Pause for Thought – 20 May 2020

I’m told that it’s impossible to be hungry in the desert because of the sand which is everywhere. Today our readings take us into the desert, or the wilderness if you prefer (the words are the same in the Greek and Hebrew). Why is this relevant for us? Few of us regularly travel to the…

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 In this reading we hear about David’s grief at the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, which leads to a poetic lament, which is a tribute to the fallen father and son. What surprises me is the fact that David eulogises so eloquently about his arch enemy Saul, who wanted him dead….

Those of you on Facebook will know that Michael Hopkins, our minister, was visiting the Vatican on Friday for a fact finding visit on behalf of the Assembly Arrangements Committee for ideas to improve the URC’s General Assembly, and finalising details for Pope Francis’s visit to the Assembly this year. He was, of course, on…

Psalm 116 Acts 2:37-41 1 Peter 1:17-23 Luke 24: 13 – 35 In his poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, W.B. Yeats pictures a man so consumed with longing for home that even in the middle of a busy street, all he hears is the sound of the lake, more real than the shadowy place…

Galatians 2:1-14 I heard a story of three ministers who went on a fishing trip together.  They rowed out to the middle of the lake, and the United Reformed Church Minister realised he’d forgotten his fishing line, hopped out of the boat and walked across the water to get it, and back again.  Then the…

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 Psalm 72 Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37 Borders can cause all sorts of problems. In many ways, many borders around the world are totally artificial, and that shows in the chaos which ensues. In 1787, the Treaty of Paris basically laid out which British territories would go to the freshly victorious American rebels,…