12:28:56 o'clock BST
the leper's curse
According to Mosaic Law
We daub some paint upon our door
And stay inside
Untouched, unseen,
Until the priest declares us clean.
But leprosy?
That can’t be cured,
A life sentence to be endured.
Not for us the tender touch of mother, lover
For by such contact, the leper’s curse
Like wildfire flames, unleashed to prey
On everyone we touch – or so they say!
So when He sent us to the priest
Some thought Him crazy
But at least one voice of reason saying,
“what choice have we?
What more to lose?
How much to gain?
To stay among the living dead
Or take the path of life instead?”
And so collectively we say,“let’s go”
And on our way, what grace!
What powerful healing we receive!
Flakes of skin, from years diseased,
Fell like leaves in autumn breeze.
A thrilling rush through skin and bones,
Like white water over rocks and stones.
A thunderous urge rushed to my brain
A joyful cry, hard to contain
“Praise God! I am alive again!”
full volume sang my praise to God
(the others thought me rather odd)
Despite their lack of gratitude
I went to seek the One
Who’d given me my life again,
But when He saw me, cleansed and fine,
He asked, “Where are the other nine?”
“And you, from dark Samaria
Tell me where the others are?”
And so I went to ask them why
The others who had passedHim by
The first one said “What right has he
who put the devil’s curse on me?
I’ve done my time,
I kept the Law
I put the paint upon my door
I stayed outside the camp all night
He did me wrong – He’s put it right.
He’ll get no thanks from me!”
(and many nodded to agree)
Another said “I have no need
I’m okay now, but mouths to feed
No time to waste on churchy stuff
Now I can live I can’t get enough”!
Another said “I clean forgot!
I know I owe Him quite a lot
But I will say “Thanks” and do my bit
When I get around to it”.
One – just one
Bowed his head in shame,
“I know, it’s only me to blame
I have no reason, no just cause
It’s just the words that fail, because
No words can ever truly tell
How painful was that living hell
How cursed and outcast,
The double pain
of aching bones and pure distain.
No words will ever demonstrate
How helpless was my desperate state
And now, though cleansed and pure
I feel I need another cure!
A tear rolled down his soft new skin
And he felt my tender touch on him
“My friend, you’ve reached the healing place
for now you’re ready for God’s grace!”
************
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not knocking His technique, but Jesus isn’t very efficient when it comes to percentages. Oh sure, ten men were sent to the priest and ten men healed, that’s a 100%. Fair enough. But only one man returns to give thanks - that’s only a 10% success rate. Not very impressive?
Well that depends at what point you measure things. When I worked in the service industry we rarely heard from the customers who were happy. It was almost always the ones that went wrong that came back. So if Jesus sends 10 men away satisfied, it’s about par for the course that only one comes back to thank Him!
It’s human nature to take things that are going well for granted. I’d love a pound for every time someone in hospital said “I just want to get back to normal”. There’s a real comfort and safety in the dull normality of life and it’s only when that routine is interrupted we begin to miss it. When people moan about their aches and pains and blame God for it, I’m often tempted to ask them, “If you were given a brand new Rolls Royce and it did 250,000 with minimal maintenance and then broke down, would you take it back and complain?"
We are walking miracles. Scientists and engineers have spent billions trying to make robots walk up and down stairs like humans and failed. IBM attempted to produce a computer that was as capable of multi-tasking as well as the human brainand concluded that it would take around a billion dollars and a room the size of the Albert Hall to come anywhere near it. There’s nothing wrong with the goods here - It’s the customer who’s got it seriously wrong. And the reason we’ve got it so wrong is because we don’t take it back to the maker enough - not to complain - but to give thanks, to be renewed, to be strengthened, to be inspired - simply to be connected.
IBM may not have achieved their objective but we can learn a lot from computers. My computer is called Dell. Every now and then Dell connects himself to the mother ship Dell via the internet, where he's checked for updates and viruses, and is healed!
St Augustine put it like this, “You made us for yourself Lord, and our souls will find no peace until they rest in You”.
We are nothing without God. We are unconnected, helpless, ships with no compass. We need God – and we need one another. That’s why Jesus said, “Love God, Love one another”. In our new series of POWERHOUSE, we are asked "what does it mean to be “poor in spirit"? It means that we've come to the place where we've realised that we are nothing without God. At least one of our group admitted he'd never really given that matter a lot of thought.
I urge every one of you to seriously do so
For compared to the awesome power, the majesty, the splendour, the magnificence, the beauty, the wisdom and the grace of God
We are all lepers!
Written by
geoffeales
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11:25:12 o'clock GMT
Feeling Hopeful
geoff's christmas poem
“From a distance God is watching”
so Cliff and Nancy sang
and as I pondered on these words
my Christmas poem began
God made us in His image
To live and work and play
He made us all free agents
To live life just our way
One thing He asked for in return
to love as He loves us
the love He showed, the love He gave
instead we moan and cuss
So in a distant land in a distant time
a distant ray of light
drew shepherds to a stable
on that historic night
the distance between God and man
was closed for a short while
til mankind’s pride recovered
and went into denial
wise men and clever scientists
explained it all away
“there is no truth”, they all object
“in anything you say”
At worst it’s just a fairy tale
that brings comfort, peace and love.
At best an incarnation
the Almighty from above
Who came to live among us
for thirty something years
to demonstrate his love for all
through sweat and toil and tears.
God watching from a distance?
What do these singers know?
The only gap twixt God and man
Is because man made it so.
As for God, that distance
was to tear His soul apart
He wanted to be close to us
With all His loving heart
And so He willed to reach us
And from His Throne of Grace
He went the extra mile Himself
To heal the Human Race
Distanced from His heavenly throne
To stable cold and bare
Distanced from heaven’s riches
To become a pauper there
Distanced from the choirs of heaven
As the crowd cried “crucify”
Distanced from the Father’s love
As they left Him there to die
Distanced so that God be close
To the likes of you and I
For distant friends with distant dreams
God Himself drew nigh
Whilst we were still far distant
He set His rescue plan
A baby in a stable
Our God became a man
The truth? Or just a fairy tale?
It’s time to choose your part
You can keep him at a distance
Or hold Him in your heart
Written by
geoffeales
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10:23:12 o'clock GMT
back to base
whilst Joan is living it up with THE CAUSE in Zambia, I decided to take Bruno to stay with Nanna (my 91yr old mum) in Sunderland for a few days. Mum's house is hermetically sealed and stays at a steady 110 degrees (you work out the celcius) so I was constantly taking Bruns for walks. It was too hot for me, so you can imagine what it must be like with a thick fur coat! Bruno loved cooling down in the cold north sea and running around Roker Beach (see pic), whilst his owner walked off some of the many pounds gained sitting in front of the telly being fed meal after lovely meal (nothing quite like mum's cooking eh?) and watching all the soaps! The highlight was to be a trip to the Stadium of Light to see my beloved team beat Cardiff City. Steve motored all the way up from Cardiff, where he is at university, to join me for this special 'father-son moment'. Alas! 40 years of supporting the Black Cats should have forewarned the inevitable disappointment. Just about the worst performance I have ever seen as we went down 2-1. Ah well, we live in hope! Of course we do, but the greatest hope doesn't come in the red and white stripes of a football team. Our greatest hope is from the stripes on the back of a carpenter from Nazareth (see, the preacher is never off duty!)
Ah well, off to do a spot of gardening, lose a few pounds and a few weeds all in one shot!
Blessings
Geoff
ps, you can keep up with Joan's adventures by visiting www.getjealous.com and keying in 'joanscause'
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geoffeales
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20:39:12 o'clock BST
Feeling Happy
"our Father"
At bible college, we were recommended to use the NRSV (New Revised Standard version) as the "most faithful translation" of modern bibles. I'm not too keen on Political Correctness, so when I read the NRSV version of Matthew 4:19 - "come follow me and I will make you fish for people" - I was definitely not impressed. No wonder some of my peers called it the "Not Really Serious version"! However, when Jesus taught His disciples to pray in Luke 11:1-4, even this most gender sensitive translation begins with the word "FATHER" - one in the eye for those raving feminists who insist on calling God "mother"!
We are a complicated lot, and when it comes to the Lord's prayer, there are many arguments over the wording; like "sins" against "trespasses" or "lead us not into temptation" versus "keep us from the time of trial". But the most important point about Jesus’ prayer is what He – I’m sure quite deliberately – puts right in the middle, the meat of the sandwich so to speak, is “forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors” (NRSV). Whether you call them “debts” or “sins”, or “trespasses”, or as I prefer, “offences”, I passionately believe that Jesus put so much emphasis on this issue of forgiveness because He knows what’s good for us (surprise surprise). When someone upsets us, that person can waltz off into the sunset with not another thought about it. It is we, who are left festering and steaming – sometimes for years – who suffer. Many doctors believe that illnesses such as cancer, which might otherwise lie dormant in our bodies for a lifetime, are stirred into action by the stress, distress and inner anger brought about by someone upsetting us. We can hold that anger and contempt for years, even a lifetime. That lifetime can be short and bitter if we don’t follow our Lord’s advice and forgive those who have hurt us. One preacher put it this way, “if you keep your Rottweiler locked up too long, he’ll tear your house apart”.
Coming back to “our Father”, Jesus called His Father “Abba” which when translated literally becomes “Daddy”. Think of it, you can turn to your Almighty Creator and say “Dad, you’ve forgiven me for all the bad things I ever did, and I’m tired of holding grudges and carrying all this baggage from years ago, so I forgive …… right here, right now”.
It’ll make you start feeling better immediately!
Blessings
Geoff
Written by
geoffeales
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17:00:31 o'clock BST
Feeling Chillin'
Hearing ying tong yiddle
home on terra-firma
What an awesome day! We set sail about 10am around Portsmouth harbour having had a briefing on safety and had such terms as "brace to port - handsome" (turn the thing left slowly) explained. Whilst in the calmer waters we took turns climbing up to the yard-arm and down the other side (that's what I'm doing in picture). I certainly learned where the expression "all pull together" comes from, if you're not all pulling the right rope at the right time, you can end up in deep water - literally! There's a sermon in here somewhere, but it will have to wait for another day - I'm sure The Lord gives us days off, just being rather than doing, and I will be back with words of wisdom soon.
BFN
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geoffeales
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