Curate Conundrums

The Holy Spirit can be quite hard to describe, and it’s something that I often find myself thinking about. What exactly is the Holy Spirit and what does it mean for us to have it? The Holy Spirit has been described as being a little bit like the force from Star Wars, an energy which binds the universe together, that flows in and through all things. Whether this is a good description or not I’m not sure, in fact I could be committing an act of great heresy, I’ll leave that up to you and Ian to decide. The one thing we do know about the Holy Spirit is that it turns up, in all sorts of unexpected places. It is the creative and spontaneous energy of the trinity, and is one of the forms in which we recognise God’s revelation to us. That is a way in which God reveals God’s self to us.   The Holy Spirit isn’t, for a start, part of God, it is God and it is indivisible from the Father and the Son. We know that the spirit isn’t into partiality, and we know what the fruits of the sp...

As somebody who has a natural distrust of government, and people in positions of power, today’s reading from 1 Peter is one, when taken at face value I substantially struggle with. On the face of it disagree with. With the local elections coming up, it’s good for us as Christians to reflect on things such as power and authority, who has it? Who do we give it to? Where do we get it from? Now I’m not suggesting that we should take up arms against the government and form barricades around City Hall, like a Norwich version of Les Mis. ‘Do you hear the people sing, ‘cause they haven’t emptied the bin.’ But I think when we look at this letter within its context then it makes much more sense and is much more agreeable to those of us with a slightly less obedient mentality, when it comes to earthly government. What I don't think this letter is saying, is that we have to blindly obey those in authority. We’re not sure exactly who wrote this letter. Lots of scholars are unsure abou...

Who do you listen to? Who has authority? It’s a funny old world that we live in at the moment isn’t it? Russia flexing its muscles in Europe, Brexit and austerity, fake news, real news. It’s difficult to know who we should be listening to, or indeed who even has authority. The passage from John this morning indicates that Jesus was having precisely these issues with people, people who didn’t believe in him in the right way. It also indicates where he gest his authority from, from God. He’s hitting them here with a few home truths, and they don’t like it, not one bit. Just before the passage we heard this morning, Jesus said to the people who were present, Jews who had believed in him, that they were slaves to sin, by trying to kill him, and that only he can set them free. They are foaming at the mouth angry “We’ve never been slaves!” they answer, “we’re Abraham’s descendents!” This was a common boast of Jewish people at the time. Jesus then goes on to say that they are essentia...

Sacrifice is a harsh word isn’t it. Just picture that word in your head for a moment. Sacrifice. It often feels like it should have a prominent full stop after it doesn’t it? I wonder what kinds of things come into your heads when you think about the word sacrifice. For me two separate images come into my head about it: Firstly, the image of ritual sacrifice, like ancient Jewish people would have done in Jesus’ day, the sacrifice of lambs at the altar of the lord in Jerusalem. In fact many traditional religions still practice this idea of sacrifice today. The notion of offering something up to God, or a deity in order to receive a blessing, or favour, or in ancient Israel’s case to give thanks for God’s abundance and loving kindness. Or to placate God for people’s Sins. It’s in this sense that many sacrifices were offered in the Jewish temple, sacrifices made in thanksgiving for abundance and the sheer generosity of God.   Secondly, the image that probably comes to mind more r...

I love Christmas. Hands up who loves Christmas? Hands up who thinks Christmas is a little bit meh? Hands up who really doesn’t like Christmas? Hopefully I can persuade you why Christmas is a good thing. What if I told you that Christmas isn’t about presents, or commercialism, or stuff. I mean I’m a minister, so you’d probably expect me to say that. In fact most of us already know that, Christmas isn’t about presents. What is Christmas about then? It’s about love. What if I told you that Christmas is about God’s love for you, each and every one of you. The reason I love Christmas is because it’s a time of year when love between people is so obvious, people out buying gifts, thinking of others, spending time with families and loved ones, in the same way God’s love for us is so clear too. The baby Jesus being born is not just a distant event from a long time ago, but affects us today.  You might remember the words to O Little Town of Bethlehem ‘But in thy dark streets shi...