Good News: Hip, hip, hooray!

Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28

The word “gospel”, as many of you will already know, means good news. When we share good news, there is often excitement, as we experienced at the beginning of the service: a reason to say hip, hip, hooray!

But when it comes to the good news of our faith, there is a strange dissonance in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s life. In Matthew’s gospel, Peter hears Jesus speak about what will happen to him. Peter cannot bear it. He tries to reject what Jesus is saying. And Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”

Jesus goes on to say, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Ouch! That doesn’t sound much like good news. This would have been understood quite literally. Jesus was anticipating his death. And he was also pointing to the reality that following him could mean risking a horrible death by crucifixion. The cross was a symbol of torture and Rome’s power. So pause with that for a moment. How can taking up your cross be good news?

But then, we hold that strange idea of good news in tension with what is written in John’s gospel. 

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

This sounds more like good news. Abundant life. Overflowing life. Enjoying life to the full. Having what we need. Life that is full and good. A rich and satisfying life. Now that, in my mind, is a reason to say hip, hip, hooray!

So, which is it? Is the good news about taking up our cross? Or is it about receiving the gift of abundant life? I think it is both. Not as a neat dichotomy, but as the truth of human existence. Joy and suffering are often held together. And if we are to be witnesses to God’s love, then this is the honest message we have to share. Our experiences of life are filled with complexity.

Pause for a moment and consider what the phrase “good news” means to you when it comes to being a Christian. If you told someone that you believe in the good news of Jesus Christ, how might you put that into words so that a person who knows little or nothing of the Bible might find a point of connection? Would there be joy in it? Would there be honesty? Would there be a sense of saying hip, hip, hooray?

Personally, I know that the phrase “the good news” no longer means what I thought it meant when I was 15 years old at my confirmation. It means something different from what I thought even 10 years ago, and I suspect it has changed again in the last year. Maybe, when I talk about it now, I feel less like saying hip, hip, hooray and more like conveying a deep sense that we are not alone in this universe. And more specifically, I believe we are not alone because God has become known to us in Jesus. In Jesus God shared both the flourishing joy of human existence and its deepest pain.

So, when I ponder the vision of this congregation, that we are “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ,” I hear an invitation for all of us to keep growing in faith at every stage of life. Faith is a journey, not a destination. And Peter helps us see that. He can be chief among the disciples and still get things terribly wrong. Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan,” and even after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, Peter still does not have all the answers.

There was a time when I was younger when I believed faith involved clear, dogmatic, orthodox, right answers. But as I get older, I am more aware of the limits of my own understanding. At times, we can pressure people to believe, think, or feel the right things about God, all shaped by the limits of our experience and knowledge. But God is bigger than all that, and the call of faith is not to master God, but to keep following Christ.

In speaking about the good news, I find myself drawn to Paul’s words at the beginning of his letter to the Colossians: 

“He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” There is no gap between any person, or any part of creation, and God, because in him all things hold together. As Acts puts it, “in Him, we live and move and have our being.” Our understanding of this, or whether we feel that we experience God, is not the measure of whether it is true. My sense is that God’s hand is upon all of us.

My thought is that, just as I do not think much about pulmonary respiration and barely understand it, I cannot live without it. So, we can all celebrate and say hip, hip, hooray that we have been breathing this whole time I have been speaking. In the same way, the hiddenness of God’s life within us is there in the background of each moment of our existence. God is closer to us than breathing.

But here is an interesting thing. 

One of the simplest ways to focus our attention is to focus on our breathing. This technique appears in many religious and mystical traditions, and it is also promoted in positive psychology and mindfulness. Paying attention to our breathing in and out can help us centre ourselves and connect. As people of faith, it can also help us become more aware of the presence of God with us and at work within us.

David Bentley Hart, in his book Experience of God, offers a philosophical exploration of God through three words: being, consciousness, and bliss. In slowing down and becoming present through our breathing, we can become aware of our being and marvel at our existence in the world. We can connect with the wonder of consciousness, our capacity to think and know. And we might even feel the joy and goodness of being alive: bliss.

Being, consciousness, bliss, or perhaps existing, knowing, and loving, are not simply an exercise in philosophy; they are part of being human. Hart’s claim is that all three point back to the same source: God, who is not only off in the distance but is the very ground we are standing on. This is one avenue for connecting with the good news of Jesus’s presence at work in and through us.

Yet not everyone connects with God in this way. 

So, to return to the beginning of our service, I think our sharing of good news may also have had the fingerprints of God all over it. Our hip, hip, hooray was a prayer of thanksgiving.

But as people who want to share our witness of faith with others, how do we move from a simple story of good news in our lives to the deeper sense of God’s presence within us that I have been describing?

On one level it brings to mind the old concept of the random act of kindness and maybe even the concept of paying it forward. Way back in the 1990s when you had to stop and pay a cashier at a toll booth, I still remember a friend who used to pay for the car behind her. A strange and simple gift. This might connect with a concept that is often attributed to St Francis, 

"Preach the Gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words". Good deeds are one thing, but we are called to share our faith in word and action. Another colleague when they heard a person tell their story, whether a good or bad story, would often offer to pray with or for a person. Small actions that might encourage curiosity in another person as to why we act and say what we do.

Those small gestures are great, but Paul gives us something more like a structure to grow into. Let’s look again at what he said to the early church in Rome. Paul’s ideas can be grouped in three widening circles, all driven by love. 

The inner circle is the love shared by the community. It is how we as a congregation notice one another, listen to one another, show affection to one another, and honour one another. These may seem simple things, but in every church community there are people who do not always experience them.

The next circle is love under pressure: the call to love one another through difficult times. Remaining hopeful. Being patient. Weeping with those who weep. I have learnt over many years that I cannot fix many of the problems people share with me, and there is no need to search for a silver lining. Sometimes all we can do is be present and pray that, in the presence of God, a person may know they are not alone.

And finally, and this is the hardest one, love toward the enemy. I recently had a very insightful email from someone in the congregation about just how difficult it is to love those we may not like, or those who may even persecute us. Blessing those who wrong us and seeking to overcome evil with good sounds like a lot. Perhaps this is where Jesus’s words about taking up our cross become concrete: not in seeking suffering for its own sake, but in costly love that follows him.

As people who gather and say hip, hip, hooray about the good stuff, and who support each other through the difficult stuff, we are doing more than simply being good and decent people: we are living out our connection to the good news. We are learning to receive God’s presence, to recognise God’s goodness, and to practise God’s love. What we practise with one another, however imperfectly, flows outwards towards the people we interact with day by day. Whatever our age and stage of life, and however we interpret the good news, I want to suggest that God is with us in it all, and that is indeed a reason to say hip, hip, hooray!

Being a Person in the image of God

Genesis 1:26-28, John 13:31-35 

I wonder where it is that you have learnt to be a human being? To be a person? 

I mean it is not as if there is a licence for it. No doubt your family of origin played a big part, but the whole of life can feel like falling from one test into the next as we learn about what it means to be human.

The question of what it means to be human has become even more pronounced in the last few years with the rise of large language models and generative artificial intelligence. In an age when machines can imitate language, generate images, and mimic aspects of creativity, the question is not simply what artificial intelligence can do, but what it means for us to remain human

In this rapidly changing world, how can we remember our humanity as we learn to be persons made in the image of God

In the movie Dead Poet’s Society. John Keating, the teacher played by Robin Williams says to his students: 

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion... poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

Maybe in reading poetry, in listening to music, and in the stories that we tell each other, this is how we learn to be human.

As I was contemplating exploring this theme, I recalled a wonderful song by Rag’n’Bone Man simply called “Human”. The chorus repeats the refrain of the limitation of our humanity:

I'm only human after all.  

Don't put the blame on me. 

Being human means realising that we are all imperfect beings. Yet, this sense of the limitation and frailty of our humanity, especially in our relationships with one another, can cause us to withdraw as if it were better to do this thing called ‘life’ alone.

In my younger years I was drawn to Simon and Garfunkel’s song “I am a rock” which painted a bleak vision of human existence lived in isolation.

I’ve built walls

A fortress steep and mighty

That none can penetrate 

I have no need for friendship

Friendship causes pain

It’s laughter and its loving I disdain.

Maybe the attraction of that song was fed by the fact of more introverted and my mental health at the time. But I wonder too how the lyrics of the song feed into forgetting what it means to be truly human.

In contrast to Simon and Garfunkel, John Donne wrote these insightful words in 1624

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

No person is an island; no one is a rock. I think Donne’s insight takes us all the way back to the words of Genesis. 

So, God created humans in his image,

in the image of God, he created them;

male and female, he created them.

Whilst the Hebrew word for image here does indicate something like a statue, I think what is going on here takes us well beyond any physical form. To be created in God’s image is to be created as relational beings, God created them, male and female. Human are beings made for relationship for communion.

This idea of communion is an intimate sharing of life with God, with one another, and with the creation itself. It is life with others, life received as love and expressed as unconditional love. If God is love, as the author of the letter of 1 John asserts, then to be made in God’s image is to be made to be loved; to share love; to love one another. Genesis goes on to say:

And, God blessed them …. God blessed them … 

What does it mean that God blessed them?

In an age of AI, productivity, loneliness, and comparison, we are tempted to define persons by usefulness, intelligence, or success. This means that we often confuse blessing with favourable circumstances like health, wealth, happiness, security, or a life going to plan. But in Genesis, blessing is not first a reward for success. Blessing begins with God’s delight in the creature. It is God’s “yes” spoken over human life.

Discovering what it means to be human means remembering that every person bears the image of God before they are useful, successful, safe, happy, or well. Their value does not rise and fall with their circumstances. Their value is not determined by the colour of their skin, the language they speak, their gender or sexuality, or any other marker that we might use to divide ourselves from each other. God has made us and seen that we are good; we are worthy to be loved.

If Genesis tells us that humanity is made in the image of God, then Christ shows us what that image looks like in flesh and blood. This God, who is love, in whose image we are made, has been made visible for us through the incarnation when the Word became flesh in the person Jesus of Nazareth. I love the way the theologian Kathryn Tanner summarises what God is up to in the incarnation. “In the final analysis, God does not so much want something of us as want to be with us.” 

The great thinker of the early church Athanasius wrote that “Christ became what we are so that we might become what he is.” The emphasis of Athanasius can drive us to think that being human, being a person, is about being drawn beyond our embodied life towards the hidden mystery of God’s divine life. But what if, as well as this, when the Word becomes flesh and lives among us, our embodied, fleshy, earthly existence is not bypassed but affirmed, healed, and drawn into God’s life?

Linn Marie Tonstad puts it this way. “Christianity is a story about God’s incarnation, the making holy of the body, in which each person is the object of God’s care, attention, and love.”  So it is that throughout Jesus’ life and ministry God’s love is made visible, no longer abstract and distant. 

Jesus feeds the crowd, Jesus casts out the demons, Jesus heals those who are sick, Jesus restores people to their communities, Jesus teaches others about God, Jesus forgives those who do not appear worthy of forgiveness. And Jesus invites people to follow him. 

Jesus instructs his disciples to live out their lives sharing in this love saying, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Remember the old song “they will know we are Christians by our love”. Love is not an optional virtue; it is the visible sign of life in Christ. To be a person in the image of God and to grow as a lifelong disciple of Christ means to be turned outward in love towards others.

This means that every person we meet is someone whose body, story, and life are held in the love of God. But more than that, it is also about the people we do not meet, those who are distant and unknown to us. To remember how to be a person is to remember those whom the world forgets and those who we see as other. Tonstad suggests that “Christianity is about a message of radical, boundary-destroying love.”    

Returning to the poem by John Donne he says:

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”

Or to make it more 21st century

“Any person’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in all humanity.”

If it is in our being human that God’s “yes” is declared over us, then we should also remember this: if every person is equally loved by God, then the person living homelessly in a Brisbane park, the person running away from domestic violence, the person in a bomb shelter, the person under rubble, the person fleeing war, the person grieving after flood or fire, is not less blessed, less valued, or less held by God than the person whose life appears secure and prosperous.

So, in an age of AI, productivity, loneliness, and comparison, we may be tempted to define persons by usefulness, intelligence, efficiency, or success. But Genesis speaks a deeper word: every person bears the image of God. Every person is blessed before they are useful, successful, safe, happy, or well.

And in Christ, that image is made visible. The Word becomes flesh. God’s love is not abstract or distant, but embodied, particular, compassionate, and near. Jesus shows us that to be human in the image of God is to be turned outward in love. More than that, it is in meeting the needs of others that we meet Jesus, and in meeting Jesus in the other we experience the divine.

Remember what Jesus says in Matthew 25:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 

When Jesus is speaking to his disciples, he does not say, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are cleverer, faster, more efficient, or more impressive.” He says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Remembering to be a person is about moving beyond our amnesia: remembering that to be a person is not to be an isolated individual, but to be made in the image of the God who is love — embodied, relational, and called into communion: intimate life shared with one another, with the creation, and with God. The image of God is love, revealed in Christ, lived in communion.

I wonder where it is that you have learnt to be a human being? To be a person? 

And I wonder how your life as a disciple of Christ is shaping that?

"God"

Romans 8:26-39, John 10:11-18

Not so long ago I was speaking with a young person who grew up in the church but no longer attended. I asked whether they still believed in God. They answered, “I think I believe that there is more out there than we can explain, but I don’t think I believe in the kind of God that you believe in.” I replied, “I don’t think I believe in the kind of God you think I believe in.”

We make many assumptions about who God is and what kind of God we will believe in, or refuse to believe in.

Yet each of us, in our own way, suffers from the problem depicted in this cartoon by David Heyward.

The words we use to describe and speak about God are our theology. Each person who seeks to define God is doing theology. Yet all of us are tempted to limit God’s existence to our finite understanding. Our concepts of God are far too small.

The influential theologian Augustine Bishop of Hippo in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, taught.

We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not God you comprehend. Let it be a pious confession of ignorance rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To attain some slight knowledge of God is a great blessing; to comprehend him, however, is totally impossible. [1. Augustine, Lectures on the Gospel of John, as quoted in Reformed Dogmatics, vol 2, 48] https://aaronarmstrong.co/knowledge-great-blessing/

One thing I have come to understand in my journey of faith is that any experience of God is not God; it is my experience of God. I can only describe that experience within the limits of my human reason, vocabulary, thoughts, and feelings. My description of my experience of God cannot domesticate the divine.

In the Jewish tradition, and in the writings of the Torah and the books we call the Old Testament, God remained other and mysterious. This was emphasised by the fact that the people did not speak God’s name. When God appeared in the text, it was represented by the four Hebrew letters known as the tetragrammaton.

When the religious leaders saw these letters, they simply said the word ‘Lord’. These letters were poorly translated as the word Jehovah and then more recently as the word Yahweh. Neither really fits the original intention which was to suggest the mystery that lay behind and beyond these symbols. As an aside the tetragrammaton is a play on the Hebrew phrase, “I am who I am”.

When we are confronted by the mystery of the origin of all things, our temptation is to simplify God into something that reflects who we are. We make God in our image. However, God is utterly other and mysterious.  this mystery because God became human.

God is both utterly transcendent and completely immanent.

In his book exploring the concept of “God”, the philosopher and theologian, David Bentley Hart reminds us of Augustine’s teaching that “God is not only superior summo meo – beyond my utmost heights – but also interior intimo meo – more inward to me than my inmost depths.” (P.10)

We are going to explore these two aspects of who God is as beyond and within us after we sing the old hymn Immortal, invisible, God only wise.

Immortal, invisible, God only wise

When we begin to contemplate the mystery and otherness of God, I am often reminded of something that the 16^th century reformer, Ulrich Zwingli said, in his Commentary on True and False Religion. "Of ourselves, we know no more of God than a beetle knows of man".

Yet even this statement is inadequate as an expression of the gap between the divine, uncreated mystery that is God and our existence as created, finite beings.

There is a well-known mystical writing from the 14^th century called The Cloud of Unknowing which helps us consider the problem that we face. Written as a guide from a teacher to a student the teacher expresses the problem like this.

By your eyes you can know only what has size and shape—what is large or small, round or square, near or far, light or dark, coloured or shaded. By your ears you perceive only sound. By your nose, only scent. By your tongue, only taste—sweet or bitter, sour or fresh, pleasing or foul. By your sense of touch, only heat or cold, hardness or softness, roughness or smoothness. But neither God nor any spiritual reality possesses any of these qualities.

As such we might say that God does not exist in the way that anything else exists. God has no form, no matter, no time, requires no space in which to exist. God is no thing that we can describe. God is nothing.

Possibly, the most that we can say about the nature of God’s existence is what the author of 1 John postulated “God is love” (4:16).

Love here is not merely an amorphous emotion or an abstract idea; love is what God does. God creates and sustains all things, and God’s love is made manifest in the Word that becomes flesh. In Jesus, the God who is totally other enters time, space, and matter as a person.

This is the paradox of mystery of the divine that the philosopher David Betley Hart describe when he says,

“To speak of “God” properly, then…. is to speak of the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason immanent to all things.” P30 God Bentley Hart God.

Through Christ and in the Holy Spirt the unknowable God seeks to be known to us and is, as the saying goes, closer to us than breathing because as Paul puts it, "In him we live and move and have our being". (Acts 17:28)

Then let us sing of God’s love coming to us in such a personal way as we sing The Great Love of God.

The Great love of God

The incarnation emphasises how close God wishes to be to creation, because through the eternal Word becoming flesh God shares in what it means to physically exist. When Paul reflects on God’s love and closeness to people in and through Jesus, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, he asserts, as we heard today:

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The intimacy of God’s relationship with people and with the whole creation is reflected in the intimacy expressed between Jesus and the one whom he names as Father and in the invitation for we as people to come to God through Jesus as his followers.

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.”

The intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and God, expressed in the language of fatherhood, should not lead us into a single conceptualisation of God as male or as Father. Yes, the language is important because Jesus used it, but we should not reduce God to a bearded old man in the sky. Jesus’ language is a metaphor that emphasizes intimacy and sits alongside a vast range of other images and ideas that express who God is.

The literary theorist and philosopher Paul Ricoeur asserts that the Bible is polyphonic in the naming of God. That means the Bible presents many ways of describing God. The Uniting Church theologian Sally Douglas, in her book Rewilding Prayer, which we have in the library, outlines some of the myriad metaphors for God that are used.

For example, God is a rock (Ps 18:2) and the Most High (Ps 56:2); God is a bird (Ps 57:1); God is a refuge and stronghold (Ps 144:2); God is a mother who holds us on her lap (Ps 131:1–2). She also emphasizes that the biblical warrant “for using male and female language for God is clear. So too is the invitation to utilize non-gendered imagery for the Divine”. It was this range of imagery that inspired the book, What is God Like? that I read at the beginning of the service.

A few weeks ago, at the open evening, I answered a question that I have been asked numerous times, “Do you think that God is non-binary?” The answer that I gave I think reflects how I think about God’s immanence or closeness to us as well as God’s transcendence.

My answer is that non-binary is a term drawn from human understandings of gender. Like all gendered language, it seems illogical to apply it directly to God. For the God who is beyond time, space, and matter, gender is an irrelevant category. However, because we use many words and images to help us come closer to God, including gendered language that describes God as both male and female, I think that if imagining God as non-binary helps a person come closer to God, then I would consider that O.K.

The immanence and closeness of the God, who is love, transcend all our human differences. God is close to us no matter if we are 8 months old or 88 years of age, whatever our economic or social status, regardless of our gender or sexuality, whether we are healthy or confronting a terminal illness, wherever we come from and whatever our ethnicity. Christ is all and Christ is in all and the Holy Spirit lives within us and intercedes for us. This is love.

The gift of connection with this God, who is totally other, is a glimpse into eternity. The good news we share is that we can encounter and experience God, and through that encounter we are transformed and can come to live on earth as it is in heaven because we find ourselves in God’s company.

Making sense of strange words

Based on Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Jesus is often recognised as being a teacher. The Jewish word that would be used to describe him as a teacher is rabbi. In this congregation we talk about being lifelong disciples of Jesus. The word disciples pretty much mean a follower or a student. So, in the scene we have just heard read Jesus is teaching his students. 

I find it is fascinating that after Jesus shares a set of strange sayings which are all similies about this thing that he calls “The kingdom of heaven” he turns to his followers and asks, “Have you understood all this?”

What is even more surprising, and more than a little puzzling, is that they answered, “Yes.” “Yes?” 

I mean seriously do we really think they understood what Jesus was going on about with mustards seeds, yeast, treasure in fields, pearls, and a catch of good and bad fish. Let alone saying that these things described something he called the kingdom of heaven.

For those who don’t know in a former time I was a teacher and there was more than one occasion when I asked a class “Have you understood all this?” Students would all nod vigorously to see yes. But then we I went to speak to individual students it was clear that most of them did not understand at all.

Let’s think about what Jesus was saying. I mean when you think of the word “heaven” I wonder what comes into your mind. Isn’t heaven up there? Somewhere other than where we are? Bunch of angels sitting on clouds?

But Jesus seems to also be implying that this kingdom of heaven has something to do with this life as much as what happens after this life.

I think it is helpful to recall that there is a bit of a mystery and something different to the everyday of our experiences in life when it comes to thinking about Jesus’ teaching. The kingdom that Jesus is describing is not a place but is more about the discovery of our relationship with God and how we can live a good life in this world.

The strangeness of Jesus’ teaching prompts us to see our lives in the world a bit differently and to live as part of this strange thing that he calls the kingdom of heaven. Now because we might have predetermined ideas about some of the words of this phrase I think it cna be helpful to use the original Greek phrase which is βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (pronounced vah-see-LEE-ah tone oo-rah-NOHN). 

If Jesus is referring to how we live in the world as part of this strange idea of βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν then I wonder if Jesus little examples and stories are more about getting us to ask ourselves some questions about the signs of the kingdom already prsent aithin us and around us. 

Let's connect some of the similies to some questions that might help us search for signs of the βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.

The mustard seed and the tree.

Who is some that you look at and see their how life has become a shelter and shade for other people? Who is it that build people up and helps them? 

The yeast and the bread.

What actions do you experience day by day which act like yeast and help you to flourish in life?

The treasure in the field.

What are the joys in your life that you are willing to make sacrifices for?

The pearl of great price. 

What pearls of wisdom have you heard today that might be of value in your life?

And finally, the good and the bad fish.

(As a side note it would have been easier to leave this saying out because it appears to talk about a strange notion of God rejecting some people at the end of our lives. For some people being a follower of Jesus can be oversimplified to ideas about heaven and hell. But this strange saying sits in tension with other parts of the Bible which speak about God’s unconditional mercy, love and grace. Reducing ideas about the βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν to something that happens after we die seems to miss the point of a lot of Jesus teaching. So, I wonder whether what this saying might raise for us is this question.)

What are the things that you see in the world and in your life that you long would be cast off like bad fish?

The good news of Jesus is more than his strange ways of describing how we should live as part of the βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν but involves the outlandish idea that Jesus is also God and in him we see the fullness of God’s love. And this love is shared with us and is within each person. 

When Jesus asks, “Have you understood all this?” I’d like to be honest and say “not really”, “not at all”, or “maybe a bit” (especially when it comes ot a vision of the end times which seems to conrtradict the idea of uncodnitional love). But the mystery of not fully understanding leaves me curious and questioning. It leaves me feeling compelled to continue to follow Jesus and find out more.

Everyone is invited to be part of the βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν and everyone is welcome to participate in sharing in its growth, joy, flourishing and value. You do not have to know and understand everything but simply remain curious and ready to explore more of God’s love. How are you seeing signs of the βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν in your life and how might you give thanks to God for these times.

Intimately known and loved

 Based on Psalm 139

When we listen to the words of the Bible, we listen for what God might be saying to us and we reflect on the words together. Bible passages can generate a range of responses within us. In a Psalm like this one some of us may hear these words and feel comfort, wonder, and gratitude. Others may feel exposed, uncertain, or even uncomfortable. That is O.K. The Psalms give us room to bring our whole selves before God including our joy, our questions, our doubts, and our hopes.

Whenever I hear the words of this Psalm, I am constantly drawn to one phrase. I have something in my suitcase which captures that for me.

(Take out knitting needles and wool. Helen to come and sit and knit.)

The phrase that stands out for me is, “For you created my inmost being.You knit me together in my mother's womb.”

There are an intimacy and sentimentality in this phrase that runs through the whole Psalm. For me it creates an interesting image of God and recalls memories of my own mother who loved knitting. Although, the word knit in the Psalm doesn'y mean knitting in this sense the way we coudl interpret the phrase creates an intersting image of God.

I wonder when someone uses the word God what you might picture. For me one image that comes to mind is of a woman knitting. Just as I can see my mother knitting, I see God sitting like a woman knitting us together.

This imagery is accompanied by the idea that God knows us so closely and watches over us like a caring mother would.

The idea that God watches us so closely might feel a little bit uncomfortable for some people, but I have a sense of deep reassurance and care that God would hem us in with love.

“You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

The good news is that God’s intimate knowledge of us and desire for us is that we might live a rich and abundant life. Whilst this may not always be our experience of life we can hold on to the words of Psalms like this one when we are going through a rough patch and maybe even in those times we will know and feel God’s love hemming us in and holding us up.