Curate Conundrums

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...

As the old Christmas Carol goes ‘Christian children all must be, mild obedient, good as he.’ I was of course always an obedient child, I never spoke back to my parents and always did their will without question. Obvs. Well, of course I didn’t. We’re all human and sometimes we have to go our own way. Sometimes life also calls for obedience. Here’s another family story, in case you missed the one from last week. Mum still brings this one up about once a year. We had a green race car teapot when I was growing up, it was a beautiful object, it was a nineteen thirties art deco piece. It was a treasured possession of my mum’s. It WAS a treasured possession. So when I was about three years old, we had the decorators in to paint the landing and to give it a bit of a tidy up. One of the decorators had put the teapot on the floor. I think you might be able to see where this is going, so into the room I come, and obviously to my three year old brain, that’s not a treasured green art-dec...

Relationships are a tricky business aren’t they? I’m lucky in that my Mum and I have a very good relationship, I mean like all children and parents we have ups and downs, I can be very blunt, and she can be incredibly irritating. There are a couple of stories that sum up our relationship. Imagine the scene, enters young Graham about eight years old, stage left, with Mum, walking through a forest. Mum is behind me and sees something, a twig in the undergrowth, she pauses, and in her devious mind thinks aha this will be funny, I’ll play a trick on Graham. She sticks a twig up her sleeve that looks like a withered hand and yells out “ooh HELP! My hand!” I turn around, see it and it looks so realistic that I scream and run away crying, mum breaks into hysterical laughter, follows me, tries to console me, and what’s worse, Dad took a photograph of me crying. We’ve still got that photo. Obviously it was meant as a joke, and we’re always playing tricks on each other like that. This ...