Good morning and welcome to our Palm Sunday worship service. 

The order of service is as follows: 

Video 1 - Welcome and Opening Prayer
Video 2 - Hymn/Songs - Hosanna & Majesty
Video 3 - Prayers of Adoration and Confession
Video 4 - Children's Address
Video 5 - Children's Song - Who's the King of the Jungle
Video 6 - Gospel Reading - Matthew 21:1-11
Audio 1- Sermon: Prayer in a time of coronavirus
Audio 2 - Prayers for others
Video 7 - Hymn - Ride on ride on in majesty

Video 1 Welcome and Opening Prayer

Video 2 - Hymn/Songs - Hosanna & Majesty

Video 3 - Prayers of adoration and confession

Video 4 - Children's address

Video 5 - Children's Song

Video 6 - Reading - Matthew 21:1-11

Video 7 - Hymn - Ride on ride on in majesty

SERMON TEXT 

Matthew 21: 1-11. 
Hosanna! Save us we pray: Prayer in a time of Coronavirus

On Monday or Tuesday of this week I caught the end of a radio ulster interview with the Catholic Bishop of Down, when a someone called in to ask the Bishop about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of prayer in light of the many disasters that have happened over the history of humanity and the seeming non-intervention of God. 

The question of prayer at a time like this is indeed a pertinent one and a difficult one.  We might well ask where is God in a time like this? Is there any use in praying at a time like this? When tragedies have swept through human history, has prayer ever done anything to prevent or stop these things from happening? 

Earlier this week, the Rev. Simon Henning from First Church Belfast did a very thought provoking reflection on prayer during this time of coronavirus crisis. 

He says the following: “What kind of message does it send out, when we are told that God loves and cares for humanity, and then we’re also told we’ve got to badger the Almighty to do something for the humanity he is supposed to be loving and caring for?  Is that not all a wee bit confusing?  Imagine you had a boss, and this boss knew that you were in financial difficulties. And this boss had acres of cash so that he could get you out of that trouble in a haert-beat. But he sat on his hands and did nothing. And employee after employee knocked on his door and begged him to do something. What would you think of that sort of person? Would you be impressed? So why are we being told that we need to flatter God into doing something?”

It is a very good question that I would like to pick up on today. And so I have entitled this sermon: “Prayer in a time of Coronavirus”. 

But just in case we forget, It is important for us to remember that it is Palm Sunday today. That day in our Christian calendar when we are invited to reflect on the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey a few days before his trial and crucifixion. 

In the story, as Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, he is greeted by crowds who shout 

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven”.

As we consider our theme today of prayer in a time of coronavirus, the word Hosanna in the passage is significant.  The way it is used in many of our hymns and contemporary songs is as an exclamation of praise. But the actual meaning of it is “Save, we pray”.  As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowds are essentially raising their voices in a kind of prayer, “Jesus, Son of David, save us we pray!”  And the phrase “Hosanna in the highest heaven” praying that the One who dwells in the Highest Heaven would save them. 

What were they praying to be saved from? They were praying to be saved from a life of oppression, and for many, a life of varying levels of hardship and destitution caused by occupation and domination from a foreign empire. 

During this coronavirus pandemic, it is understandable that many are praying that God would save us and protect us from the coronavirus. But, as Rev. Simon Henning reflects, what does it say about God, if we have to badger the Most High to save us if it is in his power to do so?

As one who has struggled with this question from early on in my ministry, I have come to see that there are a variety of ‘models’ of prayer. 

The first model of prayer I would call the satellite model of prayer. In this model of prayer we conceive of our prayers being sent up somewhere else to God who hovers over the world a bit like a satellite.  To this satellite God, we make our requests and we lift up our cries for God to save us.  God then weighs up the request and either grants it or not, or sometimes for whatever reason may be understood to have delayed answering the request until a later time. 

A second model of prayer might be likened to a well. When prayer is conceived of in this way, prayer might be likened to dropping our bucket into a well to draw up life-giving water that can refresh ourselves and others. In a way, it is aboout tapping into a deeper dimension of life that gives us strength to cope with whatever is happening in our lives. 

A third model of prayer might be likened to a mobile network.  When we phone or message another person, we are utilising a mode of communication to send messages to one-antoher. That might be another way of understanding what we are doing in prayer… we are tapping into a deeper dimension of life that enables us to communicate the energy of love to one-another, expressed through our often fumbling and inadequate words. 

It is perhaps these second two models of prayer that make most sense to me and help me to maintain a life of prayer.  They are models of prayer that connect me with the Quaker mode of prayer which perhaps more than any other way of praying has influenced me the most. 

Quaker prayer finds expression in two articular ways. Firstly, Quaker prayer finds expression in the practice of sitting in silence, and in that silence listening deeply for the Light of God which they believe is accessible to all human beings.  Deep Listening for the Light of God. 

The second mode of prayer in the Quaker tradition as I have come to understand it, is the holding of others into the Light of God, and that somehow in doing so, we mysteriously become conduits of God’s Love and Light towards others, mysteriously sharing something of the Light and Love of God with others, through the very act of prayer. 

My mom and grandmother used to say that if your ears were glowing it meant someone else was talking about you.  Some might dismiss such statements as a kind of superstition and old wives tales. But increasingly science is slowly beginning to acknowledge that phenomenon like telepathy does exist. In my own experience I no longer find it strange to discover someone messaging me out of the blue to ask me how I am doing at roughly the same time I was thinking about them. 

Below the surface of life there are an increasing number of people who are suggesting that we are all connected to one-another on an inner level.  The simple practice of holding others into the Light of God may indeed be a means not only of changing us to are practising such a mode of prayer, making us more sensitive and loving towards the needs of others, but may indeed be a means of sharing that Light and Love of God with others. 

All this raises questions: Does God work from the outside in? Or does God work from the inside out?  Much of our Biblical imagery would suggest that God is an external Reality, and that therefore when we pray, we are essentially crying out, like the crowds to an external Jesus and an external God who we are asking to intervene in life from the outside. 

But there are many other passages in the Bible that suggest that God may be an internal Reality: The Kingdom of God is within you… (Luke 17:21)
Christ in you, the hope of glory… (Colossians 1:27)
I in you and you in me… (John 17:20-23)

From this perspective prayer may not simply be the sending our requests to an external deity who hovers above us like a satellite. Prayer may also be conceived as a tapping-in to the Sacred Presence, the Light of God within and a sharing of that energy of light and love with others. 

I would like to get back to Rev. Simon Henning's reflections on prayer which I find give another helpful and illuminating perspective. 

“For other people of faith, prayer is not about bothering the Divine, prayer is about lifting ourselves out of ourselves, so that we can see the bigger picture. W.A. John said that prayer was paying attention to Someone, or Something bigger than oneself.  By that definition, prayer is not something that we use to change the course of events, it’s a method that allows us to see things from a different perspective. And that motivates us to change the way we do things. And to do things however small, to make the lives of other people better and to change the world in which we live in.”

Please know that many of you are in my prayers at this time, especially those who are particularly vulnerable in our congregation at this time and those in our community who are in the front-line of the response to the coronavirus, those working in our shops, as well as those working as carers and in hospitals and doctors rooms. Next time your ears begin to glow, maybe it is because Wendy and I have voiced your name out as we hold you in God’s Light and Love. 

But above all, may your prayer life help you to pay attention to Someone or Something bigger than yourself, that it would lift you out of yourself to see life from a much bigger perspective and in doing so, may it give you a taste of a peace that goes beyond the turmoil and fear of life under the coronavirus. 

On this Palm Sunday, as we say “Hosanna! Save us we pray!” May the Most High save us from fear, from limited perspectives to see as if from a mountain-top, from the grand vista of Time, beyond time. 

Good Morning Friends

Below are a few video's and audio's to help us worship today. The order is as follows:

Video 1 - Welcome and Opening Prayer
Video 2 - Hymn - Blessed Assurance
Video 3 - Children's Address
Video 4 - Reading - Psalm 118
Audio 1 - Sermon / Reflection
Audio 2 - Prayers for Others.

Today's sermon I would like to entitle “Gratitude in a time of Corona Virus”.

Over the past few months, Wendy and I have got into the habit most days to taking time to name a few things each day that we have been grateful for. It has been a good experience, in the midst of the turmoil of ordinary life, to deliberately focus on what has been good.

Our daily gratitude practice has partly been motivated by the studies Wendy has been doing with her hypnotherapy course. Her course has been an opportunity to study how our brains operate and how we can so easily get caught up in cycles of anxiety and other unhealthy mental patterns.

At the centre of the problem with negative thinking is often what is termed the primitive brain, that part of the human brain that we share in common with reptiles and other primitive species. The primary function of the primitive brain is to protect us from danger. And while often it does an important job, when it begins to dominate our experience, it can leave us feeling overly anxious and a mental world filled with negativity and danger.

Studies have shown that the very simple practice of spending just two minutes a day re-focussing on the positive aspects of one’s life through naming basic things that one is grateful for each day, has the remarkable ability to change the weather patterns of our mental world, helping us to see rays of sunshine where before we had only seen dark clouds.

Just two minutes a day of gratitude can make a world of difference (by making a difference in our mental world). It doesn't mean that we have to pretend that difficulty and danger are not present. This is not trying to blot out our negative experiences with positive thinking, it is simply choosing in the midst of all that is going on, to remind oneself of small moments that one has been grateful for during the course of a day.

Gratitude has always been an important element in our journey of faith. Many of the Psalms are expressions of gratitude:

Psalm 106:7 Oh Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His Steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 86:12 I will give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.

Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name!

The Apostle Paul in many of his letters to the earliest Christian communities, calls on those communities to practice gratitude.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Paul writes: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

In this verse, giving thanks in all circumstances is a means for living one’s life prayerfully and with joy. Gratitude creates a prayerful atmosphere to our lives and opens us to joy. And Paul encourages us to do this in all circumstances.

That has probably been one of the insights that I have gained in Wendy’s and my recent practice of 2 minutes of daily gratitude, that even when a day has been difficult, there have always been things to be grateful for, and in naming those gratitudes I have often begun to see the difficulties on a new light also.

In Philippians 4:6-7 Paul writes: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard you hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

These verses begin with the concept of anxiety “do not be anxious”, and ends with the concept of peace “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”. And right in the middle we have the word thanks giving. It is as though Paul is suggesting to us that if we want to move from a mind of anxiety, our primitive mind, to a mind of peace, our spiritual mind, thanksgiving and gratitude are the key.

In these past few weeks, our media and our thoughts have become dominated by stories of the corona-virus. Hearing individual stories of real people who have died in China, Italy, Spain, the UK and more recently in the USA are stark reminders of the reality of the threat posed by the corona-virus. It is understandable that for many of us, anxiety levels have risen, because, if not ourselves, almost all of us have friends and family who have underlying health conditions that would make them especially vulnerable to the corona-virus. On Sunday before Wendy fetched me from the airport she did a final shop before we quarantine ourselves. She said the mood in the shop could only be described as sombre. For many of us, our primitive brains, which are doing an important job of wanting to protect us and our loved one’s, are working over-time, understandably dominating the weather-patterns of our minds.

And while we need to be listening with care to the messages of danger, and acting to protect ourselves against those dangers, everyday, all around us, there are many things also to be grateful for. As the storm clouds of danger mount up, the sun continues to shine, and rays of light from that sun continue to gently touch us, inviting us into a world of gratitude in the midst of a world of danger.

Even though communion is only celebrated twice a year by many Non-Presbyterians and Presbyterians in general, in many ways, it is still one of our central acts of worship, breaking bread and drinking from a cup in remembrance and thanksgiving for the life of Jesus who we continue to experience as a Risen Presence in our lives and in our world. From the earliest times, the prayers leading up to the sharing of communion became known in Greek as the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving. At the heart of Christian worship is the practice of gratitude, and when gratitude is expressed, we begin to experience the light of the Risen Christ rising again within our hearts.

This reflection on communion, breaking bread and sharing the cup, reminds us that shared mealtimes are often a wonderful opportunity to collectively express gratitude. And maybe, in this time of lock-down this might be an invitation to all of us, as we share our meals with others, or even by ourselves, if that is the case, to call to mind things that one has been grateful for during the day.

Wendy and I have much to be grateful for recently. My new passport came back in record time. During an unscheduled and un-budgeted for trip to South Africa, I had the joy of seeing my brother and sister-in-law, niece, nephews in their new home near Cape Town together with my Mom who was on a scheduled trip to South Africa. While living under some of the stress of wondering if airports would be shut-down and if I would make it back to Dromore in time, I met a long-lost cousin living in the same town and attending the same church as my brother. His grandmother, who interestingly took on the surname Black when she married, had been a Moodie, a cousin of my grandfather, who had grown up on the same farm in the Cape as my grandfather. So much to be grateful for even in the midst of what was my most stressful trip back to South Africa.

I would like to close with a story from the Readers Digest…

When Mrs. Klein told her first grader class at thanksgiving time, to draw a picture of something for which they were thankful, she thought how little these children, who lived in a deteriorating neighbourhood, actually had to be thankful for. She knew that most of the class would draw pictures of turkeys or of bountifully laden Thanksgiving tables. That was what they believed was expected of them.

What took Mrs. Klein aback was Douglas’s picture. Douglas was so forlorn and likely to be found close in her shadow as they went outside for recess. Douglas’s drawing was simply this:

A hand, obviously, but whose hand? The class was captivated by his image. “I think it must be the hand of God that brings us food,” said one student.

“A farmer,” said another, “because they grow the turkeys.”

“It looks more like a policeman, and they protect us.” “I think,” said Lavinia, who was always so serious, “that it is supposed to be all the hands that help us, but Douglas could only draw one of them.”

Mrs. Klein had almost forgotten Douglas in her pleasure at finding the class so responsive. When she had the others at work on another project, she bent over his desk and asked whose hand it was.

Douglas mumbled, “It’s yours, Teacher.”

Then Mrs. Klein recalled that she had taken Douglas by the hand from time to time; she often did that with the children. But she didn't realise that it should have meant so much to Douglas …

What are the hands that you are grateful for in your life today? Perhaps as we express gratitude in a time of corona-virus, we express our gratitude especially for the hands of health workers and carers, as well as the hands of those in the food industry and those who are keeping our shops open. In a time of crisis we recognize that in all of these hands we see also the hand of God and we are grateful.

In 2007 the movie “Love in a Time of Cholera” was released, a moving love story set in the period 1880 and 1930, and based on a book by the award winning author Gabriel García Márquez.

In sitting down to write this short message today, the title of the film came to mind as I paused to consider the current time we have just begun living through. And so I entitle this short reflection, “Love in a time of Corona-virus”.

When we become aware of the fragility of life, it tends to shine a new light on everything. Suddenly one begins to appreciate life and others far more than before. This was my experience leaving my brother and his family on Saturday morning ready to fly back to Belfast. Parting is never easy when you don’t see your family very often, but this time it was particularly difficult, not knowing what the future holds and not knowing when I will see them again. Suddenly a deep appreciation and love welled up from within and found physical expression in the form of tears which welled up in my eyes as we hugged and said our good byes.

Watching the BBC and Euronews channels on the plane on Saturday while flying over Africa towards Dubai for my first change over, it was very sobering to see what is unfolding in Italy. Italy is an alarm bell of much potential suffering to come.

And yet, that is the paradox of life. In the midst of great suffering is also the opportunity to discover great love. I have already seen this, not only in my heart welling up with a new sense of love and appreciation for my brother, his wife, my niece and two nephews, but also people checking in with us and offers by church members to make themselves available to help as Wendy and I self-isolate after my trip back from South Africa. It is also evident in the offers made towards others in our congregation and community who have been told to self-isolate. “Love never ends”, as St Paul puts it in his first letter to the Corinthians (12:8). And in times of crisis, it is often the case that love can grow.

Without wanting to be overly dramatic, in saying good by to my brother and family on Saturday morning, behind the tears that welled up in our parting, there was the question lingering in the background, not just wondering when I will see them again, but maybe even, depending on how bad all of this becomes both here and in South Africa, if I will see them again. Perhaps the scale of the deaths in Italy suggest that it might not be overly dramatic after all, especially as one hears that in some cases, it is not just the elderly and those with underlying health conditions that are being affected.

The corona-virus is reminding all of us of our mortality and of the fleeting nature of life in this world. The writer of the book of Hebrews puts it like this: “For here [in this world] we do not have an enduring city...”

I am aware that there are many in our own congregation with underlying health issues for whom the corona virus poses a very real threat. My older brother and sister-in-law living in London are in a similar situation, my brother living with a chronic lung condition and sister-in-law with type-1 diabetes. For many of us, questions of life and death, whether for ourselves or for those we love, are not far away. In the midst of the fear we may feel, perhaps there is also an invitation to begin to make peace with death, for, as Samuel Butler would remind us in the title of his book, “It is the way of all flesh.”

What might it mean to make peace with death? What might it mean to come to a place of deep, deep acceptance that either we or our loved one’s might not make it through this time of corona-virus? What kind of freedom might become ours when we are able to let go that deeply and that profoundly that we can make peace even with the possibility of death? And how do we even do that?

In the end, maybe it is only Great Love that can help us do that: the intuition and the affirmation that at the Heart of the Universe, there is a Presence and a Heart of Great Love into which we can let go and even fall, without fear, because “perfect love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18). And maybe, even if we ourselves don’t know how to let go, the Heart of Great Love is ready for us anyway.

The poetic and metaphoric language of Scripture points us to this truth that seems to have reverberated in and through the life of Jesus.

• “Love is stronger than death...” says the writer of the Song of Solomon (8:6).
  
• “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come,” says the writer of Hebrews (13:14).
  
• “[Nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says the apostle Paul in Romans (8:38-39).
  

If, and when it is time for us to leave this world, and it could be sooner than later, the life of Jesus suggests that there is indeed a Heart of Great Love into which we will all be invited to fall, and let go.

And so, in this time of crisis that is really only beginning for us, may we find love in a time of corona-virus. A new and deeper appreciation of the love we have for our friends and loved one’s. A new and deeper love and appreciation for what really matters in life. And a new and deeper intuition in the depth of our hearts that there is a Heart of Great Love that holds and sustains us whether in this world or beyond it; the assurance in our hearts that “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut. 33:27), another way of expressing what Huston Smith says when he writes that you can never fall out of the Infinite.

Prayer: O God, Whose Love surrounds us, grant that whether our lives are short or long, we may have lived abundantly. In the Name of Christ, Amen.

 Life on Earth Thrives Thanks to a Vast Garden of Interconnections.

ACTS 2:42-47 / John 1:1-3
A rabbi asked God to give him a glimpse of what heaven and hell would be like.

God agreed to this request, and asked the prophet Elijah to be the rabbi’s guide on this adventure.
Elijah first led the rabbi into a large room. In the middle of the room was a fire with a big cooking pot bubbling away on it. And in the pot was a delicious stew.
All around the cooking pot sat a crowd of people. They each had a long handled spoon, which they were dipping into the delicious stew.
But the people looked pale, thin and wretched. There was an icy stillness in the room. The handles of the spoons were so long that no-one was able to get the lovely food into their mouths.

When the two visitors were outside again, the rabbi asked Elijah what strange place this was. ‘That is hell,’ Elijah explained.
Then Elijah led the Rabbi to another room, which looked exactly like the first one. In the middle, a fire was blazing and a cooking pot was bubbling away, full of the same delicious, aromatic stew. People sat around the fire, with the same long-handled spoons in their hands. But they were enjoying lively, animated conversations with each other.
And the difference? Well, the people in the second room were not trying to feed themselves with the long-handled spoons. They were using the spoons to feed each other. ‘Ah, heaven,’ said the rabbi!’

Last week I introduced the first chapter of a book I was given for Christmas by a member of this congregation. The books is called “8 Master Lessons from nature: what nature can teach us about living well in the world.” Today I would like to continue with chapter 2. The chapter’s title is: “Life on earth thrives thanks to a vast garden of connections.” And so this chapter of the book introduces us to the theme of the interconnectedness of nature.

Gary Ferguson writes that trees are an exceptional examples of this master lesson in nature of the importance of interconnectedness. Beneath the surface of the soil, not only is there a vast tangled web of roots, but there is also an inter-dependent relationship between the trees and with an underground fungi called myccorhizal fungi which forms around the roots of trees and which connects trees to one-another over vast areas. Not only do the trees and the fungi help to feed each other with nutrients they otherwise wouldn't have access to, the fungi also forms a vast underground communication and transport system for large groups of trees. It is a bit like an underground telephone system for trees.

For example, Gary Ferguson writes that if a new young sappling in a forest was struggling to grow because it was not getting enough sunlight, other trees surrounding it would somehow become aware of this through the fungal telephone system. Surrounding trees would then respond by sending carbon and other nutrients, molecule by molecule through the fungal network, passing on nourishment from those who had more than enough, to the one’s who didn't have enough. Sharing is caring as our children would probably say.

Trees can also send warning signals to other trees through this underground telephone system. If one tree was attacked by blight for example, it would send out messages to all the trees in the surrounding area stimulating their defense systems and thus minimising the affect of the blight on the rest of the trees.

In one forest in which Gary Ferguson he has spent a lot of time, he writes that he became aware of one especially large, old oak tree, what he calls an old matriarch which in all likely hood played the role of a grandmother tree – serving dozens of other trees, including quite a few of other species, by routinely releasing nutrients to the young and vulnerable trees. He writes that when it comes time for this grandmother tree to pass away, as she dies, she’ll use the fungal network to send her share of the resources to other residents of the neighbourhood.

But it is not only other trees and plants that benefit from this kind of inter-connection and inter-dependence, it is also human beings that benefit. When you walk along a woodland path, the trees and even some of the smaller plants growing at our feet are giving off invisible airborne antimicrobial compounds. And he writes that when we inhale these with every breath we take, as they enter our blood stream they help to lower a persons heart rate and lower blood pressure. And when they’re absorbed into our lymph glands they also help to boost our immune systems.

Scientists are beginning to discover that the less green your surroundings, the greater a persons risk of disease and death. The more concrete, tar and brick, the less resources our bodies have to remain healthy. But on the other hand, the more trees and plant-life in our surroundings, the healthier we become.

What does all this have to do with our faith?

Firstly, in these intricate and interconnected systems of communication and support in the natural world, we catch an amazing glimpse of the deep underlying wisdom and intelligence at work in and through the natural world. As the Psalmist expresses it: How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all. Or as the writer of Proverbs puts it, in that beautiful hymn of praise of Wisdom

“The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,before his deeds of old; I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth. I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep."

The image is of Wisdom working alongside God in bringing forth creation. And it was this image that inspired early Christian writers when they reflected on the life of Christ and they came to the conclusion: that he was the Word, or the Wisdom of God made flesh. As the writer of John’s Gospel put it: through him all things came to be. This Wisdom that helped to give birth to creation, and which is woven in and through all of creation is none-other than the wisdom of Christ himself.

To be a follower of Christ is to learn to be in touch and in tune with the deep wisdom of creation, the wisdom of interconnectedness and interdependence.

Secondly, this interconnected network of trees that share resources between each other, reminds me of the earliest vision of the Christian Church in the book of Acts. It was a community that shared it’s resources amongst themselves so that no-one was in need. If a Christian had excess wealth or land, the book of Acts tells us that they would sell this land and bring the proceeds to the apostles so that no-one was in need. In many ways, our modern taxation system seeks to do the same thing. When it is working at it’s best, the taxation system shouldn't serve the richest in society, but the poorest. It was the vision of the NHS when it was first introduced. It provides a vision of what modern tax systems should be doing.

It is a well documented fact that inequality in society breeds crime and violence. The more unequal a society, the greater the crime and the greater the violence. It is why South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world today, because it is unfortunately one of the most unequal countries in the world.

The Wisdom of nature reminds us that a harmonious eco-system requires networks of sharing resources.

You will hear a lot of people today commenting on the state of politics across the world and making comments like: “The world seems to have gone crazy.” Across the world we are seeing unprecedented levels of social tension. Isn't it interesting that we are also in the midst of one of the most unequal periods of wealth distribution in modern history. On the internet, you will find numerous articles saying that we haven't seen levels of inequality as great as this since the 1930’s.

The wisdom of nature is calling us to remember the lesson of interdependence. We are all in this world together and harmonious eco-system, including human one’s require networks of sharing resources.

Lastly, if we wish to live healthy lives as human beings, nature is teaching us that we need to go back to the garden. Our future as human beings is not with more and more concrete and more and more tar. Our future is not like Star Trek and Star Wars suggest, living in sanitised space-ships or buildings far away from this blue-green planet. Our future as a species, is to return the garden of interconnectedness. It’s one of those interesting things in the Bible. The story begins in a garden with humanity living in harmony with all living things. Before Jesus Crucifixion, where is he found? In a garden. The garden of Gethsemane. And when Jesus is resurrected, where does the first person meet the risen Christ? It is Mary Magdalene, and she meets him in the garden. Isnt it interesting also that she mistakes Jesus for a gardener. According to Genesis 2-3, isn't that the vocation that God first gave to Adam and Eve… he placed them in a garden and gave them the instruction to care for it and to protect it.

The wisdom of nature, is inviting us back, to rediscover a life of interdependence with nature, where simply walking through the woods and breathing, you are breathing in good health and life.

The wisdom of nature is inviting us to rediscover that the Way-of-Heaven, as expressed in that opening parable in this sermon, is already to be found here on earth. As Jesus is recorded to have said in Luke’s Gospel: The Kingdom of Heaven, the Way-of Heaven, is amongst you.

Exodus 3:1-14

As a Christmas gift, one of the members of the Church gave me a beautiful little book called 8 Master Lessons of Nature: What nature teaches us about living well in the world.

In chapter 1 of the book, he suggests that if you want to learn to live well in the world, you will need to learn the lesson of mystery. Gary Ferguson the author gives a number of quite inspiring examples.

For example, scientists have discovered that Spiders can fly by using electrical charges in the atmosphere? Standing on their hind legs, they cast silk into the air. The silk is negatively charged and repels similar negative charges in the atmosphere sending the spiders ballooning into the air. Just amazing when you think about it.

Secondly, Gary Ferguson writes that contrary to the way we feel, our bodies are in fact not very solid at all. With the advent of quantum physics from about the time of Einstein, scientists have discovered that 99.999999% of our bodies are comprised of empty space. The way they know this is because our bodies are made up of atoms, and as scientists have looked at these atoms more and more closely with more and more powerful microscopes, they have seen that atoms are made up of 99.999999% space made up of electrons spinning madly around a nucleus creating the illusion of something solid, in much the same way that the spinning propeller of an airplane creates the impression of solidity, but when the propeller is still, you discover that it is actually mostly just space. Getting back to your body, scientists will tell you that if you got rid of all this space, then the actual mass of your body – your ‘substance’- would be so small you couldn't even be able to see it. In fact if you took away all the space in all the bodies of every human being on the planet, the mass that would remain would be about the size of a sugar cube.

What is perhaps even more amazing is the fact that quantum physicists will tell you that as you walk down the street today, you wont actually be making contact with the ground at all. Rather, the magnetic force of the electrons in your shoes will be pushing away the electrons in the pavement, which means that at a supremely close-up level, you really aren't walking through life with your feet on the ground at all. You’re floating.

Discoveries like this among scientists have increasingly caused scientists to use the language of wonder, amazement and awe, as well as to speak using the language of mystery.

Albert Einstein was a big advocate for mystery. He is said to have told his students that if they had a choice between gaining knowledge and maintaining a relationship with mystery, they should choose mystery and that people who didn't maintain an ongoing sense of mystery living in this world were, if not dead, then at least blind. For Albert Einstein, mystery awe and wonder belonged together with science.

Carl Sagan claimed that science wasn't only compatible with mystery, but was a profound source of it. The mystery that’s revealed he said, when we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life is in fact spiritual.

According to Gary Ferguson, Jane Goodall, one of the worlds leading primatologist and anthropologists. remains unwilling to explain life through truth and science alone. He quotes her as saying: “There is so much mystery. There is so much awe.”

Isn't it interesting how new scientific breakthrough’s have led scientists to use words like wonder, awe, mystery and amazement. This is traditionally seen as the language and the domain of religion. Religion at its best is meant to open our hearts with wonder, awe and amazement. Clearly, many of our scriptures show that they are the product of people who have experienced a sense of wonder, awe and amazement at the mystery of the world around them:

Psalm 104:24-25  How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.  There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small.

Psalm 95:4-5 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Our passage from Exodus 3 also helps to communicate the sense of Mystery as Moses encounters the Presence of God in the burning bush. This sense of Mystery is communicated firstly in the imagery of the bush that is on fire but which does not burn up. Secondly the sense of Mystery is communicated through the name of God. When Moses asks God, “Who shall I say sent me?”, God replies with the Hebrew words “Eyeh Asher Eyeh”. It is a phrase that Hebrew scholars find difficult to translate. It could mean a number of things: “I am that I am”, “I will be who I will be”, “I cause to be what I cause to be” or “I will be with you, as I am I will be with you”. Christine Hayes from Yale University says “We really dont know what it means, but it has something to do with ‘Being’”.

God is the Mystery of Being, or the Mystery of Existence itself. When Moses encounters this Divine Presence in the burning bush, this ordinary bush becomes alive with a new sense of Being-ness and Existence. Through nature, this ordinary bush, Moses perceives a deeper Transcendent Reality.

Many of our own hymns also express this same sense of mystery, awe and wonder:

“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder… then sings my soul, my saviour God to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art.”

It could be said that the religious impulse in human beings is deeply connected with the sense of being lost in wonder, love and praise at the mystery of life and the world.

And so we are left with an interesting question: Are science and religion really at odds with one another…?

From the time of Copernicus, who first posited the theory that the earth revolves around the sun, there has been a sense of opposition between science and religion. In modern times, over the past 120 years or so, it has had a particular focus around Darwin’s theory of evolution with some arguing that the theory of evolution somehow undermines faith in God and faith in the Bible.

But from very early on, for many Christian theologians, this so-called dilemma was not seen to be a dilemma at all, but rather a mis-perception. Science and Religion need not be seen as opposed to one another.

Over the past few weeks I have been working my way through a file of newspaper cuttings, that Ernie Martin had collected in the Manse when Rev. Peaston died. Many of them were in act articles written by Rev. Peaston. In an article written for children in the Banbridge Chronicle 1969, he addresses the question of the apparent conflict between faith and science. It is an article on the Bible. In the article he reminds the readers that science and faith ask two different questions:

Science asks the question “how?” Faith asks the question “why?”. Science is looking for the facts behind creation – the ‘how’ of creation. Faith is looking for answers to the question of meaning – the ‘why’ of creation. The Bible is therefore not a book to go to if you want scientific answers about how creation came about. Science is much better equipped to gives us information on the how creation works and the facts of creation. But it is not equipped to answer the questions of why? Why are we here? What is the meaning of our existence here on earth? Rev. Peaston says that those are the questions that religion and philosophy are meant to answer.

Only if you read Genesis chapters 1-3 as if they were scientific and historical explanations for creation do you find yourself in conflict with science. If you view them as sacred parables and poetry, seeking to understand the meaning of our existence, then the conflict between science and religion becomes a false conflict. Its a little bit like saying that science and poetry are incompatible. Such a comparison doesn't actually make sense. Science fulfills one function. Poetry fulfills another function in life. For me, all of our religious language is much more like poetry. It is seeking to express something of the inexpressible meaning and purpose of creation, not trying to explain the facts and the how of creation.

And so for myself, and clearly for someone like Rev. Peaston, I would say that there is nothing inherent about evolution that would suggest that it is not compatible with an overarching and underlying guiding wisdom and intelligence. There is an intelligence embedded into the very fabric of life that enables evolution to take place. From mys perspective, that embedded intelligence and wisdom is the intelligence and wisdom of God.

Getting back to the beginning of the sermon, and Gary Ferguson’s book 8 Master Lessons of nature, the first lesson that Gary Ferguson says we can learn from nature is the lesson of Mystery. Nature invites us to get in touch with mystery. When we look at life through a microscope and when we look at life through a telescope, nature invites us into a world of mystery, awe and wonder. And in that sense, the mystery of nature invites us I believe also into a life of faith and trust that we are part of a world sustained by a much bigger wisdom and intelligence, which we as Christians would refer to by the word God. I believe that the more we are struck by the great mystery of life and creation, the more, like Moses, we will begin to see that every moment of every day we are walking on sacred ground. There are burning bushes of God’s Presence all around us that invite us constantly to take off our shoes because we are standing on holy ground. And the more we come to see the Burning Bushes all around us, the more and more we will want to care for and protect all that God has made.

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, and although it is not traditional for Presbyterians to observe Lent, I know that there are some in this congregation, going back to the time of Rev. Peaston who do observe Lent. But today, in light of the great ecological crisis that we are living in, I would like to invite all of us to consider giving up a single use plastic for 40 days. And in doing so, to metaphorically take off our shoes as we recognise that as we stand in the midst of this world that God has made, we stand on sacred, holy ground, as we respond by seeking to honour and care for the mystery of God’s creation.

Leviticus 21:16-24; 1 Cor 1:26-31; Deuteronomy 23:1-6

Peter Enns points out that in Proverbs 26:4-5 you find two very interesting, diametrically opposed verses which appear right next to each other…

They read as follows in the NIV Bible...

Proverbs 26:4-5

4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.

5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Isn’t that fascinating? Two verses right next to each other that give diametrically opposed advice.

Which verse is right? Which verse should we follow? If we follow the one verse, won’t we be going against the advice of the other, and vice-versa.

But Peter Enns suggests another approach: What if, under different circumstances, both verses are right. But it takes wisdom to know when to follow the advice in the one proverb, and when to follow the other proverb.

And this is the complexity of living with wisdom in the world. Sometimes under certain circumstances a set of actions may be right. But under different circumstances those same actions may in fact be wrong or inappropriate. In one situation it might be important to hold one’s tongue. But in another it might be important to speak. And it is only wisdom that will help to know the difference.

And so Peter Enns believes that in these two verses in Proverbs we get a micro-scopic view of the way the whole Bible works. Instead of providing simple and ready-made answers for living, learning to navigate the complexity of the Bible helps us to learn to humbly navigate the complexity of life itself where sometimes things are not as black and white as we would like them to be.

Take for example Jesus teaching in the sermon on the mount where Jesus says “Let your yes be yes and let your no be no.” It is a verse that seems pretty straightforward, encouraging us to conduct ourselves in the world with a clear and transparent honesty and not with duplicity.

But what would happen if you were transported back in time to Nazi Germany and your Jewish friend had come for refuge to you at your house because he or she was being hunted down by the Gestapo. When the Gestapo knock on your door and ask you are you hiding a Jew in your house, do you say “Yes, come right in and arrest him?” Or out of an attempt to protect the life of your Jewish friend, do you say “No! There is no Jew hiding in my house.”

It is a very extreme case, but it illustrates the point that while on the whole, it is wise and good in life to let your yes be yes and to let your no be no, there are shades of complexity that sometimes we need to navigate, when letting our yes be yes and our no be no, is not always the proper thing to do.

Reading the Bible invites us into a world of complexity that will over-time teach us how to navigate the complexity of the world with greater wisdom, and humility. And I use the word humility alongside the word wisdom, because to be truly wise is to acknowledge that I could also be wrong.

And so when you read the Bible in its entirety and take note of the detail, you will discover that rather than simply reading a completely uniform set of ideas, at times you are invited to enter a world of ancient Jewish debate.

One of the big debates that takes place across the New Testament is the relationship between faith and works. Paul had come to the conclusion that good works could not put you right with God, because human beings are incapable of consistently doing good works. And so Paul comes to the conclusion from his own life experience that we are not saved by good works, but rather by faith and trust in God’s saving grace made known in Jesus. As you can imagine, there is a danger in the position of Paul, and even Paul saw that some Christians used his argument to say that it no longer mattered how you acted as long as you had faith. Across the pages of the New Testament as a counter-balance to the words of the Apostle Paul, you hear the counter voice of the book of James that “Faith without works is dead.”

And one of the great debates that rages across the books of the Bible is the question: “Who can belong to the people of God?”

In Deuteronomy there are very clear instructions that certain people are to be excluded from among the people of God:

Eunuch’s, men who have been emasculated, may not be part of the people of God. Certain races and nationalities, the Moabites and the Ammonites are not to included within the people of God.

In Leviticus, there is a list of people excluded from the serving God as priests which includes people with defects of various kinds. People with skin defects, eye defects, crippled limbs, hunch-backs, dwarf’s, and the list goes on.

And yet across the pages of scripture, we find that in various places and in various ways, other writers have come to different conclusions about many of these exclusions that were enshrined in some of these very laws.

In the story of Ruth the Moabite, as she follows her mother-in-law Naomi with those moving words, “...your God will be my God, your people will be my people...”, it becomes apparent that detested Moabites in the laws of Deuteronomy can in fact be included in the people of God.

In Isaiah 56:3 Isaiah comes to the same conclusion, contrary to his own scripture in Deuteronomy: “Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain ‘I am only a dry tree’”. According to Isaiah, there is nothing to prevent a foreigner or a eunuch from being included in the people of God. This is reiterated in the books of Acts, where we discover that an Ethiopian eunuch can indeed be incorporated into the people of Jesus as he is baptised by Philip on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.

What is interesting is that nowhere in Scripture do we find those laws excluding people with defects explicitly overturned in Scripture. We have had to come to that conclusion ourselves based on an intuitive sense of the spirit of Jesus who treated all people with equal dignity and respect.

Perhaps we find this supported also in the story of David 1 Samuel 16, where the author suggests to us that God does not judge by outward appearance, but rather God looks at the heart. Maybe, contrary to the perspective of the writer of Leviticus, God is not so concerned about our outward defects as the book of Leviticus suggests. Maybe God is really only truly concerned about what is happening in our hearts.

And so being a good Christian is not simply learning the Bible by heart and learning to quote selected verses to try and end the debate on contentious issues. but rather it is about learning to discern the spirit of Jesus. And to learn to discern the spirit in which Jesus lived, is an invitation to humbly enter into the complexity of the Bible and to seek to navigate that complexity with wisdom and humility as a way of training us to navigate the complexity of life with similar wisdom and humility.

In 1 Cor 1:30 The Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus as having become, for us, the Wisdom of God. In other words, Jesus is an embodiment of God’s Wisdom. In the humanity of Jesus, God’s Wisdom is made manifest within the complexity of human life and living. When we learn to navigate the complexity of the Bible and the complexity of life with humility and wisdom, we become followers of Jesus who became the Wisdom of God for us.

When In John’s Gospel we hear the words of Jesus: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” we are being invited to see that the truth is not something that can be captured in words on a page. Instead, truth is ultimately something that is incarnated in a person. Truth needs to be embodied and lived in the world. It is a Way… that brings life. It is a Way of Living in the complexity of this world that brings life to ourselves and others. It is about learning to live courageously. honestly, compassionately and wisely. All qualities that we find in Jesus whose life was an embodiment of the Way, an embodiment of Truth, and an embodiment of Life. Jesus thus becomes for us the Wisdom of God incarnate that the Wisdom, the Way, the Truth and the Life of God might also become incarnate, or embodied, within us.

Deuteronomy 21:10-21
2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Last week I introduced some of Peter Enns’ thoughts on the Bible.  Having grown up in a very literalist and fundamentalist Biblical framework, the more he studied the Bible at university, the more that literal, fundamentalist framework didn't hold for him.  He came to see that rather than the Bible holding Simple, Obvious and Clear instruction for human life and living, he came to see that it as Ancient, Ambiguous and Diverse.  And rather than being a let-down, he said that this discovery is one that he celebrates. 

Why does he celebrate the fact that the Bible is Ancient, Ambiguous and Diverse without providing clear unambiguous answers. Because he says that it tells us that God is not a helicopter parent trying to direct every aspect of our lives, but rather, God is like a wise parent who is inviting us into a journey of becoming mature and wise adults, capable of navigating the complexity of life in this world by making mature and wise decisions. He believes that a Bible that is Ancient, Ambiguous and Diverse provides us space to ponder, to debate, to think deeply, and even to have the space to fail... all which are necessary if we are to grow in wisdom. 

So there you have last weeks sermon summarised in about a minute and a half. It makes you wonder why it took me close to 20 minutes last week to say essentially the same thing! 

Now last week I made reference to Deuteronomy 21 as a text that helped us to see first hand how the Bible is ancient, ambiguous and diverse.  But in last weeks sermon I felt like we only scratched the surface of this passage. And so today I had thought it might be helpful to dive in a little deeper and see if there are further insights that this passage might invite us into. 

There are three sections to the passage we read and so I would like to make a few brief comments on all three sections: 

In the first section, we have what I imagine most of us (and perhaps especially the woman here) would consider the horrifying laws about conquered woman being forced into marriages with their Israelite captors. 

The text says: If in a context of war, the Israelites conquer their enemies, and an Israelite warrior sees a captured woman who is beautiful and desirable, he has permission to take her as his wife. He must first let her grieve for a month. Next he must shave her head, clip her nails after which he shall be joined to her in marriage. If however she does not please him, he is not to make her into a slave. Rather he is to set her free to go where she wishes, because he has dishonoured her. 

From our modern Western perspective, it is quite a shocking scenario. Just as shocking as Boko Haram in Nigeria capturing 276 school girls in April 2014 and forcing them into marriage with their captors.  According to Wikipedia, 6 years later, there are still 112 girls missing who have never returned, still living probably in forced marriages. 

Like I suggested last week, there is something quite ancient, one might even say, barbaric, about this practice.  If this passage is part of our holy Bible, what are we to make of this passage? Is there any light that shines from this verse at all? Tim Mackie, a founder of what is called the Bible Project gives a very helpful perspective. He says that if you want to understand and evaluate the laws of the Old Testament, you need to understand them and evaluate them from within their own ancient context. You need to evaluate them according to some of the laws and practices of other ancient people. When you do that, you begin to see some faint glimmers of light even in this dark, barbaric and primitive text. 

Within this text you can begin to see the faint glimmerings of our modern day understanding of human rights.  Despite the horror of forced marriage that this passage represents, there is strangely and remarkably alongside it, some faint conception of the human feelings and human dignity of the captured woman. Firstly there is the acknowledgement of her human grief for her lost family. She is to be given a month to grieve for them. But secondly, what is remarable is that her captor is not given permission to do anything he likes with her.  If she does not please him and he does not wish to continue in the marriage with her, he is not to turn her into a slave. He is to give her her freedom, because according to the text, he will have dishonoured her. 

There are many ancient cultures where a captor would have been given free license to do anything he liked with this woman he had captured... Even western slave owners up to the 1800’s, largely had carte blanche when it came to the treatment of their slaves. But here in this ancient passage, we see the faint glimmers of a higher consciousness beginning to dawn.  What is remarkable about the laws of the Old Testament is not that they are timeless absolute laws emailed from heaven that are true and valid for all time. Rather what is remarkable about them is that they represent a significant shift and early growth in concepts of justice and fairness that form the basis for modern day human rights. Our task is not to treat OT laws as absolute, which they are clearly not, but rather to see the trajectory and the direction in which they are pointing. 

It is very easy for modern Western European like ourselves to judge a passage like this, but it probably also needs to be remembered that arranged and forced marriages were quite common amongst our own ancestors up until the early 1800’s when things began to change. Although it wasn't legal, but certainly fairly commonly practised, it is quite shocking to think that the selling of wives in England was still practised until 1901.  Slavery was only first abolished among European nations in 1834. And perhaps even more startling that the first clear and unambiguous statement on universal human rights was only first expressed after World War II in 1948 with the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights just after the formation of the United Nations. And what might be interesting is that 8 nations abstained, including, I am embarrassed to say, South Africa.   

The practice of justice and fairness and a concept of universal human rights is a very new concept in the history of the world. But here in this ancient Old Testament text, we see some of the earliest faint glimmerings of light faintly glimmering through a very dark and barbaric practice.

In the next section of our passage, we likewise are confronted with what from our perspective as Western Europeans is another seemingly ancient practice of polygamy. It seems ancient because it has been many centuries since it was last practised here in Europe. But in other parts of the world, the practice is not so ancient. In South Africa, it is not uncommon. Up until two years ago we had a president who was a polygamist with 6 wives. When Wendy and I were renting out a property a year before we came to Dromore, one of the applicants was for the second wife of a polygamous man who would be paying her rent. And just last week I saw on a South African news website an article asking the question how an inheritance should be divided in the case of a polygamous marriage where no will has been drawn up. 

In certain parts of the world, the advice in this passage is perhaps surprisingly contemporary. 

From our perspective as modern Westerners, we might easily get lost and caught up in the injustice of a man marrying two wives and one being loved while the other is unloved. But when read it in it’s ancient context, what is remarkable about this passage is that there are the early glimmering in human consciousness of a sense of justice and fairness that goes beyond simply the affections of the human heart. Even where someone might not be loved, this passage comes as a reminder that justice and fairness are important values. 

The passage from our perspective is ancient, and ambiguous, because it has stuff in it that we would disagree with, but within it are also the faint glimmerings of God’s spirit, seen in the faint glimmerings of concepts of fairness and justice. 

The fact that there is corruption and nepotism still in evidence in modern Western democracies shows that we have still not fully got to grips with the concepts of justice and fairness. 

Lastly, we come to the rather shocking passage that suggests that capital punishment by stoning is an acceptable method of dealing with a stubborn and rebellious son.  It is quite a horrific passage if one lets one’s imagination run with it. For me, there is very little in the way of redeeming light that shines from this passage. The best that i can do to understand it in it’s context.  The Hebrew people were a small and vulnerable nation. Their very existence would have been constantly under threat from surrounding nations. Within that context, stubborn and rebellious children would have been a threat not just to their own immediate family, but to the clan, tribe and nation.  Severe discipline like that of this passage was probably considered necessary for survival. And yet, even an explanation like that doesn't diminish the sense of the barbarism and brutality of this passage from our own holy scriptures. 

Maybe, sometimes, it is ok to disagree with our own scriptures. And it is clear that in his own way, Jesus disagreed with this particular passage. The evidence is to be found in the parable of the prodigal son.  The prodigal son in Luke 16 is also rebellious and stubborn. Like the son in Deuteronomy 21, he is also a drunkard and a glutton. The same words that are used to describe the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21 and Luke 16. 

For any Jew who would have been listening to the parable of Jesus, they would immediately have made the connection with Deuteronomy 21. They might have wondered how the parable of Jesus was going to end.  Was the son in the parable going to be taken to the village elders? Were they going to gather around the son and stone him to death for his rebellious and stubborn behaviour? What a shocking twist to the parable it must have been to hear that instead of being stoned to death, as the law in Deuteronomy required, the rebellious son, on returning home, is received with love and affection.  The father in the parable, like a wise parent had given his son space to make mistakes, and to learn the painful lessons of life that would enable him to grow in true wisdom. 

The contrast between Deuteronomy 21 and Luke 16 shows us that the laws of the Old Testament are not simply to be accepted unchallenged.  At times, as we find in Jesus parable of the prodigal son, we can even challenge and disagree with them. In the end, God’s gift of the Bible does not force us into blind faith and blind obedience, but rather, invites us, to ponder, reflect, debate and above all to journey into a deeper wisdom, a journey that takes us beyond the written letters on a page, and into listening deeply for the spirit of God. For as Paul discovered in his own experience, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.