<html><body><div>If part 2 makes it, here's part 3</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>With
an incredibly prescient twist, however, the compilers of the lectionary, having
taken us through the twists of the lives of Saul, David, Bathsheba and Uriah,
bring us to the story of the confrontation of David the king and Nathan the
prophet.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>One
might think that David had crossed the line one too many times for him to be
regarded with any degree of favour by the people of his kingdom, never mind
God. Yet Nathan’s parable hits home and brings David to his knees. He
recognises how messed up his life and actions have been.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>The
first words of the psalm might have been those on the king’s lips. “Have mercy
on me, O God”, words we say, for instance, when we open the season of Lent. Our
lives, just as David’s, have been filled with shadows, with darkness, with
things which may embarrass us to remember, far less speak. We may have hurt
people incredibly. We may have denied people’s dignity, denied the Christ in
them. We may have refused them the Bread, the Water, the Wine which might have
brought them life and hope.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>But,
despite what you and I may have done, there is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ALWAYS</u></b> hope of forgiveness, of mercy, of resurrection to a
life given and purposed by God.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>David’s
heart-felt pleas for forgiveness brought him the blessing he so desperately
needed. The Ephesians – we’ve no idea in what they’d been engaged, but it must
have been very shady for Paul to have written to exhort them to turn around, to
come to Christ the Bread, to serve Him with humility and gentleness.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>What
is the work of God for us, but to bring us to face those things which turn
bread stale and vinegar the wine.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>God
has given the Power of Bread, Wine and Water into our hands. God allows us to
choose. God begs us to choose to “grow up in every way into him who is the
head, into Christ,” to use the Bread, the Wine and the Water to bring life to
the world, to counteract destruction.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>There
is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>SO</u></b> much which tears us
apart – within families, within groups, within cities and nations, among our
sisters and brothers of the world. Yes, some of us may have been hurt, by the
church, by society, by people whom we know and people whom we don’t know. We
have stood by, or participated in the smearing of others’ reputations and
denial of their humanity and Christlike potential. We need to confess that.
Then we need to set it out of our lives. If we ask it of God, if we seek mercy,
if we resolve to turn away from everything which diminishes ourselves as well
as others, then God <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b>
merciful; God <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WILL</u></b> give us
the joy of saving help again. God <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WILL</u></b>
renew us for the ministry to which each of us is called.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Sara
Miles wrote, “I took communion, I passed bread to others, and then I kept
going, compelled to find new ways to share what I’d experienced. I started a
food pantry and gave away literally tons of fruit and vegetables and cereal
around the same altar where I’d first received the body of Christ.” <sup>4 </sup><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>BECAUSE</u></b> she first received the
Bread and the Wine, Sara gave to others.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>When
you and I receive the Bread and the Wine together this morning, ask God, “Whom
do you want <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ME</u></b> to serve?”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>And
maybe check to see if someone has an allergy to gluten – or anything else which
might be toxic to them.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 107%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“The Good Wine: Reading John from the
Center” </i>by Bruno Barnhart. Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, ©
1993, quoted by Suzanne Guthrie in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“At
the Edge of the Enclosure” </i></font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> </font></span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“take this bread”</i> by Sara Miles,
Ballantine Books, New York, N.Y. © 2007, page 3.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><font size="2"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'>3</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sara Miles, Op. cit. Prologue, page
xi.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>4</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sara
Miles, Op. cit. page xi</span></p>
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