Aug 17th

1 Samuel 9     Jeremiah 46     Mark 7     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Being a leader of God’s people is never easy, as Samuel is discovering. You can hardly fault his efforts to dissuade the people from their wish for a king. He spells out the consequences in considerable detail and warns that it will all end in tears.

But the people refuse to listen to him and insist on their own way. Note again how rejection of the Lord’s leader is bound up with a subtle rejection of the Lord himself – the people’s desire is to

be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles

What about God? Is his kingly rule no longer good enough for them? Have they learnt nothing from their roller-coaster ride of military defeat and victory? Have they not seen that their only guarantee of success comes when the Lord leads them into battle? How can they imagine that having a human king will improve their chances?

The extraordinary thing is how graciously God deals with his people’s rebellion. He accedes to their demands and begins to direct events (and specifically donkeys, ironically the members of the animal kingdom which we label as stubborn and headstrong!) supernaturally to ensure that Samuel meets Saul and anoints him king.

However, even if God is gracious and blesses his people despite their sin, there is a clear hint in the text that they have missed God’s best for them. Note the description of Saul in 9:2 – the people will get the king they crave: impressive in an outward, human way but, as we shall soon discover, lacking in the depth of spiritual character needed. [When David is chosen as Saul’s successor, the contrast is striking – there is no human reason to select him at all]

Jeremiah 46 shows the Lord straddling the global stage: kings, emperors, armies and empires are all at his disposal, a point which, as we have seen, God’s people are prone to forget. We’re also given one of scripture’s historical pegs – the battle of Carchemish, in 605 BC, saw the end of Egypt as a world player, and left the Babylonians as the ancient world’s only superpower.

Despite the miraculous signs of the previous chapter, the Pharisees decide that the most pressing concern of the moment is to ensure that Jesus instructs his followers in correct liturgical practice and ritual hygiene. This is a chilling example of something which starts out as a God-ordained practice with a deep spiritual resonance, but which over time becomes divorced from that meaning, and ends up as a dry religious observance bringing death rather than life. Jews were commanded to attend to external cleanliness as a continual reminder of the need for inner purity, and a life lived in response to God’s command to love neighbour and stranger as self.

One of the main reasons that religion becomes a curse is that it always tempts us to limit what we need to do for God. He wants us to show compassion to the alien, the widow and orphan, to take care of elderly parents, and to see the world transformed. But it’s so much easier just to give that dinner plate an extra rinse …

Having exposed the corrupt heart of the Pharisees, Jesus exposes the desperate heart of a foreign woman in one of scripture’s most extraordinary encounters. Yes, he does seem to call her a dog, doesn’t he? Yet we can’t see the tenderness in his eyes, nor hear his tone of voice. Whatever it was, something encouraged her to persevere, and this showed Jesus the heart attitude he continues to seek in those who come before him. We heard earlier in the week that some people took offence at Jesus. Still today he offends the mind to reveal the heart. I know a modern-day Syro-Phoenician woman who came to faith as a result of this text, and is now an evangelist on the streets of Albania.

What does your heart tell the Lord today?

(member of the clergy)

Aug 16th

1 Samuel 7-8     Jeremiah 44     Mark 6     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Samuel is one of those rare characters in scripture who straddle the transition between key stages in God’s dealing with his people. The disciples have a foot in both the Old and the New Covenant eras. Samuel is both the last in the long line of ‘Judges’ and the first of the ‘Prophets.’

It is fascinating to witness the difference godly leadership can bring. Under Eli, God’s people were defeated by their enemies. CS Lewis comments that ‘the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart’ and Samuel brings reform where it is most needed – to the hearts of God’s people. Note that Samuel is clear that only the Lord can deliver them, and only if they are willing to humble themselves before him in repentance (7:3). His leadership is effective – the people follow and obey the word he brings them from the Lord! (7:4-6). He demonstrates spiritual passion and prayer (7:8-10) which is infectious and powerful.

What has changed? The people still face the same enemy, but now they win a mighty – and  decisive: ‘the Philistines were subdued and did not invade again’ – victory, through trust in the Lord alone. Samuel then sidesteps the danger of pride in any human achievement, by ensuring that the glory goes to God (7:12). Many non-comformist chapels took the name ‘Ebenezer’ from this scripture – do we have that same sense as we look back over life that ‘thus far has the Lord helped us’?

Sadly, God’s people are never more than one generation away from triumph or disaster. Astonishingly, the problems Eli had with his sons are now repeated in the life of Samuel (it’s never wise to assume that people are mature and wise and godly simply by association, biological or otherwise, with someone who clearly is), and the stage is set for further calamity, as the people demand a king. What’s wrong with that, you might wonder? The clue is in 8:5, which reveals they want to be like ‘all the other nations.’ If there is one thing the Lord asks of his people, now as then, it is that we be radically distinct from our world. Are there any ways in which we are longing to be like everyone else? The Lord tells Samuel that the people are rejecting not Samuel but him.

A similar stubbornness confronts Jeremiah as, yet again, he faithfully brings God’s words of life to the people. The Lord wants them to turn away from false worship, but the people reply

 ‘We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord!’

Rather, they explicitly commit to continue their pagan practices.

Mark 6 opens with a similar rejection of Jesus himself, as the people ‘take offence at him.’ Sending out his disciples in twos, he has them enact, where needed, a vivid demonstration of God’s own rejection of those who will not welcome his good news. Herod’s lifestyle epitomises the rejection of God’s ways which calls forth God’s judgement, and underscores the need for someone to save us from our own waywardness.

The next two incidents would have lit every lightbulb in the memory of every Jew who witnessed or heard about them. The people’s understanding of the ‘salvation’ or ‘deliverance’ for which they were longing was entirely contigent upon the great story of God’s deliverance through Moses in the Exodus. In the recounting of this great act or rescue, two key elements were highlighted – the supernatural provision of food in the wilderness, and the parting of the Red Sea so that the people could walk across on dry land. Here, Jesus provides food for thousands from a few loaves and fish, and then walks across lake Galilee as if it were dry land.

Here indeed is the promised messiah, the Saviour, for all who turn to him, whether a Herod or an unnamed member of the crowd in need of his saving touch.

(member of the clergy)

Aug 15th

1 Samuel 5-6     Jeremiah 43     Mark 5     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Today we are given an insight into the outworking of God’s holiness.

The ark of the covenant is now part of the spoils of war taken by the Philistines after their rout of Israel. We noted that the ark represented God’s presence, and the Philistines are about to discover just what it means to disregard and disdain him. There is something almost comical about the repeated collapse of the idol Dagon – falling on your face was a sign that you acknowledged you were in the presence of one greater than yourself! Here we have a foretaste of the Day when everyone and everything will bow the knee to the Lord and acknowledge him King of kings.

The outcome for the Philistine people, however, is far from amusing. And when they seek advice from their own priests and diviners, it is clear that the God of Israel has an awe-some reputation. What calamities are befalling the nations of earth – including our own – today, because of our unwillingness to give him the place of pre-eminence which is his by right, and which he will one day occupy in glory? We rarely tiptoe into such questions, but unless God has changed, can we avoid them?

One of the saddest things about reading the Old Testament story of God’s dealings with his people is how simple it would have been for them to enjoy his continued favour and blessing. But simple obedience always seems so hard for us humans, doesn’t it? Chapter 42 saw the remnant of God’s people begging Jeremiah to seek the Lord for guidance, which he does. The Lord’s word is simple: ‘Stay here and prosper – run for Egypt and die.’ Did you guess what their response would be? Yet again, human ‘arrogance’ is identified as the cause of the people’s downfall.

Mark, meanwhile, continues to portray Jesus in terms which can only mean one thing – the God of the Old Testament, the Holy One, whose power controls the forces of nature, the powers of darkness and the very stuff of life and death, has come to earth, incarnated – made flesh – in a carpenter from Nazareth. When God visits earth, his holiness banishes all that mars and corrupts life, restoring life and wholeness and hope to his people.

From the end of chapter 4 through chapter 5, we witness power encounters between Jesus and the forces of nature (the calming of the storm), evil (the Gedarene demoniac), sickness (the woman with the flow of blood) and death (the raising of Jairus’ daughter).

Note the various responses to Jesus

 ‘Who is this?’

‘the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region’

‘the man went away and began to tell how much Jesus had done for him’

‘all the people were amazed’

‘seeing Jesus there, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him’

‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed’

‘Your daughter is dead … Why bother the teacher any more?’

‘they laughed at him [Jesus]’

‘they were completely astonished’

What’s your response to Jesus?

(member of the clergy)

Aug 14th

1 Samuel 4     Jeremiah 42     Mark 4     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

The failure of leadership among God’s people has far-reaching consequences, as is made clear by the defeat of Israel’s armies, and the capture of the Ark of the Covenant by the Philistines. It is fascinating to see the difference between the response of Israel’s elders here and that of David, the later king of Israel. When he faced defeat, he would ask the Lord directly, and receive instruction from him. Here, the elders pose the question, but then immediately answer it from their own store of human wisdom. ‘Let’s bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant … so that it may … save us from the hand of our enemies.’ Note how subtly they have removed their trust from the Lord himself to a religious object. It matters not that the ark had indeed been given by God to represent his presence with his people. Now that Israel’s leaders’ faith was in it and not in him, it becomes worse than useless to them – their act of pride leading to 30,000 slaughtered on the battlefield. Are we in danger of placing the trust that belongs only to the Lord in any religious object or practice?

As so often, scripture brings that vast number down to a human scale – Eli’s sons are among the dead. And so the judgment foretold through Samuel is meted out as a direct consequence of the corrupt leadership his prophetic word had condemned. When we first met Eli in chapter 1, he is sitting in his chair. Our final sight of him, his bloated body symbolic of the self-serving and lazy life he has led, is again on his chair, or rather, falling dead from it as his heart fails him. God’s people – and especially their leaders – are not called to a life of leisure or selfish gain. We have no license to sit on our chairs. Lord, save us from passivity today.

We read Mark 3 yesterday, and saw Jesus’s ongoing battle to reintroduce the word and works of God into another generation which had grown up in their absence, as Pharisees and others focused on religious rule and ritual above reaching out to those in need. It is their hardness of heart which most distresses Jesus. How ironic that the evil spirits are more ready to acknowledge the truth about him (‘You are the son of God’) than Israel’s spiritual leaders! Indeed, these so-called leaders try to claim that Jesus is in league with the Devil himself, a charge which Jesus exposes for the nonsense it so patently is. Sadly, there are those today who try to explain away or even denounce God’s Kingdom work.

The soils in today’s parable of the sower stand for various heart responses to the word of God. May we be those who, by welcoming and following Jesus in all he seeks to do among us today, see a rich harvest for God’s kingdom, which, as his later parables in this chapter show, however small and insignificant it may at times appear, is here to stay and here to grow.

(member of the clergy)

Aug 13th

1 Samuel 3     Jeremiah 41     Mark 3     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Today’s reading in Jeremiah details the assassination of Gedaliah, the man appointed by Babylon to rule those Jews left behind after the cream of their countrymen have been deported. It is one of Scripture’s regular reminders that human sinfulness and the chaos brought on by our rebellion against the ways of God plays out in individual suffering and tragedy.

Another stark indictment of the consequence of human sin opens our reading from Samuel

in those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

Much the same can be said of the modern church in recent generations. The absence of understanding that the Lord speaks directly with his people (visions being just one of the ways in which he does so) is traced to the failure of those (Eli and his sons) appointed to steward and encourage God’s word.

The sweep of scripture reveals that God has a particular aversion to false or corrupt leadership, and we see here the first stirrings of reformation, as the young boy Samuel learns to hear God speak. Eli’s failing physical sight is as nothing compared with his spiritual blindness. Having misdiagnosed Hannah’s praying as drunkenness rather than spiritual fervour (as do the crowds on the Day of Pentecost centuries later), he now fails to realise what is happening to Samuel. Surely there is no greater failing in the present generation of spiritual leaders than that of not training up the next in the things of God.

God speaks three times – time and again in scripture, this thrice repetition (‘Holy, holy, holy’) is indicative of perfection – and finally the penny drops for Eli. Belatedly, he teaches Samuel how to welcome and, as we might say today, ‘host’ the presence of God. This is not overstating the case, for the text tells us that on the next occasion, ‘the Lord came and stood’ before Samuel. He is now responding not simply to a disembodied voice, but to a Lord who reveals himself.

My own first experience of the prophetic was similar – I was 16 and a new ‘officer’ on the Christian Youth Camp where I had come to faith two years previously. One night, I felt the Lord give me a word of rebuke for the camp’s leaders, all of whom were far older and more mature than me. I will never forget the overpowering fear of that morning’s prayer meeting, when through hot tears I stumbled out the words I felt the Lord had given me. Unlike Eli, who simply accepted but did not do anything in response (‘He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes’) my fellow leaders humbled themselves, repented, and made the changes the Lord had detailed.

How do we respond to the Lord’s word today? May this and the coming generation be ones of whom it cannot be said that his speaking is a rare occurrence.

(member of the clergy)

Aug 12th

1 Samuel 2     Jeremiah 40     Mark 2     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Today’s readings remind us of the contrasting ways in which humankind responds to the truth of God’s nature; and also point to the cost of following the Lord.

Hannah’s beautiful song of gratitude for the gift of a son she thought she would never be able to conceive proclaims that God holds all things in his hands: from armies to the beggar foraging for scraps on the rubbish heap; from the gift of life to its ending. Warning against human arrogance, Hannah instead urges the humble acknowledgement that

There is no-one holy like the Lord;

There is none beside you;

There is no rock like our God.

What a contrast between the heartfelt praise of this ordinary woman and the self-serving corruption of Eli’s sons who, we are told, ‘had no regard for the Lord’ and so treated his offerings ‘with contempt.’ They were not prepared to pay the cost of genuine, servant-hearted ministry to God’s people.

Mark’s gospel has already taken us to the heart of the action, as Jesus comes proclaiming and demonstrating the nearness of God’s kingdom, and setting up the fierce contest between him and the religious leaders. Jesus has already called his first followers, and now they begin to see the reality of the opposition which always stands against God’s work in our world.

The healing of the paralytic famously lowered through a roof to the feet of Jesus is one of the most significant in the gospels. It establishes that forgiveness of sins – the gift of salvation through faith in Christ – is the greatest miracle, to which all others, including this man’s physical restoration, are signs and pointers. But the action of the man’s friends – literally a breaking in out of desperation for the touch of the healer – is also symbolic of the action of God’s kingdom, which breaks in to our world whether welcome or not. The roof symbolises the ways that religion seeks to block it out. Religion, like the roof, will be broken open: nothing can halt the purposes of God. This theme is further emphasized as Jesus goes head to head with the hardness of the religious leaders’ hearts, as they seek to elevate their own rules and rituals above God’s call to compassion. The calling of Matthew in the midst of all this sets our own call to discipleship firmly within the context of God’s kingdom – coming and opposed.

Jeremiah reminds us that, whatever cost discipleship involves, God is ultimately faithful to those he calls. Jeremiah’s release points to the glorious promise that all who trust in Jesus will one day be set free from the captivity of human sin. When God unveils his new creation, we will hear our Saviour’s voice: ‘Look, the whole country lies before you.’ Such a promise is worth whatever cost our discipleship demands.

(member of the clergy)

Aug 11th

1 Samuel 1     Jeremiah 39     Mark 1     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

This passage is a delightful cameo of the Kingdom of God in the real world.

We see the deep sadness of Hannah at being childless, while her husband’s other wife has children, and taunts her of her “failure”.  She bears it all with simple dignity, and throughout it all she holds on to her faith, continuing to go “up to the House of the Lord”, even though she knows that even there (and maybe especially there) she will face her rival’s taunts as well.  Even Eli the priest accuses her of being drunk as she prays to God.

And yet…..God is there in her suffering and hears her prayer.  She bears a child, the consummation of her hopes, dreams and prayers.  And yet…. she remains faithful to God, dedicating her son, the very object of all her thoughts and dreams over the years, to God.  And God honours that by raising up Samuel, one of his greatest prophets to Israel.

The challenge for us is to show that same faithfulness, regardless of the “headwinds” we face in life, to meet them with the same grace and quiet confidence in God and his faithful provision, and to remember him in both the good and the bad times, because he cares for us in them all.

We know nothing more of Hannah but if each of us were to be as faithful and gracious as her, how different the world would be and how much more God’s Kingdom would be a reality in our world today….There’s our challenge.

(member of the PCC)