Ordinary Time

After the last great Ice Age, the water rose and decreasing pressure from the weight of the ice reshaped the land. Nobody would know exactly what had happened and life was in any case short. Such memory as existed was in the structure of plants… animals… which year after year grew in the same pattern(s) as their predecessor(s).  Tribes and animals moved onwards as the seasons changed. When their food ran out or the last major obstacle proved one too many, the elderly or sick were left behind and died. Commandment 5 is all about this.  ‘Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee’. If you do not leave your parents behind, then your children in their turn will take you with them when your turn comes!
 Jesus stood in a boat in the northern end of the Sea of Galilee (probably) and used the unknown as a pattern of the working of the kingdom of God. How it works we do not know. The plants do not know. But when the time is right, he … the farmer… God himself… knows it. A 6000 year old sickle (Mark 4 verse 29) of flint set in a horn handle has been discovered near Jericho. At Jericho, what had long grown without knowledge had suddenly mutated. Small seed heads doubled in size and grain that had scattered on the ground when shaken now clung tightly to the head. A 14 chromosome plant became one with 42! Harvests became possible and seed corn could be saved. Recreation and stored Learning was possible. Pilgrimages – voyages with hopeful ends undertaken with great imagination – were embarked upon.

Some of us went on such a journey recently - to the monastery of St Peter on the Roman sea Wall to which the Saxon Saint Cedd had come in about 660. He came from the northern Abbey of Lastingham to bring Christianity to Essex. We were honouring our fathers, of course, and our neighbours too, and also an inner reality that it is God’s sickle, rather than ours, which disposes…

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