The Narrow Path

  Saturday, February 1, 2025 Psalm 74 Genesis 18:1-22 Luke 1:67-80 The Heat Of The Day (Genesis 18:1) Every time summer rolls around I find myself amazed at the fact that we manage to get anything done for these three months of the year. And while I’m sure there are some minor differences between our sub-tropical summer and Abraham’s Middle Eastern summer, he still had the right idea by resting under a tree in front of his tent during the heat of the day. Yet for all the comfort he managed to find in what I am sure would have been a regular daily routine of cooling off, he immediately jumped up and ran from the tent door to meet these three men who he calls “O Lord”. We know that hospitality to strangers was an extremely important part of the culture of the day. Abraham was doing his expected duty by jumping up to look after them. But he also seems to understand that he is speaking with God, and there is an even greater duty to jump up and serve G...

  Friday, January 31, 2025 Psalm 59 Genesis 17 Luke 1:57-66 God To You (Genesis 17:7) God’s covenant promise is a wonderful thing. The promise of a homeland is something many people the world over throughout history have yearned for. And the promise of descendants is a universal yearning too. But one part of this promise stuck out and has stuck with God’s people ever since: that God would be our God. Abram (now Abraham) is obsessed over the promise of children. He is so desperate that he asks if God can fulfil the promise through Ishmael; God replies that Sarai (now Sarah) is to be the mother of kings. Abraham doesn’t even bring up the issue of land rights, as he probably thinks that is in the bag, as he has already proved to himself he knows how to win a war. But for the rest of the Old Testament, and throughout the New all the way to Revelation, the promise that God would be our God is what has stuck out as the most wonderful part of this covenant pro...

  Thursday, January 30, 2025 Psalm 72 Genesis 16 Luke 1:39-56 Observance: Charles, King of England [martyr] (d. 1649) Return and Submit (Genesis 16:9) Poor old Hagar is one of the most hard-done-by women in the whole Bible. We have a few accounts of women suffering terribly in the Old Testament, and it is worth paying attention to them. Usually, when a women suffers, it is because God’s intentions have been disobeyed; the natural order breaks down. And when the natural order breaks down, the women seem to be the first to suffer, and the ones who suffer the worst. The abuse of Hagar follows on immediately from the account of the covenant promise to Abram. It is up and down with this guy. Abram does something great, and then he does something awful. He is filled with assurances from God, and then he goes and behaves like nothing happened. Also, he hadn’t told Sarai (or explained strongly enough to her) that God kept reassuring them to live in faithf...

  Wednesday, January 29, 2025 Psalm 69:1-6 Genesis 15 Luke 1:26-38 Smoking Fire, Flaming Torch (Genesis 15:17) It feels like only yesterday that we were kicked out of the paradise of the Garden. With nothing but a promise of a head-crusher and a God of justice, we were sent out into the world of sin we had brought about. Adam and Eve spent their days looking forward to the one who would be born to save them; the drama between Cain and Abel must have shaken them deeply, as one of the seed of the woman killed another. Things got so bad that eventually there had to be a global flood to wipe out all the evil that had built up, and only Noah and his family was found worthy of saving. Knowing that he was not the head-crusher, he offered sacrifices on the first patch of dry ground; he lived in hope that the head-crusher would still one day come. Now Abram, trusting God for the promised saviour, has been given more information on the specifics of that saviour. ...

  Tuesday, January 28, 2025 Psalm 71 Genesis 14:1-24 Luke 1:13-25 Observance: Thomas Aquinas, theologian (d. 1274) Lest You Should Say (Genesis 14:22-23) A pressing issue on the mind of every clergyman and parish councillor is the material well-being of their church. There is always a hole in the annual budget; there are always more repairs than there is money; there are never enough volunteers; the list goes on. What this conundrum can drive us to is a closing-in; of continual consolidation of resources. Batter down the hatches, ride out the storm, and if we use some economic nous we will get to the other side. But this doesn’t give God the opportunity to show off. Or, to use church lingo, it steals glory from God. The alternative to church stress is to step out in faith; or, to leave church lingo behind again, to give God the opportunity to show off. Just consider who this God is, of what he is like according to the first 14 chapters of the Bibl...

  Monday, January 27, 2025 Psalm 68:1-20 Genesis 13 Luke 1:1-12 Observance: John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, teacher (d. 407) The Whole Land Before You (Genesis 13:9) There once was a certain American political leader. Such was the job that there were always issues that needed solutions, and so he had an army of aides who would spend their days working out the best solution for each problem. According to legend, his aides would bring him three options from which he could choose, placing them out side by side on his desk – and they would always place their own preference in the middle. And so, for the four years in which this man held office, he always did what his aides wanted, because they had figured out how to manipulate his decision. If we want to give someone the option of choosing, do we feel the need to try and get them to choose what we want them to choose? Abram was the big man, the patriarch, the uncle. Lot was just the n...

  Saturday, January 25, 2025 Psalms 62; 63 Genesis 12 John 8:48-59 Observance: Conversion of Paul the Apostle So He Built (Genesis 12:7) When is it appropriate to say “thank you”? If someone says that they will do something for you, most of us would say it then, in spite of the fact that they haven’t done it yet. But what about when God says he will do something for us, even if he hasn’t yet done it? This is what happened with Abram at the oak of Moreh. He had already followed God’s promise from his homeland at Ur, just inland a bit from the Persian Gulf, all the way up the Euphrates to Haran at the border of modern-day Turkey, and then down again to Canaan in modern day Israel. God had said he would do something for Abram (several things, in fact), and Abram said “thank you” before the promise had been fulfilled. The faith of Abram is a well-worn theme for Christians who have been around for a while. And rightfully so: Jesus talks about him, a...

  Friday, January 24, 2025 Psalms 56; 57 Genesis 10:32-11:9, 27-32 John 8:31-47 Observance: Companions of Paul, including Timothy, Titus, and Silas A Name For Ourselves (Genesis 11:4) To have aspirations is not necessarily a bad thing. Just yesterday we were reflecting on how God gave everything to Noah and that the fear of man had been put into every living thing; opportunity for greatness was handed down from heaven to earth on a silver platter. Perhaps we can look at aspirational thinking as morally neutral: it all depends on the reasons behind it. The people who wanted to build the Tower of Babel had grand aspirations. While the tower itself was neither here nor there (for God had given them everything), the reason why they wanted to build it was the problem. To make a name for themselves, rather than accepting their place as God’s creatures, was the problem. We can consider two different coronation services to see the difference. When Char...

  Thursday, January 23, 2025 Psalms 54; 55:1-12 Genesis 9 John 8:21-30 I Give You Everything (Genesis 9:3) God’s increase of the post-Flood resurrection continues. In the Garden there were forbidden plants; now all the plants are for eating. Adam was cursed with having to sweat and work the soil for food; but now that God has washed away the initial wave of evil, Noah may eat the animals as well. As befitting one bearing the image of God Most High, the fear and dread of man is upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. God has given humanity “everything”. There is still a restriction, however. But it is not the restriction of a certain plant; and the meaning of the restriction is made more obvious. Blood itself is off the table, because blood means life, and everything that God has been doing has been for the sake of human life. God is so jealous of human life, in...

  Wednesday, January 22, 2025 Psalm 51 Genesis 8 John 8:12-20 Observance: Vincent, deacon and martyr (d. 304) While The Earth Remains (Genesis 8:22) It is not a novel observance that this part of Genesis feels rather reminiscent of the first couple of chapters. At the start of the book, God made the earth and everything in it out of nothing. Now, God is remaking the earth and everything in it using what he has saved. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark, that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth. If we cast our mind back to the third chapter of Genesis we might remember a taste of the dread we felt at reading about the Fall. Everything was wonderful, perfect and enchanted, but the serpent and his lies brought down Adam, Eve, and everything else. Yes, there was the promise of a serpent-head-crusher yet to come, but in the meantime, there was the curse to deal...

  Tuesday, January 21, 2025 Psalm 50 Genesis 7 John 8:1-11 Observance: Agnes, martyr at Rome, virgin (d. 304) The Waters of the Flood (Genesis 7:10) The account of the global flood is an interesting choice for a Sunday School story. Children’s ministry resources portray a cheery old man on a big boat, surrounded by happy safari animals with big smiles. Yet we read through the actual text and cannot help but escape this sense of ancient dread. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. God blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. This memory of a global flood is universal; every human culture on earth has some version of this ancient event passed down through the generations. It wasn’t just restricted to the Ancient Near East, either: eve...

  Monday, January 20, 2025 Psalm 48 Genesis 6 John 7:37-52 Righteous, Blameless, Walks With God (Genesis 6:9) Everyone loves an old church. Even the heathen walks into them and can’t help but go silent and look around with a sense of wonder. If I could put forward a theory, it is that this happens because old churches are designed very specifically – that is, with the intention of communicating the gospel through design. If you go into an old church and look up, more often than not you might think the ceiling looks a little like the hull of an old wooden sailing ship. This is intentional: the church is the ark, floating safely through the flood, filled with souls that will be safe because they are held close to God in an unbreakable covenant relationship. In the original ark, which we are starting to read about today, there was a man: Noah. He was the only reason there was an ark in the first place. And a covenant is between people, not things, and so God e...

  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...