John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Don’t be a moaner - heed the Sign of Jonah

Are you a Jonah moaning under a tree when others do perhaps unduly well? Especially those you thought you ought to disapprove of because you think the bible or your tradition tells you so? You know, church people are usually very proper and just, fair-minded and orderly, so God help the wretch who finds outrageous grace. Our very moral rectitude can make us cruel. It is one thing to be ‘scriptural’ in following the commandments of Moses and the ethical teachings of Paul, but let us understand the fact, patent on every page of the gospels, that Jesus was an outrageous character who took church people - who he called Pharisees - seriously only as examples of who God was not, how not to act, and of those who would not enter God’s kingdom. Clearly for Jesus God deals with us outrageously.

- from my talk today, Don’t be a moaner - heed the Sign of Jonah. With help from the late respected Robert Hamerton-Kelly.

Even now in Palestine, imagine a debt-free world

Rami Elhanan's 14-year-old daughter was killed by suicide bombers in a Jerusalem street at Yom Kippur 1983. It took him a long, long time of working through his anger to reach a point where he was able to agree to attend a meeting of The Parents Circle Families Forum, where Israeli and Palestinian bereaved parents meet together in search of understanding and reconciliation.

“I am not religious - quite the opposite, and so I am at a loss to explain the change I underwent at that moment. But one thing became as clear to me as the sun at noon: from that day on in 1998, I got a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Since that day on I have dedicated my life to one thing only: to go from ear to ear and from person to person and to shout in a loud voice, to all who are prepared to listen, and also to those whose ears are blocked: This is not our destiny! It is not a decree of fate that cannot be changed!!! Nowhere is it written that we must continue dying and sacrificing our children forever and forever in this difficult horrible holy land. We can - and once and for all must - stop this crazy vicious circle of violence, murder and retaliation, revenge and punishment. This never-ending cycle, with no purpose. With no winners and only with losers.”

- from my talk today, approaching Yom Kippur and the Balfour Declaration centenary: Even now in Palestine, imagine a debt-free world.