Welcome

Welcome – but there is something very strange about this picture? (The cow’s markings are a map of the world!)

Get someone to read out the colour of the writing, not the word itself Get someone to read out the colour of the writing, not the word itself. It is much harder than you think! We are often distracted by other bits of information, other things around us.

Here is a very famous illusions – what do you see, a vase or two faces? Perhaps you can see both…

Elephant. How many legs do elephants usually have Elephant. How many legs do elephants usually have? We can be confused and see things we expect, rather than what is actually there...

Is this a duck, or is it a rabbit? Once you have seen one it is often quite difficult to see the other – to see it from someone else’s point of view…

And sometimes we see things that aren’t there – like grey blurs at the corners…

Or it is just very difficult to focus on what is in front of us… quite painful, even!

And we compare things all the time – often this is good, but sometimes this can be misleading. Which of these red lines is the longest? They are all the same!

And this frame really is square – it doesn’t wobble! No, really, it doesn’t!

Which circle in the middle is bigger? They are both the same – we are comparing them to different things and that is misleading. Even when we know, it is still difficult to believe sometimes!

And the smaller circle really is a circle. Even when we know it, it is still very difficult to believe!

Like the horizontal lines here – they really are horizontal lines!

And then, just a bit of fun – a very special ice-cream!

And holding the sun…

And painting a hand…

And a very famous drawing… all very special ways of looking at the world. We look at the world in a very special way – in God’s way. Well, we try to, at least…

Luke 18: 9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

Luke 18: 9-14 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.“ This is the word of the Lord.

The Pharisee is comparing himself to other people – from where he is standing it is like the lines that seem to be different lengths – he considers himself much taller than the tax collector So, from what we’ve seen… which red line is the longer? They are the same.

Which is the longer? They are the same. From where God is looking the Pharisee and the Tax-collector are pretty equal – neither is perfect at all.

In fact, in the Pharisee’s case, I think it is slightly different; the one that looks longest is actually the shortest! At least the tax collector knows he is not good enough! He knows he is only a line. He knows he has done wrong things, and he comes to God as he is, not pretending to be anything else.   And because he comes not pretending he is anything but who he is, he meets God in a way the first man, the man who thinks he is so tall before God, never does. And that is all we can do – come as we are to meet Jesus. Jesus doesn’t want to meet some made up ‘good’ person. The person we think we should be.

And this is where prayer pulls us up. It stops us in our tracks And this is where prayer pulls us up. It stops us in our tracks. We have to slow down and ‘give up’ our prayers.   ‘Giving up‘ our prayers sounds a lot like surrender. We ‘give them up’ to God through an act of submission so that God can at last begin to grow in us the qualities that we have needed all along – the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit; peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.