Posts by Nick Jackson

An archaeologist was digging in the Negev Desert in Israel and came upon a casket containing a mummy. After examining it, he called the curator of a prestigious natural-history museum.

“I’ve just discovered a 3,000 year-old mummy of a man who died of heart attack!” the excited scientist exclaimed. To which the curator replied, “Bring him in. We’ll check it out.”

A week later, the amazed curator called the archaeologist. “You were right about the mummy’s age and cause of death. How in the world did you know?” “Easy. There was a piece of paper in his hand that said, ‘10,000 Shekels on Goliath’.”

I wanted to use that to introduce my theme for today which is to talk in three little connected sections about the heart. Not that beating organ that keeps us alive rather the word that in faith goes someway to describing our very essence, who we are, our deepest, truest selves.

And I do so because the heart takes centre stage in both our readings. St. Paul writes ‘The word is near you on your lips and in your heart.’ Then a little later ‘One believes with the heart and so is saved.’ And then in our Gospel Jesus says to the disciples ‘take heart it is I.’

So where to begin?

Continue reading “Heart Speaks To Heart”

What made him do it? He’d taken his little boat and found a nice quiet spot. Maybe it was time for a bit of carefree day dreaming rather than the earnest prayer we might usually think of, but his peace didn’t last.

The crowds he’d left behind were there again. All he wanted was a bit of peace of quiet yet there they are like lost sheep. Maybe he was tempted to say “Go away” or “Get lost” but he doesn’t, instead ‘He has compassion on them.’ He sees their need. They are hungry. So he has compassion on them, feeds them and in so doing reveals to them something of the nature of God’s love.

But what is compassion? How might we define it? Well for me, putting on one side precise dictionary definitions it’s something about both see another in need and how that need brings forth from us a change of heart. Let me give you some examples of what I mean.

Now you’re all much nicer than me but I’m afraid I can think of times when I’ve been arguing about something or other. In the midst of it I can certainly be angry but then often something happens for when I see the distress caused something changes, so that I don’t want to be angry and argue anymore.

For me that’s something about compassion taking over and changing the situation.

Think also for example of how you might once have held very strong opinions on things, like divorce or abortion or race or religion. Maybe once you were clear about what you believed until that is you become emotionally involved in a situation through family, friends and neighbours.

For when you walk alongside someone who is struggling, our compassion for them and therefore our understanding of those kind of situations changes.

Compassion changes things.

Continue reading “He had compassion on them”

‘We played the flute for you but you did not dance.’ 

Dolly Parton invited those who heard her at Glastonbury to dance last Sunday and so they did for she was front page news in most of the newspapers last Monday.

This morning however Jesus speaks of a different kind of dance, a dance he invites those who hear his word to share in. They refuse, dismissing his dancing, eating and drinking as the symptoms of a glutton and a drunkard.

I suppose this reminds us how easy it is for us to chunter at another’s celebration. Think of that party next door that goes on for too long, all of us, quite understandably sometimes can be party poopers.

Sin though is what Paul in our first reading is identifying as the party pooper in our lives. That which can hinder our dancing, shield our ears from the tune Christ is playing for us, at least for a time.

But how might we describe sin, that word to describe that which we’re all acquainted with. In simple terms sin is about choice, when we by our words and actions turn away from the source of life and love.

And contrary to what we might sometimes think when we read some of his other writing, Paul was well acquainted with sin.

So his words for us this morning can be reassuring, we all know something of what he writes ‘I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right but I cannot do it.’ 

Any of that sound familiar?

Continue reading “The Reality of Sin and the Invitation to Dance”