The Narrow Path

  Monday, 25 August, 2025 Psalm 135 2 Samuel 24:1-14 Acts 21:1-14 The Great Mercy Of The Lord (2 Samuel 24:14) Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord , for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” Both here in today’s first lesson, as well as with St Paul in our second, we read about men of God who feared God more than people. It is very noble and encouraging to read when other people are like this; but how would we be in the same situation? We can see other people, we can hear them and smell them and feel the weight of chains and the cut of weapons. But God is invisible spirit, and can seem further away. To have courage in the face of danger we can see through faith in what we cannot is both a Christian privilege as well as our challenge. Maybe our perception of distance plays into this – even just now I spoke of the physical being closer than the spiritual. Yet this is not how...

  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...

  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 ...

  The Mighty Dance of Faith   2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 When was the last time you danced? I reckon you could make a video about dancing and Christian denominations. All the Anglicans would be only be dancing to set moves – we like to dance to the rubrics of the prayer book. The Orthodox would be gently swaying up the back of the hall, eyes closed, half-smile on their faces. The Baptists and Presbyterians would be having an argument at the bar. The Pentecostals would be up the front in the mosh pit. Dancing does not, on the face of things, seem very productive. Dancing seems, to me, to be deeply personal. And dancing seems to happen when we have something deeply personal within us that we just can’t help but express. We have to show how we feel, and we don’t care if anyone else knows about it. At least with visual art we can see and appreciate the link between the artist’s technical skill and our own emotions. And with music, all you really have to do t...