Children's Bloomers!

These were passed on to me by a friend. Most are old hat but still good for a giggle!

THIS COMES FROM A CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST ; KIDS WERE ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BIBLE WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN RETOUCHED OR CORRECTED. INCORRECT SPELLING HAS BEEN LEFT IN.

1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS, GOD GOT TIRED OF CREATING THE WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SABBATH OFF.

2. ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED FROM AN APPLE TREE. NOAH’S WIFE WAS JOAN OF ARK. NOAH BUILT AND ARK AND ANIMALS CAME ON IN PEARS.

3. LOTS WIFE WAS A PILLAR OF SALT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BALL OF FIRE DURING THE NIGHT.

4. THE JEWS WERE A PROUD PEOPLE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY THEY HAD TROUBLE WITH UNSYMPATHETIC GENITALS.

5. SAMPSON WAS A STRONGMAN WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY A JEZEBEL LIKE DELILAH.

. SAMPSON SLAYED THE PHILISTINES WITH THE AXE OF THE APOSTLES.

7. MOSES LED THE JEWS TO THE RED SEA WHERE THEY MADE UNLEAVENED BREAD WICH IS BREAD WITHOUT ANY INGREDIENTS.

8. THE EGYPTIANS WERE ALL DROWNED IN THE DESSERT. AFTERWARDS, MOSES WENT UP TO MOUNT CYANIDE TO GET THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

9. THE FIRST COMMANDMENTS WAS WHEN EVE TOLD ADAM TO EAT THE APPLE.

10. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT IS THOU SHALT NOT ADMIT ADULTERY.

11. MOSES DIED BEFORE HE EVER REACHED CANADA. THEN JOSHUA LED THE HEBREWS IN THE BATTLE OF GERITOL.

12. THE GREATEST MIRICLE IN THE BIBLE IS WHEN JOSHUA TOLD HIS SON TO STAND STILL AND HE OBEYED HIM.

13. DAVID WAS A HEBREW KING WHO WAS SKILLED AT PLAYING THE LIAR. HE FOUGHT THE FINKELSTEINS, A RACE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN BIBLICAL TIMES.

14. SOLOMON, ONE OF DAVIDS SONS, HAD 300 WIVES AND 700 PORCUPINES.

15. WHEN MARY HEARD SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS, SHE SANG THE MAGNA CARTA.

16. WHEN THE THREE WISE GUYS FROM THE EAST SIDE ARRIVED THEY FOUND JESUS IN THE MANAGER.

17. JESUS WAS BORN BECAUSE MARY HAD AN IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION.

18. ST. JOHN THE BLACKSMITH DUMPED WATER ON HIS HEAD!

19. JESUS ENUNCIATED THE GOLDEN RULE, WHICH SAYS TO DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO ONE UNTO YOU. HE ALSO EXPLAINED THAT A MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY SWEAT ALONE.

20. IT WAS A MIRICLE WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND MANAGED TO GET THE TOMBSTONE OFF THE ENTRANCE.

21. THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED THE LORD WERE CALLED THE 12 DECIBELS.

22. THE EPISTELS WERE THE WIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

23. ONE OF THE OPPOSSUMS WAS ST. MATTHEW WHO WAS ALSO A TAXIMAN.

24. ST. PAUL CAVORTED TO CHRISTIANITY, HE PREACHED HOLY ACRIMONY WHICH IS ANOTHER NAME FOR MARRIAGE.

25. CHRISTIANS HAVE ONLY ONE SPOUSE, THIS IS CALLED MONOTONY.

The thoughts that follow are based on this passage:
John 1
The Word Became Flesh
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In his book “Lost for Words”, John Humphreys, that radio scourge of politicians demonstrates just how much we abuse language, by bad usage. He reserves his greatest anger for politicians, quoting, for instance Tony Blair, in his speeches, was short of verbs: in a speech to the Labour conference a total of 163 verbless sentences were included. Things like “New challenges, New ideas”, and “The future, not the past”, “The age of achievement, at home and abroad”, and “For our young people, a brighter future”. It was all good rhetoric. John Humphries asked a few delegates, immediately after the speech about what was said – they were unsure, yet they had all applauded wildly. But little of it made sense, because there were very few promises, and if one looks back little was achieved. The speech actually promised little, for action requires verbs.
When I speak words, it is, in a very real sense, part of me. It is breath that comes from inside of me, making the noise that I give it with my larynx, my mouth and my tongue. When people hear it, they assume I intended to say it, and we remain responsible for the words we say.
Words can change lives. Think of the words “I love you”, or “It’s time to go”, or “You’re fired!” These sorts of words create new situations, and people respond accordingly, for these are words that cannot be taken back. Words are at the core of our being without them communication moves to a whole different level. Think how, if you had no speech or language – as many in our world are – how you would communicate simple things as “I love you”.
In the Old Testament God regularly acts by means of his word: what he says happens.
“God said, ‘Let there be light – and there was light’”. Regularly God speaks – either through his mouthpiece – the Patriarchs like Abraham and Moses, or through the prophets like Isaiah, who proclaimed “God’s word will go out of his mouth and bring life, healing and hope to Israel and the whole creation”. (Is. 55/10-11) It is a backbone concept amongst all the OT writers.
Which, I suppose is why John uses this in the prologue that we are more accustomed to hearing at Christmas time. The Greek word that he uses is “Logos”, which means a variety of things: it encompasses “Wisdom”, “Expression” as well as “word”. In some ways by using such an opening to his gospel, John was trying to appeal to readers who came from a Greek background as much as those of a Jewish background. Many Jewish teachers had grappled with the age old question – How can one true God be both different from the world and active within it: how can he be remote, holy, and detached, and also intimately present? For some, simply the written word was the proof of God’s presence with his people, the fact that God’s word was enshrined in the Torah, the Law. Others believed that the Temple in Jerusalem contained the presence of God within the community of Israel.
But John goes further. The Word (logos) is not an abstract principle, it’s a person, it is the issue of God himself – God’s expression in his Son – the word became flesh – God became human and lived among us: God became Jesus. That is the whole theme of John’s gospel – if you want to know anything at all about the one true God, then you have to look at Jesus, take a long hard look, and what you see is the face of God himself.
Preachers and theologians and professional churchmen have for hundreds of years made Christianity so complicated, and so difficult to follow. They have turned the Church, whether protestant or catholic into sacred clubs with rules to be obeyed before you can take up membership. It is as if they need to protect God from his creation (us)!
John’s gospel blows it wide open. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but may have eternal life. Indeed God did not send his Son into the world, to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him”. (John 3/16-17) -those are the central words of the gospel of John and of the whole meaning of Christianity.
In today’s reading, (above) this opening prologue it harks back to the creation, to the themes of light and darkness, but it prepares us for what is to come: to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.
Ultimately the choice is down to us: we may side with those who believe it is wrong to say prayers in Barnstable Town Council meeting, and choose not to accept the existence of God, and therefore chip away and the presence of Christianity in our society – and believe me it is increasingly under attack; or you can seize the fact that God is, he always has been, and always will be and that he has expressed himself by becoming human and is in our midst. That is why I believe that all who take this on board and try to live by it are welcome to come and receive holy communion in our churches because the bread and wine are living symbols of the fleshiness of Jesus – God in our midst. Therefore any church which seeks to prevent a person approaching the living God in the sacrament of Holy Communion is treading on dangerous ground. As Jesus himself said “Come to me, and I will give you rest”. He welcomes all to come to him.

Last week a group of about 10 folk reflected on the readings for Sunday 6th November to give some input into the sermon: this is the result!
“let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream”.
On the last few Wednesdays some of us have been meeting to learn more about prayer by practising some different approaches and techniques. It has been very instructive.
It was suggested that one week we sit and look at the readings for the following Sunday and then reflect on them – the scriptures can be important for our prayer – and I thought that it could be worth a try, so today’s sermon bears the fruit of that collected wisdom and reflection, but ultimately this sermon was written by me and no others can be blamed for errancy or bad theology, but can claim the credit for any original thinking that follows in the next few minutes!
We are in that season which begins with All Saints Day and takes up most of November and includes several days of remembering – All Souls when we recall our departed loved ones, Guy Fawkes “remember,remember the 5th November”. Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday, culminating on the last day of the Christian Year with the Feast of Christ the King, the Sunday before Advent.
So it is no surprise that there is a linking theme running through the reading about the coming Day of the Lord, which is a thought that occurs several times in scripture, and which some evangelical groups latch on to, including that crazy guy in America who believed the world would end sometime last May, and when it did not, decided it would be on October 21st. When he got that wrong, he told his dwindling band of followers that it would be sometime next year. Some Christians have always believed that the end of the world would be soon, hence Paul’s letter to the Christians in Thessalonica speaks of the imminent coming of Jesus in glory, because some in the early church firmly believed in this second coming. This particular passage described what some groups call “The Rapture”. The Rapture is a reference to the "being caught up" referred to in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, when the "dead in Christ" and "we who are alive and remain" will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord.
This theme was extensively promoted by early American evangelists, but is not widely held in mainstream Christianity because many of us understand Christ’s second coming to have been at the time the Holy Spirit was unleashed upon the world after the Resurrection. And consequently we believe that when we die we shall be caught up into the eternity that is God’s gift to us.
The gospel reading with the tale of the bridesmaids and their lamps is about being ready for the coming of the bridegroom who is Christ. So there is a theme linking our three readings.
There was a bit of a feeling as we pondered these readings that the five bridesmaids who had spare oil were being a bit unselfish in not sharing their surplus with the unprepared ones, but that there was no getting away from the fact that all our readings urge us to Be Prepared. If we are not prepared we will miss out.
However, we spent most of our time looking at the few verses of Amos, the Old Testament reading. Amos is generally believed to have been a sheep and fig farmer in the 8th century BC who turned to prophesy possibly only for a few days when the Jews were at a very low point in their religious life, doing the rituals, and literally getting away with murder. Hence he says “Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…” Words that could often be applied to the church today. But he concludes, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream”.
Our thoughts quickly turned to what has been happening around St Paul’s Cathedral these last few weeks with the protests, linked with those in other places of our world, about Bankers, justice and inequality and who seek what one protester calls “Global Improvement Works”. They wanted to occupy the London Stock Exchange but could not, so they occupied a softer target, St Paul’s, where to date the only real impact has been to show up the Church’s inability to respond to people’s felt and expressed needs. So much so that the Dean and two others on the Cathedral Staff have resigned presumably because they were at odds about the Church’s proper response. The choice is to side with protestors, drive them out of the Temple precincts or, perhaps to welcome them and enter into dialogue. For yes, we need wealth creators for the good of the world, but we do not need greedy wealth creators whose only real concern is the bonus at the end of the year.
Dialogue is urgently needed, change is urgently needed, and the gospel needs to be heard inside St Paul’s cathedral, outside in the Churchyard and within the walls of the Stock Markets and Bank Boardrooms of the City of London. The message has to be clear: many people are now scraping a living where resources are being severely cut. The message of Jesus is that we must work for a society which is part of the Kingdom which Christ lived died and rose again to inaugurate. A kingdom in which all can equally share. And it now looks as if Canon Giles Fraser and others will lead that vitally important dialogue because politicians of every hue have dramatically failed to deliver a just and fair society in my lifetime.
Our little group believe that the last few days will inevitably change the Church of England. To close the doors of St Pauls was a travesty of everything that was required. Cowardice, running away from the issues of engagement, dialogue and the cause of the gospel. Certainly the Dean and some of the chapter appeared to be like the five foolish virgins who were not prepared.
So let your life be based on those words of Amos where justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

I quite like ikons and have collected one or two over the years because they are often most beautiful works of religious art. One of the more famous ones is by Rublev which is on today’s notice sheet. It contains much imagery. The icon of the Old Testament Trinity was painted around 1410 by Andrei Rublev a Russian monk.

It depicts the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre - but is often interpreted as an icon of the Trinity. The image is full of symbolism - designed to take the viewer into the Mystery of the Trinity.

The three faces are identical... how might this help us to understand the nature of the Trinity?The figures can be enclosed in a circle again this tells us the the life of the Trinity is a close knit unity.

All the figures wear a blue garment - the colour of the heavens... but each wears something that speaks of Their own identity

- The Father – wears The blue garment almost hidden by a shimmering - ethereal robe. The One who is Creator who cannot be seen by His human creatures. Both hands clasp the staff signifying that All authority in heaven and on earth belong to the Father. Behind the figure is a house the dwelling place of God.

"In my Father's House are many mansions - I go to prepare a place for you..."

- The Christ – The figure wears the blue of divinity.

The brown garment speaks of the earth - of His humanity. The gold stripe speaks of kingship. He points to a cup filled with wine...

Thhis represents the hospitality of Christ and his blood shed on the cross.Behind the figure is a tree. This could be the oak tree at Mamre under which the three angelic visitors rested. The hospitality of Abraham and Sarah was rewarded in the gift of a son. The tree may also represent the Cross - the tree on which our Saviour died.

The tree of death which becomes the tree of eternal life - lost to humanity by the disobedience of Adam and Eve - restored to us by the obedience of Jesus.

- The Spirit - A blue robe speaking of divinity - - A green robe representing new life - The Spirit touches the table - earthing the divine life of God. Behind the figure is a mountain. Mountains are places where people often encountered God - places where heaven and earth seem to touch. Moses met God on mountains. Jesus was transfigured whilst in prayer on a mountain.

Reflect on your own "mountain top" experiences - times when you have felt very close to God - when you have felt transfigured and filled with the Spirit.

So why am have I gone off at a tangent about a picture – an ikon? Because believe it or not they figure very strongly in our two bible readings today.

The letter to the Thessalonians – which is probably the earliest piece of NT writing. In it Paul speaks of the Christians in Thessalonica “Becoming imitators of us” They had followed the examples of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy because they had shown them what god was like by their way of life, and they in turn became an example to the other believers in the region. In a sense they were ikons, byu their lives, pointing people to God.

Jesus, in the gospel reading today was under pressure from the religious leaders. Should they or should they not pay the much despised poll tax?

Bring me a coin. Whose head (the Greek word is eikon. The ikon is Caesars. So pay Caesar what is due to him, has his head on it, its his, give it back to him. Humans, on the other hand are made in the likeness of God – they bear the eikon of God. They must pay the infamous poll tax, but they do not belong to emperor; they belong to God because they bear his image and likeness.

That is quite a stunning thought. We humans bear God’s image, and wherever we live and operate, whether in the social, economic, political or religious realm, we belong to God. Our primary loyalties do not change as soon as we leave church, they stay with us wherever we are, whatever we are doing.

We are so busy, rushing hither and thither, ending each day worn out, forgetting to find time either to be with God or to find space for others to be imitators of the God whose image we carry every day, every moment. It is not something we put on when we come in to church or leave behind when we walk out of the door, we cannot shed that image, because if God is not your Creator – who is?

That is why we have to find time to be with God, week by week in church, day by day in our prayer and reflection. So I urge you to take home your notice sheet and reflect on Rublev’s ikon and look through it to God and reflect on your own experiences of the Trinity.

Journeying

cd

In my journeying with you,

may I never lose my sense of direction,

never lose sight of the landmark

towards which I travel.

And should cloud or rain obscure my vision,

may I draw closer to you,

so that my feet may tread

in your footsteps,

your words be my encouragement,

and your love my protection

against the storms that assail me.

ba

Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar

July 3rd is the Feast of St Thomas - who happens to be one of my favourite saints because he is so close to how many English people are about religion! So Who was St Thomas?

He is, I suppose, the patron saint of doubters! This is his story in John 24

The Incredulity of St Thomas by Caravaggio

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

He did not, at first, believe in the resurrection of Jesus because he had not seen the risen Lord. Do we not cringe when fundamentalists who are so sure of their faith make us feel bad for our uncertainties? To have doubts about faith is quite normal and OK: just because we have been baptized, confirmed, go to church regularly does not mean that we sign up to the whole “bag” of belief. To challenge, question and tussle with the quest for truth is the only honest way to go. We should not feel guilty when we doubt.

In his wonderful book “In God we Doubt”, John Humphreys says that it is easy to be an atheist, and it easy to be a fundamentalist. He writes, “Doubt is altogether different. There are two questions for agnostics…the one…asked by Gottfrried Leibnitz is this ‘ Why is there something rather than nothing’? Believers have no problem answering it: it’s because God decided there should be… and the question that follows from Leibnitz for doubters is: If it was because of God, what sort of God?....(the believers) God seems to be exactly the sort of person you’d want your daughter to marry if he were human: kind, merciful, immensely loving; all-powerful and just. But if you are a doubter you look at the world around you and say something along the lines of ‘You’re telling me God is like that and yet this is what he created? You must be joking!”