Imagine you’ve been hard at work, and at last it’s paying off; you’re finally getting some results. Except … you work in a vineyard, and now the harvest has come, you’re expected to give some of it away. You really do not like this idea. You’ve worked hard for those grapes, and now you can not even use them all. Together with those you share the vineyard with, you decide this is unjust, and refuse to hand any over, rejecting the messengers sent to collect the produce. Tension

It must be very frustrating if your sibling is the perfect child, who always responds appropriately and fulfils your parents’ expectations, and be so very tempting to go in the opposite direction, and refuse to do anything right. I wonder if that is what is going on in the parable of the two sons whose father asks them to go and work in his vineyard (Matthew 21:23 – 32). One refuses, but then thinks better of it and goes; the other agrees to go, but doesn’t. It is only a para

Simon Peter has just had one of those mountain-top experiences. Jesus had asked the disciples who they thought he was, to which Peter had replied ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God’. Jesus affirms Simon, naming him Peter – ‘rock’ – and on that rock, Jesus said, he would build his Church. So when Jesus took it a step further and began to explain how he would be the Messiah – to suffer, die and then be raised to life – Peter took exception. In typical Peter fashion

John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Jesus, so it is hardly surprising that some of John’s disciples went on to follow Jesus (see John 1:35-42). Neither is it surprising that some of those who rejected John also rejected Jesus, although they used different reasons (see Matthew 11:16-19). John, out in the desert, living on locusts and wild honey, was said to have a demon; Jesus, who ate and drank, was called a glutton and a drunkard. It strikes me that these people wer

How much you take with you when you go away may differ according to where you’re going and how you’re travelling. Do you need to take clothes for multiple types of weather and all temperatures? How much space do you have? The amount you can take if you’re flying will be different than if you’re driving, and can pack a car with as much as you might need. If you’re walking from place to place, you may pack very little, and I suspect you will soon discover what is really necessa

A lawyer asks Jesus how he can inherit eternal life and Jesus responds by asking him what is written in the law. The answer given is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself, which Jesus agrees with. Wanting to justify himself, the lawyer pushes Jesus further: but who is my neighbour? It would be so much easier to keep the law if my neighbour is the one who is like me, who lives in my neighbourhood, and with whom

Context is vital. In the case of any Biblical passage, taking it out of context can vastly change the meaning. We need to know the context in which is it set in the book, the book itself, and then the wider themes of both Old and New Testaments. It is probably also helpful if we know something of the original background. Obviously, most of us are not biblical scholars, and cannot know all this, but a practice of wider reading, exploring books about the bible, and ensuring we

The motives of Judas in betraying Jesus are not clear. In both Matthew and Mark, he goes to the Chief Priests with his offer to hand Jesus over directly after the anointing at Bethany, implying that there might have been a link; in John, the first indication we have is at the Last Supper, where Satan enters into him, and he goes out into the dark. (Matthew 26:6-16; Mark 14:3-11; John 13:21-30). Whether there was a direct connection between Jesus’ reaction to the anointing and

It is easy to pick out individual verses from the bible, and some verses are inspirational, but it is important not to quote them out of context. It can change the meaning and, if it doesn’t, the surrounding verses can deepen and expand the verse. Take John 3:16, for example; a verse so well-known that often only the reference is used, rather than the actual verse. Read it, if you’re not aware of it. It is an amazing verse. But, still, it should not be isolated from the verse

My research into our past Sisters was initially meant to focus on their lives in Community, but I became increasingly interested in their family backgrounds, and have unearthed some interesting information and connections. I’m never quite sure how much I should be exploring that background, but sometimes, after writing about a Sister, I start to research some more about their siblings and families. I find this research fascinating, so it always tempting to do more than needed

I sometimes wonder whether we are so used to common interpretations of some parables that we no longer read them properly. We think we know what this means, therefore we miss other, possibly deeper, meanings. Take the Parable of the Talents, for example. It is easy to see this as about our talents, and how we do (or don’t) use them, and I’m not saying it’s not there. But I think there is more to it than that. Found in Matthew 25:14 -30 and, slightly differently, in Luke 19:

It ends on a cliffhanger; we never know what the older son did, or how he eventually responded to his younger brother’s return (see Luke 15). On discovering the celebration, the older son refuses to join in, so his father goes out to him. His reasons have always slightly confused me: that his father had never given him as much as a goat so that he might have a party with his friends. But doesn’t he own everything anyway? At the beginning of the parable, the father divided his

How often do you mislay items that are valuable, necessary or just significant to you? It’s easy to do; you put your keys down somewhere while thinking of something else … and then can you find them again? How many of you would throw a party when you’ve found it? Possibly if it’s something really valuable to you, then there might be text messages sent round telling people that what was lost has now been found. Of course, in New Testament times, then it would be impossible to

Peter was the rock, the one on whom Jesus would build his church; he was a leader among the disciples, one of only three to witness the Transfiguration; he was the one who declared that Jesus was the Christ. (See Matthew 16:13 – 17:13). Peter was also the one who got it wrong: he was rebuked by Jesus (Matthew 16:23), and he denied that he knew Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75). He had been warned that he would do this, but had not really believed that he would or could; he had fallen

As a Novice in the Community, my work was varied, depending on which Sister I was working with at the time. One of my memories is the frequent weeding of the herb garden, for which I had to learn to distinguish between herbs and weeds. A frequent offender was mare’s tail, I seem to remember. This brings to mind Jesus’ parable on the weeds and the wheat in Matthew 13 (verses 24-30, 36-43), which is one of the few parables that comes with an explanation. It can be easy to read

They were children, quarrelling. Some were playing weddings, but their companions would not rejoice; others were playing funerals, but their friends would not mourn. Jesus says that people responded in the same way, criticising John the Baptist because he was ascetic, living in the desert and eating frugally. Then, Jesus comes, eating and drinking – but do they listen? No, Jesus is a glutton and a drunkard, so say his critics (see Matthew 11:16-19). It strikes me how defended

It was not necessarily that the rich man was being cruel (See Luke 16:19-31). He may not have deliberately ignored Lazarus at his gate. Maybe there were so many beggars, he felt that he couldn’t feed just one; and, if it was known that he was feeding one beggar, many more would come and then what? Or maybe he thought that Lazarus was poor due to his own folly or lack of insight, and why should he, the rich man, pay for that? Or maybe he never actually saw Lazarus there at his

They were sleeping, huddled together in a doorway, with no other place to go overnight. It was a good doorway: undercover, and big enough for a few of them, so they could keep each other warmer. They ignored the light at first; they’d got used to sleeping with noise and light in the background. Often, groups of tipsy people would go past, singing loudly; sometimes, these groups would find it funny to laugh at those sleeping rough, occasionally even worse. The group stayed in

What is the difference between a subject and a citizen? While researching our Community history, I found some Sisters have the words ‘British Subject by Birth’ on their entries. This is often the case for Sisters who were born abroad, and it affirms that their parent(s) were also British subjects. It did not necessarily mean they had a different status from those Sisters who were born in Britain; I think that at this stage everyone was a British Subject, and that citizenship

You could guarantee how the preacher would start their sermon. Every year, once a year. Every year a different preacher. Every year the same start. To be fair, they did have a point. The Community’s Commemoration Day took place each November, normally on the first Thursday, depending on which day All Saints’ fell. It was a major gathering, with many people associated with the Community coming, and the Chapel was full. Hence, we used the pulpit, which by the time I came was