Patrick Comerford
We have reached the beginning of October and are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. The week began with the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Remigius (533), Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, and Anthony Ashley Cooper (1885), Earl of Shaftesbury, Social Reformer.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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 9: 51-56 (NRSVA):
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village.
Today’s Reflection:
I was walking through Cambridge one afternoon, visiting some colleges, spending some time browsing and rummaging in some of my favourite bookshops, feeling relaxed and easy-going in the warm afternoon sunshine, I was. And there, in front of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, I saw a large crowd had gathered in a circle in the open space on the corner of Market Street and Sidney Street.
Some of them were visibly amused, some were angry, some were heckling. They were watching and listening to a group of street preachers of the old-fashioned sort, the sort I thought had gone out of fashion many years ago, many decades ago.
And I can quote some of their posters and placards: ‘Cursed is the nation whose God is not the Lord’ … ‘Woe to them who call evil good and good evil’ … ‘Hate crime: to let sinners go to hell with no warning’ …
When people in the crowd asked questions, they were belittled and derided. Within a short time, I had lost count of the number of times people were told they were being disrespectful of God and God’s word, the number of times people were told they and their souls were going to burn in Hell for eternity.
Not once did I see the speakers smile, not once did I hear them speak words of compassion, let alone love.
Is it any wonder that people turn away when they hear people like this claiming to represent Christ, Christianity, the Christian message and the Church?
There was a much more inviting message in the vision or slogan of the church behind them: ‘Come to Christ, Learn to Love and Love to Learn, in Cambridge and beyond.’
I thought of an exhibition back in 2017 in the window of the bookshop of the Cambridge University Press to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Jane Austen and thought those street preachers were articulating too much Pride and Prejudice and not showing enough Sense and Sensibility. If only they had been open to a little more Persuasion.
When people respond to preachers like this by saying ‘I don’t believe in God,’ I want to respond by saying, ‘I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in either.’ Think about what the disciples want to do when they get a whiff of difference, an inkling of rejection.
A whiff of difference creates a whiff of sulphur. They want to burn the Samaritan village to the ground.
What have they been learning from Jesus so far about basic, fundamental Christian beliefs and values being expressed in how we love God and love one another?
What had the disciples learned from Jesus about compassion, tolerance and forbearance in the immediate weeks and months before they arrived in this Samaritan village?
How embarrassed they must have been if this was the same Samaritan village that Christ visits in Saint John’s Gospel (see John 3: 4-42), where it is a Samaritan woman, and not the disciples, who realise who Jesus really is. She is a Samaritan woman of questionable sexual moral values. But it is she, and not the disciples, who brings a whole village to faith in Christ. It is she who asks for the water of life. It is she who first suggests that indeed he may be, that he is, the Messiah.
How embarrassed they must be a little while later when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan (see Luke 10: 29-37). The one person I want to meet on the road, on the pilgrimage in life, is not a priest or a Temple official, but the sort of man who lives in the very sort of village I have suggested, because of my religious bigotry and narrow-mindedness, should be consumed with fire, burned to the ground, all its people gobbled up.
The command to love, to love God and to love our neighbour, is at the heart of the Gospel. It is summarised in the two great commandments in Matthew 22: 36-40 and Luke 10: 27 (see Leviticus 19: 18).
But Saint Paul, on more than one occasion, reduces it all down to this one great commandment: ‘Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments … are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Romans 13: 8-10).
And again: ‘The only thing that counts is faith working through love … For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”.’ (Galatians 5: 6, 14).
In other places, he writes: ‘Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in harmony’ (Colossians 3: 14).
And: ‘f then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, and compassion and sympathy. Make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind’ (Philippians 2: 1-2).
In a non-Pauline passage, Saint John writes in his first letter: ‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them … Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also’ (I John 4: 16, 20-21).
Committed discipleship is costly and demanding, but rewarding. It finds its true expression in ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things’ (Galatians 5: 22-25).
Love one another. After that, everything else falls into place, including the love of God.
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 1 October 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 ‘One God: many languages.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday in reflections by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 1 October 2024) invites us to pray:
Let us thank God for the rich range of languages that reflect the diversity of humanity, recognising each language as a unique expression of culture and identity.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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:
We praise and thank you, O Christ, for this sacred feast:
for here we receive you,
here the memory of your passion is renewed,
here our minds are filled with grace,
and here a pledge of future glory is given,
when we shall feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.
Additional Collect:
God, our judge and saviour,
teach us to be open to your truth
and to trust in your love,
that we may live each day
with confidence in the salvation which is given
through 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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