Exodus 34:29-32 | Mark 9:2-9
On Tuesday night at Nooma we had what I call a ‘help Chris to write his sermon’ study. Essentially this consists of listening to a passage of the Bible being read, and then reflecting on a few simple questions.

Last Tuesday we looked at our gospel reading for today, and essentially the concensus we came to was that none of us in the room could see how this story has anything to do with our lives today.

So what’s it about? Why does Mark choose to include this story in his gospel? What role does it play in his narrative, what is it about Jesus that we are supposed to read through, in, or behind these words?

2 Kings 5:1-14
Naaman was a powerful and influential man, commander of the army of the king of Aram, a successful military leader who had won the favour of his king through his victories on the battlefield. And to put that into context; Aram was the dominant power in the region at the time of Elisha – Naaman’s defeated opponents had, on numerous occasions, included the people of Israel (as we read in the passage, Naaman’s wife was served by a slave girl who was an Israelite, taken in one of their raids on the land).

A powerful man, used to winning, used to getting his own way.

But he has a problem. For all his military success, all his armies, all his influence with the king cannot cure him of a disfiguring skin condition (normally translated in English versions of the Bible as leprosy, although lacking modern medical categories the word probably included a wide range of skin diseases). None of his power or influence can help him – but help comes, from the most unexpected of sources.

The Miracle of the Marmalade Cat
A Meditation on John 3:16 – Rob Ferguson

The graciousness of being
so inspired
the all-encompassing love of Jesus,
that whosoever shares his passion
in their hearts,
shall not suffer
the confining limitations
of shallow existence,
but shall know
the ever-expanding
eternal wonder
of abundant life
in all its fullness.
Thanks be to God.

Jonah 3:1-5,10 | Mark 1:14-20
It’s well know that Jonah was a reluctant prophet, but he was also a prophet whose words didn’t come true. He came with a simple message – “In forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed”. No ifs, no buts, no explanation (unusual in itself – the Old Testament prophets normally seem to spend a great deal of time and energy listing the sins of the nation they are speaking against). Just “in forty days, boom”.

But it didn’t happen.

Because the people of Nineveh took the message seriously. They believed Jonah. And they also believed that they could do something about it. The message from God might not have had any loopholes, any get out clauses, but they were convinced that God might yet be persuaded.

And they gave up their wicked ways, and God saw, and God changed God’s mind.

Today’s readings brought to mind an old joke – I know it’s old because my father told it to me.

Noah is having a nice time knocking around heaven.  He’s just finished beating Moses at squash when a great light shines on him and a voice say, “Noah! I have a job for you.”

“Ah, g’day Lord.”

“Mankind has gone to pot: they blaspheme, they fight, they fornicate … and they’ve just about wrecked the planet. So I’m going start again.  I want you to go back and build me another ark.”

“<Sigh>, ok Lord.  Back to earth, new ark.”

“Yes, and this time I want a really BIG ark.  Lots and lots of decks.  And no cabins this time.”

“Big ark, lots of floors, no cabins.  Gotcha.”

“And don’t bother about any of the mammals, or the insects, or the reptiles – especially not snakes.  Or birds.”

“Um, ok Lord.  So, only fish this time.”

Psalm 89:1-4 | Luke 1:26-38
Did she have any idea just what she was letting herself in for?

Mary is one of the most fascinating figures in the nativity story, at least in part because we know so little about her. As with so many women in the Bible who must have had a profound influence on events, her part is mentioned almost in passing. Matthew barely even mentions her, Mark and John don’t bother with a nativity story at all, and even Luke, the most radical of the gospel writers in his inclusion of women just gives us the Magnificat that we read last week, and this little exchange with Gabriel.

Yet even those two little snippets give us insight into a remarkable woman.

But I wonder again, did she know what she was letting herself in for? Surely not. The angel greeted her as one who has found favour with God – surely Mary did not realise that that favour would mean a long journey while pregnant, a baby born far from home, a flight to Egypt. Nor, surely, that it would mean her first born child would leave home and village to become a wandering preacher, or that he would be taken from her and killed.

No, all of that was an unknown and unrevealed future.

Isaiah 61:1-4 | Luke 1:46-55A couple of Sundays ago, the first Sunday of advent, we talked about waiting; about how the history of the people of God seems to have featured a great deal of waiting for some promise that God had made.

And of course, advent is traditionally a time of waiting. But perhaps we might take a step back and ask – waiting for what?

Our reading from Isaiah today is one we often hear at Christmas. It’s perhaps best known because it is the passage that Jesus read in Nazareth, on the Sabbath, in the Synagogue, near the start of his ministry. If you remember that story, from Luke Chapter 4, you’ll recall that Jesus read the opening words of Isaiah 61, and then declared “today this scripture has been fulfilled”, claiming it for himself and for the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. That’s got to be good, right?

The Christmas story is a great story for telling with kids. It’s got all the elements – a baby, animals, mysterious visitors from afar, long journeys, signs in the sky, supernatural beings – the lot.

And of course, it’s all tied in with all the excitement of Christmas as well – school holidays, summer, travelling, visiting relatives, eating loads of food we normally aren’t allowed. And, of course, presents.

The Christmas story is a great story for kids. I love to tell it, you can have so much fun.

The problem comes if we think that’s all it is. If we keep on hearing the Christmas story the way we heard it as children. If we never go beyond the surface elements, never look past the manger and angels, cows, sheep, angels and donkeys. Because the Christmas story is a great story to tell to kids – but it’s also a very grown up story. A story which touches a lot more of life than you might notice at first glance.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 | Luke 1:26-38
Today we mark the start of advent, a traditional time of waiting; waiting for Christmas, waiting for the first great celebration of the Christian year, waiting for Christmas, and all that that means to us. And on this Sunday we remember those who patiently – or impatiently – have waited, through the years, for God.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote around six hundred years before the birth of Jesus, in the last days of the kingdom of Judah, the last years before the destruction of the first great Temple. The nation had turned to worship idols, to pagan ways, turned away from the worship and service and obedience to the one true God which had defined them as a people. But while Jeremiah prophesied the destruction and judgment that he is famous for, he also spoke words of hope for the future.

Words for waiting to.

Daniel 5:1-6, 23-28 | Amos 8:4-8

In the last few weeks we’ve been looking at the story of Daniel, and thinking about what that story might have to say to us as we seek to live faithfully as God’s people in a society which doesn’t always share our faith or values.

We’ve talked about the simple decision that lay at the heart of Daniel’s life – the decision that, though he could no longer live in the land God had given his people, or even live amongst his own people, he would remain faithful, he would remain a Jew, even in the minority. The same decision that has to lie at the core of our faithfulness – that even if the world around us does not live in obedience to God, we will.

And we’ve talked about how Daniel and his friends kept alive the history that shaped them, reminding themselves of the story of the God who had rescued God’s people in the past, the dangerous story which declared that despite the overthrow of the nation and the sacking of the Temple, God remained the final word, the ultimate power. And we reflected that in the same way, we must keep alive, immerse ourselves in our stories, the stories of Jesus Christ.

And then last week we looked at how the prophet Jeremiah counselled the people not to remain aloof in exile, but to seek the welfare of the city to which they had been taken; to be a blessing to those aspects of the empire that would good and noble. As we too, in seeking to make more real the kingdom of God in our culture and context, will find many things, both within and beyond the Church, which we can throw our lives and energy into.

In every culture, every society, there is much that positively reflects the things of the kingdom of God. There are groups and organisations, laws and customs, ways of life which are creative and life-giving, which empower those who would otherwise be powerless, bring justice to those who would be denied it, hope to those who would lack it, community to those who would be alone. And we, as the people of God, unashamedly take hold of these things, naming them as foretastes of the Kingdom of God in which these faint and distant echoes will be replaced by the real symphony.

But every society, culture, subculture, also has a shadow side.