The Narrow Path

  Wednesday, February 1, 2023 Psalm 74 Genesis 20 Luke 2:41-52 “ ...he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live.” Abraham has gone and done it again. He just can’t seem to help himself! After all he has seen of and heard from God, he still thinks God needs a bit of a hand in carrying out His promises. Once again, God has to scoop Abraham out of trouble – in a most encouraging way, because the shame Abraham will face in front of his family and employees (again!) is punishment enough. What is noticeable about this passage is found in what God says to Abimelech. It is the first time that this Hebrew word for “prophet” is used in the Bible. It is not used in the way we would think: that is, God does not describe a prophet as one who speaks to people. Rather, in this passage, God is saying that a prophet is one who speaks to Him. If you are reading this reflection as part of your morning prayers, then you have fulfilled the role of prophet as des...

  Tuesday, January 31, 2023 Psalm 59 Genesis 19:12-38 Luke 2:8-21 “ Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” This morning is all about going places. Lot “lingered” in his escape, and had to be rescued by force. His wife, unwilling or unable to turn her back completely on the evil city, was reduced to base matter. Even in the midst of his miraculous escape, Lot doubted his instructions from God, and asked to be allowed go somewhere in between salvation and destruction. The wickedness of the city followed Lot and his daughters, and the last we hear about this “righteous” man is that he is living destitute, in a tent in the wilderness, covered in shame. But this is not the last word from God. Lot’s firstborn son is Moab, the first of the Moabites, those ancient enemies of Israel. Even without flicking through the Bible to the end (spoilers!), is the God we know the type of Person to just leave the s...

  Monday, January 30, 2023 Psalm 72 Genesis 18:22-19:11 Luke 2:1-7 Observance: Charles, king of England (d. 1649) “ This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge!” Today’s and tomorrow’s readings from Genesis record one of those really dark moments of human history. It is a scene we would rather not read about; it certainly rarely comes up on a Sunday morning service. The story of Lot, his family, and the residents of and visitors to Sodom has, in modern times, been pulled apart and re-interpreted to try and say all sorts of things in order to lessen the full weight of the reality of what happened that fateful night. Let us not be deceived: the men of the city were trying to rape the male visitors, and this is the evil which caused such a great outcry that it brought God out of heaven to sort out. There is much we can talk about in this story: the fact that Lot sat in the city gates, and so knew what the city was like, which was why ...

  Saturday, January 28, 2023 Psalm 71 Genesis 18:1-22 Luke 1:67-80 Observance: Thomas Aquinas, theologian (d. 1274) “ How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know.” It is truly an amazing thing that our God is a God Who Comes Close. He is not a galactic watchmaker, winding up the universe and letting the mainspring unwind while He watches from His palace. Nor is He like us, in that He cannot see any further than we can, only able to provide moral support from the spiritual grandstand. God is the creator, the “Prime Mover”, as Aquinas put it, borrowing language from Aristotle. Since there is motion, Aquinas argued (again, adapting Aristotelian metaphysics), there must be something to cause that motion, and we cannot logically accept an infinite series of moving movers. Something must have set every...

  Friday, January 27, 2023 Psalm 68:1-20 Genesis 17 Luke 1:57-66 Observance: John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, teacher (d. 407) Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. What other event in all of God’s creation epitomises the human experience better than the spoken word? It appears, and as soon as it is heard, it is gone. A breath on the wind, sometimes delivered with more and better preparation than other times. Words have been breathed that have led entire generations of men to kill their brothers. At other times, they have turned down swords and cannons and saved many. They can send us into spirals of depression, and raise us to dizzying heights beyond even the capacity of our natural dopamine receptors. God used His ability to speak to create the universe, and then call it good, and bless it. The enemy has the ability to speak, and has used it to confuse us about what God says. Zechariah...

  Thursday, January 26, 2023 Psalms 65; 70 Genesis 16 Luke 1:39-56 Observance: Australia Day My spirit rejoices in God my saviour! One of the great arguments that occurred during the Reformation, a theological debate that had been raging since the early church and still continues today, surrounds the capacity of the human will. Luther wrote On the Bondage of the Will, and Calvin wrote The Bondage and Liberation of the Will , both explosive works that still upset Christians today. They were both asking the question of how we can reconcile God’s sovereign right and ability to choose whom He saves, and what role, if any, human autonomy has in God’s decision-making process. Fundamentally, the question asks: does God need our help? When God does something that involves us, can we make a breakdown of how much we participated in God’s action? Do we participate 50%? 10%? 1%? Abraham and Sarah were starting to get worried. God had promised that He w...

  Wednesday, January 25, 2023 Psalms 62; 63 Genesis 15 Luke 1:26-38 Observance: Conversion of Paul the apostle He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. One of the last century’s greatest theologians once began a lesson by assuring his listeners that if he were ever locked away in prison and were only allowed one book, that one book would be the Bible. If that was considered too generous then, he said, he would choose to just have the book of Genesis. If the wardens thought even that too much lenience, and he were allowed only one chapter, then he would choose Genesis chapter 15. This bizarre ritual Abraham goes through, with the animals and the chopping, was how those in the ancient world came to an agreement on serious issues. Two parties would walk through the mutilated corpses and assure each other that if one were to break the terms of the agreement then may they suffer the same fate as the animals. This is what God w...

  Tuesday, January 24, 2023 Psalms 56; 57 Genesis 14:(1-7) 8-24 Luke 1:13-25 Observance: Companions of Paul, including Timothy, Titus and Silas “ This is what the Lord has done for me when He looked favourably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” One of things that is taught to trainee hospital chaplains is the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is the sense we feel when we have done something wrong. Shame is the sense that there is something wrong within us. The difference is between an action, causing guilt, and something that defines who we are, that shames us. Both are awful experiences to have. With guilt, there is at least some sort of cultural belief that it is something which can be atoned for. If one breaks the law, for example, they are found guilty. A punishment is handed down, a sentence served, and the guilty party is afterwards redeemed. Shame is a more insidious affliction. We might be tempted to lo...

  Monday, January 23, 2023 Psalms 54; 55:1-12 Genesis 13 Luke 1:1-12 Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. When I was very young, a schoolmate came to class one day full of confidence because he had a very important message to pass on to us. He must have heard it from his parents, because no nine year old boy has ever thought about such things: he announced to us all that no one has ever been able to define the meaning of life. Because critical thinking is not something they teach children, I took this ground-breaking piece of information home to my mother, ready...

  Saturday, January 21, 2023 Psalm 50 Genesis 12 John 8:48-59 Observance: Agnes, martyr at Rome, virgin (d. 304) “ Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.” Something very important we need to keep in mind when we are reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is that just because someone does something, it doesn’t mean we should too. Some of these places are obvious: we shouldn’t kill our siblings, for example. But look at how Abraham, the father of our faith, behaves as soon as things don’t go how he expects them to go. Abraham is such a confusing figure at times. Here he is, a man of 75 (which would not have necessarily been decrepit for someone so close to the generation of Methuselah, but still old enough to have lived a life). God appears to him and tells him to pick up sticks and move to another country. The trust in God that Abraham puts on display is impressive. God then shows Abraham the land ...

  Friday, January 20, 2023 Psalm 48 Genesis 10:32-11:9; 27-32 John 8:31-47 And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” The moment the Tower of Babel fell was one of the greatest displays of God’s love to us. Does this sound silly? Think about it in context. From the moment God made us, we were surrounded by the goodness and glory of God: the plants, the animals, the natural world; all this beauty and blessing. Then one brother killed another, the ground cried out with the shed blood, and violence and evil ran rampant so viciously that the whole world needed a really good wash. Even after the floodwaters subsided, a son laughed at his naked father and looked for others to join in the teasing. God saved us from ourselves when He knocked that tower down. His grace was displayed by restraining us from the evil we...

  Thursday, January 19, 2023 Psalm 45 Genesis 9 John 8:21-30 When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realise that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. We are so restricted in our English language when it comes to describing love. I love my dog, and I love my wife. But I wouldn’t take my dog to a restaurant for a steak, or take my wife out and hose her down in the back yard. Ancient Greek had a few more words that described different types of love: we recognise agape as the love of God to humankind. Filia is also recognisable because it has entered our own language: filial love. Eros , the love between a husband and wife, needs no further explanation either. Perhaps our greatest linguistic weakness is in the inflexibility of love. Love is often a passive endeavour. Love is something that happens to us, that comes out of that part of the body that bubbles and boils and releases emotion. Acti...

  Wednesday, January 18, 2023 Psalms 41; 44:1-9 Genesis 8 John 8:12-20 The LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” There is a real phenomenon happening in our culture concerning our attitude towards the environment. All the doom and gloom we read and hear about the imminent end of the world has caused many people to suffer from what has been called “eco-anxiety”. It is far too easy to be sucked in to the alternative religion of climate change alarmism. Don’t be fooled: this is a religion. It has it’s own creation story, eschatology, atonement, liturgy and rituals. We Christians need to be spiritually discerning creatures when we think about the environment, and not be drawn along by the changes and chances of this fleeting world. We humans are the height of God’s creation in this unive...

  Tuesday, January 17, 2023 Psalm 40 Genesis 7 John 8:1-11 Observance: Antony of Egypt, abbot (d. 356) As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. There is a relatively recent movie about the Flood, starring Russel Crowe as Noah. While it might get a little Lord of the Rings with a big battle scene when Noah’s family are boarding the ark, the film does communicate two things quite well. First, there is a great sense of the terror and trauma of the Flood: the terror of those trying to escape the ever-rising floodwater, and the trauma of those inside the ark hearing the destruction of all life that is happening around them. Second, it deals with what happens to a human mind when it tries to comprehend (too deeply) justice on God’s level. Eschatologically speaking, we can rejoice in the fact that our God hates evil and has a final Day planned when all evil will finally be destroyed once and for all. No-one likes the idea of crimes goin...

  Monday, January 16, 2023 Psalm 38 Genesis 6 John 7:37-52 Make haste to help, O Lord, my salvation. As children of God, confessing and clinging to the name of the Lord Jesus, we find ourselves in this life with a big target painted on our back. The devil is prowling like a lion, laying traps for us, looking to devour us with schemes and plans cunning yet entirely unoriginal. We are enemies of the world, who will not bow down to secular authorities, or common fashions and trends, or participate in gossip or scandal, entirely bereft of a tribe to belong to. Even our own flesh fights against us: we are wandering around our soul like a gardener in his plot, finding weeds constantly growing and needing to be ripped out as they appear and thrown in the bin. It is not wonder we often stumble, but of those who deserve pity, he who deserves pity the least is he who is receiving the consequences of his own actions. God has given us more than enough instruction and grac...

  Saturday, January 14, 2023 Psalm 34 Genesis 4:17-5:5; 5:21-24 John 7:25-36 Observance: Sava, first archbishop of the Serbian church (d. 1235) Taste and see that the Lord is good. What a dramatic scene Jesus is causing in the Temple! Everyone is just trying to have a nice time at the festival, sacrificing some animals, catching up on the village news from around the area, maybe sharing a nice cup of Jerusalem tea. But here comes this absolute stirrer, getting up and claiming that He has a special connection with God! The crowds are saying that because they know the village in which Jesus was raised, He cannot be the Messiah. This is because they were going off some lines in the prophets which they had misread to say that the Messiah would suddenly appear in their midst as if from nowhere. Jesus cannot help but respond with biting sarcasm: they know where He is from, but they do not know Who sent Him. In other words, they know Him superficially as a miracl...

  Friday, January 13, 2023 Psalm 35 Genesis 3:20-4:16 John 7:14-24 Observance: Hilary of Poitiers, bishop and teacher (d. 367) Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of Him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him. We know that God is entirely generous. There is nothing good that He keeps from us. It is truly a blessed life that we live as His children. But His generosity is not to be taken advantage of. He does not spoil His children. We do not throw a tantrum just to get Him to take us through the Drive-Thru for an ice cream. His generosity comes from a deep well of love, and love is an active force, exercised in a relationship that goes two ways. Cain offered fruit, while Abel offered the firstlings of the flock, the fat portions. God did not disregard Cain’s offering because He prefers meat, but because Abel, by giving the best of what he had, showed greater love. We also read about this ...

  Thursday, January 12, 2023 Psalm 31 Genesis 3:1-19 John 7:1-13 My time has not yet come… How far is God willing to go to be with us? How much of our nonsense is He willing to put up with? Does He ever push us out of the nest and make us flap our wings on our own? In the Garden, we disobeyed Him. It was a holy place, and we desecrated it with our rebellion. Since God’s nature is bound up in His holiness, we had to leave. The curse we read about this morning precedes our expulsion. The curse itself was not the expulsion, however: it was the punishment which fit the crime. God’s fundamental attribute of holiness informs His other attributes, like steadfastness and loving-kindness. This is why He led the Israelites out of Egypt, and kept them safe in tents during their time in the wilderness. God’s display of steadfastness and loving-kindness in this act is such a momentous time in the history of His people that there is an annual festival to commemorate i...

  Wednesday, January 11, 2023 Psalms 28; 29 Genesis 2:4-25 John 6:60-71 The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. We humans are a funny combination of bits and pieces. I’m not talking about opposable thumbs, or how we have big toes instead of tails to keep us upright. Nor do I mean the fact that we have digestive systems that love bran cereal yet tongues that love chocolate rice bubbles. The most curious thing about what makes a human is found in today’s reading in Genesis. God has made matter, and moulded that matter into all sorts of different amazing combinations: light, rain, soil, plants, animals and so on. Then He took that matter and made a human being. To complete this work, the highest work of His creation, He breathed into it. Something to bear in mind whenever we read about breath, wind, or spirit in the Bible is that in the Greek, it is all the same root word: pneuma, from which we get the English word pneumatic. It is one of t...

  Tuesday, January 10, 2023 Psalm 25 Genesis 1:20-2:3 John 6:41-59 Observance: William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, martyr (d. 1645) This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. When God first made us, blessed us, and called us good, He gave us food to eat. As those who had dominion over all creation, made of the same stuff as the rest of creation yet placed over it all, He gave us that stuff to eat as food. The scientific explanation is a little miraculous; how we humans eat things like bread, fruit, vegetables, steak, fried chicken and so on and then turn that food into energy that our bodies use to grow. When we disobeyed God, and brought down everything else in creation with us, we also took down that miracle of eating and growing. Matter cannot sustain itself forever, and so it is with our digestive systems. But when Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, entered into creation, he repaired the breach...

  Monday, January 9, 2023 Psalm 22:1-22 Genesis 1:1-19 John 6:28-40 Then God said… Once upon a time, there was nothing. Not even nothing; there was only a void. There was not even time upon which to count how long there had been a void. Then, The Voice spoke, and in a flash, a helter-skelter of activity, there was everything. Light poured out, and movement: there was earth, and it pushed up mountains. There was sea, and it roared into the deep. Planets broke from masses of rock, and comets zoomed out into the infinite beyond; flowers bloomed and rain broke from the sky. All was made, and it was beautiful, and good, and The Person Who Spoke blessed it. And He wanted someone to care for it, in the way that He cared for it. Thus men and women came from the earth, to speak blessings on creation as they heard it directly from the mouth of God. But they ignored The Voice, and got ideas above their station. In spite of having come from the same material as ever...

  Saturday, January 7, 2023 Psalm 19 Song of Songs 1:1-11 John 4:39-54 And many more believed because of His word. How beautiful are the words of Jesus! Many came to believe in Him because of the testimony of the Samaritan woman, words of His they gained second hand. Many more believed from sitting with Him, inviting Him into their homes, hearing first-hand as they shared dinner with Him. We have words of His kept for us in the text of the Bible, words which warm our hearts and stir them into conflagrations of love. The word of His power pushes up the plants from the earth, and beats the hearts of every living thing. We walk through our gardens, down the streets, in parks and the bush: the beauty of His word overwhelms us. Lying on our backs and staring into the night sky we see the beauty of His word beamed down in galaxies upon galaxies. The many colours of the sky, the black of the storm, the purple of the clearing: it all draws its beauty from the words pr...

  Friday, January 6, 2023 Psalm 18 Isaiah 38:9-20 John 4:27-38 Observance: The Epiphany Of Our Lord I love you, O LORD, my strength. I love you, O Lord, my strength. Before you made the world, you knew you would bring me into being. You formed me in the womb, unfurled my tiny body like a fern leaf. You kept me safe and healthy, and stitched me together. When the time was right, you brought me into this world. You gave me a childhood, so that I would know what kind of faith you would have me place in you. You directed my path through my formative years. Through so many dangers, when so many things could have gone wrong, you instead let me see just enough so that I would learn to trust in you. Through all my stumblings, you were there, picking me up, reminding me you loved me. Though I tried to ignore you, you held me close, and whenever I wanted you, you were there. Though my sins are very great, and these should cons...

  Thursday, January 5, 2023 Psalms 15; 16 Isaiah 35 John 4:13-26 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him. Jesus’ words are simultaneously most beautiful and singularly terrifying. In this one phrase alone, He is throwing open the doors of heaven to some, while swinging them shut to others. The Samaritan woman at the well could respond to these words in one of two ways. She could perhaps shrink at the perfect holiness of God in the presence of her sexual sin. But He has also given her a most precious truth, in teaching her that God can indeed be worshipped in any place on earth. God can be worshipped anywhere at anytime, and, as the old prayer book would put it, it is indeed meet and right so to do. But it is not a stiff, ritualistic, empty worship. Worship that just goes through the motions, like those in the temple at Jerusalem, causes Jes...

  Wednesday, January 4, 2023 Psalms 11; 12 Isaiah 33:17-24 John 4:1-14 The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. John is once again helping us delve the glorious mysteries of God by recording the times when Jesus used everyday images to help illustrate His point. Everyone is familiar with water. Everyone knows what it is to be thirsty. And, since Jesus knows what is in the heart of every human, He knows that our spiritual thirst is great. It is truly marvellous that Jesus chose this place to present His teaching on this subject. Jacob had some pretty amazing experiences with God. He had a dream, where he saw a stairway leading from earth to heaven. He wrestled with God in order to get a blessing, and received a limp for his efforts. He finally reached a town in Canaan and bought some land, and this is most likely where today’s well was dug. Jacob put in a lot of his own effort to get God to look after h...