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Gospel centred sermons, based on the lectionary often in advance.

Dec 12, 2011

Focus readings: 2 Sam 7:1-11, 16; Lk 1:26-38

What does God deserve? More than we can ever give! David was living in a palace and the place where people met God, the place where God was especially believed to be present, was a tent! David wants to give God a palace, a temple to be present in, but God doesn’t want it. Mary was no-one special. She was a peasant girl engaged to a country tradesman, yet she was to be the mother of Jesus. Through Jesus God was to bring salvation, forgiveness and wholeness. And who was Jesus? (I believe he was the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, but he was also an ordinary human being.) A carpenter and wandering teacher. It was in this ordinary way, not in some angelic being that God has chosen to be with us. If God can use tents, peasant girls, and tradesmen to show others love and forgiveness, then God can use us as well, no matter how inadequate or unworthy we may feel.

Questions for thought or discussion

What do you think of the notion that God chooses to use the mundane and the ordinary rather than the glorious and showy? What do you believe God could use you to do? What does it say about God that we have learnt most about God’s love from a Jewish peasant from a poor village in a not very powerful part of the world? What could it say about you?