Methodist Bishop

Mark 5.21-24 & 35-43 How like a Bible mum and dad are your mums and dads? Have your mum or your dad ever lost you in a crowd? When my elder son David was still in his pushchair we went with him and our daughter into British Home Stores. My wife Helen wanted to look at some clothes, but she also had something to return, which she gave to me. 'Take it to the returns’ desk,’ she said, 'Then come and find me.’ When I got back to her she said, Where's David?’ I said, 'I thought he was with you!’ When I got back to the returns’ desk he was still sitting in his pushchair, over to one side, blithely unaware that I had left him; a bit like Jesus - who got separated from his parents in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and was blithely unaware that they would be worrying about him! Do your mum or your dad sometimes mix you up with your brothers and sisters? Actually this is another of my failings. My elder grandaughter, Erin, looks so much like her mother did when...

Isaiah 24, Colossians 1.15-20 This passage from the Book of Isaiah was assembled a long after his own time. We know this because it’s a pastiche of other poetic prophecies, from Amos, Jeremiah, Hosea, and probably other unknown prophets whose poems didn’t make it into the Old Testament apart from here. But whereas the original prophecies all applied to specific times and places they have been reimagined here as a general warning about the perils of breaking God’s covenant. The message is that God won’t be too chuffed. He will twist the earth out of shape, like someone screwing up rubbish and throwing it away. Long ago, says the compiler of this passage, God called us to look after the earth and be co-creators or collaborators with him. It’s not clear when the Prophet thinks God is supposed to have made this covenant with us. Was it at the very beginning of the human story, when God told human beings to take dominion over the earth in his name? Or was it in the time of Noah, when t...