Methodist Bishop

Jeremiah 31.31-34 John  12.20-36 These passages tell us about two important moments in salvation history which have helped people to decide which way they ought to go. The first is the promise God made to Jeremiah, that God's People will no longer need to ask for directions but will be given their own internal satellite navigation system. In some ways it's a bit like the colleague who told me that she has an internal sense of direction which means she never gets lost. To which I replied, 'So that' why, when we got to the fork on our way to the synod in Harrogate - this way to Spoforth, that way to Knaresborough - you instinctively knew which way to go - not! What's different about the promise made to Jeremiah is that the navigation system actually works, and also that there's nothing instinctive about it. Jeremiah's assessment is that the People of Israel had taken a series of wrong turns in the past. They had eaten sour grapes, as Jeremiah puts it.

Numbers 21.4-9 John  3.14-21 The passages we read today tell us about two important moments in salvation history when people have had to decide which way they ought to go. The first happens when the People of Israel are wandering in the Wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land. As they have been rescued from slavery and ethnic cleansing we might expect the People to be grateful. But their memories are short. There aren’t yet enough of them in the loose federation of rootless and landless tribes which gathered under Moses’ protection to be able to challenge the ancient civilizations of Edom and Canaan with their walled cities, settled governments and citizen armies. Indeed, the Bible tells us that Edom had its own kings long before Israel, and the Edomites weren’t about to have their authority challenged by this bunch of ne’er-do-wells and Johnny-come-latelies. So the People of Israel couldn’t go through Edom, they had to go round it - wandering many miles out of their way

The passages we read today tell us about two of the most important moments in salvation history, moments of decision when God’s people had to decide which way to go. The first is the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. We tend to think of it as a key point in the life of Moses, but he is only the Cheshire Cat in the story, if you like, the person who can tell the people which direction they should take. And Moses is unequivocal about it. He doesn’t sit on the fence like the Cheshire Cat did, at least metaphorically anyway. he gives the people a clear set of instructions because he relays to them what he considers to be the direct word of God. They are to have only one guiding principle in their lives, not a pantheon of different options and creeds. They are not to pretend - to themselves or to others - that they are going in one direction while taking another that leads somewhere else. They are to show an example of just stewardship of all their resources, including the people

Genesis 17.1-7,15-16 and Mark 8.31-38 The passages we read today tell us about important moments of decision for Abraham, Sarah and the disciples of Jesus. God invites Abraham ‘to walk before him’ and it certainly does matter which way he decides to go at this point. If Abraham and Sarah listen to God’s call their direction of travel will take them from being a minor clan chieftain and his childless wife to becoming the ancestors of a great nation. It’s a choice between lifelong obscurity and - as the Bible says - ‘everlasting’ renown. Could that be the choice for our churches in the Aire and Calder Circuit? A choice between a daring decision to walk before God and become a new type of church for the Twenty-first Century and beyond or a safer, but less glorious decision perhaps, to fade into obscurity, before becoming - if we’re lucky - a blue plaque on the wall that says, ‘ Such-and-such  Methodist Church once met here,’ and - if we’re not so lucky - a carpet warehouse! Jesus