2013   Cold Ashby & Hollowell on Sunday 15[th] September -  16[th] Sunday after Trinity. 

What is the best known sentence in the Bible?  There's a pretty wide choice
The Lord is My Shepherd I shall not want. 
And now abideth faith hope and charity and he greatest of these is Charity. 
You cannot serve both God and Mammon.  /  Jesus wept. 
And there are no doubt be many other passages proverbs etc that appeal to you.  For me the most memorable sentence is the first, written by an unknown hand   " In the beginning God created the Heaven  and the earth "  From that simple statement of belief in that act of divine creation, stems all the rest of our history on this planet and beyond.  That does not mean that I am a creationist, I hasten to add. in the sense of someone who believes the rest of Genesis word for word.  Much of it is clearly allegory.  But I do believe that there is a divine hand behind the Universe. 
I thought about that this week when I read that Voyager 1, the spacecraft launched in September 1977 had finally left the Solar System and was , as the scientists put it, heading for eternity.  If we can say,  from our humble point of view as human beings,  that the creation of the Heaven & the Earth was God's greatest achievement, then  Voyager I's  journey over 12 billion miles and 36 years is arguably man's greatest achievement  And on it goes into the unknown at 100,000 mph it will take 40,000 years to get to the first star. It's hard, as they saying goes, to get you head round the scale of God's creation.  
One of the photographs sent back by Voyager some years ago shows the vast void of  space with a tiny blue dot in the bottom right , marking Planet Earth.  That certainly puts us in proportion within the Universe and with it our earthly struggles and triumphs: Syria,  9/11, North Korea's atomic bomb, Global warming, DNA, the Olympic Games, even the moon landing. It was a small step for man compared with what is out there.  
 Does that tiny blue dot matter to anyone but us?  Then, as the Google Map website hones in on a particular place we come down to this country, to the miniscule over crowded island with its even pettier controversies and triumphs and tragedies played out on television, the internet and newspapers.  Our heroes are soon forgotten and our controversies of yesteryear take on new perspectives:  
The Premium Bonds / Squalid Lottery
Alan Turing the great Computer scientist and mathematician.  Who was hounded to his death by prejudice against homosexual activity.   Gay Marriage is now part of the national scene.  
It's a cliché to say we live in a fast changing world of ideas and innovation.    But the same old questions remain: 
What does life mean: what's it for ?  Are we so small, so insignificant as a mass of atoms and water on that blue dot that there is no serious meaning to our existence.   
To that the Christian answer is that the Bible teaches that each of us does have meaning in the eyes of a God who loves us and has a plan for our lives.  
And we get that message again from the two parables in our lesson today and the situation that led to Jesus telling them:  The criticism of Jesus for consorting with outcasts/ tax collectors etc al.   
We go astray, we sin, we fail to appreciate God's love for us, we stumble.  Bu if we repent He will forgive us and bring us into the fold-  and a repentant sinner is loved by Him and the whole company of heaven.   
Christ founded neither a Church, nor a State; he handed over no laws, nor government, nor any form of external authority,  but he tried to write the law of God in the hearts of men in order that they might govern themselves.

It's sometimes hard to see the wood for the trees We live in God's world, to do his will as best we can.  We will stray but if we repent we shall be forgiven
What though in solemn silence all

Move round the dark terrestrial ball?

What though no real voice nor sound

Amid their radiant orbs be found?
                                                                     20
In reason's ear they all rejoice

And utter forth a glorious voice,

Forever singing as they shine,

"The hand that made us is divine."







No certain answer other than faith in the word of Jesus Christ  But.....

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is


