Mustard seed

[Click on the image and a great big large one will pop up in a miraculous fashion]

At the church homegroup I go to (yes, I go to a church homegroup) we read the parable of the mustard seed and some of the other pictures of the kingdom of God that Jesus talked about. Now, I don’t claim to entirely understand the parables, but it seems to me that the picture of the kingdom of God described by Jesus is like something that grows organically and in subtle ways, not by force or making demands or by insisting on our rights.

I think that in the UK the Church / Christianity is in danger of being seen as an entity / religion that is continually standing up for its rights and making demands. I think, for example, that the British Airways cross incident made us look particularly bad despite the fact we ‘won’.

That said, standing up for the rights of the oppressed is something we should indeed be doing.

The current ‘gay adoption’ issue is a difficult one I have to say. For those on the conservative side of things standing up for the right to hold their belief is the obvious thing to do. But even for those with more liberal views it is not straightforward – I think for instance that Kim on theconnexion.net states things well in this comment.

Personally I hope some sort of compromise can be reached. Perhaps this one being discussed on William Crawley’s Will and Testament blog. There is of course a lot more being written about this everywhere – Thinking Anglicans has some links.

This is the code to republish this cartoon on your blog. It’ll just be the small version, not the miraculous popping up version. I can provide cartoons, but miraculous popping up I cannot provide.

<img src="http://www.weblogcartoons.com/cb/mustard-seed.gif" alt="cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com" />
<p>Cartoon by <a href="http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/">Dave Walker</a>. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at <a href="http://www.weblogcartoons.com/">We Blog Cartoons</a>.</p>


Have a good weekend everyone. If you’re in Manchester why not go along to this Johnny Cash service.