This week has been a hectic week, with it’s share of 3 am nights (work, not Jed).  So here are the belated images of Jed at Cafe Cartel last Sunday.

I’m at the Cafe Cartel !

Daddy’s feeding me bread

Oops, dropped it !

 Yummy !

Finished reading Wounded Healer, which ends with the somewhat depressing conclusion that "no minister can save anyone".  But this is not bad.  Because it is when we recognise our woundedness and limitations, that we begin to empathise with those who also hurt, and point them our hope in God.

Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons.  Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives.  That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt.  But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human condition.  Therefore ministry is a very confronting service.  It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness.  It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts.

No minister can save anyone.  He can only offer himself as a guide to fearful people.  Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely in this guidance that the first signs of hope become visible.  This is so because a shared pain is no longer paralysing but mobilising, when understood as a way to liberation.  When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilise them into a common search for life, those very pains care transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.

…

A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision.  Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength.

For this reason, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12 : 9 - 10

But He [ God ] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

"As for your suggestion at paragraph 2, I think it is stupid (as were many of your silly ideas to resolve this matter)."

But being the nice person that I am, I offered a better alternative, as well as a suggestion as to how the silly suggestion could be carried out, if the requestor persisted in his folly.

So how would Jesus react if a woman wearing nothing more than a bikini walked through the doors of His church ?  The answers in Luke 7 : 36 - 48

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.  When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner."

Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."

"Tell me, teacher," he said.

"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,^[d] and the other fifty.  Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"

Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled." 

"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."