News
Hospitality, service, welcome is at the heart of our faith. Throughout scripture, those who fail to offer hospitality (the inhabitants of Sodom and Gommorah, the Pharisees, the elder brother of the prodigal son) are criticised whereas those who offer hospitality without hesitation or discrimination, as Abraham does in Genesis 18:1-10a, are blessed.
Why then, in Luke 10:38-42, is Martha, who opens her home to Jesus, criticised? Why is Mary, the sister who sat and listened whilst her sister did all the work, praised as choosing the better part?
Jesus does not criticise Martha for serving, he criticises her for attempting to limit her sister’s choices.
All human beings are dependent on the services of others. We are part of a web of interdependence. Many of those on whose services our lives depend: from farmers to ambulance drivers to bin collectors (like the slaves who prepare Abraham’s feast) have little choice. Perhaps we are called not only to serve as Martha did, but to reflect on Christ’s words as carefully as Mary did; and consider how we may change our choices so that they do not prevent others from being able to choose for themselves.
This is the point that the scholar in Luke 10:25-37 is missing. He regards the law as something to perform, something that defines others. He asks Jesus to define his neighbour, to categorise those to whom he owes an obligation. When Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan, he does more than widen the class of those who fall within the scope of the law, he asks instead who has the law within their hearts: who was a neighbour to the one in need. The story is not about who is the object of our care but who is the one who cares for us. Being a neighbour is our deepest identity: we act from love because it is who we are, who God called us to be. Choosing love, is choosing life, not just for the one who receives love but for the one who gives it. When we go and do likewise we too choose life and blessing.
Before they enter the promised land, Moses urges God’s people to keep the law (Deuteronomy 30:9-14). The blessings that Moses promises they will receive are not a reward for keeping the law, rather the law itself is the blessing. Following it is not a burden because it is what allows us to flourish, to “choose life”. It is rooted not in stone or ordinance but within us, on our lips and in our hearts. It forms our very identity as children of God.
This is the point that the scholar in Luke 10:25-37 is missing. He regards the law as something to perform, something that defines others. He asks Jesus to define his neighbour, to categorise those to whom he owes an obligation. When Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan, he does more than widen the class of those who fall within the scope of the law, he asks instead who has the law within their hearts: who was a neighbour to the one in need. The story is not about who is the object of our care but who is the one who cares for us. Being a neighbour is our deepest identity: we act from love because it is who we are, who God called us to be. Choosing love, is choosing life, not just for the one who receives love but for the one who gives it. When we go and do likewise we too choose life and blessing.
“All the gospels tell the story of Jesus sending the 12 disciples to spread the news of God’s kingdom but only Luke’s gospel, 10:11-20, also speaks of the sending out of 70.
Twelve is a magic number in Scripture, the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 disciples, it symbolises the people of God, the Hebrew nation. Seventy is also a special number, it symbolised all the nations of the earth (see Genesis 10). For Luke, the kingdom of God was not just for the special few but for all people.
Jesus sends the 70 out with nothing, no bag, no purse, no sandals. They will need to depend on the hospitality of those they are sent to, all they offer in return is God’s peace. They are warned that they may face rejection and danger, they are sent as “lambs into the midst of wolves”, yet they return rejoicing at everything they have achieved. Jesus reminds them that they should rejoice only in being part of God’s family, the deeds they have done are the result of God at work within them. Their job is to show up just as they are, weak and vulnerable, with nothing to offer except for what God is offering through them.
This morning, we are baptising two children: one is 8 years old and the other just a baby. Baptising children reminds us that we come to God with nothing, we come just as we are, we do not do anything to earn God’s grace, it is a gift that we can receive or reject.
It is hard for us adults to be vulnerable, we prefer to rely on our own strength and resources, but God doesn’t need these. Sure, God will use whatever we’ve got but our accomplishments and cleverness can so easily get in the way of God’s work. God can use our weaknesses so much more than our strengths. It is for us to decide whether we want to cling onto all that we are so proud of, or to trust God’s power to accomplish what we cannot.
All the gospels tell the story of Jesus sending the 12 disciples to spread the news of God’s kingdom but only Luke’s gospel, 10:11-20, also speaks of the sending out of 70.
Twelve is a magic number in Scripture, the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 disciples, it symbolises the people of God, the Hebrew nation. Seventy is also a special number, it symbolised all the nations of the earth (see Genesis 10). For Luke, the kingdom of God was not just for the special few but for all people.
Jesus sends the 70 out with nothing, no bag, no purse, no sandals. They will need to depend on the hospitality of those they are sent to, all they offer in return is God’s peace. They are warned that they may face rejection and danger, they are sent as “lambs into the midst of wolves”, yet they return rejoicing at everything they have achieved. Jesus reminds them that they should rejoice only in being part of God’s family, the deeds they have done are the result of God at work within them. Their job is to show up just as they are, weak and vulnerable, with nothing to offer except for what God is offering through them.
This morning, we are baptising two children: one is 8 years old and the other just a baby. Baptising children reminds us that we come to God with nothing, we come just as we are, we do not do anything to earn God’s grace, it is a gift that we can receive or reject.
It is hard for us adults to be vulnerable, we prefer to rely on our own strength and resources, but God doesn’t need these. Sure, God will use whatever we’ve got but our accomplishments and cleverness can so easily get in the way of God’s work. God can use our weaknesses so much more than our strengths. It is for us to decide whether we want to cling onto all that we are so proud of, or to trust God’s power to accomplish what we cannot.
The story of Jesus’ encounter with the demoniac in Luke 8:26-39 could be read as just another miraculous healing. A man is set free from all that has imprisoned him: physically, socially and psychologically.
But healing miracles are never just about the person being healed they are metaphors for some larger social ill in need of healing.
The miracle takes place in Gerasa, the site of a massacre of Hebrews resisting Roman rule. The demon calls itself Legion, the term for a garrison of 5-6,000 occupying forces. Even the pigs echo the symbol of the infamous 10th fretensis legion. All of these references would be familiar to those who witnessed the healing.
Isaiah 65:1-9, reminds us that Jesus is entering a dangerous and prohibited place, that dealing with swine and entering tombs is forbidden. The story assures us that there is no human condition so abject and abominable that God cannot enter, bringing healing and redemption.
But just as the people of God in Isaiah have rejected God’s “outstretched hands” and turned instead to other powers, so the crowd in Luke reject Jesus. They are “seized with fear”. They understand that Jesus’s actions are about more than the healing of one the man; they are a challenge to all the forces that constrain and exclude God’s children.
They are a challenge to us too: can we see what binds us? do we believe that God’s power is greater than the forces at work in oppression and injustice? do we have the courage to challenge them? do we want ourselves, and all God’s, children to be free?
At the end of Acts chapter 15 Paul decides to visit his fellow Christians in places he knew but he is prevented from doing so. Instead, in Acts 16:9-15, he is sent somewhere new. He believes that he is going to the men in Macedonia but it is the women who respond to his preaching. The work of God leads him to unexpected people in unexpected places, the outcomes are equally uncertain, some positive some not so and he will not always be able to see his efforts bearing fruit.
This morning, in John 5:1-9, Jesus’ efforts also have mixed results when he heals a paralysed man in Bethsaida. The man offers no thanks and shows not signs of faith. He will go on to blame Jesus when he is reprimanded by the religious authorities. The man’s paralysis is more than physical. His situation has left him apathetic and despairing. When asked if he wants to be made well, he blames others for his condition. He took no responsibility before he could walk and he continues to take none once healed. We too are often paralysed. We are not confident that our actions can make a difference. Perhaps we are afraid that we may be rejected or that our efforts will fail, that embracing healing and wholeness will also involve embracing change and uncertainty. But, despite our reticence, our recklessly generous God continues to ask us “do you want to made well?”
In our gospel this morning, John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15, Jesus promises his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the spirit of truth which will teach us and guide us. But, more than this, the spirit is sent to renew the world. In Acts 2:1-21, the Spirit moves through the house just as it moved across the waters of chaos in the beginning and fills the disciples just as it was breathed into humanity in the creation story. Pentecost is a new beginning, a re-creation in which God choses us to be the ones in whom the spirit acts and gives us the task of carrying the Spirit of God out across the world. Peter recalls the words of the prophet Joel, promising the gift of renewal and life to all without distinction, regardless of class, gender, race, religion. In today’s service, as we each take a flame from the Easter candle, we remember that God offers this gift of light, love and life to every one of us, without exception, in order that we too may offer it to others, without exception.
“The Feast of the Ascension was on Thursday (40 days after the Resurrection). If we lived in continental Europe we would have had the day off work to celebrate but as we didn’t we are marking it today. The Ascension is not recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels but Luke gives us two versions: with one (the one we hear this morning, Luke 24:44-53) Luke brings his gospel to an end and with the other he opens the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The Ascension is a moment for the followers of Jesus to look back at his ministry, death and resurrection and begin to make sense of all they have learnt and experienced as Jesus “opens their minds to understand”. In order that, when they receive “power from on high” they will be able to continue Christ’s work in the world. The Ascension is the bridge between Christ’s ministry in Jesus of Nazareth and Christ’s ministry in the church on earth, in you and me. It leaves a Jesus shaped hole in the world into which we are sent to bring good news, healing, justice, forgiveness reconciliation and well-being. We worry, of course, that we are not up to the task and we are not. But in this short passage we are told that we will be given all that we need for this ministry: we will be given one another; we will be given the strength and wisdom of God’s spirit; and, perhaps most importantly, we will be given repentance and the forgiveness of sins because we will get it wrong until we get it right. In the account given in Acts we are also given some helpful angelic messengers who ask us “why are you standing still looking up into heaven?” In other words, the world has need of you, go on, get on with it!