Saturday 13 August

Ecclesiastes 7:1-9:12

Life is boring, pointless and unfair.  It’s good to get the bible putting that point of view right out there for a bit of debate.  It’s a bit depressing though.  It does sap the get-up-and-go out of your thighs.  But we have to acknowledge that it is a very common perspective on ‘life under the sun’.  And that phrase ‘life under the sun’ is the crucial one in Ecclesiastes.  For me ‘life under the sun’ is short-hand for life with a personal, redeeming God cut out of it.   ‘Life under the sun’ knows nothing other than what is sees in front of it maybe with the addition of a vague distant idea of a vague distant God.  “Life under the sun” is the theism of many religious folk who believe in a Being who wound up the pocket watch of the earth and then sat back and started eating popcorn.  “Life under the sun” sees life as a human-defined existence that ends completely and utterly at death.  “Life under the sun” seems to be what most people live today.  And, to put it crudely, “life under the sun” is crap.  “Life under the sun” reaches its peak when you’ve had some nice tucker, a little too much booze and when your circumstances are, for once, not against you.  But this peak is almost always temporary and it quickly tails off into a sense of boredom, pointlessness and injustice.  If only there was some way out for people.  If only there was someone who knew of something more...

1 Corinthians 7:36-8:13

Some of this sounds a bit weird.  I think it’s because we haven’t got the letter that the Corinthians wrote to Paul and that Paul seems to be quoting.  The letter seems to have included statements like “One of our members - who has the Spirit of God - has declared that all widows must re-marry within 6 months of their husband’s death” and “those of us who are spiritually strong enough are enjoying attending the idol temple steakhouse”.  And Paul doesn’t seem to have liked those statements too much.  So he tackles them in the way he always does - he shows the Corinthians their identity in Jesus and then draws the obvious conclusions.  The Corinthians are asserting their own individual rights and pursuing their own individual desires.  They are acting as if they can do whatever they want as long as it is not a sin.  But Paul says that denies their identity in Jesus.  Acting that way denies that they are part of a body.  Acting that way denies that they belong to each other.  Paul says this life is not about just doing whatever we want.  This life is about helping the family of believers, submitting ourselves to the well-being of the local church, restricting ourselves and giving ourselves to agendas that are not our own and to causes that are not our own just for the sake of our brothers and sisters.  This is what loving our neighbour means within the church, this is part of what loving God means in the context of the local church.  I find it really challenging about what I do on a Sunday.  I find it even more challenging about how I spend my time during the week.  And there is more of it to come - the implications of being part of a body are worked out even more fully in the chapters that are to come.

Psalm 95:1-11

We are the flock under his care.  He really does care for us.