Luke 10:38-end Jesus gave the wrong answer. I know that because I asked the children in an assembly last week. I had Martha peeling a potato, cutting an onion, tidying up and washing up, setting the table – and I had Mary sitting with Jesus and listening to him. And Martha became more and more angry and irritated because she was doing all the work, and Mary was doing nothing. So I asked them, ‘What should Jesus have said to Mary?’ And they said that he should have told her to help! But he gave the wrong answer. Christ in the Home of Martha and Mary, Johannes Vemeer , Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh What is going on? 1. Don’t ask Jesus to do your dirty work for you Martha says to Jesus, ‘Tell Mary to help me’ But Jesus, it seems, challenges Martha and not Mary That also happens later in Luke 12:13-15 . A man goes to Jesus and says, ‘Tell my brother to share the inheritance with me’, and Jesus replies, ‘Friend, who appointed me to be judge and arbitrator betw...
HOLIDAYS AND PILGRIMAGES Article for Burnham Market Parish Magazine. July 2025 Holmes and Watson were on holiday in North Norfolk (why not?). They were lying on the dunes looking up at the clear starry night sky. ‘What does that tell you?’, Holmes asked Watson. Watson replied: ‘It tells me that this is a wonder-filled universe. That we are so small. That surely there must be some mind behind that.’ And then he asked Holmes, ‘And what does it tell you?’. To which Holmes replied, ‘It tells me that someone has stolen our tent’. They are so annoying, those pedants who are only concerned with details and can’t see the bigger picture!! They also happen to be the ones who get things done, and who detect crime! But we need both. The pedants and the star gazers. We need to be able to see the stolen tent and the awe of a star filled night. The problem is that most of the time we are looking down, at the details, at the next thing on our to do list: organise who is going to pick up the childr...