Trinity 17
James 3:13 – 4:3, 7, 8a – Two kinds of Wisdom
Mark 9: 33 – 37 – Who is the Greatest?
Who’s the GOAT?
That question is guaranteed to provoke endless argument, the claimed candidate being dependent on personal allegiances, age, culture and experience. The GOAT we’re talking about here though isn’t Billy, as pictured here.
It stands for Greatest Of All Time.
Although probably based on questions of sport, usually football (George Best or Colin Bell?) (No contest, IMHO), the appellation ‘GOAT’ is now applied to people in all walks of life. For me, I guess the top candidates in various other disciplines are:
Politicians: Abraham Lincoln or Nelson Mandela?
Cricketers: Don Bradman or Gary Sobers?
Guitarists: Clapton or Hendrix?
Artists: Picasso or Van Gogh?
Racing Drivers: Fangio or Senna?
Authors: Dickens, Lawrence or Joyce?
Disciples: James, John or Peter?
In truth, you’d have to question whether they were really the greatest or simply just the best known. The answer according to Jesus is actually many who we’ve never heard of, those who were happy to be servants of the smallest child despite the cost to themselves. That’s the challenge.
Whereupon, perhaps the GOAT could even be (should be?) You.
Better learn how to Bleat.
Previous Posts
Praying Together 19th February 2023
If suffering did not exist, we could never know joy. If there was no ‘evil’, we wouldn’t be able to recognise ‘good’.
Praying Together February 12th 2023
Faith means little when God’s plan is the same as our plan. Faith is everything when it isn’t. When we don’t understand, when the things of the world tempt – and often overcome – us. When disaster happens.
Praying Together February 5th 2023
Goddess or Saint? The stories are interwoven, in many cases feeding off each other. But whatever the reality, Brigid’s care for the poor is the common theme – living a life of love and service, for all creation.
Praying Together 29th January 2023
We don’t have to wait for eternity – we can be the body of Christ right here, right now. And then we can begin to take our part in the healing of the Nations.
Praying together 22nd January 2023
The annual Week of Christian Unity seeks to respond to the prayer of Jesus the night before He died, as recorded in John 17,– ‘that they may become completely one’.
Praying Together 15th January 2023
No matter who we are, however sincere our commitment, sooner or later – probably sooner – we’ll blow it. Fortunately, that’s not the end of our Christian life.
Praying Together 8th January 2023
Essentially, our Plough Service is a way in which we can say ‘Please’ – just as on Harvest Sunday, we say ‘Thank you’.
Praying Together 1st January 2023
What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?
Praying Together 25th December 2022
It only takes one candle to be lit and the darkness loses its power to frighten. That is our mission.
Praying Together 18th December 2022
In a hundred years, and for hundreds of years after that, the Nativity story will still be told, as it has been for the last two thousand.
Praying Together 11th December 2022
Few of us will be called by God to do something earth-shattering. But we will all be called to fulfil His purpose in our lives.
Praying together 4th December 2022
It’s not how we serve between Christmas and New Year that matters, it’s how we serve between New Year and Christmas.