Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Peter Thiel, Bezos are convinced that 'death is a problem that can be solved' and are investing millions into experimental age-reversing technology. Meanwhile the rest of us seek immortality by slapping on Wrinkle Repair Regenerating Cream, overworking to leave our peers and children with something memorable to put on our gravestone. We have traditionally mastered relationships through enforcing patriarchy; we have tried mastering the earth through industrialisation and technology, achieving lives of ease and luxury in the wealthier parts of the world but at the expense of a scorched dead earth, overheating seas and increasing numbers of climate refugees.

It's not that we shouldn't try to master our lives; it's just that we need to find the right way to go about it. A closer reading of Genesis' creation passages, and Jesus' teaching on relationships, suggests that the mystery of mastery is that it is achieved through humility.

A talk for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, 3 October 2021.

Find the text to this and all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.