Week beginning Feb 11

Psalm 6

“…My bones tremble with fear, and I am in deep distress. How long will it be? Turn and come to my rescue. Show your wonderful love and save me…” Man, this is faith isn’t it. To be so low and yet still be hoping and believing in God’s wonderful love. This truly is good news. That no matter what life throws at me I can still seek God and in faith God will reply. At the end of the Psalm the writer says, “…You have answered my prayer and my plea for mercy…” Peace comes. This tells me to keep hanging on to God and hanging in to the life that I have been given. “…My enemies will be ashamed…” The Psalmist experienced that relief and sense of justice in the end. I saw this expressed the other day when Kevin Rudd said ‘Sorry’ to the ‘Stolen Generations’ of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders – relief, justice and joy. God is at work in God’s world – all I need to do is ‘trust and obey’ (hmmm that would make a good hymn wouldn’t it).

Mark 11 & 12

One of the ways in which I believe it is important to read the Bible is to allow it to read myself. These stories of the diversity of people’s reactions to Jesus makes me look at the diversity of my own reactions to Jesus – everything from:

• when the going is good I join in the cheering for Jesus (11:1-11)
• when Jesus does a miracle that I see, I struggle with how am I supposed to respond (11:12-26)
• when I doubt, I question Jesus’ credentials to be real and show the truth and to make a difference (11:27-33)
• when I’m left to myself for a while I want to take over from God (12:1-12)
• when challenged by my own culture I can be confused (12:13-17)

This diversity in my own life I think is fairly normal as it was for the disciples and the people around Jesus. But it can’t keep being like this – growing in a relationship with Jesus is a maturing journey which the last parts of Chapter 12 point to. What seems to leap out at me from this reading is that it is a living relationship with the living God which is more important than religious questions and isssues, and that this living is about LOVE – for God and one another. And that the story of the widow’s generosity is the ‘way’ for me – that is, to give and to trust God.

Following Jesus is a journey in a living relationship in which God is constant through my inconsistency and Jesus continues to invite obedience, trust, giving and love.