Sundays 10th and 17th August, 8th and 9th Sundays after Trinity

Another two-week notice sheet this week, as Catherine goes away for a well-earned break. But while she’s away the Vicar will not be twiddling his thumbs – oh no – because when she comes back readings and hymns will need to have been chosen for services later this month, sermons prepared, new pew letters written. Procrastination is not an option!

Putting things off can sometimes be, I admit, a temptation. Sometimes a thing is just too big, or too scary, or just too much trouble. Distractions abound, the urgent or interesting gets in the way of the important, the YouTube rabbit hole beckons… And what family has not from time to time been rocked by the comparison of expectations about when, precisely, that washing up is going to be done, that carpet hoovered, that washing hung up, that bedroom tidied?

As in the mundane realities, so too in the spiritual. The early church believed that just as they had seen him ascend into heaven, so they would see Jesus return on the clouds to inaugurate his Kingdom of peace and justice, expecting to find his people ready to get cracking. But as the years dragged on, so the sense of urgency diminished. “Anytime now” became “next week”, or “next year”, or even “next millennium”. But, like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, Jesus will be back, and has sent the Holy Spirit to guide and prepare us. Let’s not ignore that niggling prompt about that thing we really ought to look at and sort out – tomorrow may come sooner than we expect.

Every blessing,

Roger.