There was plenty of the large piece of black paper left over from yesterday’s quiet day, so I added this doodle to it. Epiphany is a good day to have spare black paper (and white, silver and gold pens that will write on it).
Tag: church
Morning Prayer doodle – how do you measure a tree?
‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’
I love how Jesus measures tree size not in cubits (or whatever), but in hospitality. How big is the tree? Oh, big enough for birds to make their home there. Big enough to offer safety and hospitality. Big enough for them to lay their eggs and raise their chicks.
We could ask ourselves, how big is my church? Oh, big enough for people to find themselves at home there. Big enough to offer safety and hospitality. Big enough that people will feel it’s a place they can bring their children.
A Hymn about bread (which could be for Corpus Christi)
This one goes to the tune ‘Kingsfold’. Thanks, as always, to those who helped me get it ready for posting, and further comments are of course always welcome. I guess this would work for any communion service, but I had it in mind for Corpus Christi.
A gift each day, our daily bread
reveals your faithful love,
you keep your pilgrim people fed
with manna from above.
We live, not by this bread alone,
but by your holy Word:
so feed our hearts, and make us one
in you, O Christ our Lord.
All are invited, called from far
and near, to eat this fare;
As all we have, and all we are,
are gifts to grow and share.
You call us now as servants, guests,
as sisters, brothers, friends:
to gather and be richly blessed.
with life that never ends.
In broken body, life-blood shed,
true love was once made known.
In pouring wine and breaking bread
that love again is shown.
We are your body, fed today
for strength, for grace, for good:
Break us and send us out, we pray,
to bring the world its food.
What do the stones say?
This is a reflection / poemy thing based on the Palm Sunday gospel (the one with the stones), and making reference, among other things, to the Temptations of Jesus, the averted stoning of the woman in John 8, and the prophecy about the destruction of the temple.
We could have been the temple,
if we were bigger, or more beautiful,
but we are the despised and the rejected,
our shape and size are wrong,
or we are broken, not quite strong
enough; the House of God surely demands
that only perfect stones
may be accepted.
We are the downtrodden,
trampled in the dust,
we are the cursed,
the cause of battered feet and stumbles,
the playthings of the poorest children,
and for the beggars as they sit in boredom,
Equally unnoticed, equally humble.
We are still stone, when once,
we might have become bread.
And just before he turned to look the devil in the face,
to us he bent his head, ‘Remember this,’ he said.
We are still unbloodied, still unscathed,
when once we could have been picked up and weighed
in the hand, and flung in cruel contempt.
He saw us then, as he leant
down to mark the dust
and whispered to us, once again, ‘Remember this.’
We remember how he saw us, even though we
were not intricately carved or nobly
combined in stately, sacred architecture.
He saw us as we were, the least, the small,
the unimportant, despised, rejected all.
We remember how he saved us from the shame
of becoming unwitting instruments of blame.
We remember how he wished that we were food,
but would never use us for a selfish good.
We remember.
And now we see him, riding like a king amid the raving crowd,
towards the Temple’s lofty towers, so tall and strong.
And just as we begin to wonder if we’d read him wrong,
he looks deliberately at the stony ground,
then raises his head and looks about
and speaks aloud:
‘If all the crowds were silent,
then the very stones would shout!’
Call us as your witness,
hear this testimony,
about a man who saw us
and gave us this, a story.
We tell that story on every rocky path
and in every wayside cairn,
in every church that’s built from rocks
to be a house of prayer and living sign
of the man who was himself
a stumbling block
to all who could not
love him as the corner stone.
God’s House
A few things from yesterday’s children’s chapel made me smile. In response to the gospel reading (Jesus turning over the tables in the Temple – John 2.13-22) we talked about what it was like to come into God’s House (The Temple was God’s house, church is God’s house, Jesus is God’s house, etc).
Each child was given a piece of folded paper, and was asked to draw on it something that would represent God’s house – it was folded in case they wanted to depict an outside and an inside. Here are some of the responses:
1. One boy, age 8, refused to draw anything on the outside, because ‘It doesn’t matter what the outside is like, it’s what happens when you go in that matters.’
2. One girl, age 3, drew a huge smiley face inside, and then poked a hole through the paper ‘to make sure there is a back door too.’
3. One boy, age 10, drew flames inside his, because ‘when it’s cold outside, you come in and someone’s lit the fire and you gather around it and get warm, and you’re with the people you love – that’s what God’s house is like’.
4. One boy, age 8, drew trees and plants, because ‘I meet God everywhere I go. He made everything, so all of creation is his house.’
Yet again, the kids get it. They totally get it.
reverendally.org 