There’s no doubt about it, men and women are different! For example, consider for a moment friendship among women. A woman didn’t come home one night. The next morning she told her husband that she had slept over at a friend’s house. The man called his wife’s 10 best friends. None of them knew anything about it...Consider friendship among men: A man didn’t come home one night. The next morning he told his wife that he had slept over at a friend’s house. The woman called her husband’s 10 best friends. Eight confirmed he had slept over, and two said he was still there!

Even our old friend Ian Paisley, said last Friday evening on the evening news bulletin on BBC (while I was waiting for the Rugby Report to come on) “Yes, I have been married for a long time...and the secret is to do what she tells you!”

You could hardly expect me not to mention relationships on this Valentine’s Day! Relationships are a fundamental part of our existence; whether it be between friends or lovers or whatever. Our relationship with God is also a fundamental part of existence; we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.

Whatever about our earthly relationships, at home or at work, how is your relationship with God? You know, I think our relationship with God works along exactly the same lines as our relationships with each other;

sometimes good, and sometimes maybe not so good. It’s a natural part of being human. As there may be occasions when we don’t feel like talking to each other, so there has to be times when we don’t feel like talking to God either.

The title of this morning’s reading from Luke is “Blessings and Woes” – the story of my life, just like most of us! It’s Luke’s version of Matthew’s recounting of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, or at least they closely correspond. Jesus, as you know, had a lot to say about our relationship with God; that was his mission!

However, his preaching about the relationships between human beings largely followed, as far as we can tell, the traditional Jewish tradition. What Jesus preached was the Old Testament or, as he would have known it, the Hebrew Scriptures. What fascinates me is when the preacher became the preached. In his ministry, Jesus preached the Hebrew Scriptures; but after his life and death and resurrection, the person who was the preacher became the subject of the preaching. And that is because of who we believe the person of Jesus to be, none other than God himself. That is why the preacher became the preached – his references to human relationships are always in the context of God’s relationship to us

His ‘Blessings and Woes’ follow these lines exactly. Who and what we are as humans have a direct link with who and what is the nature of God.

Just a verse later than our reading he says, ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you...Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.’ Just as your Father is merciful...

If we are truly made in God’s image, do you not think he understands our relationship with him; that sometimes it may be “Blessings” and sometimes it may be “Woes”?

It’s how every relationship I know exists, so why can’t it be the same with our relationship with God?

If our heavenly Father understands anything, it is that sometimes we are lovey-dovey and sometimes we are not – that is the way he made us. Sometimes everything is rosy with our relationships with each other and with our God, and sometimes it’s not. If that is the way we are made, is it really our fault when things are not just quite right?

Is it really all our fault?

When two people go to a counsellor and they are both shouting at each other, it’s all his fault, it’s all her fault or whatever, it’s appalling, and they come back time after time. But if a couple come in to a counsellor and one partner says, it’s all my fault, “It’s all my fault”, the counsellor has learned that they never come back a second time. When one person is prepared to take all the blame, there is reconciliation.

We’re just about to enter one of the most serious times of the Church’s year, the period of Lent that leads up to Good Friday and the glorious Easter Day.

And when Jesus was on the cross, that is exactly what he was saying, “It’s all my fault”. He was taking on to himself the guilt and sin of us all; it’s all my fault! In our faltering relationship, He is prepared to take all the blame.

Perhaps we have said that before, but it’s important to know that that is the point of Good Friday.

You know the story of the Verger who was seen by the Vicar with a huge bunch of flowers under his arm, and the Vicar asked, ‘What are you doing with that huge bunch of flowers?’ And the Verger relied, ‘I’m going home to propitiate the wife’!

I know, on Valentine’s Day, your minds might be working overtime, but the truth is that that is exactly what happened on Good Friday. At every early Communion we quote the verse from 1 John 2, “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins”. As the Verger of the Church was trying to make good a wrong-doing he had committed against his wife with a bunch of flowers; so was Jesus making good a wrong-doing we had committed on the Cross by himself and for all time. It’s all pretty mind-blowing, isn’t it?

He understands all these relationships far better than we think. It’s a roller-coaster, it has its ups and downs; it’s only natural. But I just often think we are too hard on ourselves and we carry around with us guilt that we needn’t carry around! It’s up to Him to sort us out! Just let him.

As we approach Lent, I think we need to realise just how much He is prepared to forgive and to forget; just like we should be in all good relationships!