Gazing on the Gospels Year A - Proper 15 Year A
Gazing on the Gospels Year A - Proper 15 Year A
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 15 - Year A Meditation on Matthew 15: (14-20) 21-28 Gaze on this woman. She is in great distress, and this gives her the courage to defy convention. Expecting to be rebuffed, she’s got nothing to lose, so she may as well try. And at first, her fears are confirmed, as the d…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 11 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 11 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 11 Luke 10: 38-42 Gaze at Martha, inviting Jesus in for a rest and a meal. How she wants to please him! She is bustling about humming quietly to herself with pleasure. She dashes round with the duster, then sets the cushions straight. Next she potters in the kitchen, getti…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 12 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 12 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 12 Luke 11: 1-13 Gaze on a clear night sky, full of stars, and a partial moon that lights up your way along the narrow village streets. Hear the frantic banging, waking everyone in the house. Who can it be at this time of night – there must be a fire somewhere, or a death.…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 11 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 11 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 11 Mark 6.30–34, 53–56 Gaze at the crush as people lean forward and grab the cloak that wraps around the shoulders of one extraordinary man. They stretch out to touch it, they push and shove to get near the front, to stroke his tunic and finger the hem. It is almost as if …
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 13 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 13 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 13 Luke 12: 13-21 Gaze on an allotment in high summer. All the fruits and vegetables are ripening together, for the profligacy of nature takes us by surprise every time. Every year we grow more beans than we can hope to use. There’s a bumper crop of gooseberries, and the r…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 14 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 14 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 14 Luke 12: 32-40 Gaze on the vault of a bank, excavated deep below street level. It has triple walls made of steel and iron, and the doors are bolted and double locked. Only a few people know the combination of the safe inside. Stacked there, from floor to ceiling, are fl…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 15 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 15 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 15 Luke 12: 49-56 Gaze on the sky as yet another weather front approaches. Dirty clouds lurk overhead, and the rain begins to lash down at some unseen trigger. How the weather can affect our moods! We are so much more content and kind when the sky is blue. Gaze on the TV e…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 20 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 20 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 20 Luke 16: 1-13 Gaze .on an old B-movie of cowboys and Indians. The Wells Fargo stagecoach gallops over the barren Wild West of America. It has been ambushed and the driver has been shot by the bandits; he is slumped over and has dropped the reins. He can steer the coach …
Gazing on the Gospels year c - Proper 2 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - Proper 2 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 2 Luke 6.17-26 Gaze on the waiting room in a busy hospital. Pale walls bear replica Monets and dull still lifes of sallow fruit, and these are meant to calm you somehow. Lino echoes with each nurse’s step. People sit around, some chatting quietly, others gaze ahead, each p…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 17 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 17 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 17 Luke 14: 1, 7-14 Gaze on a very common social situation – everyone arrives at a ‘do’, and there are several round tables laid up with glittering candles and vases of freesia and crisp white napkins. People are hovering about, for none wants to be the first to be seated,…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 16 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 16 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 16 Luke 13: 10-17 Gaze on the woman, bent double from her youth. Slowly her shoulders curved. Left behind by sisters who married, she remained alone, ridiculed, and treated as an outcast. Children shouted ‘Hunchback!’ at her. She made friends with ants and caterpillars and…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 18 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 18 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 18 Luke 14: 25-33 Gaze on a woman baking a fruit cake for a celebration. The ingredients take up half a page in the recipe book. She checks them off one by one – butter, sugar, flour, raisins, sultanas, cherries . . . Smell the fruit, and the pungent spices! But she has no…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 19 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 19 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 19 Luke 15: 1-10 Gaze on the hunt for a set of lost keys. Your panic rises as you riffle through your handbag or pockets, searching for the door key. You’re locked out and it’s cold and wet. What can be worse than that?...
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 21 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 21 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 21 Luke 16: 19-31 Gaze on an icy landscape. The glacier is solid, twenty, forty, sixty feet (six, twelve or eighteen metres) deep, and so white it is somehow blue. But a chasm has opened up, wider than a person’s leap. Look down into the freezing darkness. Gaze on a gorge …
John for Everyone part 2 - Glorify the Son
John for Everyone part 2 - Glorify the Son
by SPCK - N T Wright
Glorify the Son John 17.1-8 Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is full of action. Ghosts, murders, love scenes, plots, accidental killings, betrayals, recriminations and more plots. The play highlights the indecision of the hero when faced with huge problems, and this results in pauses he…
John for Everyone part 2 - Jesus Prays for His People
John for Everyone part 2 - Jesus Prays for His People
by SPCK - N T Wright
Jesus Prays for His People John 17.9-19 In the newspapers recently a mother was punished by the courts. She had left her two young children entirely by themselves, while she went off for a foreign holiday with her new boyfriend. (The father, it seems, was nowhere to be found.) It…
Gazing on the Gospels Year A - Proper 5 Year A