28 July 2022

Praying with the World Church in
Ordinary Time: Thursday, 28 July 2022

A fig tree coming into fruit in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) took place in the High Leigh Conference Centre at Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire this week. The conference theme has been ‘Living Stones, Living Hope.’

I am continuing my prayer diary each morning this week in this way:

1,Reading the Gospel reading of the morning;

2,a short reflections on the reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

Ripe figs on the ground in Queen Square Gardens in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Gospel reading for Morning Prayer in Common Worship this morning is:

Luke 21: 29-38 (NRSVA):

29 Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

34 ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

37 Every day he was teaching in the temple, and at night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives, as it was called. 38 And all the people would get up early in the morning to listen to him in the temple.

Today’s reflection:

The fig tree had more potential than just the figs and fruit it produced. Fig trees are planted in vineyards to shelter the weaker vines. An old and elegant fig tree is a common site in many Mediterranean vineyards and has its own intrinsic value. It may even have vines wrapped around, bearing their own fruit.

It takes much tender care and many years – at least three years – for a fig tree to bear fruit. And even then, in a vineyard, the figs, are not a profit – they are a bonus.

And anyway, even if a tree bears fruit, the Mosaic Law said it could not be harvested for three years, and the fruit gathered in the fourth year was going to offered as the first fruits. Only in the fifth year, then, could the fruit be eaten.

The observations by Jesus on the fruiting fig tree are in sharp contrast to the man who wanted to tear up a freshly-planted fig tree in the short parable in Luke 13:

Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down”.’ (Luke 13: 6-9).

If this tree had been chopped down, and another put its place, it would take longer still to get fruit that could be eaten or sold. In his quest for the quick buck, the owner of the vineyard shows little knowledge about the reality of economics.

The gardener, who has nothing at stake, turns out to be the one not only has compassion, but has deep-seated wisdom too.

Three years, and three more years, and then the fruit.

The fruit is only going to be profitable in its seventh year. Now, between Chapter 13 and Chapter 21, the fig tree has become a sign ‘that the kingdom of God is near.’

What do we dismiss in life because it is too young and without fruit, or too old and gnarled, only to realise when it is too late that we are failing to see signs ‘that the kingdom of God is near’?

Today’s Prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘The Way Towards Healing,’ looking at the work for peace of the Churches in Korea. This theme was introduced on Sunday by Shin Seung-min, National Council of Churches in Korea.

Thursday 28 July 2022:

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for the success of the Korea Peace Appeal. May the world take notice of this campaign and renew global efforts for peace.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Figs for breakfast in the Garden Taverna in Platanias near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Living with a World of Difference
at the USPG conference this week

Resources to take home from this week’s USPG conference in High Leigh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

I came away from this week’s USPG conference in High Leigh this week with a variety of reading material. ‘Living Stones, Living Hope’ was the theme of this week’s conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) at the High Leigh Conference Centre in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

Living with a World of Difference is a five-session study course celebrating diversity within the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is the world’s third largest Christian community, a worldwide family of tens of millions of Christians, from more than 165 countries around the globe.

This study course introduces the enormous breadth of cultural diversity within the Anglican Communion. Anglicans and Episcopalians live in modern cities and rural heartlands, and speak hundreds of languages, with a wealth of difference and diversity.

Living Stones, Living Hope is a new course for 2022, taking its title from I Peter 2, the text of the Bible study for the Lambeth Conference which opened today. This study was produced by USPG as a resource for both USPG and the bishops taking part in the Lambeth Conference.

The metaphor of the Christian community in I Peter 2 as living stones is rich and evocative. We, the Church, are the living stones, and we are called to bring living hope in our diverse situations, though faith in Christ, who is the cornerstone of our faith. In each context this is lived out differently and is underpinned by a range of theologies. Yet our bedrock in Christ remains our constant.

Living Stones, Living Hope explores this from the perspective of five partner churches around the world, inviting us to reflect on our own experience of being ‘living stones’ and bringing ‘living hope’ to our own situations, in the light of the experiences of others.

I was one of the five global theologians invited to contribute to this study, and drew on my experiences of Church co-operation in Rathkeale in the Diocese of Limerick, where I was the priest-in-charge until the end of March.

I wrote about the experience of the Church of Ireland in the study for Week 4, looking at the impact of Brexit on a cross-border church, of the tensions that remain after the peace process, and other social and political changes in Ireland.

I also wrote about the work of the three main churches in West Limerick, offering the work of the churches in Rathkeale as ‘one small example of applying our understanding’ of ‘the stone that the builders rejected.’ The project in Rathkeale seeks ‘to create understanding and a shared space for Travellers, who are a large ethnic minority in the area, and the people of Rathkeale, who fear losing their social, economic and cultural place in the town.’

I wrote, ‘As the Church takes stock once again, it needs to be less worried about how it is perceived or whether it is losing credibility, and more willing to engage with these questions, even when this is costly.’

I also contributed to a video produced in Askeaton for this course.

The other contributors to ‘Living Stones, Living Hope’ are from Brazil, India, Korea and Zambia.

The latest edition of USPG’s magazine Koinonia (Issue 9 6/2022) includes a feature a new confidence in the Church of Bangladesh, updates on the Ukraine appeal, an introduction to new directors of USPG, and news about this week’s Lambeth Conference.

Dr Jo Sadgrove, Research and Learning Advisor with USPG, is the author of Resourcing the crisis: Pastoral care across space and time. This colourfully-illustrated document is the result of a collaboration between researchers at the University of Leeds and USPG.

The Pastoral Care project was designed to examine the intersections between pastoral care, cross-cultural understandings of disease and cure, models of public health engagement and the role of churches and church leaders in providing care for communities around the world. These intersections and the questions they raise are explored in a some of USPG’s historical records and in relation to its contemporary ministry to churches around the Anglican Communion.

As an Anglican mission agency founded in 1701, USPG occupies a rather strange position – facing both the United Kingdom and Ireland on one hand and the churches of the Anglican Communion, yet ‘belonging’ to neither. The quest for identity and role for an organisation like UPSG in a post-colonial context has been an ongoing challenge.

This project helped USPG staff to understand how some of the key questions that continue to preoccupy USPG as an organisation are sustained across time. These include: Who is the object of pastoral care? How do we provide remote care? How do crises foster innovations in care? How do local care needs define what ministry is in any place?

Resources on display at the USPG conference in High Leigh this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)