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On Remembrance Sunday, when we honour and mourn all those who have lost their lives in war, our readings seem to offer comfort: hope of the resurrection of the dead. Both readings speak of a future time when those, like Job, who seek justice will be vindicated and when those who have died will live again as “children of the resurrection.” Yet to focus on life after death may prevent us from engaging in the hard work of justice and peace in this life. Our readings, however, offer another common theme: the perils of needing to be proved right. Job wishes to prove that he does not deserve to suffer. In Job 19:23-27, he wants his words to be remembered because he wants to prove that he is in the right and God is in the wrong. As a result he is stuck. He cannot move forward into new life. The Sadducees in Luke 20:27-38, are also seeking to prove that they are right and Jesus is wrong. They too are stuck, unable to grasp the possibilities of a new and different way of living. Throughout history and across the globe we see how the desire to be proved right at any cost prolongs conflict and inflicts death and destruction on God’s people. Both Job and Luke ask us to embrace life, to prioritise all that is life affirming and life giving, over the rights and wrongs of any position. This is does not mean that we abandon justice but that we see that justice can only ever be achieved when the sanctity of life is honoured. Job pleads for God to be seen on his side but God never chooses sides. God chooses life.
We all admire the saints but do we want to be one? No one would seek to be poor, hungry, excluded, suffering or overlooked, those named blessed by Jesus in Luke 6:20-31. Neither do we really want to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. In the beatitudes Jesus separates success from virtue. The poor are no longer blamed or shamed for their predicament. More than this, for Jesus, blessing is something transformational: the hungry will be blessed “for they will be filled” and those who weep “for they will laugh”.
The work of transformation is not for a few saintly individuals, it is the task of the whole people of God, the task of all the saints including us. In baptism we become part of a company of saints that reaches across the globe and throughout history. We belong a great cloud of witnesses in whose lives, both ordinary and extraordinary, God is work. On the feast of All Saints we are reminded, again, of who we are and to whom we belong. We are reminded, again, of the task we have received, the task of loving, praying, offering, giving and not withholding, the task of transforming the world so that all God’s children may be blessed.
Sunday 2nd November 6:30pm.
The service provides a time and place for quiet prayer and reflection, so that we can remember before God all those we have loved who have died.
There is a list at the back of church for you to add the names of the loved ones you would like to be remembered.
For many of us God is an emergency service that we only contact when we are in dire need. This is true for the people in Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22. The land is suffering from severe drought and famine. Earlier in Jeremiah the well-off and the comfortable are criticised for carrying on without a thought for the impact of their actions on the poor but in this reading all the people are united in their suffering. Finally, they understand that they are ALL dependent on God, that they cannot be saved by their own efforts.
It is this acknowledgment of need and dependency that Jesus praises in the tax-collector in Luke 18:9-14. He knows that he is a sinner, he knows that he cannot remove his faults and weaknesses on his own. The pharisee, in contrast, is criticised. The pharisee is not a bad man. By most people’s standards he is a far better man than the tax-collector. He is giving away a tenth of his income in charity whereas the tax-collector was fleecing people for his own profit. Why, then, does God not justify him? It is not because his sins are worse than the tax-collector’s nor is it because God is any less ready to forgive his sins, it is because he doesn’t think he needs it. He thinks that his own actions have already justified him. God is ready to justify him – he is just not ready to ask or to receive.
The pharisee’s belief that his own actions make him perfect separates him from others, he judges them for not achieving what he has achieved. In just the same way, the well-off in Jeremiah had previously separated themselves from the less fortunate. If we have all, in St Paul’s words, fallen short of the glory of God, there is really no point trying to prove that some have fallen shorter than others. Religion is not a self-improvement programme. It is a relationship with God that draws into a relationship with others. We are all united in our radical dependency on God. The tax-collector comes to God pleading for help because he knows that he cannot save himself. In the words of Pope Francis, “blessing does not require moral perfection to be received”, it is given “to those who ask for he
We all long for a world of justice and peace but, as our readings reveal this morning, such a world does not come on its own. In Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob is stuck. He has taken his brother Esau’s birthright and fled but now he cannot move forward with his life until he faces what he has done and seeks forgiveness. First he faces a struggle. A struggle which leaves him both wounded but also blessed. Today, on Racial Justice Sunday, we acknowledge that we, like Jacob, often feel paralysed, overwhelmed by the many injustices in our world, unsure how to take meaningful action. We need to be reminded that such struggles bring their own blessing and by them we are transformed. The widow in Luke 18:1-8 is also struggling to find justice but refuses to give up her struggle even when justice seems an impossibility. Today we are grateful to Abigail Oyedele who is joining us from Citizens UK to encourage us with us examples of how people in our local community have transformed situations by their actions so that we too will not give up trusting that “the arc of history is long but it tends towards justice.”
This Autumn, the Church of England is celebrating
THE SEASON OF GENEROSITY.
A time set aside to give thanks for God’s gifts; to reflect on what it means to live with gratitude for all that we have and all that we are; and to commit ourselves to living generously.
At Holy Spirit we are dedicating three Sundays (from Sunday 28th September to Sunday 12th October) to the themes of this season: Generosity, Giving and Gratitude.
This week our final Week Three, 12th October, when we receive five of our young people into Communion, our theme will be GRATITUDE and how it shapes our lives and transforms our understanding of who we are.
Today, as our children receive their first communion, our focus is on gratitude. When Jesus heals ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19, only one gives thanks. The word used is the same word Jesus uses when he takes bread and wine at the Last Supper. It is the word from which the term Eucharist derives. God invites all of us to the table, each one of us has a place. Yet to take our place we must stand shoulder to shoulder with all those whom God invites. This is something which Naaman, in 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15, finds difficult. He is offended that a man of his wealth and status has been invited to take his place among the general public who come to wash in the Jordan River. His sense of entitlement very nearly prevents him from receiving the gift God is offering, it seems too humble, too ordinary to be of value. All of us come to God’s table in need, all of us are hungry for what God has to offer but often our egos and our own sense of what we deserve prevents us from receiving God’s abundant grace. When we stand shoulder to shoulder with our children around the Lord’s Table, we acknowledge that none of us are more worthy than anyone else, that all we have is a result, not of our efforts, but of God’s generosity and mercy. Knowing this, we can be truly grateful that we too are included in God’s grace and that we are privileged to invite others to join us at the Lord’s table.
This Autumn, the Church of England is celebrating
THE SEASON OF GENEROSITY.
A time set aside to give thanks for God’s gifts; to reflect on what it means to live with gratitude for all that we have and all that we are; and to commit ourselves to living generously.
At Holy Spirit we are dedicating three Sundays (from Sunday 28th September to Sunday 12th October) to the themes of this season: Generosity, Giving and Gratitude.
Week One, 28th September, focuses on GENEROSITY, what it means to be a people created and sustained by God’s generosity and how we might live generously in response.
Week Two, 5th October, celebrates GIVING as we hold our annual HARVEST THANKSGIVING and bring donations to support the work of the Ace of Clubs day centre and the Food Bank. In this week we reflect on how giving transforms the lives of those who give and those who receive.
Week Three, 12th October, when we receive five of our young people into Communion, our theme will be GRATITUDE and how it shapes our lives and transforms our understanding of who we are.
The story of the first ever Harvest Festival is told in Deuteronomy 26:1-11. The very first thing that the people are to do when they enter the land is to take the first fruits and share them. They are to offer them to God in recognition that all things come from God but they are also to celebrate God’s gifts by inviting all who live in the land, friend and stranger, foreigner and neighbour. Furthermore, they are also to remember that they too have been strangers, foreigners, enslaved, poor, they are to acknowledge our shared humanity, our shared need for God and one another.
This the gift that Jesus offers in John 6:25-35 when he declares that he is “the bread of life”. He has just fed 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes and yet the crowds do not understand: “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” The bread was the sign, what it was pointing towards was community: the building of trust, the commitment to common well-being, the desire to share.
We are a people called to be in communion, with God, with creation and with one another. We share one bread and one cup as a symbol of our union. Just like the Israelites in the promised land we too are called to offer our first fruits, to give of what we have and of ourselves. Giving is life-affirming and life-giving not just for those who receive but also for those who give. We are a harvest made to share.
During this season - and to coincide with the national church’s Generosity Week - we celebrate God’s generosity and reflect on how we respond to the divine gifts upon which we depend for all that we are and all that we have.