Coracle Trust E-Reflections

Lent: Who have we written off?

Sunday 13 March 2011

Teach me to seek you in all that has life that I may see you as the Light of life. Teach me to search for you in my own depths that I may find you in every living soul. J.Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal, A Celtic Psalter

Picture: Boxes and random stuff (stored away atop a cupboard) Read John 1:43-51 and return Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about...Jesus of Nazareth." Nathanael replied: "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"

Can anything good come from there?

Lent is traditionally a time for self-examination. This can be an awkward process, as we understandably flinch from looking too closely at home truths - not least our fixed ideas and prejudices. Nathanael was convinced that tiny, northern Nazareth was empty of goodness. For whatever reason, it simply didn't fit into his idea of a happening place. Perhaps its inhabitants were too poor, or too remote, or too different, for him to pay them any regard. And yet, moments later, he was hailing a young man from Nazareth as 'Son of God' and 'King of Israel'.

Surprising grace carriers

Who are the people that we 'write off'? Who are the churches, the neighbourhoods, the cultures or the classes that we look down on, assuming nothing good can come from them? Nathanael's story invites us to stop and take a second look: the most unlikely place or person might turn out to be the very one which carries God's grace to us at this season. Rev. Duncan MacLaren (Trustee)