Sunday 17 May 2015
a wee reflection on the week ...
How are you with house plants? I have just been pretty ruthless with a rubber plant which seemed to have taken on a life of its own becoming so lop-sided that even if you walk past it falls over. Not anymore! Pruning it has given it a better shape and it actually looks healthier, even though I got the secateurs out with a little reluctance. There are times you have to be ruthless, or at least strict, when things get out of hand and unmanageable. Like clearing out the loft, the garage or the bookcase there comes a point you must have a serious de-clutter. Not only does it make things tidier, but enables you to let go of things you clearly no longer need or which have become less important in your life and you can focus on what requires attention now.
When Jesus spoke about pruning, we often reflect on it as a harsh almost cruel form of horticulture and yet, as any green fingered person knows it is essential for healthy growth. He encourages such discerned discipline as important in season for flowers and fruits to be nurtured and nourished. Avoidance of it will result in an uncontrolled tangle of shoots and smaller flowers and lesser fruits. It is a message for individuals in keeping a tidy and manageable home and garden, but it is also a message for community life such as the church. Sometimes things have to be pruned, cut, stopped, in order that nourishment of resource and energy can be focussed on some seedlings and plants. Discerning what should be cut back is the hard part, but when you see the blossoming of some shoots then we are reassured.
In church life there is a danger of trying to grow too many plants thus dissipating our ability to nourish any properly. The reports to the General Assembly is always symbolic of that with over 400 pages of reports and information of the work of the church – excluding supplementary reports and daily papers. The difficulty is deciding which areas of life can be pruned and where resources should be focussed. What we will discover this week is that rather than prune, other motions will be added with even more work for many just as the church finds itself with fewer gardeners. Finding more gardeners – members & ministers in various shapes – is one of the priorities for this next Decade of Ministry being launched this year.
At national and at local level we need a little discernment to decide which plants to feed and which to prune or else we will get tangled up in the undergrowth of unmanageable and unkempt briar. We need to prune at least in order to let the light in. I am wondering what that means for Craigsbank? It also makes me think that I should de-clutter the garage, which at least will avoid me de-cluttering anything more meaningful in life!
© hadkhanongFotolia
this sunday’s service
The theme for this year’s General Assembly and Heart & Soul in Princes Street Gardens is LIVING STONES from 1st Peter. So that is our theme for worship this week.
1 Peter 2.2-10
1 Peter 2:1-10New International Version (NIV)
2Therefore, rid yourselvesof all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slanderof every kind.2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk,so that by it you may grow upin your salvation,3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The Living Stone and a Chosen People
4As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by Godand precious to him—5you also, like living stones, are being builtinto a spiritual house[a]to be a holy priesthood,offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.6For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.
7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
8and,
“A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9But you are a chosen people,a royal priesthood,a holy nation,God’s special possession,that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
This passage expresses reassurance and comfort for beleaguered Christians. It begins by addressing those recently baptised, who are encouraged to be as eager for salvation as a baby is for the mother’s breast. The focus then shifts to the whole people of God, centred on Jesus. The use of quotations demonstrates that the rejection of Jesus was foretold and is therefore part of God’s plan, rather than a worrying anomaly. Those who oppose him are heading for disaster.
God’s people, on the other hand, can rely on God’s faithful support in the comforting image of a strong, stone-built house, dependent on Jesus to hold it together. This image of strength in community emerges again in the final verses, identifying the Church as God’s chosen people (cf. Deuteronomy 10.15), as royal priests like Melchizedek (Genesis 14.18), as a holy nation, God’s own people (Exodus 19.6). All these images tie into God’s promise to Abraham that, through him, all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12.3). Peter does not engage as directly as Paul with the knotty question of God’s ongoing relationship with the Jews (cf. Romans 9–11); his concern is with the Christian community, called to holiness so that, through their witness, others may also be blessed.
prayer
The Brick
(Michel Quoist)
The bricklayer laid a brick on the bed of cement.
Then, with a precise stroke of his trowel, spread another layer
and, without a by-your-leave, laid on another brick.
The foundations grew visibly,
The building rose, tall and strong, to shelter people.
I thought, Lord, of that poor brick buried in the darkness at the base of the big building.
No one sees it, but it accomplishes its task, and the other bricks need it.
Lord, what difference whether I am on the rooftop or in the foundations of your building,
as long as I stand faithfully at the right place?
© dja65 Fotolia