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Are we but a wasted vineyard
Are we but a wasted vineyard
by Andrew Pratt
Are we but a wasted vineyard where hypocrisy will choke every glimpse of fruitful loving? Is grace covered by a cloak? Verses 2-3 follow Tune: DRAKES BROUGHTON; LAUS DEO (Redhead) Metre: 8.7.8.7 Andrew Pratt (born 1948) Words © 24/7/2013 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, www…
Here in cosmic signs and symbols
Here in cosmic signs and symbols
by Andrew Pratt
Here in cosmic signs and symbols Amos warns of things to come, words that tumble, words that rumble, words that sing and words that drum. Fruit will rot within a basket, summer fruit once offered hope, now as mildew is predicted how will faithful people cope? Verses 3-5 follow Tu…
Hymn: In the days of righteous justice
Hymn: In the days of righteous justice
by Andrew Pratt
In the days of righteous justice peace will reign and love will dwell, God will cover all with comfort, heal our hurt and banish hell. Promise of the prophet's vision: God's shalom will cover earth, every continent and nation blessed as if with second birth. Verse 3 follows Tun…
Hymn: The years have turned
Hymn: The years have turned
by Andrew Pratt
The years have turned, the ages passed, millennia run like a stream, and were those words of prophecy a concrete hope, or just a dream? And could a child embody peace, and justice have a human face, could holiness and righteousness inform our grasp of love and grace? Verses 3-4 f…
Simply Good News - Praying the Good News
Simply Good News - Praying the Good News
by SPCK - N T Wright
Praying the Good News When Jesus went about telling people the good news, he gave them a prayer to pray. The word gospel, meaning ‘good news,’ doesn’t feature explicitly in this prayer. But what the prayer does instead is to give us an important way of getting inside the good new…
Exodus and Leviticus - Be Holy as I am Holy
Exodus and Leviticus - Be Holy as I am Holy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Be Holy as I am Holy LEVITICUS : 19: 1- 18 Today’s newspaper reports on the release from a detention center in Iraq of a twenty-seven-year-old man, after eighteen months there. He was given a letter to say that his case had been concluded and the occupation authorities had decide…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 24 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 24 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 24 Luke 18: 1-8 Gaze on all the people in this world who have lost heart. It won’t be obvious who they are, for we are good at hiding the signs, but everyone at some time in their life will be in danger of losing heart. Then gaze on this widow, who is demanding justice. Wh…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Today’s passages might, on a superficial reading, simply be making the fairly standard point that Christ’s kingship and authority are a challenge to most human understandings of power. That’s a good and important po…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Cry from Sodom Genesis 18: 16-20 Any day I write, there are cries arising from the world. To test that statement, I just went to get today’s newspaper. On the front page is a photo of a woman who lost a leg and whose husband and son died in a NATO bombing in Afghanistan. In t…
friends, FOES and families - If any of you is without sin: the woman taken in adultery
friends, FOES and families - If any of you is without sin: the woman taken in adultery
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
If any of you is without sin: The woman taken in adultery John 8.1-11 Merciful Father, may I never judge another, for I only know part of their story. Years ago the story of the woman taken in adultery might have sounded archaic, an example of harsher times, and unconnected with …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Christ the King Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Shepherds, shepherding stories, and shepherding metaphors abound throughout the Bible, as one would expect in that culture. The creative thing in Israel’s traditions, though, was the development of ‘the shepherd’ as…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Miriam the Prophet, Aaron the Priest, Moses the Teacher
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Miriam the Prophet, Aaron the Priest, Moses the Teacher
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Miriam the Prophet, Aaron the Priest, Moses the Teacher NUMBERS 12: 1-15 The movie Live and Become is the story of a boy among the Ethiopian Falasha Jews airlifted to Israel at the time of the Marxist revolution in the 1980s. Except that Schlomo (Solomon) is not a Jew but a Chris…
Job for Everyone - On Learning From the Past
Job for Everyone - On Learning From the Past
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Learning from the Past Job 8: 1-22 The other Saturday we were sitting in a restaurant by the ocean, and a woman came to talk to us who is a student at the seminary. This particular beach is an hour away, so I asked her if she lived nearby. She explained that she came here on S…
the greatest prayer - Prologue The Strangest Prayer
the greatest prayer - Prologue The Strangest Prayer
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
PROLOGUE The Strangest Prayer The Lord’s Prayer is Christianity’s greatest prayer. It is also Christianity’s strangest prayer. It is prayed by all Christians, but it never mentions Christ. It is prayed in all churches, but it never mentions church. It is prayed on all Sundays, bu…
Times and Seasons - Who will sound the urgent message