Think Question Believe

The supreme error of Palm Sunday, the critical failing of the crowd, and us too if we fall prey to the same temptation, is to look for the wrong kind of Christ, the wrong kind of God.
There is the great danger that we can worship a God of power and greatness, that we crown Jesus as Lord and King, but we actually want a God that conforms with our own egos, a glorious God to give us the glory. Hubris.
He is so great, because we are so worth it.
Look at how popular certain forms of religion can be, how confidence and certainty can empower and electrify the worshipper, temporarily at least. 
Look at the absolute, if only superficial certainty, of Christian Nationalism in the US, supposedly everything they do, think and desire is ordained by the almighty. America is God’s favourite country, Trump his most favourite president and servant, and the hard right as his most favoured politics and social values. For now.
But faced with the harsh realities of life, beyond the febrile self-delusion and fragile conviction, the drowning out of any inner doubt by ever more vehement assertion, those brittle certainties turn to dust, just crumble away and disappear with the breeze.
To mix my metaphors, religion that is too big for its boots, will one day be cut down to size.
So, Palm Sunday is an object lesson in the dangers of religious triumphalism.

Jewish tradition saw the wilderness as a place of transition, of fundamental changes and intense physical and spiritual experiences - of stark need for food and water, of isolation, of danger and divine deliverance, of renewal, of encounters with God.
So, there is a psychology and spirituality as well as a geography of wilderness, of faith and courage and devotion fired in the crucible of the wilderness experience.
In the story of Jesus's temptation in the desert, all that evil could offer, can ever offer, was and is, the victory of the moment, the glory of the fleeting instant.
In Jesus’ struggles and wrestling with himself, and the inner voices that assailed his conscience, Matthew also points to the continuing struggles of Christianity to follow the path that Jesus walked for us.
We must ask ourselves this question, are we, will we ever be ready, to walk ‘The Way’?

The priest and Franciscan Monk Richard Rohr published a book called ‘Falling Upward: A spirituality for the two halves of life’.
In it he speaks of something long defined by philosophers and more recently by such psychologists as Carl Jung, as the first and second halves of life.
In the first half of life, we are naturally and rightly preoccupied with establishing our identities – climbing, achieving and performing. 
We all try to do what seems like the task that life first hands us: establishing an identity, a home, a job, relationships, friends, community, security, and building, both a foundation and a ‘container’ for our lives.
But too many of us stop there. As Bill Plotkin, a psychologist, and wilderness guide once observed, many of us learn to do our ‘survival dance’ but we never get to do our ‘sacred dance’. How sad that is.
If we as a society were wise, we would do well to remember the enormous contribution that the oldest among us can make to our community life.
In the story of Simeon and Anna, we hear how they came into their own in old age. Their testimony was revolutionary, shocking to conventional minds and systems.
For the job of a prophet is to challenge, to test the fads and fashions of today against a measuring rod of long years and experience.
Something, if they chose to, that the older among us could do in our present age……

By the Sea of Galilee, presumably newly arrived, Jesus goes up to two brothers, Simon and Andrew, going about the comparatively lucrative business of fishing and tells them that he has chosen them as disciples. Conscripted, commandeered, requisitioned.
James and John, the same thing ‘Drop all that, your father and the rest of the family can keep the business going, get your coat, we’re off.’
And that is precisely, what they did.
This may be an excellent way of getting disciples, I wonder if it also works to get volunteers in church?
Should we give it a try?
Out of interest, how would you respond?
If you heard Christ’s call to serve him, if he came to you right now and said “whatever you are doing, stop that, follow me’ what would your answer be?
What’s your instant reaction?  
That’s the most honest one.

First broadcast in January 2026.
A doctor friend once said that our life consists in juggling four balls, our physical and spiritual/emotional health, our families and friends and the last ball - our work, money possessions. The first three balls, he said, are made of glass, but the irony is we spend more time worrying about and protecting the fourth ball - which is also the only one made of rubber – so it can bounce back.
You can usually tell what any society cares about by its largest buildings. In medieval times the Cathedrals were the awe-inspiring monuments of their times. 
 
Later the Victorians enshrined their municipal and philanthropic ideals in great public works - water, power, hospitals. Today what are our greatest buildings - office blocks and shopping malls. 
Those who wish to sell their goods and services exhort us to be demanding customers, for whom good is never good enough. To be discontented, and dissatisfied. No one wants us to stop coveting and craving ever more possessions it seems. 
Except maybe that small still voice inside, telling us that we surely are meant for higher things.