Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V, 5 July 2026).
Usually, the Greek community in Stony Stratford opens its pop-up café at Swinfen Harris Church Hall, London Road. Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, on the first Saturday of the month. This weekend, instead, the annual Greek Festival, Paniyiri, takes place tomorrow (5 July 2026), from 12:30 to 5, with live music, dance, barbeque food, traditional Greek cakes, and stalls with Greek products.
Before today 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 9: 14-17 (NRSVA):
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ 15 And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.’
Today’s Reflection:
The Gospel reading in the Lectionary for the celebration of the Eucharist today (Matthew 9: 14-17) follows the account of the calling of Saint Matthew, and is set at the banquet in Matthew’s house, to which Jesus goes, despite the criticism of local religious leaders (see Matthew 9: 9-13).
Quite often in the Gospels we find Jesus facing criticism from the Pharisees, the Scribes or both groups working together. But we seldom find Jesus facing criticism from the disciples of John the Baptist, still less from the disciples of John seemingly on the same side of the Pharisees.
The critics in the preceding verses (Matthew 9: 9-13) asked why Jesus was eating with sinners and outcasts. Today they go one step further and ask why he is eating at all. They point to the example of John the Baptist and his disciples who fasted regularly.
In Jewish practice, the only day of the year when fasting is expected is Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. However, John’s disciples, and perhaps also some Pharisees, may have observed additional fasts that were not prescribed by the Law in the hope that their extra piety would help hasten an early coming of the Kingdom.
Jesus answers their question in two ways. First, he says that people do not fast when they are in the company of the bridegroom. That is a time for celebration. By implication, of course, Jesus is the groom. As long as he is around, it would be inappropriate for his disciples to fast. However, he says a time will come when the groom is no longer with them, and then there will be reason enough then to fast.
His second answer is more profound and it takes the form of two examples.
In the first example, Jesus says It does not make sense to repair an old piece of clothing with a patch of new cloth. The new cloth, being much tougher, will, under stress, only cause the older cloth to tear.
In the second example, Jesus says it is not wise to put new wine into old wineskins. Wine was kept in containers made of leather. Because new wine was still fermenting and expanding, it was put in new leather bags that could expand with the wine. The old bags would be stretched already, and new wine would only cause them to burst. Then both the wine would be lost and the bags ruined.
What does Jesus mean by these images?
What message is Jesus giving to his critics?
Are his ideas like new wine or new cloth to you?
People like the Pharisees tried to fit Jesus’ teaching and his ideas into their ways of thinking, but that did not seem to work.
The new cloth and the new wine, then, are the spirit of the Kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus, a radically new understanding of how God is to be loved, and how God loves us.
Jesus does not measure religion by external actions like fasting or other demands and expectation such as washing hands before eating. Instead, religion is a matter of the inner spirit and how we reflect that in the way we live our lives, as he teaches in the Sermon on the Mount.
How do I try to squeeze new wine into old wineskins?
What prejudices and hang-ups that were external and extraneous expressions of Church life in the past am I still clinging onto in my interior life, and that hinder my acceptance of other people today?
Who are today’s equivalent of Matthew, an outsider called to be part of the inner circle with Jesus yet I am uncomfortable to find beside me in Church and at the Eucharist?
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 4 July 2026):
In my prayers this morning, I am remembering all those who are being in the Diocese of Oxford at this time, including the Revd Virginia Kagunda, who will be ordained in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, this morning. Her first services in Wolverton are tomorrow, when she will preach in both Saint George’s Church, Wolverton, and Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton.
In my prayers today, on the Fourth of July, I must, of course, also include the United State and its people, not just today, but remembering its past and praying too for the future the US and its people now face. 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 28 June to 4 July 2026 (pp 14-15), has been ‘Living Stones’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection by the Very Revd Lydia Kelsey Bucklin, President and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School, inspired by the 250th anniversary being marked in the US.
The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 4 July 2026) invites us to pray:
God of mercy, as the United States marks 250 years, lead your Church to repent of its complicity in colonisation and enslavement. Help us build a future that values human dignity over war, and mercy over borders, with Christ as our cornerstone.
The Collect of the Day:
O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope:
teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Gracious Father,
by the obedience of Jesus
you brought salvation to our wayward world:
draw us into harmony with your will,
that we may find all things restored in him,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Collect on the Eve of Trinity V:
Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
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
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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