Thoughts and reflections on what it means to be human.
Tag: Discipleship
A reflection for Remembrance Day
Watching Journey’s End this week, brilliantly performed by a cast of Marlborough College pupils, I was once more struck by the ‘matter-of-factness’ with which so many gave and risked their lives. No great sense of heroism or vocation to fight for justice, peace and freedom, but much more a sense that this is just what needs to be done. Continue reading “Remembering and Responding”
Sermon preached at St Mary Magdalene Winterbourne Monkton
22nd October 2017: Trinity 19; Readings 1 Thessalonians 1.1-10 & Matthew 22.15-22
‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.’ They are to many of us, I suspect familiar words. They are easy to remember, maybe not least because they are so deceptively simple. At face value, Jesus seems to say: there are two categories: worldly things and Godly things. The secular and the sacred. Put whatever it is you’re unsure about in one of those two categories, and you’ll be fine.
Thus, it has something to say about the importance both of our secular tasks, our jobs, our daily busyness, and about the sacred, about our worship and about the church. However, as with so many if not all of Jesus’ sayings and teachings, what seems so simple, actually points to the complexity of human life. The complexity of our relationships with each other, and with God. The complexity of negotiating our way through our civic and sacred duties.
Discovering Life 