The Narrow Path

  Friday, August 1, 2025 Psalm 74 2 Samuel 13:1-19 John 9:39-10:18 Observance: Holy men and women of the Old Testament Abundant Life (John 10:10) [Jesus said,] “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” There is a burden that many clergy these days have to deal with, and that is the burden of “the busy priest”. I do not know where this idea has come from (but I have some suspicions), but it seems that many Christians feel guilty about getting in touch with their minister outside Sunday mornings for fear that he is “too busy”. As I said, I do not know where this idea has come from, because in today’s second lesson, our Lord does not say that he has come to give us a busy life, but an abundant life. This problem of so-called busyness is not restricted to clergy, either. Anyone who feels passionate about their work, or about the people they support with their work, faces the temp...

  Thursday, July 31, 2025 Psalm 59 2 Samuel 12:15b-31 John 9:18-38 Observances: Joseph of Arimathea; Ignatius of Loyola, priest and founder of the Society of Jesus (d. 1556) The Lord Laughs (Psalm 72:8) But you, O Lord , laugh at them;     you hold all the nations in derision. Asking for help is one of those things I don’t think any of us really enjoy. I feel like most of us are more noble than we like to give ourselves credit for, and would be willing to help out someone else, at least a little bit, were they to ask. But to be on the receiving end – not so much. Add to that sense of noble graciousness we all have some awareness of is an instinctive reaction against what today’s Psalmist prays for – that the Lord would bring down his enemies in a spectacularly shameful way. If asking for help is difficult, asking for help against someone else is even more difficult. Yet there may be a time where the whole world is again...

  Wednesday, July 30, 2025 Psalm 72 2 Samuel 11:22-12:15a John 9:1-17 Observance: William Wilberforce, social reformer (d. 1833) The Just King (Psalm 72:1) Give the king your justice, O God,     and your righteousness to the royal son! I once heard someone claim that here in Australia we don’t really have much in the way of culture. I must say, I had to fight the urge to simply write them off as a God-hating commie; had they never voted in an election? Because if they had, they would have experienced one of our greatest cultural past-times. There is nothing quite like an Australian election: usually at a church or school with sausages sizzling, we see what makes us uniquely Australian. We stand in the sun, waiting quietly in lines, and in the one place where politics is the focus, we try not to get too political. Love it or not, election day the way we do it is a uniquely Australian cultural phenomenon. I am thinking ab...

  Tuesday, July 29, 2025 Psalm 69:1-16 2 Samuel 11:1-21 John 8:48-59 Observance: Mary and Martha of Bethany Turning In Abundant Mercy (Psalm 69:16) Answer me, O Lord , for your steadfast love is good;     according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Today’s Psalm always manages to catch me off-guard whenever it comes up. It begins so tragically; the anguish of the Psalmist drips off the page. Then there is the part about people making up lies in order to hurt them, and the echoes of Christ who was to come begin to appear. When we read about how zeal for the Lord’s house has consumed them, it becomes obvious we are reading a prophecy about Jesus, since this is what is referenced when our Lord cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem. Yet in the midst of it all (and it is roughly the middle where we stop for the moment; we read the rest of the Psalm at tonight’s Evensong) the author is confident in God’s steadfast love and abundant...

  Monday, July 28, 2025 Psalm 71 2 Samuel 10 John 8:31-47 Refuge In The Lord (Psalm 71:1) In you, O Lord , do I take refuge;     let me never be put to shame! As a clergyman, I am spoiled with the various conferences, retreats, and gatherings put on by my colleagues. This job can get lonely, and so we all try to do our bit in seeing each other regularly. But this loneliness can threaten any Christian. We live in a world filled with different ideas on spirituality, and all of us can often find ourselves in situations where we are the only one who knows the Lord and his great love. That loneliness may not even be because of our faith; any number of reasons can cause us to feel alone. Our personality type, or station in life, or even geographical location can hold loneliness lurking around the corner. This morning, we hear the Psalmist cry out in loneliness because the whole world is against them. The Psalmist has enemies plotting agai...

  Saturday, July 26, 2025 Psalms 65; 70 2 Samuel 8:15-9:23 John 8:12-30 You Atone (Psalm 65:3) When iniquities prevail against me,     you atone for our transgressions. When we think about the daily blessings of God, I’m sure many of us think of things similar to the second half of Psalm 65. Things such as the enormous amount of food and land we have on this planet (even if we don’t share it very well). In the mind of the Psalmist, this free gift of God is connected to the free gift of God’s forgiveness. We have a wonderful way of conceptualising our struggle with sin in the third verse. “When iniquities prevail against me” brings to mind the human, made in the image of God, doing their best to walk in God’s light, yet struggling against forces that would separate them from one another. Yet even when those iniquities prevail, and separation does occur, God comes and atones for that, just as he blesses us with everything else thi...

  Friday, July 25, 2025 Psalms 62; 63 2 Samuel 7 John 8:1-11 Observance: James, apostle and martyr Writing On The Ground (John 8:8) And once more [Jesus] bent down and wrote on the ground. This passage from John’s gospel is, as you have probably noticed, not found in the earliest manuscripts, yet it is so common everywhere else that we have it in our Bible. There is another passage in the same situation: the longer ending of Mark’s gospel. As one commentator said, since the teaching of the passage is consistent with other, more reliable passages, we might as well keep it there. This general rule, of reading our Bible and searching for consistency across it, is a good one to keep. If something appears more than once then not only can we learn more about it, but whatever we do learn can be more reliable. It is too easy to get distracted with a curious one-off line here or there, and lose sight of what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us. ...

  Thursday, July 24, 2025 Psalms 56; 57 2 Samuel 6 John 7:32-53 A Division Over Him (John 7:43) So there was a division among the people over him. St John keeps using this phrase about “believing in” Jesus. So what do we “believe in” him about? Is he the prophet? That is, is he the predecessor to the Messiah? Or is he the Christ? That is, the Messiah himself? Or is he of little to no consequence at all, because we have found some discrepancy in the scriptures (even though the discrepancy is due to our own lack of knowledge)? There was a division among the people over him then, and there is a division among the people over him now. What are we to do? Jesus gets up and speaks about living water again. He has done this before, with the woman at the well. But this time the author inserts a little editorial note: this Jesus said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. We have here a question about u...

  Wednesday, July 23, 2025 Psalms 54; 55:1-12 2 Samuel 5:6-25 John 7:14-31 Right Judgement (John 7:24) [Jesus said] “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.” “Do what I say, not what I do” is a phrase certain to get groans and giggles in equal measure. We all know people who are like that, with results from the tragic to the farcical. Our Lord stands up in the assembly and says “do what I say, because of what I do”, and we turn to take notice, because no-one is like that. Sometimes we might like to ask other people to look at what we do, and not what we say. Speaking clearly and accurately can often be difficult, while just getting on with things is a more honest way of communicating. Other times we might plead for people to think about what we say in spite of what we do; for we all have memories that make us wince. Reflecting on this effect in ourselves can be helpful for how we relate to other people. We all know pe...

  Tuesday, July 22, 2025 Psalm 51 2 Samuel 4:1-5:5 John 7:1-13 Observance: Mary Magdalene The Festival Of Booths (John 7:2) Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. I love a good Harvest Festival. One particular fond memory was at a church whose minister had a background in poultry farming. Giving thanks to the Lord for all the good things of creation meant we had a sanctuary filled with fruit, vegetables – and a ton of eggs. Today, Jesus is talking with his unbelieving brothers about the Festival of Booths, which had another name: the Festival of Ingathering, at the first fruits of the wheat harvest (Exodus 34:22). It also got more flavour when it was related to the Exodus from Egypt, so that the generations would know that God made the Israelites live in booths when he brought them out of the land of Egypt (Leviticus 23:42-43). It is not yet Jesus’ time – that is, it is not the final Passover Feast, when he would be offered as the La...

  Monday, July 21, 2025 Psalm 50 2 Samuel 3:20-39 John 6:52-71 Noticing The King (2 Samuel 3:36) And all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them, as everything that the king did pleased all the people. I have noticed a certain trend (and because I am a clergyman, trends only come to my attention years after they have passed) where men will use the title “king” to affectionately describe a fellow man who does something they respect. As one who, as a child, got to wear a cardboard crown on my birthday at a certain American fast-food burger chain, I find something whimsically delightful about this. Not to mention the influence of Narnia – the idea that we boys and girls are kings and queens walking about God’s green earth as benevolent rulers, guided by our Biblically-inspired noblesse oblige. The reason I have the term “king” on the brain is because of how our two-volume book of Samuel has started changing the way it refers to David. Did you n...

  Saturday, July 19, 2025 Psalm 45 2 Samuel 3:2-19 John 6:35-51 I Will Never Cast Out (John 6:37) [ Jesus said, ] “ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” If the world’s worries were not enough to stress about, there are plenty of voices in the spiritual realm that want to make us worry, too. Are you good enough? Do you pray enough? Do you give enough? Is your love or faith strong enough? Is there enough? To all those questions and worries, Christ says: enough. If you come to me, I will never cast you out. Christ is enough. If you have come to Christ, then that is enough of your worries. Certainly, once we have come to Christ, he then spurs us on. There is always more he wants us to do; but there is never any more he needs us to do. We have been prepared for good works, but how and when and to what standard we complete those good works has no bearing on whether Christ will cast us out, b...

  Friday, July 18, 2025 Psalms 41; 44:1-9 2 Samuel 2:18-3:1 John 6:16-34 Glad To Take Him In (John 6:21) Then [ the disciples ] were glad to take [ Jesus ] into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. It feels like just recently we were reflecting on how the Bible treats the chaos of life poetically with the image of rough water. There was the Psalm describing the chaos of life as floodwaters; here in today’s second lesson we have the chaos of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. While it feels like a little bit of a stretch to interpret this passage as a direct one-to-one lesson about Christ’s presence in the storms of our own life, it is still striking just how similar an experience it is. Chaos in life can happen when there is just so much to think about, so much that needs to be done, and it all needs to be worked out and sorted yesterday. All that headspace becomes filled up with the problems of life, and w...

  Thursday, July 17, 2025 Psalm 40 2 Samuel 2:1-17 John 6:1-15 King By Force (John 6:15) Do you remember that strange time when certain voices tried to make the phrase “Christ is King” defined as hate speech? The internet certainly is a wild and wacky place. I wonder why, though, people may have felt that way. Do we say Christ is King as a call to action? Are we saying that our current rulers, celebrities, influencers and social commentators have proved themselves to be no good, and so we ought to make Christ our King? That is not so bad, I suppose. It is true that idolatry is a bad idea, and so we all should make Christ our King. Yet when Christ fed the people on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they tried to take him by force and make him king, which didn’t suit him one bit, and so he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. St John’s gospel is wonderful because it does such a good job of emphasising Christ’s independence. In every moment of...

  Wednesday, July 16, 2025 Psalm 38 2 Samuel 1:17-27 John 5:30-47 Who Clothed You Luxuriously (2 Samuel 1:24) “ You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,     who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet,     who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.” There’s a crude joke that is not worth repeating, it is about a New Zealander or a Welshman depending on where you live. The humour relies on the fact that things are funny because they are true. And it is true that, no matter how good and noble and generous and loving you are, if you make one mistake, then all the good you did is forgotten, and you are only known for that one mistake. It takes a certain level of self-reflection, self-control and wisdom to be able to see the good in someone who has done something awful. Saul was famous for two things: being the Lord’s anointed, and losing that anointing. Towards the end of his life, everyone had seemed to forgotten tha...

  Tuesday, July 15, 2025 Psalm 37:1-17 2 Samuel 1-16 John 5:19-30 Testifying By Your Own Mouth (2 Samuel 1:16) And David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord 's anointed.’” Does anyone really do anything that they think is wrong? There might be a time of balancing pros and cons of any certain action, but does anyone actually go out of their way and try to do something they don’t like? Even when people commit objectively evil acts, there is still some formula they are working from that justifies their actions. We might disagree with their formula, and their actions, but there is still something inside that person that makes them feel justified. The infamous Amalekite who brought the news of Saul’s death to David was like this. He knew David and Saul weren’t getting along, and when he discovered Saul was dead, he pretended to be the one who had finished Saul off. There ...

  Monday, July 14, 2025 Psalm 34 1 Samuel 31 John 5:1-18 The Boasting Soul (Psalm 34:2) My soul makes its boast in the Lord ;     let the humble hear and be glad. I grew up during the time when video games consoles were starting to become commonplace in people’s homes. It wasn’t as widespread as it is now – plenty of people certainly had plenty of consoles, but it was still enough of a novelty that, while none of us were any good, we were all very excited about it. We would all want to talk about some new game coming out, or some new trick we had learned in a game everyone was playing at the time. And there would always be someone who wanted to be special and make something up. This person is so widespread there is now the famous line to describe them: the type of person that claims “my uncle works at Nintendo”. Success by association is not usually an admirable trait in a fellow human. There may be some passing interest to learn...

  Saturday, July 12, 2025 Psalm 31 1 Samuel 30:7-25 John 4:43-54 Into Your Hand (Psalm 31:5) Into your hand I commit my spirit;     you have redeemed me, O Lord , faithful God. Towards the end of John’s Gospel, after Jesus washes the disciples feet and before his arrest, we read what has been called his “high priestly prayer”; that is, a prayer Jesus offers in his role as high priest on behalf of all Christians. It is worth going back to whenever we feel disheartened, because it gives us a taste of the prayer that Jesus is offering constantly on our behalf right now in heaven. Yet it might not be the only prayer we have in scripture that he has made on our behalf. We have what is called the “words from the cross”, seven different things Jesus said when he was being crucified, collected from the four gospels. It is widely accepted that he quoted Psalm 22, which helps us understand why he cried out “My God, my God, why have you...

  Friday, July 11, 2025 Psalms 28; 29 1 Samuel 29:1-30:6 John 4:27-42 Observance: Benedict of Nursia, abbot (d. 550) Enthroned Over The Flood (Psalm 28:10) The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;     the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. The ancients knew what they were doing when it came to language. If you wanted to describe the ups and downs of life, of the utter chaos that is human existence, you could not do much better than describe it as floodwaters. It is such a good description; consider how we try and control our destinies in so many little ways. We brush our teeth in order to control our gum health. We drive sensibly to control our road safety. This is not an indictment against self determination, nor is it a call to fatalism. But the idea of floodwaters as a way to describe the chaos of life stands up against human experience. Chaos can come from our interactions with others. Nowhere perhaps is chaotic ...

  Thursday, July 10, 2025 Psalm 25 1 Samuel 28:3-25 John 4:16-26 True Worship (John 4:23) [Jesus said] “ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” Yesterday we mused on the idea that when Christ spoke of living water he might have been referring to the Holy Spirit. As he continues his conversation with the woman at the well, he develops the theme of the spiritual nature of true religion. There is a difference between the type of worship that is from the head, and the type that is from the heart. To any Christian who has spent more than thirty seconds reading their Bible this much is obvious. Performing the outward signs of religion is fine, but God looks to the heart, and searches for people who love him honestly, rather than just do what they think they ought to and leave it there. But while this is easy to say, it is not so easy t...

  Wednesday, July 9, 2025 Psalm 22:1-22 1 Samuel 27:1-28:2 John 4:1-15 Springs of Living Water (John 4:14) [Jesus said] “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Our Lord speaks often about giving. Specifically, giving things to us. And quite often, when he speaks of giving us something, he speaks of the Holy Spirit. We have some concepts of the Holy Spirit. He is spoken of as wind, in that he moves without consulting us, but we know when he has. He is referred to as breath, as the source of life, moving (like the wind, in his own time and by his own intentions) into and from his creatures. If we take the “holy” part of his name, we think of the holiness of God, which always involves fire; and when he came down onto the disciples at Pentecost, they had something like flames of fire on their heads. Could we th...