Okri says in that same essay that "stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals or nations live by andtell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations." What stories do we tell our children and is that why are nation is the state it is in. Do we tell our children stories of hope and mutual understanding or do we tell them stories of fear and division and hatred and fighting for the cause? The Christian Gospel is a story of hope of love of transformation. Perhaps even in it's telling we have let our children down. We make it our sides story when the Gospel is not a story of pride or rights or one nation lording it over another. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Jesus brings a new Kingdom where there is neither greek nor jew, slave nor free, protestant or catholic, British or Irish. The Christian story is not just some fable or myth. It is rooted in factual story of Jesus Christ, The Lamb Of God who takes away the sin of the world. In the story of the cross of Christ we have the power for change, the past is dealt with repentence of our history and forgiveness of our sin and our peoples sins is made possible and the story of the resurrection is about hope for a new day, a new life, transformed by the reality of the story to give us as individuals and nations a second opportunity. What stories will we tell today? That will determine how we live and where our province goes in the days and months and years ahead. "Change the stories individuals or nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations." Again Okri says, "Stories can be either bacteria or light: they can infect a system or illuminate a world." Please God we tell the right story - His story. Only then will we be the wise building our houses on rock. Suddenly you realise again that to follow Jesus is not about what people say if you do certain things it is about doing those things becasue Jesus says Follow me. BOUNDARIES (7 v 1-10) Jesus was not so much someone who crossed human boundaries as one who destroyed them. We can think of John 4 where Jesus meets the woman at the Well. In that one instance he braeks the boundaries of gender, race, politics and religion. We can think of his story of the good Samaritan where when asked who is our neighbour he picks the nearest and dearest enemy of the Jews as neighbour and of course at other times tells to love our enemies too. If the Samaritan is out neighbour and we are to love our enemies... In this passgae we see Jesus in an encounter with a Roman. What he claims to find in their meeting is more fairth than he can find in the whole of Israel. Now the Jews were proud to be God's people, they were the custodians and the only custodians of the faith. They were doctrinally and liturgically and spiritually correct. Within their formula diod you connect with the one true God and their is no way that gentiles and especially Romans had any handle on it. Jesus sees past the confines of theological correctness to find faith in this man who had probably little understanding of the faith he was excercising. We do not neeed theological degrees to have faith. So often I find myself limiting the places that I might find faith. Protestantism, my denomination, my particular theological club within that again. Sometimes I find myself so arrogant as to think that really only I know it all and have "real" faith. I often have to judge my own prejudice and bigotry, my own limiting of God to whom I tell him he should find faith in. I wonder how many times God looks down and says, "I have not found such great faith even in Protestantism". God forgive me for my arrogance and help me to cross boundaries in the name of your Kingdom. i hope john doesnot go to confess to lord after going to sajha everytime for his mind being tempted by evil sajah as he thinks.........