Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Third Sunday after Trinity (21 June 2026) and the Summer Solstice, although next Wednesday (24 June) is officially Midsummer’s Day.
If this warm summer and sunshine continues today, I hope to go to watch and enjoy some cricket in Stony Stratford this afternoon. But, before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading 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.
Matthew 6: 24-34 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 24 ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’
Today’s Reflections:
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 6: 24-34) continues the series of readings from the Sermon on the Mount. In a world where I wake up each morning worrying whether the large regional conflicts are going to unravel and draw us all into a global conflagration, how do I respond to the advice not to worry about tomorrow?
Imagine two different ways of reading this Gospel passage.
The first is if you have a respectable and well-paying job, a good house in the suburbs, a decent car, adult children who have good prospects too, you have regular holidays, and you can change your car every two or three years.
The second way to read it is to imagine yourself living in a deprived urban area, a single parent with a mortgaged house in negative equity, unemployed, noisy and unsocial neighbours, facing severe cuts in your welfare payments, an adult child with special needs, and an ageing parent who needs residential care you cannot afford.
How then do you then receive the message, do not worry about what you will eat or drink or wear (verse 25), because God will take care of you? Today’s trouble is certainly more than enough for today.
For the first group, this is irrelevant, meaningless. You may be worried about higher taxes, winding down and preparing for retirement, that your children marry the right sort of people. If you have worries, they are hidden from the neighbours, perhaps even hidden from yourself.
For the second group, it verges on the absurd. If you have spent the last few years worrying about the roof your head, unable to afford and prepare adequate meals, worried about the friends and dangers your children meet, the future they face, then this is no easy message to hear. What does Christ mean, ‘do not worry’? Life is full of worries, every single waking day.
But is Christ really saying that the basic necessities of life do not matter? Is he really saying that the basic necessities of life will appear miraculously if only we believe in him correctly?
Let us first put this reading in context – Christ is talking to people who have enough, it seems. Otherwise, his encouragement not to worry would simply be cruel.
But, what about those who truly do not have enough?
How are they going to hear good news in this Gospel reading?
Though the message is going to be heard differently by those who have enough and those who do not, the message is really the same: do not fret.
If you have enough, be thankful, but beware of making an idol of having what you want, rather than merely what you need.
If you do not have enough, it is not because God does not love you. Christ is working to break the connection that was commonly made in his day: those who please God are rewarded with plenty, while those who suffer have earned God’s displeasure.
We still make that connection. How often we have an inner feeling of glee when we think people get what they deserve? How often we think people have brought about their own downfall? How often we think people could improve their lot if only they were not indolent, if only they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps?
Christ encourages us to look beyond the narrow perspectives that attach virtue to success and vice to failure.
That challenge is expressed by Frederick Faber in the words of his hymn, ‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy’:
For the love of God is broader
than the measure of our mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he will not own.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word,
and our lives would be gladness
in the presence of the Lord.
God’s desire for us is that we all have enough, rather than calculating the degree to which each of us should be blessed or cursed.
That does not change the circumstances today for the single mother or the unemployed father. But neither do present circumstances justify making political, economic and social decisions based on self-interest and selfishness.
Perhaps it is comforting this morning to recall the Collect for Peace, the Second Collect at Morning Prayer. This collect originated in the Sacramentary of Gelasius and was incorporated in the Sarum Breviary, from which Thomas Cranmer translated it in 1549:
O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Kingdom of God has different values from life in the empire, or life in a profit-based society. The Kingdom of God includes the poor, the merciful, those who mourn. The Kingdom of God calls us to bring light to the darkest parts of the world, to be salt in the world, to be signs and sacraments of mercy and justice.
God is not promising to meet all our needs, like some shopping list brought to the Kingdom-value-supermarket, if we pay up with the right kind of prayers. Tomorrow is going to bring its worries: ‘for tomorrow will bring worries of its own’ (verse 34). But God does not bargain with us. God expects us to serve God through living out the kingdom values, and in that we find perfect freedom.
As we seek first the Kingdom of God we come to accept with joy those things God adds to us. Our trials and troubles remain real, but that reality can be transformed and made glorious as we serve God and seek to do God’s will.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 20 June 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 14 to 20 June 2026 (pp 10-11), has been ‘Rooted in Compassion’. This theme was introduced last Sunday by the Ven Titus Oluwalusi, the Anglican Chaplain at Saint John’s Church in Casablanca, Morocco.
The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 20 June 2026, World Refugee Day) invites us to pray:
Almighty God, we pray for refugees and displaced communities across the world. We lament the ways that many are often treated with disdain and a lack of compassion. Just as you accompanied your people in exile and brought them hope and restoration, may every person experience protection, provision, and your sustaining love.
The Collect of the Day:
Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Faithful Creator,
whose mercy never fails:
deepen our faithfulness to you
and to your living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Trinity III:
Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
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.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
‘Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them’ (Matthew 6: 26) … a mother bird feeds her chick at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, near Rethymnon (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
No comments:
Post a Comment