Friday 14 July 2017

Psalm: Psalm 38:1-9

Background

Whether we are conscious of it or not, whenever we gather ingroups we develop social norms and agreed understandings among eachother. For example, the way we speak or act when among our friendsmight be very different to when we gather with our families. Whenwe gather as a church community we embrace and even promote somethings, whereas we chose not to mention others or deliberately hidethem under the carpet!

The same is true when we read the Scriptures whether we arealone, in groups of disciples, gathered as Church or as adenomination. Some parts of the Scripture we find easier to acceptthan others. Some we will actively promote and some we will chooseto ignore.

It's similar in the passage. The only problem is Jesus is withthem and he's not going to let his so-called followers off the hookwhen it comes to grappling with difficult things. Well, actuallyhe'd sooner let them off the hook (see verse 66) than pretend thatthey are followers when really they are doing what they want ratherthan God's will.

I wonder, are you a complainer when you find something in theScriptures or in the world that you don't like (or understand), ordo you merely hide things under the carpet of life insisting you'llcome to that bit later?

John 6 highlights once again that being a follower of Jesus isnot easy. Jesus is uncompromising. The closer we get to him themore he demands that we view the world in a different way, even ifthe teaching seems hard. The question is how we deal with thischallenge. We could turn our back, or we may feel so compelled byour relationship with God that despite our wriggling on the hook offaith when people ask why you do this disciple/church thing thewords of the disciples echo around us: "Lord, to whom can we go?You have the words of eternal life."

To Ponder

• Which of Jesus' teachings do you find difficult?

• Which of the teachings of the Church appear to be far away fromthe teaching of Jesus?

• If you feel you can't go anywhere else - what do you need to doto improve the community you are in?