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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.
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 money is a distraction. This week is Generosity Week and, in both of our readings, the rich come to a bad end: In Amos 6:1a, 4-7 the prophet warns that those who “lie on beds of ivory … eat lambs from the flock … drink wine and anoint themselves with the finest oils” will be “the first to go into exile” and in Luke 16:19-31, the rich man who in his lifetime received good things ends up being tormented in Hades. But it’s not the money that is the problem it is what we do with it and what it does to us. In both readings the rich have two problems, they have distanced themselves from God and from neighbour. High on mount Samaria the rich “are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph” because they believe themselves to be secure, to be set apart. The rich man in the parable lives safe behind his gates and does not even notice Lazarus’ suffering.
Living generously begins not with our money it begins with our hearts. Hearts that are radically open towards both God and neighbour. As we gather around God’s table, we see that we are in need of both God and one another. When we acknowledge that we depend upon God for all that we are and all that we have, life becomes a gift to share.
I doubt that anyone would choose Jesus to be minister of finance: Last week he commends the actions of the shepherd who abandons 99 of sheep to look for one that’s lost. This week, in Luke 16:1-13, he commends a dishonest land manager who squanders his master’s wealth.
At the heart of these parables is a call to prioritise the relational above the transactional. Like the first reading, Amos 8:4-7, they are a plea for solidarity and unity which stems from an understanding of the deep interconnectedness of all life.
Both Luke and Amos were written in the context of great economic inequality in which poor tenant farmers often ended up enslaved as bonded labourers who could, in the words of Amos, be bought for the price of “a pair of sandals”.
Despite his dubious motives, the manager in the parable releases people from their debt and so sets them free. At the start of the parable, he is solidarity with the rich landowner, he too desires to increase his own position at the expense of others. It is only when he experiences insecurity that he can begin to empathise with the experience of the vulnerable and stand in solidarity with them.
Both Amos and Jesus invite us to embrace a life that is relational: to acknowledge that all that we are and all that we have come from God and that we flourish when our lives are used for the well-being and building up of all of God’s creation. In the words of Desmond Tutu, it is “in seeing the many ways in which we are similar and how our lives are inextricably linked, we can find empathy and compassion… ultimately, it is the humble awareness of our own humanity that allows us to give and to forgive.”
The story of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-10, reassures us that, whatever wrong turns we take, we still belong to God. But it also tells us that if we belong to God, we also belong to each other. The one and the ninety-nine need to be reunited. Jesus addresses this story, not to the one lost sheep, but to the “99 righteous persons”, who have neglected to search for the missing one and are incomplete without it.
The story of God’s people wandering in the wilderness in Exodus 32:7-14 reverses the situation: here it is not one sheep who has wandered off but the whole people of God who have “turned aside” and followed their own path.
Moses is the one remaining. He is offered the chance to become a great nation but he refuses the blessing unless it is shared with all God’s people. He reminds God that, for better and for worse, they all belong to God, all heirs to God’s promise.
Would it have been easier for Moses to abandon his people to their fate? hell yes! God’s people are not always easy to live with. But faith is not given to us as individuals, it is given to us as a community. A relationship with God is always also a relationship with all God’s people. The one cannot be saved without the many, the many cannot be saved without the one. Just as we all need God, we all need each other. God’s promises can only be enjoyed when all share in them.
Follow me and have blessings, long life and prosperity or don’t and have curses and death. The choice offered in Deuteronomy 30:15-20 is a no-brainer. We all want blessings and life not curses and death. But in Luke 14:25-33 the choice seems to be follow me and give up all those blessings: family, possessions, even life.
Does choosing God means choosing life or does choosing God mean giving away our life? It means both.
Luke’s gospel is addressed to a community which is fragmenting under threat: families, congregations and communities were closing ranks. This is a common human reaction to perceived danger or scarcity: we protect our own and what is ours. We see this happening across the world from Trump raising tariff barriers to Reform targeting asylum hotels.
When God promised the people of Israel life and blessing in Deuteronomy it was a communal blessing: for all people to share the land and the blessing it offered. Jesus is not opposing this promise; he is re-offering it to us: the blessing is for the many not the few. Jesus is reminding us that all that all that we are and all that we have comes from God, it does not belong to us. Our lives are not about us they are given by God to be used for the well-being of all.
The choice we are offered is to let go of our small lives and become part of the expansive life-giving mission of God. To choose to practise justice, honour creation, protect the vulnerable allows our lives overflow and bring life to the world around us. Then we will be blessed by being the blessing.
This morning’s gospel, Luke 14:1, 7-14, starts out looking like the kind of etiquette lesson we find in Proverbs and Wisdom: it is bad manners to seat yourself at the head of table. Instead, we should “know our place”. Then Jesus takes it further: we should not only know our place but also the place of others, “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”
If we do, Jesus tells us, we will “be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous”. But what exactly does this mean? Does it mean that we still expect a reward for our generosity only from God rather than our peers?
Yes and no. Jesus is not suggesting that any of us, rich or poor, have anything to offer God. He acknowledges that in the world’s economy some of us are valued more than others but not in God’s economy. We are all equally in need of God. If, instead, we believe that we have more to give and less to receive we will separate ourselves from others and from God. In the words of Ecclesiasticus 10:12-18 “the beginning of pride is to forsake the Lord, the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.”
If we think that we are the ones with all the gifts we will miss the chance to let others give us the gifts God is offering through them: we are not the hosts in God’s economy we are the guests and, if we let them, our fellow guests will teach us, heal us, love us, and remind us that we are all equally in need of God’s grace.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. In Isaiah 58:9-14 the people are rebuked for “trampling the Sabbath” and, when Jesus is criticised for breaking the Sabbath, in Luke 13:10-17, he claims that his accusers are the ones who do not know how to observe the Sabbath law.
So, what exactly is the Sabbath for? The Sabbath commandment was given after the people of God were liberated from slavery. It was indeed a day of rest to allow slaves and bonded labourers to have time free from toil. In broader terms the Sabbath was to be kept holy, set aside for God to use. The Sabbath is observed, Isaiah says, when you “offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted”; not when you do no work but when you do God’s work, a weekly reminder of who we are and what we are for. It is, then, the ideal day for “a daughter of Abraham… to be set free from bondage”. Observing the Sabbath is what will allow all God’s people to be freed when they actively engage in the work and mission of God instead of “serving their own interests”.
God’s interests are also our interests. Today we are increasingly aware of the interdependence of human lives across the globe: how lack of investment in one place can lead to high food prices in another; how lack of health care locally can spread sickness globally; how conflict and poverty in far off places leads to increasing numbers of refugees and migrants at home. God has made us one, by keeping the Sabbath and unbinding others we discover that we too have been freed.
I came to bring fire to the earth” Jesus tells us in Luke 12:49-56. For Luke’s contemporary audience, who had lived through the sacking of Jerusalem and the burning of towns and villages, this fire was all too literal.
Yet fire has many uses both literally and metaphorically. In Jeremiah 23:23-29 the word of God is described as fire. The people have been listening instead to deceitful words offering false comfort and security, telling them just what they want to hear. In contrast the fire of God’s word burns away what is false and reveals the reality of their situation. The truth will set you free but first it will first piss you off.
As Jesus points out, when the truth is contested, the result will be division. Although this feels like the opposite of peace it is a necessary prelude to building a just peace. The peace that earthly powers is too often an unjust peace bought at a price borne by the world’s poorest and weakest. The peace that Jesus offers is not “of this world”, it requires the destruction of structures and practices that lead to suffering and inequality. As Luke’s community knew all to well, taking a stand against injustice often incites the anger of those who have vested interests in the status quo.
How did God’s people then, and how do we today, test the words we hear? How do we distinguish between hearing what we want to hear and hearing the uncomfortable truths that we need to hear? Are we willing to open our ears to the cry of the prophets, old and new calling us to change in order that the world too may be changed and God’s kingdom may come?
Do not be afraid. Both of our readings today start with these words. What is it that we should not be afraid of?
In Genesis 15:1-6 Abraham is afraid that he will die childless and that a slave will be his heir. In Luke 12:32-40 the disciples are afraid of many things, of persecution, of loss of community, of lacking food and clothing and the necessary things of life.
In each case the real fear is lack of a future: Abraham’s name will not pass into the next generation; the disciples may not survive this generation.
Abraham is assured that he will have a son, the disciples are assured that they will be given what they need but more than this they are not to be afraid because God will give them God’s very self: “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.
The problem is that we can only receive the kingdom, all that God desires to give us, if we stop chasing after all the things that we are afraid we may lose or will never have. No matter how hard we try, none of us can assure our future, not through family or status or possessions. But God can and will if only we can stop living in fear.