best for each other and for all. 1 Thessalonians 5:15

Joseph was his father’s favourite son, he had also had a dream in which he saw his brothers, in the sheaves of wheat, bowing down before him. Joseph’s brothers, motivated by jealousy and hate, planned to kill him. Rueben persuaded them to put him in a pit in the wilderness, intending to rescue him later. In the end, this plan backfired, and Joseph was discovered by merchants, who sold him as a slave in Egypt. Joseph eventually became rich and a trusted advisor of Egypt’s Ruler, where he was eventually able to rescue his whole family from famine, though not before punishing his brothers a little first.  He did not choose to pay back wrong for wrong, instead he set his family up in the finest lands of Egypt and took care of them.

How many times do we hear today of people taking revenge on others? Wars, genocide, all forms of conflict are often motivated by paying back wrong for wrong. I was quite concerned to see that on a well-known quiz show this week 70% of the audience thought that Revenge was a good idea. Yet, what can it lead to? History books are full of stories of clan warfare, and rivalry between countries, and today we have the same ideas with gangs on the street, and between individuals. Retaliation can be a constant motivational force. Violence is perpetuated and nothing is resolved. How much better would life be for all if we could live by aiming at what is best for each other and for all. It is not always easy to do this when we feel hurt by others, and even more difficult when our children or vulnerable members of society may be victims of crime, bullying or injury. In these circumstances it is hard not to feel angry and wish to “pay back”, but I always feel heartened by, and truly respect those remarkable people who have turned their hurt and loss into forgiveness and positive action to help others in society.

Father, help me, too, to find the strength to live by your word, to continue to find the good in others to try to forgive those who do wrong to me and those about me and, in understanding their motivations, to strive to find a better way forward for all. Amen

Ella Burton

Wilbraham St Ninian URC

Thursday, 27 March

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground”. Gen 4: 10

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure...you have condemned, you have killed the righteous man; he does not resist you. 

James 5: 1, 4-6

Things go wrong very early in the human story. Selfishness, jealousy, and murder appear in the first chapters of the first book of the Bible. But murder is not only in the act of physically taking the life of someone else. In these passages, murder is more widely interpreted as anything which contributes to the death of others through economic and social injustice.

In this country we have all profited from the suffering of others in this way, through our colonial past and our current economic policies here and overseas, so these are stark words. What can we do? First, we need to recognise that this is what has happened, and to learn sorrow for it. Then, with God’s guidance, we can find ways of doing things better: perhaps through involvement in co-operatives, or credit unions, or campaigning with those who seek a fair wage or to have their voice heard. For, to our great benefit, God does not write us off, but, in Christ, gives us new opportunities to do better.

Loving God, Help us to take the needs of the poor seriously, and to stand alongside them as they cry for justice. Amen

Sue Rowe

Wednesday, 26 March

My hand laid the foundation of the earth, / and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them / they stand at attention. 

Isaiah 48:13

He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgement has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’ Revelation 14:7

These two verses have in common the claim that God created heaven and earth.  Less obviously, but more remarkably, they share the fact that both probably originated in times of distress, when people could have been forgiven for doubting that God was all-powerful.

Isaiah 48:13 comes from part of the Book of Isaiah thought to have emerged when the Jews were exiles in Babylon and when God’s promises to their ancestors (that they would have their own land, that God would dwell among them in his Temple in Jerusalem, and that David’s successors would reign there as God’s regents) all seemed to have been broken.  The Babylonians had ravaged Judah, destroyed the Temple, and taken their king into exile.  On the face of things Marduk, the god of Babylon, whom the Babylonians believed had created heaven and earth, must have seemed much more powerful than their God, Yahweh.  Yet amazingly it was from this dire situation that the first unequivocal statements of monotheism may have come.  It was not simply that Yahweh was as powerful, or even more powerful, than other gods.  Yahweh was the only God!  (See for example the previous verse.)

And centuries later, in a time of persecution and from exile, another voice dared to claim that despite everything God was to be worshipped and glorified because God was the powerful creator who would ensure justice.

Creator God, when times are hard, help us to hold fast to our faith in your power and your justice.  Amen

Adrian Curtis

 Manley Park Methodist Church

Tuesday, 25 March

The king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion,

But his favour is like dew on the grass. Proverbs 19:12

After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. Acts 16:7

God loves mercy. Mercy is of His essence. In mercy, He is most completely himself and in extending mercy He most fully reveals Himself.

God is hurt when we reject his mercy for in doing so we refuse his call to intimacy. We do not yet fully trust him and in consequence prefer keep him at a distance. We still have fear.  God’s response ? Mercy.

His mercy is infinite. Like the rising tide, wave after ever higher wave of mercy breaks over us. God’s mercy comes to wear down our hearts of stone not to hurt, belittle or condemn but that he might give us hearts of flesh. He comes in mercy that we might know we are utterly and eternally loved.

There is a certain doggedness too about this wise and merciful mercy. In loving us completely he completely knows us. So mercy’s invitations are always fashioned with us in mind. He addresses you in ways that will never come to me for I need to be embraced in different ways. But, however it comes, whatever is said, the great bass tone beneath everything else is always “You are loved”.

If we will permit, God’s mercy is most effective. It is the voice of one who calls in to being that which was not. So it is with us. In mercy we too are yet being formed and becoming that which in truth we are – children of God. Mercy does not bribe or force, there is a certain innocent nakedness to mercy. May we respond likewise with an ever more spontaneous and open “Yes”.

Gracious father, we are so disinclined to see our need of mercy. So slow to ask for it and so reluctant to offer it. Grant to us Lord that we might become a transformed people. May we become a people rich in mercy, grace and of truth. May we become like you our father.

Grant this for the sake of your son, our saviour, Jesus Christ.

N.N.

 St Werburgh’s Chorlton

Monday, 24 March

How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel!...My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim: for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy. Hos 11:8-9 (RSV)

Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more... Rom 5:20 (RSV)

What a wonderful word “grace “is. It suggests, yet is more than, generosity, bounty, and blessing. It is a word we regularly use in connection with God’s action. It is fundamental to our understanding of God. And yet, its use is also confusing. A literal reading of Romans 5: 20 would suggest that the worse we behave, the more God blesses us. In fact there have been those who have understood God’s activity in that way. Yet a more nuanced approach comes with reference to the reading from Hosea, in which God is experienced as being in pain on witnessing the corruption and idolatry of Israelite society. In this case, grace isn’t a case of “anything goes”, but a loving restraint, alongside a yearning call to Israel to change. The situation is very definitely not OK, and if it continues, the people will reap the consequences of their actions.

What Paul is saying, in his letter to the Romans, is that Law itself cannot help us overcome our weakness and deliberate fault. What it does is to show us what is wrong. But only God’s grace can actually make the difference, and for that to be so, we need to be honest about our failings and go to God for healing and change.

Loving God, help us to be open to you and to your loving, suffering challenge to us to change.  Amen.

Sue Rowe

Third Sunday of Lent, 23 March

Not one of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. Joshua 21:45

For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.’ Acts 2:39

The Old Testament reference reveals that all the ‘Good’ promises of God have been fulfilled – kept!

The promises referred to are about the people of God entering and being established in the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. One intriguing Question to ask is what about the ‘not good’ promises?  Who makes the value judgement of what are considered the Good and the other types of promises?

How do people view the promises we make? How well do we keep our word?

The promise referred to in the Acts reference is part of Peter’s address to the crowds on the day we celebrate in our Generation as Pentecost, 3000 were added to the membership of the church on this occasion. The promise referred to is that the Holy Spirit is promised for all whom the Lord God calls to him. With this promise being defined in this way, how do we know who God has called to him? Is it important to us that we know? Does it affect - or not - how we treat other people? How confident are we that we are ‘in’? What might we need to do, say, think, for our own assurance of being ‘in’?

How by keeping our word are we developing our integrity and reflecting the integrity of God? Do these things aid us to be a light or signpost to others toward our Lord and Saviour, towards the triune Godhead? What will help us be more so?

Phil Gay

St Clement’s