The Narrow Path

  Saturday, January 18, 2025 Psalms 41; 44:1-9 Genesis 4:17-5:5; 5:21-24 John 7:25-36 Observance: Confession of Peter Beginning To Call (Genesis 4:26) And so begins the great, heavy, swaying lurch of humanity. The man and the woman are made in innocence; the evil one speaks a lie and they fall for it; sin, crouching at the door, leaps and devours; the misery is increased. The lesson is this: we cannot make it on our own. We need the Lord. It all happens so quickly: the first children fall into tragedy, with one murdering the other and sentenced to banishment as a result. A third is born, Seth, and when his children grow up, humanity truly understands the predicament in which it finds itself. And so they begin to call upon the name of the Lord. All it takes is a few generations. The one rebels; the second suffers the rebellion; the third looks for an escape from that cycle, and calls on the name of the Lord. It is a little funny to notice how t...

  Friday, January 17, 2025 Psalms 40 Genesis 3:20-4:16 John 7:14-24 You Must Rule Over It (Genesis 4:7) One of the most striking things about these opening chapters of the Bible is that God’s grace and mercy just pour out. At every turn, humans do something wrong, and God responds by doing something good. The account of Abel’s murder at the hand of his brother Cain has a twofold mercy. God’s grace spills out double. The first is when Cain makes his initial error. He did not do what God wanted, and God told him so. Understandably, but inexcusably, Cain was angry, and his face fell. There are things we want to do for God, but God doesn’t want us to – should we be angry that he doesn’t want what he doesn’t want? And here is the first mercy: God lifts up Cain and gives his some wise life advice. “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” - if you do what God wants, won’t it be wonderful? “And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door” – be careful o...

  Thursday, January 16, 2025 Psalm 38 Genesis 3:1-19 John 7:1-13 A Bruised Head (Genesis 3:15) Our fairy-tale setting, of the idyllic Garden of Eden in the age of innocence, has come crashing down. But it is not from a barbarian invader or natural disaster; rather, a comedy of errors has what has spoiled God’s good creation. Note the question of questions, the sin of sins, as spoken by the serpent: “Did God really say?” That is the same question he asks today. And then, lying about what God really meant – nothing has changed, the enemy is using the same playbook. Adam, responsible for Eve, instead submits to her. He does what he should not, sin begets sin, and he eats. Then they are given the opportunity to confess and repent, but Adam plays (and loses) the blame game. The magic Garden has become a memorial to a tragedy. Yet in the midst of the tragedy, the gospel of Jesus shines through in what the scholars have dubbed the “proto-Gospel”: the ...

  Wednesday, January 15, 205 Psalm 37:1-17 Genesis 2:4-25 John 6:60-71 Hold Fast (Genesis 2:24) Chapter One of Genesis was all about the scientific specifics: this happened on that day, and so on. Chapter Two is much more romantically presented, as it should – because it ends with a wedding! If the first chapter sated our desire for bare facts, then the second presents the drama of creation. The way in which it speaks about God, and the world he has just made as a misty plain of earth and water, and how he carefully “forms” Adam in the same way a master craftsman works at his trade is on the level of fairy-tale. There is an enchanted garden – a place for Adam to live in and look after. Then a parade of animals, and finally the decision that Adam needs to have company. The universe has exploded with light, stars, planets, birds, fish, animals and plants, and a man has been placed on top as the crown jewel. But it is “not good” until he has company. T...

  Tuesday, January 14, 2025 Psalm 34 Genesis 1:20-2:3 John 6:41-59 Observance: Sava, first archbishop of the Serbian Church (d. 1235) Rested From All His Work (Genesis 2:2) There are not many greater luxuries in life than sipping a cool drink after a hard day’s work. You may know of the old beer ad that immortalised the concept with a catchy tune and a memorable line about a hard-earned thirst. Resting after a job well done really is one of the best states we humans can get ourselves into. God has been hard at work for six days – six non-stop whirlwind days of hard work, creating an entire universe out of nothing, and in record time, no less. On his final day he made a man and a woman, the divine equivalent of cleaning up the worksite at the end of the job. Everything is nicely squared away. And so, on the seventh, seeing the good job he did, God rests – and he blesses the day of rest, as well. If resting after a hard day’s work is a luxury, ge...

  Monday, January 13, 2025 Psalm 35:1-17 Genesis 1:1-19 John 6:28-40 In The Beginning, God. (Genesis 1:1) When Moses wrote the book of Genesis, he was putting together a history of everything so that the Israelites would understand their mission. They were at the end of their wandering through the wilderness; the Promised Land was before them; Moses was about to hand over authority to Joshua; and Joshua was about to lead their conquest. In order to know where they were going, the Israelites needed to know where they had come from. And so Moses wrote Genesis for them. The need to know where one has come from in order to know where one is going is a universal need. Every human needs this information. So much vain philosophy has been suggested based off incorrect assumptions. If we are to have a true understanding of our meaning in life, then the book of Genesis is an excellent place to start. Just as, when we started the gospel of John, the first words w...

  Saturday, January 11, 2025 Psalms 28; 29 Songs 6:4-12 John 6:1-15 Before I Knew It (Songs 6:12) All the great love stories have a happy ending (I am not a fan of post-modern nihilism), and the greatest love story is no different. Our lectionary readings have skipped a few sections of the Song of Songs over this past week, and you will have to finish the book on your own, as next week we move to the book of Genesis. But we have covered the most important stages of this love story. And here, we begin what is the happy ending. The lovers have had their tiff, and the wife found her husband wandering in the garden. Instead of having an argument, or talking it through, they turn to love – love which covers all wrongs. (Proverbs 10:12) She has told the Chorus of her love for him, and having found him, he tells her of his love for her. She had gone down to the garden to find him, and to see if there was any blossoming left in the vineyard of their relation...

  Friday, January 10, 2025 Psalm 25 Songs 5:2-9 John 5:30-47 Observance: William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, martyr (d. 1645) Sick With Love (Songs 5:8) In the first part of this love story we rode the dizzying waves of fresh love. The man and the woman discovered each other, and professed their undying love. They kept themselves pure until the marriage bed, and passions were at bursting point. Then there was the big day, and in the verse just before where picked up again today is the blessing for the guests at the wedding feast: “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” But no sooner have our lovers moved in together do the “little foxes” of chapter two then threaten this blossoming vineyard. The phrase “lover’s tiff” doesn’t come close to doing justice to the emotions we experience in this type of situation. To disappoint the one we love most, even by accident or through circumstances outside our control, is a heart-ache like nothing...

  Thursday, January 9, 2025 Psalm 22 Songs 4:1-18 John 5:19-29 Beautiful, Beautiful (Songs 4:1a) There is a certain Jewish tradition that prohibits young men reading the Song of Songs until they turn thirty. The justification is, presumably, because young men are so inclined to immature giggling, they cannot be trusted to handle the text with the reverence it requires. Some of today’s proclamations of beauty can, to be honest, seem a little, shall we say, rural. But note the specific use of simile by the man. Every aspect of the woman’s natural beauty is compared with something from the natural world. The one time he speaks of something man-made – the “tower of David” of verse four – he is referring to her jewellery. This is consistent with a wider biblical theme of the nature of beauty. When Jesus taught us not to worry about clothes, he drew attention to the fact that wild flowers are more beautiful than anything we could wear. (Matthew 6:28-29) Wh...

  Wednesday, January 8, 2025 Psalms 20; 21 Songs 2:8-17 John 5:1-18 Catch The Little Foxes (Songs 2:15) If we think of what a defining feature of romantic love might be, surely that initial rush of overwhelming affection has to be right up there. The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear; and the time of singing has come. (Songs 2:11-12) One cannot see any negative aspect of the other. Some might say that love has blinded them, but it is the opposite: love has caused the lover to truly appreciate the beauty of the beloved. All you want, all you can think about, is to see their face and hear their voice, because you can hear their true sweetness, and see their true loveliness. (2:14) Moving from what is a universal experience of love to a biblical one, we get to the end of this description of love as the first days of spring: to catch the little foxes. (2:15) There are little foxes running around trying to spoil the bloss...

  Tuesday, January 7, 2025 Psalm 19 Songs 1:1-11 John 4:39-54 Loving Rightly (Songs 1:4b) For the remainder of this week our lectionary takes us through the book of the Song of Songs. We won’t get to cover every last line, but we will get enough to get a handle on how it works overall. It is a notoriously tricky book to read devotionally – when was the last time you heard a sermon on it? And yet it has held the highest place amongst inspired writings throughout the history of God’s people. One ancient Jewish Rabbi even went so far as to say that, when it came to holy scripture, “the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies”. Two ways that this book has been read historically has been to try and see a relationship between Israel and God, or Christ and the church. Reading this way has led to some pretty wild interpretations! The plain view, the one shouting out at us from the pages before us, is that it is a love song between a wife and husband. But this is...

  Monday, January 6, 2025 Psalm 18:1-31 Isaiah 38:9-20 John 4:27-38 Observance: The Epiphany Of Our Lord Fields For Harvest (John 4:35) The story of Jesus and his meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well is well-known and well-loved. There are plenty of angles at which we could approach it, and there is plenty that has been written about and preached on from all those angles. But today we read a segment of the story that gives us the main melody line; the reason why St John included it in his Gospel. The point is this: Jesus has come to save souls. And the application that Jesus makes to us, the reader, is that we are to join him in this work. Are we afraid of talking to people about Jesus? Are we concerned about the response we will get? It is Jesus who has already met the woman at the well; he has already sat down with her and “told her all that she ever did.” She is already asking herself “can this be the Christ?” He is the One who has alrea...

  Saturday, January 4, 2025 Psalms 24; 29 Isaiah 33:17-24 John 4:1-14 Give Me A Drink (John 4:10) Look at the amazing generosity of Jesus! When he hears that John the Baptist’s disciples are getting all grumbly about his successful baptism ministry, he packs up and moves on. He could have argued that it wasn’t even him doing the baptising, but his disciples; but he’s not looking for unnecessary conflict. Then he leads his disciples through a shortcut, through the lands of those bastard Samaritans (literally: they were not pureblood Jews, like the ones down south), saving them from what should have been a long trek just for the sake of propriety. Then, he sends them off to buy food from them: rumbling tummies care not for sibling rivalry such as the one between Judah and Samaria. All this generosity comes to a head when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well. Jesus is truly God, but he is also truly man, and he has worked up a hard-earned thirst from his hike...

  Friday, January 3, 2025 Psalms 36; 57 Isaiah 33:1-16 John 3:22-36 The Bridegroom’s Friend (John 3:29) St John has done such a good job of writing his gospel – if we pay attention to today’s passage, we see that he is giving us a chance to do some revision. Before we move on to the next chapter, we should take this opportunity for our souls to marinade in the heavenly truths we have learned so far. John the Baptist, of whom Jesus said “among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater” (Matthew 11:11) has one job in life: to point people to Jesus. And this Jesus is the Great Bridegroom, come to celebrate the feast of his marriage with his church. This marriage is the promise made long ago, of which one of the symbols is the bronze serpent in the wilderness with Moses. Whoever trusts in Jesus is a guest at this feast, and the invitation is sent by none other than Holy Spirit himself. Wrapped up in all this is a temptation, highlighted in th...

  Thursday, January 2, 2025 Psalms 61; 101 Isaiah 32 John 3:1-21 Observances: Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) and Gregory of Nanzianus (d. 389), bishops and teachers; Eliza Hassall, pioneer of CMS (Australia) & missionary training (d. 1917) No One, Except… (John 3:13) What makes Jesus so special? Yes, this is a question I am certain we will never finish answering. If you could only pick one answer, that is, your favourite thing about him, what would it be? I know my answer has changed – I keep learning more wonderful things, and every time I do, that then becomes my new favourite. But the point remains: Jesus is very special. Why? Well, let’s see what he has to say to Nicodemus: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” No one – not Moses, not any of the prophets, no one has been in that place from which Jesus came. Sure, we could say in general terms that Elijah, carried by a fiery chariot, is ...