As a teenage schoolboy I was struggling. The end of each school year faced me with a battle to get enough credits to go up to the next year-group. My Achilles\u2019 heel in particular was physics \u2013 it was my nightmare for six long years. But, and this is funny, at the same time I was devouring all the available books and magazines about science, physics included; and, actually, this interest has never ceased. The only difference between the school physics and the other one was the way it was presented; the former was unattractive and boringly academic; the latter presented even the most complicated problems in a usually simplistic but fascinating fashion. Attracted by such things, I have dug deeper to learn more and to understand better. I got interested in Scottish culture after watching a historically inaccurate but passionately made film \u2018Braveheart\u2019.<\/p>\n
Jesus seemed to understand this challenge. In the gospels we find him speaking to the crowds with comparisons, metaphors and stories that they understood and could relate to. He used images of their everyday life, problems, conflicts, anxieties, and so on. People listening to Jesus could see his teachings mirrored in their very own circumstances. It made Jesus\u2019 message attractive because it touched their lives and gave answers to their essential questions. Of course all those parables and comparisons were simplistic and lacked theological or psychological accuracy. But that wasn\u2019t the case. Their goal was to attract listeners, to kindle the flame of interest and subsequently to lead them to seeking for a deeper and better understanding.<\/p>\n
We can see this process in today\u2019s gospel. Jesus speaks about \u2018the Kingdom of God\u2019 to the crowd using two \u2018Countryfile\u2019 parables. But later on, as St Mark states, \u2018Jesus explained everything to his disciples when they were alone\u2019.<\/em> The word \u2018disciple\u2019<\/em> in modern English is almost exclusively used in a religious, Christian context; but it derives from a Latin verb \u2018discipere\u2019<\/em>, which means: \u2018to grasp intellectually, to analyse thoroughly\u2019<\/em>. So a disciple<\/em> may be defined as someone who wants to know more, to understand better, and to understand accurately. The disciples mentioned by St Mark don\u2019t necessarily have to be exclusively those people chosen previously by Jesus; quite likely they also include those intrigued by him. In St John\u2019s gospel Jesus offers such an opportunity to two disciples of St John the Baptist, following him; one of them was St Andrew.<\/p>\n Something similar should happen in our own spiritual life. We come to church and we listen to a sermon; sometimes it\u2019s good, sometimes not so\u2026 The problem with sermons is that they are addressed to many different people at the same time: young and old, men and women, employed and unemployed, happy and sad, happily married and unhappily divorced\u2026 The variety of differences in the congregation is virtually infinite. Can I solve anybody\u2019s problems with my sermons? Not a chance! But I\u2019m not here to solve your problems from the pulpit. I\u2019d count myself a successful preacher if you don\u2019t hesitate to approach me to have a personal and extensive chat about your life and problems. I\u2019m not Jesus \u2013 but I work for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a teenage schoolboy I was struggling. The end of each school year faced me with a battle to get enough credits to go up to the next year-group. My Achilles\u2019 heel in particular was physics \u2013 it was my nightmare for six long years. But, and this is funny, at the same time I was devouring all the available books and magazines about science, physics included; and, actually, this interest has never ceased. The only difference between the school physics and the other one was the way it was presented; the former was unattractive and boringly academic; the latter presented even the most complicated problems in a usually simplistic but fascinating fashion. Attracted by such things, I have dug deeper to learn more and to understand better. I got interested in Scottish culture after watching a historically inaccurate but passionately made film \u2018Braveheart\u2019. Jesus seemed to understand this challenge. In the gospels we find him speaking to the crowds with comparisons, metaphors and stories that they understood and could relate to. He used images of their everyday life, problems, conflicts, anxieties, and so on. People listening to Jesus could see his teachings mirrored in their very own circumstances. It made Jesus\u2019 message attractive because it touched their lives and gave answers to their essential questions. Of course all those parables and comparisons were simplistic and lacked theological or psychological accuracy. But that wasn\u2019t the case. Their goal was to attract listeners, to kindle the flame of interest and subsequently to lead them to seeking for a deeper and better understanding. We can see this process in today\u2019s gospel. Jesus speaks about \u2018the Kingdom of God\u2019 to the crowd using two \u2018Countryfile\u2019 parables. But later on, as St Mark states, \u2018Jesus explained everything to his disciples when they were alone\u2019. The word \u2018disciple\u2019 in modern English is almost exclusively used in a religious, Christian context; but it derives from a Latin verb \u2018discipere\u2019, which means: \u2018to grasp intellectually, to analyse thoroughly\u2019. So a disciple may be defined as someone who wants to know more, to understand better, and to understand accurately. The disciples mentioned by St Mark don\u2019t necessarily have to be exclusively those people chosen previously by Jesus; quite likely they also include those intrigued by him. In St John\u2019s gospel Jesus offers such an opportunity to two disciples of St John the Baptist, following him; one of them was St Andrew. Something similar should happen in our own spiritual life. We come to church and we listen to a sermon; sometimes it\u2019s good, sometimes not so\u2026 The problem with sermons is that they are addressed to many different people at the same time: young and old, men and women, employed and unemployed, happy and sad, happily married and unhappily divorced\u2026 The variety of differences in the congregation is virtually infinite. Can I solve anybody\u2019s problems with my sermons? Not a chance! But I\u2019m not here to solve your problems from the pulpit. I\u2019d count myself a successful preacher if you don\u2019t hesitate to approach me to have a personal and extensive chat about your life and problems. I\u2019m not Jesus \u2013 but I work for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}