Tag: Church of England Lectionary

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February 2016

February 8th 2016: Galatians 1

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

We live in a world that seems to be, at least to me, starved of good news. It’s as if, somewhere in the ether, an agreement has been reached that good news will only be shared in a time of extreme emergency. If you’re like me, you end up feeling so in need of something positive that you’ll look all over for it. I’d get a lot more done if I didn’t spend so much of my time scrolling through social media feeds looking for something positive to improve my mood or my day.

Have I, then, lost sight of the same thing as the Galatians Paul is writing too here? They have the good news. The good news. The GOOD news, the kind that really is good, does not disappoint or let down and does not fade away after one glorious moment or cycle. Jesus is alive. He did to free us from sin, defeated death by rising again and calls us to spread the news abroad: hope is here, freedom is here, joy is really, really possible. Peace can be yours, mine, everyone’s. All things are possible, through him.

So why do I feel so short of good news? Why did the Galatians, apparently, go looking for a good time elsewhere, very soon after hearing and accepting this gospel of Jesus? It’s a mystery isn’t it. The most exciting news that there could possibly be, and we have a tendency, a desire even, to consume it, like anything else we scroll past online, and then forget about it, almost as soon as we’ve seen it. Or maybe that’s just me.

Don’t get tricked in to thinking that we need more good news than we already have. Life can be hard, impossible even, but we have an unchanging God, whose unchanging love for humanity led him to dwell amongst his people and pursue relationship with them unendingly until he had succeeded. We are not alone. Life is not all bad news. Rejoice today!

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February 2016

February 6th 2016: 1 Corinthians 16:10-24

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

‘Let all you do be done in love’.

I wish my life looked like that. I wish. Sometimes I manage to do things in love. Trouble is, I get so excited at managing to have done the right thing that I’m immediately more interested in how this reflects so well on me, rather than bringing any benefit to others, or pointing people to Jesus. Perhaps you don’t recognise that in yourself as you read this, but I’d hazard a guess that it might resonate with more than a few of us.

Of course, doing things in love doesn’t mean always being nice. Nor does it mean always doing the thing that society expects or demands of us as we follow Jesus. Somehow or other, following Jesus, loving God comes first. It impacts our family lives, our work lives, our Church lives (hopefully God has something to do with our Churches!) how we relate to other people and how we relate to ourselves (often the hardest aspect of life of all). But we are friends and brothers and sisters of Jesus now, first and before all. It is his love that should have an impact on what we do and how we do it. His love that reaches to the furthest corners of the world, into its darkest places, where it seems that hope cannot exist, and explodes the myth of hopelessness by shining the light of love in. We’re called to be people of love. We serve for love, we fight for love, we suffer and rejoice for love. Is what we do, what we say designed to lift up another, or is it designed to make us feel better? Do we like to put others down? Have we decided what potential a person has, however little, and become unwilling to see the possibility of redemption? Are we happily unreconciled?

Let’s think about these things as we go about our days today, and try to make sure that all we do is done in love.

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February 2016

February 4th 2016: Matthew 27: 57-66

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

The chief priests and the Pharisees were scared. My reading is they were scared in case the disciples played a trick, pulled a fast one, as it were, and made it seem like Jesus had risen. It is interesting that they clearly knew the stories Jesus had been telling about what was to happen. I do wonder though if, somewhere deep down, hidden away there was the thought in some of their minds ‘what if it actually was true, what he was saying? What if he is who he said he was?’ I suppose when false messiahs are two-a-penny (as they remain today in different ways) a deal of weary cynicism must be at play. Of course Jesus wasn’t the Messiah. Of course he wouldn’t rise from the dead, but just in case, best make sure.

For me, as I read, the challenge is stark. Do I continue to think, trust and live that Jesus did break free from the tomb, having defeated death? Do I really? Sometimes I wonder if I’d rather Jesus did not keep breaking conventions and finding ever more exciting ways to show that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, here, today. If I can just control God for long enough to be able to fathom him out and communicate him, introduce him to others, then I can have the kind of Church and faith experience I was taught was the right one, things will be the way they were supposed to be. Sounds comforting doesn’t it.

Except that isn’t it. At all. This time the Messiah did in fact rise from the dead, break free from the tomb. Nothing could deny it. And nothing we do to try and make the life of faith more in line with how we think it ought to be can constrain our God. He will have his way. It is for us to get in line, not as dogmatic robots, but needing to follow the spark of the Creator as he redeems and reconciles in places, situations and ways we never previously thought possible. All for his glory.

When you think about it, we’re not much different from the chief priests and Pharisees after all.

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February 2016

February 3rd 2016: Matthew 27:45-56

You can follow today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

I’ve often wondered which of the things in today’s reading actually caused the Centurion to utter the now immortal line ‘truly this man was the Son of God’, as Matthew records it. Ultimately though I’m not sure it really matters. The point is, a combination of circumstances caused Jesus to be recognised for who he was, by the very last person who should have been doing so, a member of the occupying force who had just put him to death.

As with all the readings I look at here, there’s lots we could delve into, and should, if we were trying to teach or preach on this passage, either individually or as a part of Matthew as a whole. Do take the time to look into it deeply, there’s lots to find. The challenge here is, I’m deliberately trying to see what particularly pricks my mind as I read rather than providing a grand exposition. On this occasion it is this thought:

In the excitement of being invited to live with and know Jesus, to follow his way, take on board his teachings, even move in power because of his name, am I, are we, in danger of losing sight of just how wonderful, powerful, victorious our God was on the Cross and is today? He is the Son of God, more than an impossibly good man full of good intentions who delivered on his promises. He is God. What difference will that make to how we live our days today?

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January 2016 Lectionary Ramblings

January 6th 2016: Colossians 4:2-18

You can find today’s reading by clicking on this sentence.

‘Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.’

It’s hard to keep going, isn’t it? New years very often don’t mean a new you, or a new start (unless you work in, or have fallen prey to a marketing tactic). I remember several late Decembers in recent years where I’ve thought something along the lines of ‘it’ll be great when this year’s over, I can leave it all behind me as I move on to the new.’ Except that doesn’t work. January begins and, most likely, what your life looked and felt like in December will be what it looks like in January. It can be discouraging to tread on through January and find that the exalted hopes we sang about and resolutions we made have already faded into distant memory. Is it worth it all?

Well, yes it is. We’re hidden with Christ in God. We’re clothed in love because he has dressed us that way, and now we can live with him day by day, devoting ourselves to prayer. God wants to talk to us. He wants us to listen for his voice around us, but also, he wants to listen to us. What a strange thought, that God would want to listen to me. Especially when I feel like I struggle to get people around me to listen sometimes! But God wants me to bring myself to him every day, not necessarily in a set series of forms of words (although those help many people) but as myself. Are you talking to God, today? Not just bringing him your cares and concerns, the things you’d like to see fixed or redeemed, but in a relational way. Are you honest with God? There’s no point pretending when we pray. We’re searched and known anyway. But in praying we are acknowledging God, bringing ourselves to him, making life about more than us. In some small way we are doing part of the work of ushering in the kingdom. Prayer ‘works’ because it causes us to look to God beyond ourselves and acknowledge our need of him. Sometime today, at least once, spend some time making yourself think of things for which you can ‘render thanks for the great benefits we have received at his hands’. It’ll make the world about more than you and, ultimately, bring the glory of God once again back in to focus as the centre of your day.

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January 2016 Lectionary Ramblings

January 2nd 2016: Colossians 2:8-23

You can read today’s text by clicking on this sentence.

‘See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority’

These verses have so much power to them it’s almost unfair.

Where does the power lie in your life, in mine? We can think we need to find ways to assert ourselves, our independence. Our society demands that we submit to leaders for the common good (a common good which not many of us have often agreed to and seems to shape-shift to fulfil the demands of political expediency), as Jesus does of course, in telling us to ‘give to Caesar what is Caesar’s’ (but what might that be?). Here though, the writer of Colossians reminds us of a key point with which to begin our year: all of God is in Jesus, and we have everything we need and were made to be in him. He is where our focus is to be. He is the source of our life, our breath, every need or lack we had is met by him and in him. It may well not feel like it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I’ve always found the concept of being ‘in Christ’ a challenge. I think in part it’s because everyday life feels so immediate, so pressing, that I’m so ‘in the world’, that the idea of being ‘not of it’ doesn’t get much of a chance to take root and develop.  There’s so much injustice that we’ve been asked to partner with God in seeking to fight and overcome. There’s so much of society which sorely lacks hope, that needs to hear the Good News of joy, peace, possibility and freedom in Christ. As an activist-y kind of person, I’m always wanting to get stuck in, bring about as much change as I can, make a better world, make the world I live in today more like the new world that Jesus promises us is coming in the future.

But here’s a question: when I’m working hard to bring about the world that I think is the one that God is building, when I’m going forth and making disciples, baptising them in Jesus’s name, am I letting God begin the building of that world with me, in me? Am I content to be in Christ, or am I seeking to grow something that looks like what he lived and died for, but is actually my own version of it, inadvertently leaving him out? To my understanding, if we have been brought to fulness in Christ, then we have. If we’re brought to fulness, we’re already at fulness. We’re already ‘in’ Christ. There’s not a further way for us to be ‘in’ Christ. We don’t need to work harder, become more tired, sacrifice more and more, seek new ways to suffer, or find ways to impose our doctrines and our way of life on others. Jesus has done what needs to be done to bring us life, hope and a future already. My worry and stress will not make me any more alive. More to the point they may well cause me to lose sight or focus on the simple glorious truth of just how fully I am alive.

I have the choice to live my life directed God’s way, but that does not bring me more life, more fulness. Those are God’s to give to me.

To be in Christ is the safest, most secure place to be. Let’s enjoy resting there today.

 

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

August 14th 2014: Luke 23:56b-24:14

Read Luke 23:56b-24:14 here

“He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.

“But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense”

It seems that, on the morning of the resurrection, everyone has forgotten what Jesus had promised to do. Even though the story has unfolded just as He promised, it seems that grief has overtaken them, quite naturally I might add, and their expectations were that their journey of life and hope with Jesus was all over.

Even when the women at the tomb remember His words, told to them by those guarding the tomb and rush to report them to the disciples, “their words seemed to them like nonsense”. Rationality and necessity have quickly replaced the fire of hope in the disciples. Now they are seeking self-preservation as the smouldering embers of their hope have been stubbed out. And yet it is Peter, he who had denied Jesus three times only days before, who has something pricked within him, runs to the tomb, and finds, gloriously, that the words of the women are true. Jesus has risen. He is alive. Things will never be the same.

It’s easy for us to retreat into rationality when things in our spiritual lives seem to go wrong. After all, we think, the gospel stands up to rational and philosophical scrutiny. And so it does, but the truth of the resurrection and the life is that it is so far away from “normal” so out of the ordinary, that it should offend our sensibilities. We should question it, interrogate it, doubt it. We can do all these things, but then it will still be true. Whatever we think or feel, Jesus did die, and on the third day rise again. He did prove Himself and the truth of His claims, once and for all. It is our privilege and our destiny to work out what all that means for us and for those we love, and those we meet today, every day for the rest of our lives.

 

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

July 29th 2014 Luke 21:5-19

Read Luke 21:5-19 here

“By your endurance you will gain your souls”

At any given time, if we were to study the world news carefully, we would find Christians being persecuted. As things are at this particular moment, this reading feels especially apposite. I’ve already written this week about standing with those who are suffering for the Gospel – it is one of the primary tasks of faith I think, something which we in the UK are largely blind to. Often we are told that this is merciful, or a blessing and, certainly, I’d rather have the life I have, for myself or my family, than those experienced by those who are displaced, injured or even killed for their belief in the person of Jesus and His good news. However, Jesus is unequivocal here, we gain our souls through our endurance for the gospel. I wonder if this means that, if we are not sacrificing or suffering in some way as a result of our faith, we’re somehow not doing it right. I’m not saying that this is a positive, or perhaps even helpful message, and I could well be way off, but if my faith doesn’t challenge my life, if it doesn’t cause me any kind of difficulty at all, is it real faith?

Don’t go out and seek to be a martyr for the sake of it today, but seek ways to endure, to be refined, to be challenged. Ask questions, rail against injustice, think of others before myself. These are my challenges to myself today. Join with me?

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

July 22nd 2014: Luke 8:1-3

Read Luke 8:1-3 here

Today, thanks to the vagaries of the Lectionary, our gospel reading jumps from the rather exciting Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem of yesterday to the beginning of Luke 8, and the pre-amble to the parable of the sower. In 3 verses, we’re told quite a lot:

Jesus is travelling from village to village proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

There are a lot of people with Him, including some women who have been cured/delivered of all sorts of things.

These women are supporting the men from their own means.

What is the meaning of the women supporting the men of their own means I wonder for us today? I think it speaks of the way that ministry in whatever form or sense, is a team sport. Jesus and the Disciples were the ones who were, perhaps, up front, but without the crowds who followed and supported them, continued ministry, perhaps even existence, would not have been possible. In all the fashionable arguments we find ourselves involved in about the validity of ministry of different sorts by different people and social groups, it is easy for us to forget that we need each other for this task of partnering in the growth of the Kingdom of God, the task with which we have been entrusted. In the diaconal role taken on by the women in this passage, we see Jesus turning upside down, as usual, the social conventions of His time and His culture. What a shame, if we as contemporary Christians become so pharisaical about our traditions and wonts that we forget the simplicity of giving our lives to, literally or figuratively, to travel from village to village proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!

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2014 Lectionary Ramblings Lectionary Ramblings

July 14th 2014: Luke 17:20-end

Read Luke 17:20-end here

Continuing our ramble through Luke 17, we begin the working week with a look at the coming of the Kingdom of God. “The Kingdom of God is in your midst!” says Jesus in verse 21. Is he referring to Himself as the embodiment of the Kingdom? Perhaps, as He spoke He was right in front of them. So too, the Kingdom of God is in our midst today as Jesus lives within and amongst us by the Holy Spirit. It is not enough for us to spend our lives seeking “signs of the kingdom”, as tantalising and sometimes helpful as those might be. Jesus, in whom all the fullness of God was and is, has inaugurated the Kingdom through His victorious life, death, resurrection and ascension. The Kingdom of God is not (just) miracles, signs and wonders, captives set free, caring for the poor, it is Jesus, Himself, who through the kind of love and mercy I will never understand calls us to draw near this morning and every day. We are to keep looking to Him, not being distracted by the shiny “new” appearances of the Kingdom over here and over there. Love and relationship between God, us and one another is the ultimate goal and outworking of the Kingdom, so that God is glorified and given His rightful due in worship.

33-36 is another fairly well-known passage. Again, as in other parts of Luke, it seems to me that Jesus is fairly cantankerous here. I often wonder what kind of tone of voice these words were delivered in. “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it”. What? What are we to hold on to? All this metaphor and hyperbole hurts my brain on a Monday morning (sorry Lord). I think though, that it might be a continuation of a verse we looked at last week, Luke 16:13, where Jesus tells His hearers that we cannot have two masters. So too, here I think, Jesus is uncompromising in His rhetoric and call. Do we love our life and our stuff more than we love God? Do we love ourself more than we were meant to? Conversely, do we love ourselves too little to see the true value we have in the eyes of God and to trust Him to bring through His desire and plan for us? Much easier in words than in practice, let’s try and trust God more today than we did yesterday and be thankful for the life, love and hope of Jesus.