If we are honest none of us relish the idea of judgment or accountability. Perhaps we have this uncomfortable feeling that we are not really doing all we could or all we should. The even more frightening realisation is that if we suspect we are not doing all we could …. we probably aren’t! On the Day of Judgment humankind will be assembled and the
The third servant in today’s parable was trying to bury a responsibility that he wished to avoid. The treasure he had been given was an opportunity for him to invest and please his master, but instead of putting himself out, he buried the treasure where he could forget about it and go about his own affairs. Buried deep, the treasure was no longer an uncomfortable
We ‘know not the day nor the hour’, and when death finally catches us out, we can all too often be filled with regrets and ‘if-onlys’. “If only,” we say after the death of a loved one. If only we’d spared our ageing parents more time. If only we’d made up that old family rift. If only we’d told our children that we loved them.
We live our lives torn in many directions. From the moment we wake up there are a hundred and one claims on our time. We have to look after our homes and our families. We have to go to work and deal with a whole range of tasks from the very important to the totally banal. We have to fill in forms, pay bills, make
Do we fondly imagine that people ought to love us just the way we are? We are told often enough that God loves us warts and all. But do we carry this belief through life with not much thought of betterment? In today’s parable a king invites guests to his son’s wedding. When the guests refuse to turn up, the king extends the invitation to
What happens when we forget that our lives are a gift from God? What happens when we forget that humankind is God’s creation? What happens when we forget that the planet we live on belongs to God? Today’s parable describes a landowner who leaves tenants in charge of his vineyard. But at harvest time the tenants refuse to pay their rent, failing to recognise the
