"Great Light, Mover of all that is moving and at rest, be my Journey and my far Destination, be my Want and my Fulfilling, be my Sowing and my Reaping, be my Song and my stark Silence. Be my Sword and my strong Shield, be my Lantern and my dark Night, be my everlasting Strength and my piteous Weakness. Be my Greeting and my parting Prayer, be my bright Vision and my Blindness, be my Joy and my sharp Grief, be my sad Death and my sure Resurrection!
"So be it!"
Stephen Lawhead, 1989: Arthur; a Lion paperback - Oxford. pg 477
Showing posts with label journey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journey. Show all posts
Monday, December 10, 2012
Saturday, January 03, 2009
an advent/Christmas journey
Advent this last year came alive for me in my sermon preparation: a sense of expectation, a call to prepare, an opportunity to seek God's direction and then to accept God's call and purpose for our lives. Christmas is a culmination of this Advent journey requiring us to become accountable as human beings made in God's image, to take up God's purpose for us - as expressed in Genesis 1 - to work alongside him in creating order out of darkness and chaos, and to continually embrace our role in helping constrain chaos in our lives and communities.
rennie D
3 January 2009
Sunday, April 06, 2008
encounter with Christ
My sermon for today is available. I have focused on the nature of encounter in the post-Resurrection experience of early Christians, and the means it becomes for transforming our daily lives and our very selves into activists for the Gospel.
Rennie D
6 April 2008
Rennie D
6 April 2008
Sunday, March 11, 2007
the challenge of moving beyond
My sermon for the third Sunday in lent is available at http://www.twango.com/media/markrdlong.sermons/markrdlong.10040, and focus' on the challenge of moving beyond constancy towards the unknown, to enter into conversation from the perspective of God's will - and not from individual desire - as to the direction a community should journey together.
Rennie D
11 March 2007
Rennie D
11 March 2007
Sunday, June 04, 2006
reflections on pentecost
My Ascension/Pentecost journey of the last two weeks has been an insightful one:
Power
In his closing comments to his Disciples at the Ascension, Jesus promises them “all power” from above. At our recent Clergy Day in Lyttleton we were challenged to be “power hungry”, and it strikes me the reason the disciples staggered drunkenly around Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is that they were “drunk with power”. These are concepts of power we normally see as negative due to the inherent misuse, even abuse, of power by politicians and others in positions of authority in government and civil society. However, the dictionary describes “power” as “the ability to act”, which from a Christian perspective is a God-given gift. As a child of God I need to hunger for a greater ability to act.
Spirit
The Hebrew word for “breath”, “wind” and “spirit” is a single word: Ruach. In Genesis 2 God forms the primeval Adam who remains but a clay form until the “breath of God” gives Adam life, symbolic of humanity’s gift of eternal life. The eternal nature of life is wasted and then lost in the disobedience of “the Fall”, but restored at Pentecost as the Spirit, or “breath of God”, overcomes the disciples, and their drunkenness is symbolic of their abundant experience of life and relationship with God in that moment, and the restoration of eternal life as a gift to humanity.
Tongues
The Pentecostal movement and subsequent Charismatic response in the Anglican Church with its emphasis on the gift itself, has taken the focus away from the important symbolic content of the event, the restoration of what was symbolically lost at Babel: the gift of communication with all people - that God may be made known to the Nations!
Rennie D
4 June 2006
Power
In his closing comments to his Disciples at the Ascension, Jesus promises them “all power” from above. At our recent Clergy Day in Lyttleton we were challenged to be “power hungry”, and it strikes me the reason the disciples staggered drunkenly around Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is that they were “drunk with power”. These are concepts of power we normally see as negative due to the inherent misuse, even abuse, of power by politicians and others in positions of authority in government and civil society. However, the dictionary describes “power” as “the ability to act”, which from a Christian perspective is a God-given gift. As a child of God I need to hunger for a greater ability to act.
Spirit
The Hebrew word for “breath”, “wind” and “spirit” is a single word: Ruach. In Genesis 2 God forms the primeval Adam who remains but a clay form until the “breath of God” gives Adam life, symbolic of humanity’s gift of eternal life. The eternal nature of life is wasted and then lost in the disobedience of “the Fall”, but restored at Pentecost as the Spirit, or “breath of God”, overcomes the disciples, and their drunkenness is symbolic of their abundant experience of life and relationship with God in that moment, and the restoration of eternal life as a gift to humanity.
Tongues
The Pentecostal movement and subsequent Charismatic response in the Anglican Church with its emphasis on the gift itself, has taken the focus away from the important symbolic content of the event, the restoration of what was symbolically lost at Babel: the gift of communication with all people - that God may be made known to the Nations!
Rennie D
4 June 2006
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