Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (8 September 2024).
Later today, I hope to be part of a meeting of local clergy at Saint Mary’s Church, Wavendon, and the choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford resumes its rehearsals this evening after the summer recess. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 6: 20-26 (NRSVA):
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 ‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 ‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.’
Today’s Reflection:
The typesetters’ decision to present much of the New Testament as narrative discourse has left us with little poetry in the New Testament compared with the Old Testament.
But there are poetic hymns throughout the New Testament, and Saint Luke’s Gospel has several poems that we continue to use as poems or songs in the form of liturgical canticles:
• The Song of Mary, or Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55);
• The Prophecy of Zechariah, known as Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79);
• The Song of the Heavenly Host, Gloria in Excelsis (Luke 2: 14);
• The Song of Simeon, Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2: 29-32), which inspired TS Eliot’s ‘A Song for Simeon.
Two of the best known poetic passages in the Gospels are the two accounts of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5: 3-10; Luke 6: 20-26). In this morning’s Gospel reading, Saint Luke then narrates his account of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (verses 20-26). He offers four beatitudes and four corresponding woes or warnings.
The word blessed (Greek μακαριοι, makarioi) also means ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate.’ Some people are blessed, happy, fortunate to be included in the Kingdom of God, others are warned of the consequences of their choices in life.
The paired blessings and warnings in today’s Gospel reading are:
• to the poor (verse 20), and to the rich (verse 24);
• to the hungry (verse 21), and to the ‘full’ (verse 25a);
• to those who weep (verse 21), and to those are laughing (verse 25);
• to those who are hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 22), and those who are held in esteem (verse 26).
Saint Luke records the ‘poor’ without any qualification (verse 20), compared with Saint Matthew’s ‘poor in spirit’ (see Matthew 5: 3). In Jewish tradition, the poor and the hungry are not cursed or impure, but are deserving recipients of divine and earthly care (see Deuteronomy 11: 15; Isaiah 49: 10; Jeremiah 31: 25; Ezekiel 34: 29). The poor are to receive the Kingdom of God; the rich have their reward today in their comfortable lifestyles.
Those who are excluded are denied their right to worship in the Temple and in the synagogue. But in the past, the prophets – including Jeremiah – were hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 23), while the people in power spoke well of the false prophets (verse 26; see Jeremiah 5: 31).
This Gospel reading is set within a large crowd of people who came to hear Jesus and to be healed, and that those who were troubled were cured. If the same people came to our churches today – if they came to me as a priest of the church today – would they know from how we behave – from how I behave – that Jesus cares for them, that he seeks to restore them to the fullness of life?
Poverty comes in many forms today. Exclusion and marginalisation are common experiences for many in our society today. Those who hunger and who weep are not just around us, but among us, in the Church, in our community, in this society.
If you feel you are excluded or marginalised, if you know you are hungry and you are often close to tears, do you feel the rest of us in the Church do enough to see to it that you know you are counted in when it comes to the Church being a a sign of the Kingdom of God?
If you think you are financially secure, that you have enough to eat, if you have plenty of good reason to laugh and be happy, if you know people respect you and treat you properly, do you see the rest of us in the Church as a blessing to you, as an opportunity to share your blessings, to share your joys, to share your Easter faith in the Risen Christ?
Poor and rich, hungry and ‘full’, those who weep and those who laugh, the hated, excluded, reviled and defamed and those held in esteem: in Oscar Wilde’s satirical play, A Woman of No Importance (1893), Lord Illingworth observes wisely: ‘The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.’
He was probably paraphrasing a quotation popularly attributed to Saint Augustine: ‘There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.’
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 11 September 2024):
Each year, on 14 September, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Cross, known as ‘Holy Cross Day’ throughout the majority of the Anglican Communion. The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘What does the holy cross mean to you?’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 11 September 2024) invites us to pray:
Alleluia, alleluia. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world. Alleluia.
The Collect:
God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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