Lord Jesus, you call us to follow your way rather than to live in the way of the world. You call us to be guided by your teaching rather than by the wisdom of the people around us. You call us to build up riches in heaven rather than to seek the kind of riches which the marketplace can offer. You call us to be faithful rather than popular, famous or fashionable. You tell us it is better to appear foolish to others rather than to do what is wrong or unjust. You tell us that it is better to lose our life for your sake and for the Gospel rather than to gain the whole world. Help us to follow you in good times and in hard times and to find our reward in knowing that we have done your will. Amen.
Matthew 28.1-10, 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 I like Nick Cave’s song because of its audacious first line: ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’. What an unlikely way to begin a love song! He once explained that he wrote the song while sitting at the back of an Anglican church where he had gone with his wife Susie, who presumably does believe in an interventionist God - at least that’s what the song says. Actually Cave has always been very interested in religion. Sometimes he calls himself a Christian, sometimes he doesn’t, depending on how the mood takes him. He once said, ‘I believe in God in spite of religion, not because of it.’ But his lyrics often include religious themes and he has also said that any true love song is a song for God. So maybe it’s no coincidence that he began this song in such an unlikely way, although he says the inspiration came to him during the sermon. The vicar was droning on about something when the first line of the song just popped into his
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