Thoughts on the Readings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nMy advice to student teachers as they approach the classroom for the first time is don\u2019t try and teach any reading, any writing or any \u2018rithmatic until you\u2019ve got the rules set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unless the children know what the expectations are, unless they\u2019ve signed up to them, agreed to them, in fact if possible helped to draft them out, there\u2019s no point in starting to try and teach them anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What children need, and what children in the end discover they like though they may not realise it at the time, is to know just where the boundaries are. Thus far and no further. This is OK, this is not. And then they need to know that it will be stuck to, stuck to consistently for everyone by everyone. Once you\u2019ve got that then you can move on to 2 + 2 makes 4 and \u2018a\u2019 is for apple or, if you\u2019re more ambitious, e = mc squared!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if we\u2019re honest this doesn\u2019t just apply to children. We certainly haven\u2019t been short of rules and regulations this last 12 months but, even in this \u2018unprecedented\u2019 year, with rules far stricter than any that have been in place since the second world war and some stricter than that, if we\u2019re honest, despite everything and however uncomfortable and restrictive they\u2019ve been, I think we have been glad that the rules have been made and we have (I hope) adhered to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we find God in our Old Testament lesson today doing just the same sort of thing. Before moving on to greater things with his fledgling nation the Israelites, they sit down together and map out the boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or rather, Moses goes up the mountain, gets the list of rules, brings them down and everybody nods in agreement. The covenant is set. This is how we\u2019ll deal together. You do this and I\u2019ll be able to lead you and love you, guide you and bring you to greatness and fulfilment, God tells them. And the Israelites nod sagely in agreement and all seems well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And these rules are still here for us and though a lot is written in the New Testament about things that take us beyond this law, nowhere does it say that this list is to be abandoned. I love the King James Bible of Jesus\u2019 words on the subject, \u201cNot one jot or tittle shall be changed!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the Ten Commandments still stand and we too nod sagely in agreement and our covenant with God stands firm. Or does it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are our nods of assent motivated by a feeling that really we nowadays in this civilised world have very little to worry about? But perhaps we should examine this list of do\u2019s and don\u2019ts with particular reference to the \u2018jots and tittles\u2019, the implications for us here and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lets take them in reverse. Are we quite sure they don\u2019t apply to us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coveting. Well, though I live opposite a farm there are no oxen or donkeys and I enjoy looking at but don\u2019t particularly wish I own the cattle and other livestock. However the old farmhouse \u2013 well that\u2019s lovely! Why can\u2019t I have a home like that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when we come to coveting our neighbour\u2019s wife or husband come to that . . . (which links of course with commandment number 7 – the adultery one) we are sadly in the real world a world from which none of us are immune. Whether the adultery is in the heart or in reality this is the stuff of daily life I\u2019m afraid and it is dangerous to take anything for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s move on. Lying. We do it, I\u2019m sorry but we do. They just slip out, \u201cIt\u2019s only a slight spin on the truth, I\u2019m just not telling everything, it\u2019s a white lie and it\u2019s for the other person\u2019s good\u201d we protest to ourselves. We do it even though we are told quite specifically not to and we need to give this serious thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And stealing? We may not have the lead off the church roof but the pack of paper from work? The undeclared photocopying or printing on the office equipment? Perhaps we haven\u2019t but have we been tempted?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murder. Surely we\u2019re safe in this one. Except . . . which of us is not capable if the situation arose? I don\u2019t know. We may think we wouldn\u2019t, couldn\u2019t but are there circumstances . . .?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what about the times we perhaps get away with it, driving above the speed or drink drive limit or just not caring enough to make the effort to support the charities that save lives or to buy the goods that sustain rather than destroy communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe I push it too far but is withholding the stuff of life, fair sharing of food, clean water the equivalent of murder? It would be if it was a person in our direct care. Is it different just because these people are far away? And at the moment of course the business of breaking COVID restrictions! It all needs to be considered before we settle too comfortably into our self righteousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next, keeping Sunday special. I\u2019m not pretending this is easy especially at the moment when we can\u2019t be in church, and I\u2019m not pretending it doesn\u2019t apply to me just as much as to you but how much more then do we need to make the effort. I hide my \u2018to do\u2019 list and try to take the rest God is offering \u2013 it\u2019s different for each of us but somehow we all need to be even stricter with ourselves in a time when it\u2019s often hard to remember what day it is as the sameness of lock-down imprisons us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And swearing, taking the Lord\u2019s name in vain, if we\u2019re honest do we? Ever? And if we do what message does it give to the world about our commitment? Our covenant with our loving God?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly there now. We\u2019re up at Commandment number two and I doubt that many of us have constructed golden calf in the garden as a Corona Virus project. Neither have we fallen down regularly before some man made shrine we protest, except that I worship regularly at the alter of my bank balance, and I give high priority to the watching of my favourite TV show or listening to the cricket (the biggest idol of all for me). There are innumerable things which, if I am honest, I regularly put, or am tempted to put, before my commitment to God so that I hardly dare come to Commandment number one \u2013 \u2018You shall have no other God than me\u2019 – and as Jesus put it so succinctly, \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If like me you are now feeling pretty depressed take heart for Paul in our New Testament reading, brings us the good news. God does not abandon us. True, not one jot of tittle of the law departs but the wisdom which it seems to represent is overtaken by the foolishness of love. By the apparently foolishness notion that an all-powerful God, looking down on those who like us have repeatedly failed to keep within the boundaries negotiated, the rules agreed, the covenant set; that this all powerful God would come himself and that his death and resurrection would bring us wisdom wiser than any we could aspire to, a strength beyond our strength to love us despite our inability to put him first; that he would support us as we strive to become more and more worthy of the foolish, all encompassing, forgiving love of the same God who set out the boundaries for Moses on Mount Sinai all those millennia ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear All, Something a little different this morning, a \u2018Miniature Morning Prayer\u2019 which I put together for a couple of folk who were struggling to find time for quiet worship and needed something they could use anytime and anywhere. Hoping that you can do the same. After this are the readings for Lent 3 and … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Third Sunday of Lent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}