All Things Seen & Unseen

My uncle R was a clever man. Although, starting his working life at 14 road-making with his father, he worked out how to build a lawn-mower from scratch. That is, he made each part of the mower!! Nor did his abilities stop as he got older as shown in the fact that he built two computers before the time one could buy such things for a reasonable price at a local shop. Another major thing that left an impression were the words of his son who mentioned that he was only in the position he was today -- an oceanographer -- because of the encouragement of his father. This generous son confessed that his father was probably a lot brighter than he was but had not had the opportunities that he, the son, had had. A son-in-law at the funeral spoke of my uncle in terms of G-s; I don't remember all of them but some were gentle, generous, genius and godly. The last challenged me because I had seen this old man of 94 only a week before his death and felt, despite all his obvious inabilities at...

Seeing the Sadducees had been silenced on their question about death and resurrection, the Pharisees sent a lawyer to test Jesus concerning what was 'the great commandment' (Matthew 22.35, AV). Jesus replied by quoting the Shema (Deut 6.4). Love the Lord your God from the heart, the inner core of your being. To this commandment, Jesus added a commandment that is 'like the first': 'love your neighbour as yourself'. In the latter, Jesus was quoting Leviticus 19.18 which, one source translated as 'You are not to take-vengeance, you are not to retain-anger against the sons of your kinspeople—but be-loving to your neighbor (as one) like yourself, I am YHWH [the LORD]!' The gloss in brackets (so), which I have seen elsewhere, puts a different complexion on usual interpretations of the verse because it takes away our selfish fixation about self-love. I doubt the verse has anything to do with loving ourselves as such although it is sometimes ...

I'm often struck by the avoidance of the unpopular and awkward in bible texts by preachers and speakers. I'm sure I do it too! Recently i heard presentations on this passage above and noted how the acceptance and non-acceptance of the invitation was lost sight of and the text got turned into a social gospel apologia! 'Do good works and you will get into the feast'!! Of course, the background is Jesus' struggle with the chief priests and the Pharisees (21.45f) who perceived that Jesus' parables were about them but who couldn't arrest him because they feared the people. They are the ones who are initially invited to the marriage feast of the King's son. The point is, they refuse to come showing their disdain of the king by even killing his servants. And the king angrily destroys both them and their city. Since those who were originally invited refuse to come, the king invites all, both good and bad, as many as can be found. and of course, they respond to t...