Musings about Faith

Read the text here:  Matthew 17:1-9 Listening to What? (or - "The Law and the Prophets Sing") How well do you take advice?   How well do you listen to others and consider their counsel?   If we are honest, most of us are not terribly good at this. Yes, we ask others what they think about this or that, but usually we just want those others to confirm our already set decision or course of action.   In fact, I think we pride ourselves on being self-sufficient and independent so much that sometimes we can make some really terrible life decisions simply because we refuse to listen to anyone else.   “I don’t need anybody else,” we say, “I can do it on my own, thank you very much!” Rarely do we consider that our vision and ability to make objective and wise decisions may be skewed by our pre-conceptions, prejudices and priorities. Listening is therefore difficult for us and it is not just general life and relationship decisions that are...

Circumstances have kept me from posting in February, but following the lectionary we have been focusing on the Sermon on the Mount from Chapter 5 of St. Matthew.  What follows is the last installment in this series.  If you would like to read my other sermon reflections on this text I refer you to my reflections on this same text from 2011 - http://pastorduncansblog.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html Read the text here -  Matthew 5   The Fulfillment of the Law This is our last week on the Sermon on the Mount until the summer.   The Gospel prepares us for this sermon by clearly setting us in a very real, human world with mistrust, oppression, violence, temptation, anger, despair, illness, loss and so on.   In fact, as we saw last week, Jesus is addressing the “crowds” which are made up of people who are on the margins.   He begins his sermon with words of blessing.   Far from being a series of “how-to” precepts or a l...