PSA 29 January 2012

Ken Howcroft. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”. Is it alright to take things from other cultures (food, statues and images, Christmas trees, festival dates etc) and make use of them as Christians? And if it is, what do we do about those people who have doubts or scruples about doing so? Paul says that we have to be true to what we believe to be true. We have to be true to ourselves and to them. That requires a sort of loving integrity. Jesus appeared in his early ministry teaching and acting with an authority that came out of the core of his being – an integrity in which what he said, what he did and what he was were all of a piece. A disturbed man recognised that integrity but was frightened of letting go and stepping forward into a life free of the things that had oppressed and restrained him from becoming his true self. Jesus’s love enable him to take that step. He offers the same to us. The readings were 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 and Mark 1.21-28.