Luke 10. v1

‘After this the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go.’

And so throughout the history of the church people have gone out and preached the gospel of Christ. According to St Francis of Assisi the best way to preach to those outside the church is with as few words as possible. In other words it is allowing the way we live and breathe and love one another that speaks louder than anything we say.

But, isn’t there always a but, we do need to be careful in what we say and do. Our logic and understanding needs to be impeccable. For example: buses around here tend to be red, orange, blue and purple; but it doesn’t follow that all vehicles that are one of these colours is a bus. As I got off the Orange bus from Norwich on Tuesday there was a large red vehicle which wasn’t a bus but a large Royal Mail van. But on a number of occasions if you see an orange vehicle here indeed it is a bus.

In biblical terms King David wrote or inspired a number of psalms to be written. But on a number of occasions church goers have said that David wrote all the psalms.

Psalm 74. v3

‘3. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.’

This is a community prayer for help that seems to assume the destruction of Jerusalem and so may date between 587 and 520 BC around 400 years after the death of King David.

But, yet another but, the greatest problem in bringing people to Christ; are those who gossip concentrating on the negative rather than living to see the positive in people. This is often done out of ignorance and tells us more about the individual who is doing the gossiping which is driven by fear or depression. The sad fact of life is that the great work of the church can be undone in seconds by people gossiping. St Benedict called it the great destroyer of community. He did’t use the word gossiping but murmuring.

Let us strive to love one another and see those around us in a positive light and therefore we may encourage all, whether in the church or outside it, so that some may be brought to faith and those in the church may have their faith deepened.

Christ sends all of you to go out and live the gospel which is the best way of preaching Christ’s Word to all. Amen.

Andrew SSL