Mitech-Solutions

My colleague, Father Elias, began his sermon on the Sunday I was in hospital by saying, “I think if it had appeared in the paper that a priest had threatened to beat up a fellow patient in a Sydney Hospital, the most common response would have been, ‘I didn’t know Dave was in hospital!’”

I’ve never pictured myself as having any aptitude for hospital work.

I appreciate that hospitals are an ideal context in which to offer care and compassion to persons in need, but such relationships are always short-term, and hence seem somewhat artificial to me. Certainly I could never see myself as a hospital chaplain – managing a constant turnover of such intense, short-term relationships.

Even so, when I found myself in hospital, not through any deliberate planning on my part but through the unpleasant workings of providence, I figured I’d have to make the best of the situation and take whatever opportunities the Good Lord put in my path. I was sorta hoping though that He’d give me a bit of a break.

Maybe it was that desire for a break that led me to introduce myself to the other blokes in my ward as ‘Dave: fight trainer and former pro fighter’, rather than as ‘Father Dave: Parish Priest’. What was the difference anyway? I had ‘Father Dave’ written on the label above my bed in case anybody cared to look, and, in truth, the other blokes didn’t really seem to be overly interested in anybody else‘s business anyway (God bless them).

Most of the other blokes weren’t overly forthcoming about themselves either – a quiet but decent bunch. The exception was the guy in the bed immediately opposite me – a guy who increasingly showed himself to be neither quiet nor decent – a guy named ‘Homer’.

I won’t mention his surname, as I want to respect some confidentiality, but I will say that it wasn’t ‘Simpson’. In many ways though it should have been. As time wore on, Homer gave an increasingly clear impression that he was as rude, lazy, unintelligent and as all-round self-obsessed as his three-fingered counterpart but had few of his animated namesake‘s redeeming features.

Homer would start his whinging early in the morning, and it seemed that the less people listened to him, the louder he became. He would complain about the food, the service, the bedding, the medication, the heat, the cold, and the lack of meaningful viewing alternatives on the television.

For the most part I was happy enough to just let this wash over me, but it was when he started honing in his attacks on a particular member of the nursing staff that I really started to lose my patience.

It started at 4am one morning. All of us in the ward were woken from our slumber to hear Homer loudly scolding Nurse Lee because she wouldn’t give him more pain-killers.

“But I’m only allowed to give you 2 tablets every 6 hours” the nurse said.

“No!” Homer would reply. “The doctor told me that I was allowed to take them every two hours!”

“He couldn’t have possibly told you that, Mr Homer”, the nurse replied.

“I know what I heard”, Homer shouted in response.

And in such manner the stoush continued, with the unfortunate nurse holding her ground while Homer became increasingly obnoxious in his use of language. At one point he even suggested that the good nurse should go and re-read her Hippocratic oath – ‘that the customer is always right!’

Homer’s knowledge of Hippocrates pretty well summed up the wisdom of his position as I saw it. He neither understood manners, history, nor what was good for him. Even so, if it were possible to compensate for a lack of substance with an increase of volume, he was the guy to do it!

Eventually the supervising doctor was found and the moment of truth arrived. “You told me I could take these every two hours!” Homer exclaimed. “I most certainly did not. You can only take them every six hours!” replied the doctor. “Oh”, said Homer. “… I thought you said every two”

Now you would have thought that this would have spelt the end of the conflict. What other options were there at this point for the defeated Homer except to apologise to the doctor, the nursing staff and his entire hospital audience, and to walk away quietly with his tail between his legs.

If Leonidas, king of Sparta, had found himself in this position at Thermopylae he would have apologised to the rapacious King Xerxes, rounded up his troops and returned home. If Luke Skywalker and his mates had found themselves in this position at the Battle of Endor, they would have surrendered to the nearest storm-trooper and sworn loyalty to the Emperor. If the Devil himself … ok, you get the idea. My point is that Homer was no ordinary human being. He didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘defeat’ (or many other words for that matter), so instead of backing down and apologising he upped the attack.

Homer found new reasons to criticise the middle-aged Asian nurse who had done so well in putting up with his vitriolic assault. He focused on the multiple personality defects that he had detected in her. He attacked her lack of fluency in English. He even tried to report her to the supervising nurse for having shoes that he was sure didn’t meet Occupational Health and Safety standards!

Long after Nurse Lee’s shift had ended Homer’s tirade continued to be broadcast to anybody and everybody that would care to listen to him, and his comments became increasingly sleazy and racially orientated.

On reflection I’m not sure why it took me so long to make a meaningful response. My only defence is that I was rather ill – running a temperature, on high levels of medication and attached to a drip. Even so, I’m not proud of the fact that it took me half a day before my tolerance ran out.

I can’t remember now the specific Homerism that set me off, but I do remember calling over one of the nursing staff and asking her to pass on a message to Homer from me: “will you please tell Homer that if he makes one more sleazy or racist comment about Nurse Lee that I’m going to detach my drip and walk over there and break his nose?”

Happily the nurse was saved from the predicament of having to actually pass on the message as Homer overheard most of what I had said. He responded with some mild, low-volume swearing that indicated to me that he hadn’t really got the message. I repeated my plan more audibly and added: “It’s entirely your call, brother. Keep you mouth shut and you’ll be fine. One more sleazy or racist comment and you’ll find yourself in a pool of your own blood!” This colourful P.S. proved rather effective, and an ominous silence then descended on our room.

The silence was broken by the arrival of a mate of mine who had come to pay me a visit. As providence would have it this particular brother (who I’ll refer to simply as ‘Bugsy’) is an enormous bloke with a face that tells a story of a thousand pub brawls. He’s recently found God and is a big-hearted guy, but he’d still make a fantastic standover man. He’s the sort of guy that mob bosses love to have accompanying them when they go to collect debts – ‘rough him up a bit for me, Bugsy!’

Anyway, Bugsy had come to see how I was going and there was no avoiding explaining to him the tangible air of tension in the ward. Bugsy thought it was great fun, and he did consider walking over to Homer’s bed and just confirming with him that he’d got the message, but he hesitated on the grounds that he was still on parole, and I think that was a wise decision.

At any rate, I think the mere appearance of this Caucasian version of Mr T helped enormously to reinforce my message to Homer. I didn’t hear a squeak out of him from that moment on, right up until they moved me to another ward about an hour later. Moreover, I was told that the next morning he had bought a big box of chocolates for all the nurses!

And things only got better for me from that moment on. I was moved to a much quieter room and I was the darling of the nursing staff for the remainder of my hospital stay. Best of all, I received a visit from Nurse Lee at the conclusion of her next shift. She said to me in her lovely broken English, “You are my knight in shining armour”.

The whole experience has cast hospital work in a new light for me. I still can’t see myself as a chaplain, but maybe I could be on call for certain special cases that suit my particular style of ministry?

Back at home no one was surprised when they heard what had happened. Indeed, my colleague, Father Elias, began his sermon the following Sunday by saying, “I think if it had appeared in the paper that a priest had threatened to beat up a fellow patient in a Sydney Hospital, the most common response would have been, ‘I didn’t know Dave was in hospital!’”

I’m not entirely sure whether I should feel pleased or horrified by Elias’ analysis, but it did make me laugh.

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. 25Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. 26So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; 27but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

“I do not box as though beating the air,” says St. Paul, and all the boxers in the congregation say … Amen!

There was a great choice of readings to work with today – from Elisha’s healing of Naaman the Syrian to Jesus’ healing of the leprous man in today’s Gospel reading – but I don’t think anybody will blame me today for choosing this passage from St Paul’s first epistle to the Christians at Corinth – “I do not box as though beating the air” – when today we have baptized a lad of such prestigious pugilistic pedigree and who promises to be such a fantastic future fighter!

“I do not box as though beating the air”! You might have thought that I had dug through the Scriptures and specifically plucked this passage out today, but it is not so! This is the reading scheduled in our lectionary, believe it or not!

Evidently it was meant to be – predestined from before the foundation of the world perhaps – that on this auspicious day, when there are so many boxers in the house, that St Paul’s one and only reference to boxing would be read!

Of course, Paul wasn’t referring to the Queensbury-rules-style of boxing with which so many of us are familiar. In St Paul’s day boxing was far more brutal!

There are no shortage of people today, of course, who consider modern boxing to be barbaric. It might help put such things in perspective by comparing the type of sport-fighting to which St Paul was accustomed – namely, the ancient Greek Pankration, which was the original fighting art of the Olympic Games.

Even though it was considered a noble sport, the Pankration was a brutal form of no-rules fighting where too naked men tore away at each other until the one left standing was ultimately able to claim the wreath with which he would be crowned Olympic champion!

Legend has it that when Ulysses returned from the Trojan wars his own mother didn’t recognise him. I’m told though that when the Pankration champion returned from the first Olympics that his own dog couldn’t recognise him! First-century boxing was a brutal activity, which is why it might strike a to be a strange sort of metaphor to use with regards to the Christian life!

In our culture, being a follower of Christ is often considered to be a bit ‘girly’. Indeed, not only in our 21st century Australian culture but worldwide, Christianity seems to have taken on a certain feminine character.

I remember our dear friend Father Elias (the colourful Catholic monk who served us so well here as a part of our community a few years back) saying to me that in France now, where his community is based, you are considered a Christian if your wife goes to church!

Now … I am not regretting that it is chiefly women who are now leading the church into the future (and this despite the best efforts of certain elements of the church’s leadership to hold them back) but I am sensing a certain cognitive dissonance between the imagery of the Christian life that is current in our own culture and that which is here being propagated by St Paul.

“I do not box as though beating the air,” says Paul, and his point is that real faith is a hands-on experience, and there is an implicit contrast here between two ways of trying to follow Christ – one that is a hands on, body-on-the-line type of stoush, and another which is something more akin to boxercise, where you appear to be fighting but when, in fact, you’re only punching the air!

Now I’ve got nothing against boxercise, but as a boxing trainer and fight club manager I can tell you that I often have to make the point to our clients that “this is not a boxercise gym”.

Most people do recognise that of course when they turn up to ‘Father Dave’s Fight Club’. They realise that they are joining a fight club and not a boxercise class, but occasionally people do need to be reminded, because there is a big difference between the two types of gym, and people attend the two for very different reasons, just as people attend church for very different reasons.

Some attend because they want to look good, and because they are interested in self-improvement. Am I talking about the gym or the church? I’m talking about both!

I can tell you though that in our case people do not join because they want to look good nor simply for the sake of self-improvement. They join because they want to fight! Am I talking about the gym or the church? I hope, once again, I’m talking about both!

For this is the key difference between the Fight Club and the boxercise gym. When you come home from Fight Club you sort of expect that you’ll be a little bruised and bleeding.

As most of you would know, I’ve been training pretty hard of late, and I’ve been coming home bruised and bleeding pretty regularly. Indeed, as I look out on the congregation today I think I am in a reasonably unique position as a preacher, as I am looking at most of the people who are responsible for those bruises and blood loss! There’s quite a few of you in fact!

I’ve had the privilege of doing quite a few rounds lately with my brother, Lovemore, and I can tell you that I have come away bleeding on every occasion, though I must add that the only person who has actually stopped me recently (that is, the only person to have actually forced me to stop fighting and take time out before being able to continue) is young ‘Bruiser Dayal’ (16-year-old Irena).

Anyway, the point is that the path of Christian discipleship is likewise a bloody experience. We wish it were not that way but it is.

We wish we could love others without having to make real and costly sacrifices but we cannot.

We wish that we could speak out against injustice without having people ridicule us, malign us, and deliberately misrepresent us, but we cannot.

We wish that it were possible to care for the poor without having to impoverish ourselves but it is not.

We wish we could care for the homeless without having to open our own homes or sacrifice our own privacy, but it is just not possible.

We wish that people weren’t so complicated, and that all our friends and family and children needed was just a few wise words, after which they would sort themselves out, but instead it turns out that family and parenthood and even friendship itself is a life-long commitment where those we love never seem to get things entirely right and where nothing ever seems to get ultimately resolved and where we are nonetheless expected to continue to pour ourselves out without ever necessarily seeing any results for our efforts.

We wish that Christian discipleship was not like this but it is! We wish that fighting the good fight was something more like a boxercise class, where we can go through the motions, look good, improve ourselves, and do so at a minimal personal cost, but this is just not possible. The path to glory is soaked with blood. Am I talking about the Fight Club or the church? Both!

I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it – I do the training. I put in the hard rounds. I put in the work in the gym and in the ring – so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

The path of Christian discipleship, like the path of the athlete, can be a hard and lonely path. And just as the boxer needs to train properly if she is going to survive in the ring, so the follower of Jesus needs to take her training seriously, to focus, and to put in the hard yards if she is going to make it to the final round.

I know that there are a lot of theories going about as to how best to accomplish that training (and I’m talking both about the Fight Club and the church).

In the world of boxing there are a lot of theories as to how to best prepare for a fight, and I’ve heard most of them. Most recently though, in my own training, I’ve been taking my lead from a wise indigenous friend and boxing trainer who told me that I should simply follow the example of the indigenous fighters of this country in my fight preparation.

Our indigenous sisters and brothers tend to excel in boxing like no other group in the country and this guy swears that all his indigenous fighters do in preparation for their fights is two things – they run and the box.

So that’s all I’ve been doing for the last 12 months in my own fight preparation – I’ve been running and boxing (trying to box at least 10 rounds per night and run a minimum of 10kms/day, six days per week). And I have found that it works!

And at the risk of being simplistic, I want to suggest that, spiritually speaking, there are really only two things we need to focus on in preparing ourselves for the spiritual fight too, and they are ‘prayer’ and ‘praxis’.

Prayer and praxis – those are the keys I believe.

Prayer is what we are doing now – meeting for prayer and worship, and we can’t expect to progress far as a Christian warrior unless we spend time with the commander in prayer and worship.

And praxis is the other key element in the training program. Praxis means doing. It means getting our hands dirty and vigorously doing the work of Christian ministry – feeding the poor, working for justice, sharing the Gospel of hope, and doing all the ordinary, every-day works of love that Christ calls us to do.

I often reflect on the words of Jesus recorded in John chapter 8: “If you hold to my teaching … you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (vs. 31-32)

Doing the truth leads to knowing the truth (rather than the other way round). The more time we put in to actually doing the work of Christian ministry, the more we understand of God and of ourselves, and the stronger we become as Christian pugilists, just as the ring-fighter, the more times he boxes, the better boxer he becomes.

Prayer and praxis – that’s the exhortation I want to finish on today. That might not sound like much of a climax for the sermon but hard work is the flip-side of glory!

I always warn the boys in the Fight Club, ‘winning a fight is glorious, but training, for the most part, is just hard work.’ Perhaps that sums up how a lot of us feel about church at the moment too? Well, we don’t have to enjoy every session, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be there.

For we didn’t follow Christ for His entertainment value, or because we wanted to look good or simply because we wanted to improve ourselves. If those were our goals we would have joined the boxercise class at the local punching-the-air boxercise gym. No! We knew what we were letting ourselves in for when we chose to follow Christ. We knew we were getting ourselves into a fight.

For we don’t have to look to hard around our world today to know that there’s a war going on, and it’s not a fight for the faint-hearted.

We know that if we are truly going to follow Jesus in this world that it is going to cost us everything that we have. But we know, too, that if our resolve is firm and if we train hard, if we develop our spiritual muscle and self-control, if we can endure the pain and keep our cool that we will survive until the last round is over.

We will hear that final bell, we will see the enemy at our feet, and we will receive that imperishable wreath that the apostle speaks of, reserved for those who have fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. Training is hard, but victory is glorious. Amen!

Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

I had the privilege last Friday night of being back amongst my friends at the Imam Husain Islamic Centre where we met to grieve the death of the father of my dear friend, Sheikh Mansour Leghaei.

And it was good to be back amongst those lovely people, and it was good to a part of the live Skype linkup with Mansour back in Esfahan (in Iran) and it was to once again enjoy the experience of being kissed by an enormous number of bearded men (an experience that [sadly] I just don’t get anywhere else).

And I was reminded very clearly, while I was there, of one particularly endearing thing that one of the members of that community had said to me on a previous visit. It wasn’t Sheikh Mansour who said it to me or any of his family members but one of the elders there – a retired professor from Newcastle University.

This man had been looking after me on one of the previous times that I’d been there and we had been talking very warmly and candidly, when said to me, “You know, before I was a Muslim, I was a Christian!” And I was taken aback and said, “Really?” He said, “Yes, and before I was a Christian, I was a Jew”.

Then I understood, of course, that he didn’t mean that he’d actually been a convert from Christianity, but that rather he was expressing our common spiritual heritage.

And of course I could not share his perspective – that Islam fulfils the Christian hope, just as we believe the New Testament Gospel fulfils all the hopes and dreams of the Old, but I appreciated that this elder in the Islamic community was basically just expressing his closeness to me, and I found that touching.

And I’ve thought of that man and his message to me often because I think the whole world needs to hear what he has to say!

I do sincerely believe that if we could somehow get rid of all the dirty politics, we’d find that the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions is so great – at least in terms of basic ethics and values – that we really have no ideological basis for enmity, let alone for any ‘clash of civilisations’!

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian, and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’ – it was an impressive thing to say, but it was also a statement that required a response, I felt – a response that I wasn’t able to give at the time, but I’ve thought of one since – a good response – and I got it from the story of Noah!

One thing that always comes to mind for me when I think of Noah and the Flood is an old Peanuts cartoon, featuring Linus and Lucy sitting at home, looking out of the window, and it’s raining!

Lucy says to Linus, “I can’t believe how long it’s been raining for! Perhaps it will just keep raining until everything is flooded and we are all drowned?” Linus replies, “No, in Genesis chapter 9 God tells Noah that He will never again allow a flood to take over the whole earth”. Lucy says, “Wow! Thanks”. Linus pauses and says, “Good theology is a beautiful thing!”

Good theology is a beautiful thing, and it’s the theology of Genesis 9 and the flood story that has interested me, as I think it’s a story with a very important message.

The Noah story is a tale of pain and passion – the pain caused by humanity on the one hand, through their violent and reckless behaviour, and the passion of God, who is grieved by His creation and seems to be ready to throw up his hands!

If you’re familiar with this part of the Bible you know that the Noah story is a component part in a series of similar stories that span the first eleven chapters of Genesis – starting out with the very beginning of creation – where things just seem to go from bad to worse.

First there is Adam and Eve and the incident with the snake. Next thing, there’s a murder in Adam and Eve’s immediate family, and things just seem to degenerate from there until, by the time of Noah, we’re told that “every inclination of the human heart was only evil all the time”. (Genesis 6:5)

And I appreciate that that’s a very black and white way of looking at the world, but if you look at what’s going on in the world today, you could be forgiven, I think, for coming to exactly the same conclusion!

And it makes you angry! I find myself getting angry about things all the time! I’ve been getting angry this week about Syria, though not so much over what’s going on in the country itself, but over the way it’s being reported out here!

I’m convinced we’re being hoodwinked again by our media on this one, and I spent extensive time on Friday evening with a guy who had just returned from Syria, and he said exactly the same thing. He said that he and his friends would watch the foreign media coverage from Syria, where CNN or BBC would tell them what was going on in the area they were living in, and it was clearly entirely inaccurate!

And it makes you angry, and people do crazy things when they’re angry. They take up arms and they strap bombs to themselves and they commit acts of violence.

But God is not exactly depicted as getting angry here, but rather as grieving.

“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” (Genesis 6:5-6)

And perhaps that depiction of God strikes you as sounding ‘all too human’, but perhaps that is the point!

The God we read of in these early chapters of the Bible is not one who sets the whole machine in motion and then steps back and lets it rip. On the contrary, this is a God who engages with his creation from the outset, and engages passionately!

And so this God gets frustrated, exasperated, and ultimately regrets ever having created the human race. And so the flood comes, not so much as an act of angry vengeance on God’s part, but more out of a desire for a fresh start.

Even so, the flood is a violent act, and there’s no getting around that. It’s exactly the sort of incident that leaves people shaking their heads and asking “why would God allow such a thing to happen?” to which we are generally respond by trying to excuse God from blame.

Here though God seems happy to take the blame, and yet the conclusion to the story is rather telling. God makes a covenant with Noah, and with all flesh through Noah, such that God will never allow another act of such universal cataclysmic violence to ever happen again.

And so God hangs up His bow as a sign to all flesh that such violence is never going to come from His hand again. Just as the modern-day farmer might lock away his rifle in the shed, or the master swordsman sheaths his sword, so the warrior-archer hangs up his bow! And this is what God is does – hangs up His bow above the mantle-piece (so to speak) as a sign that He will never be using it again!

And it’s a covenant. It’s a promise. And if you know your Bible at all you know that the concept of ‘covenant’ or ‘testament’ is a very key Biblical concept.

We divide our Bible into covenants (or ‘testaments’) – the Old Testament and the New Testament, which would suggest that there are only two covenants. In fact, Biblically speaking, I think there are five:

•#This one

•#The covenant with Abraham and his children forever (Genesis12)

•#The covenant with Moses and his people at Mount Sinai

•#The covenant with David – that one of his children will always reign as king

•#The ‘new covenant’ with Jesus

And in each case what we are dealing with fundamentally is a promise – a commitment on the part of God to His covenant partner.

And you can see that there’s a progressive narrowing of the focus of these covenants. They begin with Noah, with a commitment to all flesh. After that there is a commitment to a particular race of people, then to those members of that race that make it to Mount Sinai, then to one particular family within that group (the line of David) and finally to one particular individual (Jesus).

And my dad used to say that it was like a funnel, with the promises of God becoming increasingly focused – from the children of Abraham to Moses, to the specific line of David, and finally to an individual – Jesus, through whom the Grace of God becomes available again to everybody!

And that’s a good way of looking at it, with the funnel ending with a universal shower of love, and it’s appropriate too because it all begins here with Noah with a universal and unconditional commitment to ‘all flesh’, and it is a commitment of mercy – a promise on the part of God that He will deal gently with His children – with ALL His children, and with animals too!

God has hung up His bow. The days of divine violence are over. No matter how bad things get, God is going to find another way of working things through.

It’s a bit of a strange parallel, but I don’t know if you’ve been following the story of Khader Adnan Muhammad Musa –the Palestinian hunger-striker?

I find that story really fantastic, because Khader Adnan is a leader of Islamic Jihad, which is an organisation committed to armed resistance against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Islamic Jihad believes that dialogue and so-called passive resistance are useless. As I understand it, he’s openly encouraged people to strap on bombs and do whatever they have to in order to bring an end to the injustice.

And this guy has been arrested a lot of times, though it seems the Israeli authorities rarely have anything to charge him with. So this time when he was arrested, he insisted that he get a trial or be freed, and when they refused to do either he went on a hunger strike!

And he fasted for 66 days, which I believe is a world record (so long as you don’t count the famous Irish ‘terrorist’, Bobby Sands, who didn’t survive his hunger strike). Anyway, Khader Adnan was successful, and the Israeli authorities have said that they are going to let him go! Islamic Jihad, it seems, have one a victory though, ironically, it has not been through armed resistance but through using a form of protest that Mahatma Ghandi made famous!

Yes, there are better ways of dealing with evil and injustice than the resort to violence, and God Himself, according to this ancient story, has committed Himself to finding other ways of dealing with evil and injustice. God will not punish without mercy. God will be gracious because God has made a commitment – a solemn promise of love – to us and to all flesh!

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian’, he said to me, ‘and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And my response is, ‘and before we were men of faith, we were men’ – brothers in the flesh (so to speak) and still, as brothers in the flesh, recipients of the promises of God and beneficiaries of His Grace!

For the Covenants begin here, with Noah, with a commitment from God to be merciful to all flesh.

And yes, we enjoy the Grace of God made ours through Christ, but let’s remember that the promises of God were extended to us first not as Christian people but simply as people – simply as creatures of flesh, for God has made a commitment of love to all creatures of flesh.

Good theology is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? And the story of Noah, while many elements of it may be difficult to come to terms with, is ultimately a beautiful story too, I think, for it affirms the fundamental equality of all flesh before God, and it proclaims the unconditional commitment of God to all flesh.

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And before I was a man of faith I was a man, and before being a man (in a sense) I am simply a human being – a creature of flesh. But that is nothing to be ashamed of. For on the contrary, it is creatures of flesh that God is committed to, and He has committed Himself to all of us!

Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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Every day I receive emails supposedly sent out from fatherdave.org, and sometimes they even have ‘a message from the team at fatherdave.org’, embedded in the email body! Some days I get hundreds of these, and if I’m receiving hundreds, there must be millions that are being sent out!

A couple of years ago, I never would have dreamed of writing an article, warning anybody about the dangers of identity theft. Mind you, back then I never expected to ever receive emails from someone pretending to be me, selling me viagra!

There are plenty of unscruplous people around who will try to adopt your identity in order to get what they want (normally money). And while it doesn’t help if you do what I do – publish not only your email address and phone number on your website, but also a map on how to get to your house on foot – trying to conceal your identity from everyone is not the answer either.

I appreciate that some people feel that they shouldn’t give any personal details to anybody, for fear that these details will be used against them, but that’s a bit like never getting into a car because you’re aware of dangers on the roads.

In truth, I hate the ‘privacy’ push. C’mon! We live in a community, which means that we need to work together, and if we’re going to work together, we’ll need to know something about eachother. Even so, the problem is that the mechanisms we’ve set up for the sharing of information are open to abuse, and my goodness, have they ever been abused! The Internet is a sad case in point!

It never ceases to amaze me how this great gift to human kind – the Internet – that has the potential to bring people together from around the world, seems to function primarily to spread B-grade jokes and porn around the office, and to sell viagra! And the painful thing for me is not only the number of people trying to sell me viagra, but the number of viagra-sellers pretending to be me!

Every day I receive emails supposedly sent out from fatherdave.org, and sometimes they even have‘a message from the team at fatherdave.org’, embedded in the email body! Some days I get hundreds of these, and if I’m receiving hundreds, there must be millions that are being sent out!

In truth, limiting the number of spambots that can harvest your email address is not difficult. Just make sure that you scramble your address before you allow it to be published online. I’ve got an excellent email scrambler you can download for free right here. Unfortunately, email-author impersonation is not the worse form of identity theft around, and I’m afraid you need someone more knowledgable than me when it comes to the more serious forms of identity theft.

Some of these more serious forms of identity theft include:

• people running up gas or electricity bills on your account

• hi-jacking your telephone account and using it to make long-distance phone calls

• criminals getting hold of your credit card details and making purchases

As I say, this is not my area of expertise, but I can certainly refer you to the ‘Inside Identify Theft‘ report if you want to be better prepared against these sorts of criminal invasions. I’ve even got a video review on the book that you can take a look at if you’re keen.

Of course, even the techniqes taught in the Inside Identity Theft report can’t protect you from the most serious forms of identity theft, such as when a government agency assassinates a foreign diplomat and then frames you for the murder. It happens on 24 all the time! We’ll just have to trust the Lord above that He will protect us from that one (possibly with some help from Jack Bauer) .

Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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After they left the synagogue, they went directly to the house of Simon and Andrew, along with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed, sick with a fever, so they promptly told Jesus about her. He went up to her, took her by the hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began serving them. When evening came, after the sun had set, people started bringing to him all those who were sick or possessed by demons. In fact, the whole city gathered at the door. He healed many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. However, he wouldn’t allow the demons to speak because they knew who he was. In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went to a deserted place and prayed there. Simon and his companions searched diligently for him. When they found him, they told him, “Everyone’s looking for you.” He said to them, “Let’s go to the neighboring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” So he went throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

Looking through the Gospel text this week I was reminded of the story of the priest who gets pulled over by a policeman after running a red light, and when the window is wound down, the officer is immediately confronted with the smell of alcohol emanating from the car!

“Have you been drinking, Father?” the policeman asks. “Not a drop”, the priest replies.

“Well … would you mind telling me what you’ve got in that flask”, the policeman asks. “Ah … that would be water”, says the priest.

The policeman picks up the flask, opens it and sniffs it. “I believe this is whiskey, Father”, says the policeman.

“Mother of God!” says the priest, “Another miracle!”

And as I read through the Gospel reading today I find myself making the same response: ‘Another miracle!’

We’re actually only in the first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, and yet already we have been confronted with a whole series of miracles!

No sooner had Jesus entered the synagogue to teach than he was confronted by a wild, crazy man, screaming out at him, and Jesus healed the man.

And within a day of that event, or so it seems, everybody who is sick or possessed is crowding around Jesus, and Jesus is healing them of their illnesses and driving out demons, and the activity becomes all-consuming, though the irony is that Jesus seems to be engaging in the whole process a little reluctantly!

We sense a degree of frustration, I think, with Jesus early on, as He tries to quieten the testimonies of the possessed – “You are the Holy One of God!” – lest the whole thing get out of hand. And yet it does get out of hand, and Jesus seems frustrated by the hordes that press on him. It appears that He wants people to listen to what He has to say, and not just to get carried away with His miracles or His mysterious identity.

This is made quite explicit at the end of our reading today, where we see Jesus, having escaped from the crowds that were pursuing him to a ‘lonely place’ (vs.35), telling His disciples that it’s time to move on.

“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)

And it seems that Jesus, after having taken some time to think things through, realises that His priority has to be spreading His word of hope about the new world coming. The great well of human need that He sees round about him is, it seems, a distraction that threatens to divert Him from His real work.

Surely there were any number of others who could take up the task of healing the sick. Jesus must focus on spreading the word, “for that is why I came out”!

As I say, there is a fair degree of irony in this because despite Jesus’ words, He never actually acts in accordance with His own pronouncement!

Perhaps indeed the ordinary needs of ordinary human beings are a distraction from the greater work of spreading the Gospel, but if so, Jesus seemed to consistently allow Himself to be distracted!

So many people come to him, we are told, that there isn’t room at the door, and yet we don’t see Jesus standing up and saying, “Look! I want everybody to put their physical issues on hold for a moment. I have some things I’d like to say.”

No! There is a well of human misery surrounding Jesus as He begins His ministry, and Jesus wades right into it!

Jesus does not detach Himself. He allows Himself to be distracted. He reaches out. He heals. He liberates both the infirmed and the possessed, and He does so knowing full well that this is detracting from the work that He was sent to do, but He does it anyway!

Yes, at the end of the day he creates some distance for Himself and He decides that it’s time to focus on preaching, and yet the immediate follow-on from this pronouncement is that a person afflicted with leprosy finds Jesus and asks for help.

And Jesus doesn’t say, “Not now, buddy! I’ve got other things I need to be doing. At least wait until the end of the sermon!” On the contrary, St Mark records that Jesus was ‘moved with compassion’ for the man (vs.41), and so He healed him. And so the pattern of preaching AND healing (where there always seems to be a lot more healing than preaching) continues!

Now that story of the man with leprosy is in next week’s reading, I think, and I don’t want to snatch the thunder from next week’s sermon, so perhaps I should focus on the main healing that is dealt with in this week’s story – namely, the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law – a healing that I must say has to be one of the least spectacular healing stories ever recorded in any of the four Gospels!

It is preceded by the healing of the crazy demoniac and proceeded by the story of the man with leprosy, and it seems like a rather innocuous example to focus on relative to those two!

We are told that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, but there is no suggestion there that it was life-threatening. It may have been, of course, or she may have just had a slight touch of the flu!

It does make you wonder why the Gospel writer chose to include this particular incident when it does seem to detract from the action-packed nature of the adventure that’s unfolding.

Was it just that the Gospel writer and his first readers all knew Peter’s mother-in-law personally? If so, it’s a bit of a surprise that she doesn’t receive a name in the story!

Some scholars suggest that there is a movement in the story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law that is archetypal for the process of discipleship.

As you read the narrative, you do feel that movement:

• Jesus goes to her

• He takes her by the hand

• He lifts her up

• She is healed!

And it’s almost like a dance that Jesus and the woman are sharing in together, where Jesus leads the dance but where, you will notice, the woman makes the final move, for we are told that no sooner has she been healed than she begins to ‘serve’ Jesus – literally, to ‘wait on Him’ but the implication being that she has now become a disciple, and so the dance of love and healing and service will continue!

I’m sure this story has deliberately been framed to encapsulate this movement, as a sort of template for discipleship. Even so, there’s no reason the Gospel writer could not have overlaid that template on any number of other more spectacular healing stories too

My guess is that Mark deliberately included this story of the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, in all its ordinariness, simply because it is so ordinary, and hence so familiar!

We see healings like this all the time, don’t we? We are often involved in healings like this, are we not?

It may be that you, like me, have seen a handful of spectacular healings and/or exorcisms in your time, but for the most part it is these little miracles that we are familiar with, and perhaps part of the point of this passage is that little miracles are still miracles, and the fact that they are small and familiar does not mean that they are unimportant!

I think of all the little miracles I’ve been privileged to be the beneficiary of over the years – not normally directly from the hand of Jesus, but more often through the healing touch of one of Jesus’ people.

I think back to the time when I was struggling with depression, trying to survive my own family breakdown many years ago. And I remember all the little acts of healing that took place back then – the little miracle of a friend who would sit up with me and share a beer with me and let me talk until I was able to go to sleep.

We’ve been remembering the lives of dear old Margaret and Thelma today, and I remember well the small miracles that they would dispense – nothing spectacular, but a gentle word, a loving embrace – coming to me, taking me by the hand, lifting me up and giving me healing and strength. Life’s little miracles!

“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)

As I say, there is a subtle irony in this pronouncement, in part because Jesus seems to be incapable of following His own advice!

If Jesus really was psyching up the team for a more focused ministry where words came first and acts of healing second, it was a program He never carried through with. His compassion got the better of Him.

And yet there is another irony here too, and it’s found in the text of the Gospel itself!

Jesus’ priority, we are told, is preaching and teaching, and yet if you read through this extensive first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, there’s not a single word of Jesus’ teaching recorded! It actually not until we get to the latter part of Mark chapter 2 that we get any of the actual teachings of Jesus recorded!

I’m not suggesting that this makes the teachings of Jesus any less important – not at all – but I am suggesting that (at least so far as the Gospel-writer Mark was concerned) these were not the things Jesus was best remembered for!

And this is true to life!

As we are remembering today the lives of dear Thelma and Margaret, I must say that I remember them very well, but it’s not their wise words I remember, though I’m sure Thelma (in particular) had plenty for me. It was her compassionate touch, her loving looks, the affectionate kiss, the healing embrace …

St Francis of Assisi is said to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words”. I don’t know if he really said it, but it makes sense.

Of course we don’t do anybody any favours by holding back the words of the Gospel, for indeed these words can be the source of life and hope. And yet words by themselves can be very hollow.

When we die it will most likely not be our words that we are best remembered for. Most likely it will be the little miracles that we were a part of. And it may seem sometimes that our contribution is not that great (‘ah … another miracle’) and yet every miracle – great and small – is a part of that great dance that Christ is leading us in.

For Jesus is more than just a teacher, just as His teaching is more than mere words. He is “the visible image of our invisible God”, says St Paul (Colossians 1:15).

Or in the words of Charles Wesley:

Jesu, Thou art all compassion.
Pure, unbounded love Thou art.
Visit us with Thy salvation.
Enter every trembling hear!

‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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When you have been working on a brand for a long time, it can be depressing to find out that it is not having the positive effect that you just hoped. Examining the brand equity for your website could sometimes disclose that there may be virtually no distinction between promoting your company with the brand and promoting it not including. This sometimes suggests that your current brand is missing the mark, and you are just not connecting along with your customers. So as to create a better equity, and retain more clients while bringing in new traffic, you must seriously consider brand repositioning for your website.

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