Look what arrived in the post yesterday.
There is always a nagging doubt no matter how many times you check the confirmation email that you don't really have a place in the London marathon after all.
But once this magazine arrives, with the registration form, which has your race number printed on it, it suddenly seems that bit more real. Your name and address are definitely on the database. You definitely have a place on the start line. You're not going to have to look for an alternative marathon when it turns out that there has been a mix up with your charity place and it turns out you don't have a place!
So I'm definitely running - but within minutes of finding this on my doorstep I had aches in my back, and both legs. It's amazing what tricks the mind can play.
Oh - and by the way - it's literally just started snowing again. This is supposed to be a spring marathon.
As many of you will be aware, each Thursday I am posting a short video from Christian Aid to show different aspects of their work. Over the last few weeks we've been looking at more long term projects that allow people to work their way out of poverty - hopefully for good. But there are times when Christian Aid is called on to provide emergency relief - in this example, as the response to severe drought.
On 21 April I will be running the London Marathon with the aim of raising £2000 for Christian Aid. You can help by sponsoring me at www.virginmoneygiving.com/keithtarring
Yesterday we looked at the parable of the sower from Mark 4. I said that a parable is a story with a point. But I don't necessarily mean that a parable is a story with just one point. If a parable was a story with just one point then it would have been easier and quicker just to write a list of points - Mark could have simply used a load of bullet points, one for each parable - and then his gospel would have been even shorter. It would also be the case that once you'd worked out the point you would never have to read the parable again. But the Bible is living and active - and this means that it will speak to us today.
What the parable of the sower says to us depends on the perspective or focus we take on the story.
If we look at the sower the point might be that we are to sow the seed liberally - we don't know the kinds of soil the seed is falling on. The job of the sower is to sow the seed with apparently little concern as to whether that seed will grow or not.
But we might ask, from our own experience of gardening, whether it would not be more sensible for the farmer to do all he can to improve the quality of the soil - to take out the weeds before they go to seed, to dig up the rocks, to break up the path, to add fertiliser, to put up a scarecrow to keep the birds away...
Jesus tells us that the parable is about how people receive and respond to the word.
So whilst some hearts will be hard, or stony or full of weeds - surely there are things that we can do that will prepare people to hear from God. People who have had a bad experience of church or a bad experience of Christians are less likely to respond well to the gospel than the person who has been helped through a crisis by a Christian friend who has shown genuine compassion and care.
Sometimes our behaviour might actually be stamping down the soil, spreading weeds, or adding rocks on the fields of people's lives - actions that make it less likely that they will respond positively to the gospel in the future.
It seems a long time ago that I wrote anything here that linked in with our Sunday morning series looking at Mark's gospel.
In Mark 4:1-20 Jesus tells his disciples a parable about a farmer who sows seed in his field. Some of the seed lands on the path, or among the rocks or in the middle of the weeds - and none of this seed produces a crop. But the seed that lands on the good soil produces a great harvest.
A parable is a story with a point - but quite often the point is not obvious - which in a sense is the point of the point! In this chapter Jesus tells his disciples that the reason he uses parables is so that although people hear and see what Jesus is saying and doing they won't understand or respond. Which seems a bit harsh.
But this is one of the things that separates 'the disciples' from 'the crowd'. The crowd are a bunch of spectators who like what hear and see but who don't really want to think about it too much and who certainly don't want these things to have an impact on the way they live their lives.
The disciples on the other hand know that a parable is a story with a point - and that it is a good idea to know what that point is, and to then apply it to your own life, and then to be obedient. It's just that they don't always understand the point. So they ask Jesus to explain it.
When a disciple reads the Bible, or one of the parables, we read it from a perspective of this is the word of God, therefore I believe that it will apply to my life - and through prayer, we ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand and apply the word of God. We also realise that the best course of action is to obey God in everything we do. But this process of reading, understanding, applying and obeying is not quick or easy. It takes time. It takes effort. It can be costly and painful. But that's the difference between the crowd and a disciple. The crowd enjoy the story. The disciple wrestles with it until she or he hears from God.
