Monthly Archives: March 2009

40FP(9): 1 Kings 2.1-3

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A simple text today:

1 When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son.
2 “I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, show yourself a man,
3 and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go.”

Why is this a favourite passage?
Well, I think they count as ‘famous last words’, even though many people will be unfamiliar with them. It’s a story that grips my imagination, all the more since my own father died and there weren’t any ‘last words’! It maintains the theme of doing God’s will, and summarises the OT link between obedience and prosperity. It’s just a wonderful passage.

The Obama DVD list

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Has been turned into a meme – which do you own/have seen/not seen

Own:
The Godfather
Raging Bull
Lawrence of Arabia
Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz
The Searchers
Star Wars: Episode IV
Psycho
2001: A Space Odyssey
Chinatown
It’s a Wonderful Life

Seen:
Citizen Kane (a very long time ago and I need to rewatch it)
Casablanca
Singin’ in the Rain
Schindler’s List
The Graduate
On the Waterfront
Some Like it Hot
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial

Not seen:
Gone with the Wind
City Lights
Sunset Boulevard
The General
The Grapes of Wrath
To Kill a Mockingbird

40FP(8): John 6.66-68

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I’ll return to John 6 later in the sequence – possibly more than once – but we had these this morning, and I’m slipping behind due to pressure of work! (I hope to return to Stark tomorrow as well)

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 You do not want to leave too, do you? Jesus asked the Twelve.
68 Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Why is this a favourite passage?

Verse 66: I find this an incredibly poignant verse. People who had been following Jesus, who had seen the signs he has performed, now abandon the way because the teaching had become too hard to absorb – the teaching about the Eucharist (on which more another time, but see here).
Verse 67: more poignancy, and here it is essential that we hold on to the humanity of Jesus, rather than simply reading it as a divine challenge, otherwise the implicit loneliness is lost (the loneliness will come, but not yet).
Verse 68: those who remain, who have accepted the teaching and entered into the life, recognise Jesus for who he is and what he conveys. This is one of several basic Christian confessions in Scripture, but in my view, one of the best.

A possibly profane and heretical analogy

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I was musing about names, and whether there could be salvation by any other name than Jesus – and an image came to mind.

I’ve been wanting to talk about Jesus as ‘way, truth and life’ in a fundamental sense, but wanting to sit lightly to the name itself (given my interpretation of the Mt 7 passage).

So I was thinking about doors – that Jesus is the door frame, the space through which we can come.

And I was thinking about the sign on the door not mattering very much – can be different according to who you are.

And then I thought about public lavatories, with their different signs – appropriate to our own natures – but equivalent destinations.

‘Come to me all you who labour and are heavy burdened, and I shall give you rest…”