Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Sunday next before Advent and the Feast of Christ the King (24 November 2024).
Later this evening, I hope to take part in the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … my first since returning from Kuching and Singapore more than a week ago. But, before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 21: 12-19 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 12 ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.’
Today’s reflection:
The scene for the Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 21: 12-19) has been set in the verses that immediately precede today’s reading. Christ is sitting by the Temple Treasury, as he speaks about the Temple, the Nation, and the looming future.
The hope to which Christ testifies in this passage is no trivial denial of the struggles, the pain and agony of human life, or the catastrophic forces of nature. These are real, and the prophets of old have interpreted such devastations as the context of God’s saving work. Christ joins this chorus, bringing it close to the concrete realities of early Christians, and warns of the possibilities of being betrayed by family, friends and neighbours.
There are some relationships we cannot create, there are others we cannot control, and others still that we have no choice about.
We cannot create our family. Our families are already given, even before we are born or adopted. And those relationships survive though all adversities. They are fixed. They are given. They continue after separation, divorce, and death. They continue even when families are dysfunctional and brought to breaking point.
Even though my father and mother are dead 20 and 10 years respectively, they remain my parents.
Even though a couple may divorce, each former parnter in the old relationship remains a sister-in-law or a daughter-in-law, a brother-in-law or a son-in-law – albeit qualified by the word ‘former.’
In time, they may find they have new relationships: when their children have children, they share grandchildren they never expected. They may want to forget their past relationship, but it remains on the family tree for some future genealogist to tell everyone about.
I like to imagine that one of the untold stories in the aftermath of the Wedding at Cana is the new network or web of family relationships that have been created. After the wedding feast, the first of the Seven Signs in Saint John’s Gospel, Christ ‘went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days’ (John 2: 12).
On the way, or back in Capernaum, one finds he is now a brother-in-law, another that she is a sister-in-law, some, perhaps, realise they have a new aunt or uncle, or perhaps a new niece or nephew by marriage.
We cannot create family, yet family often creates us, shapes us, gives us identity and allows others to decide where we fit socially.
There are relationships we cannot control.
Most of us cannot control who we work with. That is the choice of our employers, and even for employers there is legislation to make sure they are not discriminating.
Clergy cannot, and should not try to, control who are their parishioners. If we try to control who is and who is not a member of the Church, depending on the relationships we like to have and the relationships we do not like to have, we will find we have a Church that has an ever-decreasing number of members, so that eventually we become a dwindling sect, wanting to make God in our own image and likeness, rather than accepting that we are all made in God’s image and likeness. And that eventually becomes a sect of one, where there is no place for the One who matters.
Nor can I choose my friends or my neighbours.
Have you ever noticed that when a house is on the market, both the vendors and the estate agents tell you the neighbours are wonderful? It is only after you move in that you are likely to find out if you have, as a ITV television documentary series some years ago described them, ‘the neighbours from hell.’
I cannot choose my friends. No matter how much I want to be friends with someone, if they do not want to be my friend, that’s it. I cannot force friendship. When I have a friendship, I can work on it, nurture it, help it to grow and blossom. But I cannot force a friendship. If you don’t want to be my friend, that is your choice. And if you do, and I don’t nurture that friendship, then you are going to change your mind.
Christ knows all about relationships, and he shows this on the Cross when he entrusts his mother the Virgin Mary and the Beloved Disciple, Saint John, to one another as though they are mother and son.
Relationship is at the heart of the cross. And there, on the cross, even as he is hanging in agony, the dying Jesus is compassionately thinking of others and of relationships
Relationships are vulnerable, fragile, and always risk the potential for betrayal, as today’s Gospel reading reminds us. But relationships also define us as human. Without relating to others, how can I possibly know what it is to be human?
From the very beginning, God, who creates us in God’s own image and likeness, knows that it is not good for us to be alone. And in the Trinity, we find that God is relationship.
The Holy Family by Giovanni Battista Pittoni … the Altar Piece in the Chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 27 November 2024):
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 ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 27 November 2024) invites us to pray:
We pray for the transformation of our societies which often find it easier to judge the victims of violence than to solve the problems of injustice.
The Collect:
Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God the Father,
help us to hear the call of Christ the King
and to follow in his service,
whose kingdom has no end;
for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, one glory.
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
1 comment:
Thank you. My warmest regards and God bless.
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