Friday 31 August 2012

Thought for the week 2nd Sept 2012


Rhythm of Life

Darkness
curling round the edge of space
like mist on a summer morning
meets dancing light,
to touch and separate,
to embrace and part,
on that first day
of God's creating.
So in the rhythm
of our lives
must joy and sadness
weave a pattern
of God's purpose:
touch and tinge
our lives
with sorrow
and gladness.
Kate McIlhagga


Mark 7.18, 1415, 2123 When the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? Jesus said to them, Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.
Then he called the crowd again and said to them, Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Thursday 23 August 2012

Thought for the week 26th Aug 2012


Invitation
The fire is lit,
the table set,
the door stands open.
Come to eat and drink,
come to be part of the community,
come to be part of the worldwide
communion
of those who trust in Jesus.
Come round the table,
saint and sinner,
stranger and friend,
to break bread,
share wine,
prepared and poured for you.
In sharing the symbols
of life blood spilt
and body broken,
become one with Christ
and with all those,
who in pain,
yearn for healing today.
Come, here is food
for your healing,
bread and wine for your journey.
Come to be full-filled,
by God, the Giver and Lover of all.
Kate McIlhagga

Saturday 18 August 2012

Thought for the week 19th August


O
Christ,
be manna
for our journeys,
food that gives us life.
It is infinite love we need
for the source of all our goings,
strength for what comes our way
every moment of every day.
Be our love-source,
our life source.
And we shall
not ever
Die.
Anne Osdieck

Friday 10 August 2012

Thought for the Week 12th August


A fragment of bread
A fragment of bread
cupped in my hand
torn off from the whole
cupped in my hand,
passed to me.
And I too must tear the body
to share with my neighbour
a fragment of bread
to embody me with them
and he with us.
A piece of bread
a bread of peace
scattered, grown
cut down, mown
gathered, ground
mixed pummelled
risen, fired and found.
A piece of bread
a bread of peace
sliced and toasted
broken shared
around a table
to give us life.
Kate McIlhagga


GOSPEL (John 6.35, 41–51)

Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
Glory to you, O Lord

Jesus said to the crowd, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’

Jesus answered them, ‘Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.”
Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

Friday 3 August 2012

Thought for the Week 5th August


Anyone could have seen the first two just behind the fabric of the world. The third is in an unlooked-for ray of brilliance.
Power lifts over us abundantly in sunlight, ocean, lightning; matchless design in a bird’s wing. Only a mind sealed shut could see and not stir to the presence of a creating majesty. Voices speak suddenly with different claritysing in a key nobody taught. For those it touches this empowerment is undeniable as the wild wind. But power given utterly to the task of mending, healing, cleansing, at its own cost; making whole what was broken; pouring itself out endlessly to be a light to the soul lost in the dark rocks; spending itself as salt to fend off decay this is a new song, a gift beyond imagining, and surpassing strange.
Roddie Cowie.