Living Stones

This week during lock-down Tweedmouth, Scremerston and Spittal parishes invite me (in liew of a personal preachment) to send a homily on Sunday's Gospel that is emailed to worshippers.  Here it is:

Matthew 13: 1-9; 18-23.

Jesus pointed to the apparently immoveable, ageless stones of the temple, and predicted that in his disciples’ life time they would all be gone.

 We humans tend to put our trust in what is familiar. We cling to what we know. 

 So a pandemic can be frightening.  It rages without regard to our false securities.

 If you go to today’s Jerusalem you can see just the bottom layer of building stones that remained when the temple was destroyed.

 This truth has come home to me during lock-down when I have been wrestling with writing a Year-Book on Re-Imagining Britain and Ireland.  A knowledgeable sage I ask to comment on each day’ s entry has sent me a thousand emails – some of  just one word. One this week said ‘I give you 3 out of 10 for understanding the Good Friday Agreement’!

 Another email said the Agreement was like a lance for a boil on the bum of Britain and Ireland – but who has the insight and dedication to take forward the healing of  the whole bit of anatomy?

 In our ignorance, fear of loss,  partial sight and selfish grooves, let us open ourselves as never before to the Christ  who is the Alpha and Omega, who sees the end from the beginning, who re-fashions the architecture of our lands and our spiritual landscapes, of our individual and family lives, and of our churches and neighbourhoods.

 You and I are living stones. Let us place ourselves into the Master Builder’s hands and see what God can do.

This week I returned to Holy Island for the first time since March.  Faith and Scot Brennan are two of a series of volunteers whosometimes  base at my house, The Whitehouse, to engage in work or make a DIY retreat.  This week they rescured the garden from being a wilderness and cleared out a garden store house.  I drove with them to Berwick re-cycling centre to re-cycle loads of stuff.

This week I started to read Mark Comer's God has a name for Haddington Book Club's forthcoming zoom meeting.  Mark points out that although God won’t let Moses (and us) see his face, He will do one better, He will let His goodness pass before us.

Unpack that!