Morning prayer is at 8.30 in each of the 3 churches of our team in turn. It is open to all but frankly it is usually just myself and my Curate, Laura. We don't get to read our favourite 'nice' bits of the Bible but faithfully use the lectionary for our OT and NT readings. So the other morning we were confronted with the grizzly spectacle of "vomit covered altars and no spot without filthiness." (Isaiah 28) Not the most inspiring picture first thing on a morning when you have just had your breakfast!
There are as many hearting sinking as heart lifting bits in the Bible but it is all Bible! Some times it is more brutal truth than blessed truth. When I was a prison chaplain I was often asked for a Bible by prisoners. I usually encouraged them to begin with the Gospel of John but some insisted on starting with the Old Testament. One shocked criminal said to me, "It's very violent this Bible! I didn't know God was so bloody vengeful and vicious." I felt a slight fit of pique that a violent robber serving 6 years should offer a moral judgement on the character of God!
Scripture is difficult. Exclusive devotion to sugar coated verses is not honest. A more questioning theology may lead to vulnerablity but it has a ring of reality. God is in the reality not the sentimentality.
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