Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 160, Sunday 19 October 2025, 18th Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII)

‘The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice’ … a quotation from Martin Luther King in the foyer of Bloomsbury Baptist Church, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII, 19 October 2025).

I spent some time yesterday at the AGM and annual conference of Christian CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), which took place online. Later today, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

But, before the day 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 short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Grant me justice against my opponent’ (Luke 18: 3) … the old courthouse in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 18: 1-8 (NRSVA):

18 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming”.’ 6 And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

An emphasis on justice is found in this morning’s readings … the scales of justice depicted on the Precentor’s Stall in the choir in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The lectionary readings this morning (Jeremiah 31: 27-34; Psalm 119: 97-104; II Timothy 3: 14 to 4: 5; Luke 18: 1-8) offer an opportunity to reflect on what we mean by law and justice.

In the first reading, the Prophet Jeremiah speaks on behalf of God, when the people have been restored and know about justice and mercy, and he says: ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts’ (Jeremiah 31: 33).

The portion of Psalm 119 we read talks about love of the Law, and declares:

‘Lord, how I love your law!
All the day long it is my study
Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me’ (Psalm 119: 97-98).

In the Epistle reading, Saint Paul reminds Saint Timothy that they are ‘in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead’ (II Timothy 4: 1).

The Gospel reading tells us the well-known parable of the ‘Unjust Judge,’ a judge ‘who neither fears God nor has respect for people,’ and how he is forced to grant justice to a widow who keeps coming to him, saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’

Does the judge abandon his sense of impartiality when it comes to the administration of justice?

Or is he forced to realise the difference between what is legal and what is just, and the difference between justice and mercy?

The parable in the Gospel reading is well-known. We often know it as the ‘Parable of the Unjust Judge.’ But we might also call it the ‘Parable of the Persistent Widow,’ for we are told to take this woman and not the judge as our example: an example of how to pray to God, as opposed to an example of how to prey on people.

And yet, let us take some time first to look at the judge.

Are we asked to think that God behaves like an unjust or capricious judge?

Is this a judge who exercises his office without fear or favour?

Is justice about that?

Is justice about seeing that the law is enforced?

Or is it about seeing that justice is done, and is seen to be done?

How many judges implement the law without dispensing justice?

How many judges implement the law without dispensing mercy?

Is this not what happened in Nazi Germany, in apartheid South Africa, in racist states in the American ‘Deep South’, is happening in many courts in Trump’s US today?

How many judges in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa merely applied the law?

Could a Jewish widow expect justice from a judge in Nazi Germany?

Could a black widow expect mercy from a judge in apartheid South Africa?

A Latina woman lifted off the streets of Chicago by ICE, or a protesting woman beaten to the ground in Portland?

The woman in this parable is not asking for what is her legal right. She is not asking for her neighbour to be punished. But she may be asking for something she is not entitled to: justice.

When we find ourselves saying we cannot accept a judgmental God, is that because our image of a judge is of a distant figure who applies the full rigour of the law, rather than an accessible figure who dispenses justice and mercy?

These contrasting images of God are found too in the first reading (Jeremiah 31: 27-34); it concludes:

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to one another,
‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,
for I will forgive their iniquity,
and remember their sin no more. – (Jeremiah 31: 34)

Who is ‘the least of them’ in the readings this morning?

Certainly, a widow would fall into that category at the time of Christ. She would have no man to argue her case for her, and so would go unheard. All other cases – commercial, civil and criminal – would take priority in the courts before her request came to be heard.

Who is the widow in this story?

The first part of the reading from Jeremiah might suggest parallels between this widow and the chosen people who have turned their back on God: a people whose covenantal relationship with God has died, and a woman whose covenantal relationship, her marriage, has come to an end with death.

Without love, there is no covenant. Without love there is no true religion, and no true marriage.

We are reminded this morning that a true relationship with God is marked by love – God’s love for us, our love for God, and our love for others.

If that love is the foundation of our Christianity, then justice becomes more important than law, and mercy more important than rules, and God the Judge becomes a loving rather than a tyrannical image.

‘Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice’ (Luke 18: 5) … the sign at the Wig and Pen near the courthouse in Truro, Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 19 October 2025, Trinity XVIII):

The theme this week (19 to 25 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Advancing Theological Education for Young Women in Africa’ (pp 48-49). This theme is introduced today with reflections from Esmeralda (Essie) Pato, Chair of the Communion-Wide Advisory Group for USPG; she is based in Johannesburg, South Africa:

USPG is committed to energising Church by investing in future Anglican leaders through theological education. We’re thrilled to introduce the Young Women’s Theological Education Scholarship, which empowers young women across Africa to become effective leaders and serve their communities.

Back at the start of term, Essie joined the students on the first day at the College of the Transfiguration, a globally recognised Anglican theological college in Makhanda, South Africa. Here she met three scholarship recipients: the Revd Rachel Moshanah, Diocese of Namibia, Miss Sinesipho Zokhwe, Diocese of Mbhashe (Southern Africa) and Mrs Maponoane Ponoane, Diocese of Lesotho. All three were very excited for the start of the new term.

‘I felt honoured to represent USPG as a partner of the college. After an address from the Rector, Dr Percy, returning students welcomed the newcomers by helping them put on their cassocks. This act showed what the message of Jesus is to clergy in the making – that you come to serve and not to be served. The reassurance given to the new students was that they belong and have all the support they need for the year ahead.

In my conversations with students, I was struck by their optimism and eagerness. Many seemed hopeful and ready to learn. It was clear that the seminary isn’t just a place of learning; it’s a space where faith, service, and leadership grow – shaping leaders of tomorrow’s Church.”

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 19 October 2025, Trinity XVIII) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Luke 18: 1-8.

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 Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

In those days they shall no longer say: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’ (Jeremiah 31: 29) … summer grapes on a vine in Lichfield a few weeks ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 14, Sunday 16 February 2025, the Third Sunday before Lent

‘He came down with them and stood … with a great multitude of people from … the coast’ (Luke 6: 17) … by the coast in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are less than three weeks away (5 March 2025), and today is the Third Sunday before Lent (16 February 2025), once known as Septuagesima.

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time 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.

‘Power came out of him and he healed them’ (Luke 6: 19) … the chapel in Dr Milley’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 17-26 (NRSVA):

17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 ‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 ‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

‘They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases’ (Luke 6: 18) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Septuagesima, by John Betjeman:

Septuagesima—seventy days
To Easter’s primrose tide of praise;
The Gesimas—Septua, Sexa, Quinc
Mean Lent is near, which makes you think.
Septuagesima—when we’re told
To “run the race,” to “keep our hold,”
Ignore injustice, not give in, and practice stern self-discipline;
A somewhat unattractive time
Which hardly lends itself to rhyme.

But still it gives the chance to me
To praise our dear old C. of E.
So other churches please forgive
Lines on the church in which I live,
The Church of England of my birth,
The kindest church to me on Earth.

There may be those who like things fully
Argued out, and call you “woolly”;
Ignoring Creeds and Catechism
They say the C. of E.’s “in schism.”

There may be those who much resent
Priest, Liturgy, and Sacrament,
Whose worship is what they call “free,”
Well, let them be so, but for me
There’s refuge in the C. of E.

And when it comes that I must die
I hope the Vicar’s standing by,
I won’t care if he’s “Low” or “High”
For he’ll be there to aid my soul
On that dread journey to its goal,
With Sacrament and prayer and Blessing
After I’ve done my last confessing.

And at that time may I receive
The Grace most firmly to believe,
For if the Christian’s Faith’s untrue
What is the point of me and you?

But this is all anticipating
Septuagesima—time of waiting,
Running the race or holding fast.
Let’s praise the man who goes to light
The church stove on an icy night.
Let’s praise that hard-worked he or she
The Treasurer of the P.C.C.
Let’s praise the cleaner of the aisles,
The nave and candlesticks and tiles.

Let’s praise the organist who tries
To make the choir increase in size,
Or if that simply cannot be,
Just to improve its quality.
Let’s praise the ringers in the tower
Who come to ring in cold and shower.

But most of all let’s praise the few
Who are seen in their accustomed pew
Throughout the year, whate’er the weather,
That they may worship God together.
These, like a fire of glowing coals,
Strike warmth into each other’s souls,
And though they be but two or three
They keep the church for you and me.

These few weeks before Lent are seen in the Church as a time for preparation, a time to get ready, a time to think and reflect before we move into Lent itself.

I remember how this Sunday, the Third Sunday before Lent, was once known as Septuagesima. These Latin names were a reminder that Lent is just around the corner. But, of course, Lent itself is a reminder too that Holy Week and Easter are just around the corner – a reminder to prepare for Good Friday and Easter Day, to get ready for the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

The Gospel reading this morning (Luke 6: 17-26), therefore, tells us what this faith should look like to the outsider. Saint Luke’s version of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ sets out what our Christian faith, our faith in the Risen Christ, should look like to everyone else.

Saint Luke presents a set of contrasts between the two sets of people, although those who first heard this must have been surprised by who fits into which category.

Christ has ascended a mountain to pray. While there, he has chosen twelve of his disciples. Now he descends the mountain as far as a level place. Here he finds a large number of people, including other followers, as well as many Jews (‘people from all Judea and Jerusalem’) and many Gentiles (‘people from … the coast of Tyre and Sidon’). They come to hear and to be healed – they are here in mind and body, expecting their spiritual and their physical needs to be met.

Many are healed, so they realise in their own bodies that they have been restored to their rightful place in the Kingdom of God: those who were once regarded as unclean now have a place in the religious and worshipping community.

Saint Luke then narrates his account of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (verses 20-26). Here he tells of four beatitudes and four corresponding woes or warnings. It is a form of blessing that we have heard in the psalm (Psalm 1).

The word blessed (Greek μακαριοι, makarioi) also means ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate.’

Some are blessed, happy, fortunate to be included in the Kingdom of God, others are warned of the consequences of their choices in life.

The paired blessings and warnings are:

• to the poor (verse 20), and to the rich (verse 24);
• to the hungry (verse 21), and to the ‘full’ (verse 25a);
• to those who weep (verse 21), and to those are laughing (verse 25);
• to those who are hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 22), and to those who are held in esteem (verse 26).

Saint Luke records the ‘poor’ without any qualification (verse 20), compared with Saint Matthew’s ‘poor in spirit’ (see Matthew 5: 3). In Jewish tradition, the poor and the hungry are not cursed or impure, but are deserving recipients of divine and earthly care (see Deuteronomy 11: 15; Isaiah 49: 10; Jeremiah 31: 25; Ezekiel 34: 29). The poor are to receive the Kingdom of God; the rich have their reward today in their comfortable lifestyles.

Those who are excluded are denied their right to worship in the Temple and in the synagogue. But in the past, the prophets – including Jeremiah – were hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 23), while the people in power spoke well of the false prophets (verse 26; see Jeremiah 5: 31).

The Gospel reading this morning begins by telling us a large crowd of people came to hear Jesus and to be healed, and that those who were troubled were cured. If the same people came to our churches today – if they came to me as a priest of the church today – would they know from how we behave – from how I behave – that Jesus cares for them, that he seeks to restore them to the fullness of life?

Poverty comes in many forms today. Exclusion and marginalisation are common experiences for many in our society today.

Those who hunger and who weep are not just around us, but among us, in the Church, in our community, in this society.

If you feel you are excluded or marginalised, if you know you are hungry and you are often close to tears, do you feel the rest of us in the Church do enough to see to it that you know you are counted in when it comes to the Church being a a sign of the Kingdom of God?

If you think you are financially secure, that you have enough to eat, if you have plenty of good reason to laugh and be happy, if you know people respect you and treat you properly, do you see the rest of us in the Church as a blessing to you, as an opportunity to share your blessings, to share your joys, to share your Easter faith in the Risen Christ?

In Oscar Wilde’s satirical play, A Woman of No Importance (1893), Lord Illingworth observes wisely: ‘The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.’

In the past, the Church made Lent, and these few weeks before Lent, as a time of gloom and doom, of penitence and of sorrow.

But perhaps we ought to have also stressed that this a time to take stock again, to realign our priorities, so that we can show one another that we truly are looking forward to the Church being a living sign of our faith in the Living, Risen, Christ and in the Kingdom of God.

‘And all in the crowd were trying to touch him …’ (Luke 6: 19) … the Battle of Cable Street mural in the East End, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 16 February 2025, the Third Sunday before Lent):

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 ‘The Struggle for Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil.’ This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by the Revd Dr Rodrigo Espiúca dos Anjos Siqueira, Coordinator of the Department of Advocacy, Human, Environmental and Territorial Rights of the Anglican Diocese of Brasília. Pastor of Espírito Santo Parish, Novo Gama, Goiás:

Brazil’s Indigenous people have had their rights attacked for centuries. Not least regarding their rights to possession and ownership of ancestral lands. Since the 16th century, with the arrival of Portuguese colonisers, and in the 19th century, with the waves of immigration from Italy, Germany and Poland, the Indigenous people of Brazil have been losing more and more space due to large-scale agriculture, livestock farming and the clearing of forests and jungles. In addition, the indiscriminate use of pesticides is seriously affecting the health of Indigenous populations, especially children.

In this sense, Indigenous peoples and traditional communities (e.g. Quilombolas – Afro Brazilians, farmers, and fishermen) are clamouring for immediate and urgent action to stop the violations of their rights. The most recent violation, comes from the legislative branch itself, which with the approval of a new law, reinforces the ‘Marco Temporal’ clause, according to which only people who were occupying ancestral lands on 5 October 1988 (the date of the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution) would have the right to remain and use the land. Indigenous people and traditional communities who were expelled from their ancestral lands by waves of immigration, and did not obtain official demarcation of their lands before October 1988, therefore do not have the right to occupy the land of their ancestors.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 16 February 2025, the Third Sunday before Lent) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place (Jeremiah 22: 3).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who alone can bring order
to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:
give your people grace
so to love what you command
and to desire what you promise,
that, among the many changes of this world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed
where true joys are to be found;
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:

Merciful Father,
who gave Jesus Christ to be for us the bread of life,
that those who come to him should never hunger:
draw us to the Lord in faith and love,
that we may eat and drink with him
at his table in the kingdom,
where he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Let’s praise the organist who tries / To make the choir increase in size’ (John Betjeman) … the ‘Father Willis’ organ in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (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

‘The Irish Times’ view on Christmas 2023: Remembering the hope that the season brings

Palestinians walk in the empty square outside the Nativity Church in the Biblical city of Bethlehem ahead of Christmas amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip (The Irish Times)

‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

The lamenting words of the Prophet Jeremiah are an integral part of the first Christmas story. They are quoted in Saint Matthew’s Gospel to describe the weeping of mothers over the massacre of their children by King Herod who felt insecure and threatened in his rule in Judea.

Death, weeping and the inconsolable laments of mothers, and the violence of the capricious and the despotic, have long been part and parcel of the religious, political and social history of the region that has become known as the ‘Holy Land.’ Today, Ramah is a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, on the north-east edges of Jerusalem, but isolated from its neighbours by the Israeli-built ‘security wall’.

The massacre of the innocent children, the Christmas Gospel says, came after the visit of the Wise Men from the East, but only after Joseph had managed to flee from Bethlehem with Mary and the new-born Christ Child, finding refuge in Egypt.

The Christmas cribs and decorations in brightly decorated windows and shopfronts for the past few weeks appear distant and disconnected from that first Christmas story, which is always challenging and discomforting. The only bright light is the star over Bethlehem, but that first Christmas story is one of a family on the move, far from home and without home comforts, unable to find affordable accommodation and eventually forced to flee as refugees.

Indeed, the first Christmas story finds echoes in today’s heartbreaking reality for many on the move: mothers weeping for their children, families grieving for their loved ones, in Gaza, in kibbutzim across southern Israel, throughout the West Bank. The violence that has continued for eleven weeks since October 7th renders meaningless many plans to celebrate Christmas in the coming days in the land of the birth of Christ.

The daily news from the Middle East has made many of us forget the other dark news that continued to engulf the world throughout this year: the continuing war in Ukraine and Russia and the new refugee crisis it has created throughout Europe; accelerating climate change that has made this the hottest year on record; the looming prospect of Donald Trump’s return to office; the rise of the far-right across Europe; and the increasing antipathy towards refugees, expressed in the legislative priorities of the British government, last month’s riots on the streets of inner-city Dublin, the burning of an hotel in Co Galway and low-level but persistent and pernicious protests throughout Ireland.

Those who claim their aggressive and confrontational attitude to refugees and migrants is rooted not in prejudice and intolerance but in traditional values, need to be reminded again that – as a Meme that is popular this year says – the traditional Christmas story rejoices in the birth of a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern, undocumented migrant child.

Those who would say No to the refugees at the door of their local hotel reflect the attitude of that innkeeper who says there is no room for a family on the move and not the values that would be proclaimed by the child born at Christmas. When Donald Trump ranted in New Hampshire last weekend and again in Iowa this week about immigrants coming to the US ‘destroying the fabric’ and ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ bringing crime and disease, he was reflecting the values of a cruel and despotic Herod and repeating words in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and denying the priorities expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.

But the Christmas story remains persistently the story of hope coming into a world racked by violence, of light breaking into a world shrouded in darkness; it is the promise of rest for the sleepless, of peace in times of war and oppression, of sanctuary for refugees on the move, of joy in the midst of sorrow. The hope Christmas brings has inspired some of the greatest works of art in Western culture, from paintings and poetry to song and stained-glass. It is, as the Poet Laureate John Betjeman once said, ‘the most tremendous tale of all.’

Following the death of Shane MacGowan earlier this month, the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ has a new-found popularity this Christmas and almost became this year’s Christmas No 1. It is a song filled with images of poverty, pathos and despair, and with images of the downward spiral that fills so many with dread at this time of the year: couples and families, the elderly and the lonely, those whose dreams have been shattered and stolen.

Yet, some lyrics in this song also summarise the hopes that so many cling to in the season of Christmas:

I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true.

This full-length Christmas editorial is published in The Irish Times today (23 December 2023)

Who hears the Cry of Creation and the Cry of the Poor in ‘Such a Time as This’?

‘The Cry of Creation: Creativity in the Church’ … an image used by some of the speakers at the USPG conference last week

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 25 July 2021

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII); Saint James the Apostle

11:30: The Parish Eucharist, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick

The Readings: II Samuel 11: 1-15; Psalm 14; John 6: 1-21

There is a link to the readings HERE.

‘It is I, be not afraid’ (John 6: 20) … the central window above the altar in Christ Church, Spanish Point, Co Clare, shows Christ calming the winds and waves (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen

This week has been the hottest I have ever experienced in Ireland. Yet, this week’s heat, and the recent deluge experienced by people in Germany and other parts of Europe, are sharp reminders that Climate Change is posing threats to the lives of all of us.

But, instead of basking in the sunshine in the rectory gardens, I spent three days this week indoors, in front of a computer screen, having an online presence at the annual three-day conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel.

This year’s conference theme has been ‘For Such a Time as This’: the title comes from the story of Esther in the Bible, where Mordecai asks Esther to consider whether she has found herself in her privileged position at ‘such a time as this,’ a time of great crisis, so that she can do God’s will and stop a looming catastrophe (Esther 4: 14).

‘Such a Times as This’ … Mordecai uses the phrase twice in one verse.

And, in a similar way, we were challenged to think whether the Church has a voice that must speak out at ‘such a time as this’: this time when we are aware of potential catastrophes created by the pandemic, by racism, by political extremism, by gender violence, by climate change … and so on.

But Mordecai warns Esther that she if stays silent at such a time as this, she and her family may perish, but God will raise up ‘relief and deliverance … from another quarter.’

We were challenged, day after day, in such a time as this, whether the Church is going to speak out today, or whether we are going to wait silently for God to provide ‘relief and deliverance … from another quarter.’

The Cry of Creation could be heard all Wednesday morning throughout presentations that invited us to listen to ‘The Cry of Creation.’

Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich, drew on the opening word of the Rule of Saint Benedict – ‘Listen’ – as he urged us to listen to the groan and cry of creation, to listen to the cry of the dispossessed, and to listen to God’s voice on how we can live more simply so that others might simply live.

Sadly, he quoted a survey that finds eight out of ten young people say they have never heard a sermon on climate change. Yet the Fifth Mark of Mission in the Anglican Communion calls on us ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

If the Church engages with climate change, he suggested, then we may find we are evangelising the young.

He quoted from Thomas Merton: ‘From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.’

Our Bible study that morning was led by Suchitra Behera, an Indian theologian working with the Diocese of Barishal in the Church of Bangladesh.

She told a moving story of hearing that ‘Cry of Creation’ in a group of elephants, grieving the death of one elephant killed by a car or a truck on a road. The elephants staged their own protest on the road against the destruction of their habitat, blocking traffic in an organised protest. And she quoted the Prophet Jeremiah on the groaning of creation:

How long will the land mourn,
and the grass of every field wither?
For the wickedness of those who live in it
the animals and the birds are swept away,
and because people said, ‘He is blind to our ways.’

They have made it a desolation;
desolate, it mourns to me.
The whole land is made desolate,
but no one lays it to heart (Jeremiah 12: 4, 11, NRSVA).

Drawing on the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, she linked the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

The cry of creation and the cry of humanity are not separate cries.

And this close link between these two cries is clear in our Gospel reading this morning (John 6: 1-21).

Christ hears the cry of the poor, and calls on the disciples, the Church, to share what they have. They are surprised to find they have more than enough in resources they thought too meagre to feed the 5,000 with barley loaves, the bread of the poor.

And immediately after hearing and responding to the cry of the poor, Christ hears the cry of creation. He calms the waves and the waters, he brings his light into their darkest fears.

‘It is I; do not be afraid.’

We can be transfixed by fear or paralysed into inaction in ‘such a time as this.’ But if the Church remains silent at such a time as this then, perhaps, as Mordecai tells Esther, God raise up ‘relief and deliverance … from another quarter.’

As this year’s conference closed, the Revd Duncan Dormor, general secretary of USPG, reminded us that in the breaking of bread we are one body. Poverty and the assault on the earth challenge us to hear the groaning of creation, he said, and he repeated that there can be no salvation for humanity that does not include creation.

The breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup takes us to the heart of creation.

Let us break bread together. Amen.

A quotation from Thomas Merton shared by Bishop Graham Usher at the USPG conference last week

John 6: 1-21 (NRSVA):

1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ 10 Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ 13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’

15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17 got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ 21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.

‘Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands that holy things have taken’ (Post-Communion Prayer) … Communion vessels in the chapel of Westcott House, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical colour: Green (Ordinary Time, Year B)

Penitential Kyries (Saint James):

Lord, you are gracious and compassionate.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

You are loving to all,
and your mercy is over all your creation.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your faithful servants bless your name,
and speak of the glory of your kingdom.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect of the Day:

Blessed are you, O Lord,
and blessed are those who observe and keep your law:
Help us to seek you with our whole heart,
to delight in your commandments
and to walk in the glorious liberty
given us by your Son, Jesus Christ.

Collect (Saint James the Apostle):

Merciful God,
whose holy apostle Saint James,
leaving his father and all that he had,
was obedient to the calling of your Son Jesus Christ
and followed him even to death:
Help us, forsaking the false attractions of the world,
to be ready at all times to answer your call without delay;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Preface (Saint James):

In the saints
you have given us an example of godly living,
that rejoicing in their fellowship,
we may run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
and with them receive the unfading crown of glory …

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that holy things have taken;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fulness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Post-Communion Prayer (Saint James):

Father,
we have eaten at your table
and drunk from the cup of your kingdom.
Teach us the way of service
that in compassion and humility
we may reflect the glory of Jesus Christ,
Son of Man and Son of God, our Lord.

Blessing:

God give you grace
to share the inheritance of Saint James the Apostle and all his saints in glory …

Bread in the window of Hindley’s Bakery and Café, Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

39, For the fruits of his creation (CD 3)
612, Eternal Father, strong to save (CD 35)

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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘The Cry of Creation’ and a call to the Church to mission that is holistic

‘The Cry of Creation: Creativity in the Church’ … an image used by some of the speakers at the USPG conference today

Patrick Comerford

This week has been the hottest I have ever experienced in Ireland. Yet, this week’s heat, and the recent deluge experienced by people in Germany and other parts of Europe, are sharp reminders that Climate Change is posing threats to the lives of all of us.

The Cry of Creation could be heard this morning throughout the presentations on the last day of this year’s annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

This year’s conference theme has been ‘For Such a Time as This’ and the speakers today (21 July 2021) invited us to listen to ‘The Cry of Creation: Creativity in the Church.’

This morning’s Bible Study was led by Suchitra Behera, an Indian theologian working with the Diocese of Barishal in the Church of Bangladesh. She introduced us to Romans 8: 19-25, putting it in the present contexts of the global pandemic, climate change, racism, gender discrimination and violence.

We were asked whether we are discerning what the Spirit is saying in recent years, and she spoke of the cry of creation that Saint Paul speaks of:

‘For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience’ (Romans 8: 19-25, NRSVA).

Drawing on her own experiences and on the prophets and the Psalms, she gave examples of how the groaning of creation becomes a public protest:

How long will the land mourn,
and the grass of every field wither?
For the wickedness of those who live in it
the animals and the birds are swept away,
and because people said, ‘He is blind to our ways.

They have made it a desolation;
desolate, it mourns to me.
The whole land is made desolate,
but no one lays it to heart. (Jeremiah 12: 4, 11, NRSVA)

Creation is the victim, not the cause, of the futility that oppresses her, she told us. Drawing on the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, she linked the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

But, on a hopeful note, she told us that to groan with creation is to hope for a new creation. Creativity in the Church leads to new life, and ‘creativity invites us to mission.’

‘Creativity invites us to mission’ we were told by Suchitra Behera

Bishop Carlos Simao Matsinhe of Lebombo in Mozambique, part of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, also drew on Romans 8: 19-25 when he spoke about seeing creation in the light of redemption that is always holistic.

Referring to the Fifth Mark of Mission in the Anglican Communion, he spoke of the need to revise our theology of creation in a way that focusses on the integrity of creation.

Bishop Marinez Rosa dos Santos Bassotto, Bishop of the Amazon, a diocese in the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, spoke of the present crises in Brazil shaped by the pandemic, the assaults on the environment and the assaults on indigenous communities.

These assaults are marked by greed, deepening inequalities, and damaging the environment and human life. Deforestation is taking place at a record rate, there is widespread illegal mining, and indigenous communities are being assaulted violently.

Yet she spoke joyfully too of a church that is responding ecumenically and that is really embodying the Fifth Mark of Mission: ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

Bishop Graham Usher of Norwich in the Church of England, drew on the opening word of the Rule of Saint Benedict – ‘Listen’ – as he urged us to listen to the groan and cry of creation, to listen to the cry of the dispossessed, and to listen to God’s voice on how we can live more simply so that others might simply live.

He spoke of the need for the Church to engage with climate action, and quoted a survey that finds eight out of ten young people say they have never heard a sermon on climate change. If the Church engages with climate change, then we may find we are evangelising the young, he suggested.

He quoted from Thomas Merton: ‘From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.’

Earlier this morning, our worship was led by children from the Oxford Diocesan Board for Schools, who expressed their wonder at the beauty of this earth, but also expressed their anger at litter, pollution, the effect of greenhouse gases and climate change, and a word in which the poorest communities suffer most. ‘We cannot continue like this,’ we were told.

As this year’s conference closed, the Revd Duncan Dormor, general secretary of USPG, reminded us that in the breaking of bread we are one body. Poverty and the assault on the earth challenge us to hear the groaning of creation, he said, and he repeated that there can be no salvation for humanity that does not include creation.

The breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup takes us to the heart of creation.

Cambridge University Bookshop is the oldest bookshop site in Britain, selling books from the oldest publisher in the world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This was my last conference as a trustee of USPG, and I had hoped to attend it in person at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. But the conference organisers decided some weeks ago, quite wisely, in the light of the pandemic to make this a ‘virtual’ conference.

I was even looking forward to an afternoon browsing in the bookshops in Cambridge, wondering whether there is still anu wisteria left this year in Sidney Sussex College, or strolling along the Backs in the summer sunshine.

It was as warm in Cambridge this afternoon as it was in Askeaton, and I was booked onto a Ryanair flight from Stansted to Dublin later tonight.

But there will be other opportunities to return to the bookshops of Cambridge, and more USPG conferences to attend in person in the future, hopefully.

Browsing in the bookshops in Cambridge in afternoon sunshine in July two years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Praying at Christmas with USPG: 4, Monday 28 December 2020

‘Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt’ (Matthew 2: 14)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout Advent and Christmas this year, I am using the Prayer Diary of the Anglican Mission Agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) for my morning reflections each day.

I am one of the contributors to the current USPG Diary, Pray with the World Church. After a few busy days, and before this day starts, I am taking a little time this morning for my own personal prayer, reflection and Scripture reading.

The theme of the USPG Prayer Diary this week (27 December 2020 to 2 January 2021) is ‘Introducing the International Year of Peace and Trust,’ which I introduced yesterday, writing as a trustee of USPG and President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Monday 28 December (The Holy Innocents):

Let us pray for all children who are caught up in wars as innocent victims.

The Collect of the Day:

Heavenly Father,
whose children suffered at the hands of Herod:
By your great might frustrate all evil designs,
and establish your reign of justice, love and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us this day 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.

Matthew 2: 13-18 (NRSVA):

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

Continued tomorrow

Yesterday’s morning reflection

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

How to pray to God, instead of an example of how to prey on people

‘Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice’ (Luke 18: 5) … the sign at the Wig and Pen near the courthouse in Truro, Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday, 20 October 2019,

The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII)

11:30 a.m.: The Parish Eucharist, Saint Brendan’s Church, Killnaughtin, Tarbert, Co Kerry.

The Readings: Jeremiah 31: 27-34; Psalm 119: 97-104; II Timothy 3: 14 to 4: 5; Luke 18: 1-8. There is a link to the readings HERE.

An emphasis on justice is found in this morning’s readings … the scales of justice depicted on the Precentor’s Stall in the choir in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Our readings this morning offer an opportunity to reflect on what we mean by law and justice.

In the Old Testament reading, the Prophet Jeremiah speaks on behalf of God, when the people have been restored and know about justice and mercy, and he says:

‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts’ (Jeremiah 31: 33).

The portion of Psalm 119 we read talks about love of the Law, and declares:

‘Lord, how I love your law!
All the day long it is my study
Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me’ (Psalm 119: 97-98).

In the New Testament reading, Saint Paul reminds Saint Timothy that they are ‘in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead’ (II Timothy 4: 1).

The Gospel reading tells us the well-known parable of the ‘Unjust Judge,’ a judge ‘who neither fears God nor has respect for people,’ and how he is forced to grant justice to a widow who keeps coming to him, saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’

Does the judge abandon his sense of impartiality when it comes to the administration of justice?

Or is he forced to realise the difference between what is legal and what is just, and the difference between justice and mercy?

The parable in our Gospel reading is well-known. We often know it as the ‘Parable of the Unjust Judge.’ But we might also call it the ‘Parable of the Persistent Widow,’ for we are told to take this woman and not the judge as our example: an example of how to pray to God, as opposed to an example of how to prey on people.

And yet, let us take some time first to look at the judge.

Are we asked to think that God behaves like an unjust or capricious judge?

Is this a judge who exercises his office without fear or favour?

Is justice about that?

Is justice about seeing that the law is enforced?

Or is it about seeing that justice is done, and is seen to be done?

How many judges implement the law without dispensing justice?

How many judges implement the law without dispensing mercy?

Is this not what happened in Nazi Germany, in apartheid South Africa, or in racist states in the American ‘Deep South’?

How many judges in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa merely applied the law?

Could a Jewish widow expect justice from a judge in Nazi Germany?

Could a black widow expect mercy from a judge in apartheid South Africa?

The woman in our parable is not asking for what is her legal right. She is not asking for her neighbour to be punished. But she may be asking for something she is not entitled to: justice.

When we find ourselves saying we cannot accept a judgmental God, is that because our image of a judge is of a distant figure who applies the full rigour of the law, rather than an accessible figure who dispenses justice and mercy?

These contrasting images of God are found too in our Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 31: 27-34); it concludes:

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to one another,
‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,
for I will forgive their iniquity,
and remember their sin no more. – (Jeremiah 31: 34)

Who is ‘the least of them’ in our readings this morning?

Certainly, a widow would fall into that category at the time of Christ. She would have no man to argue her case for her, and so would go unheard. All other cases – commercial, civil and criminal – would take priority in the courts before her request to be heard.

Who is the widow in this story?

The first part of the Old Testament reading might suggest parallels between this widow and the chosen people who have turned their back on God: a people whose covenantal relationship with God has died, and a woman whose covenantal relationship, her marriage, has come to an end with death.

Without love, there is no covenant. Without love there is no true religion, and no true marriage.

We are reminded this morning that a true relationship with God is marked by love – God’s love for us, our love for God, and our love for others.

If that love is the foundation of our Christianity, then justice becomes more important than law, and mercy more important than rules, and God the Judge becomes a loving rather than a tyrannical image.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of the just, loving and merciful God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

In those days they shall no longer say: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’ (Jeremiah 31: 29) … grapes on a vine in Lichfield last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 18: 1-8 (NRSVA):

18 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming”.’ 6 And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

‘Grant me justice against my opponent’ (Luke 18: 3) … a painting by Una Heaton in a pub in Adare, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God:
Increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

All praise and thanks, O Christ,
for this sacred banquet,
in which by faith we receive you,
the memory of your passion is renewed,
our lives are filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory given,
to feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.

Hymns:

59, New every morning is the love (CD 59)

596, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God (CD 34)

81, Lord, for the years (CD 5)

‘Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me’ (Psalm 119: 98) … the Ten Commandments woven on the mantle on the Aron haKodesh or Holy Ark in the Nuova or New Synagogue in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?’

‘Grant me justice against my opponent’ (Luke 18: 3) … a painting by Una Heaton in a pub in Adare, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday, 20 October 2019,

The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII)

9:30 a.m.: Morning Prayer, Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick.

The Readings: Jeremiah 31: 27-34; Psalm 119: 97-104; II Timothy 3: 14 to 4: 5; Luke 18: 1-8. There is a link to the readings HERE.

An emphasis on justice is found in this morning’s readings … the scales of justice depicted on the Precentor’s Stall in the choir in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Our readings this morning offer an opportunity to reflect on what we mean by law and justice.

In the Old Testament reading, the Prophet Jeremiah speaks on behalf of God, when the people have been restored and know about justice and mercy, and he says:

‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts’ (Jeremiah 31: 33).

The portion of Psalm 119 we read talks about love of the Law, and declares:

‘Lord, how I love your law!
All the day long it is my study
Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me’ (Psalm 119: 97-98).

In the New Testament reading, Saint Paul reminds Saint Timothy that they are ‘in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead’ (II Timothy 4: 1).

The Gospel reading tells us the well-known parable of the ‘Unjust Judge,’ a judge ‘who neither fears God nor has respect for people,’ and how he is forced to grant justice to a widow who keeps coming to him, saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’

Does the judge abandon his sense of impartiality when it comes to the administration of justice?

Or is he forced to realise the difference between what is legal and what is just, and the difference between justice and mercy?

The parable in our Gospel reading is well-known. We often know it as the ‘Parable of the Unjust Judge.’ But we might also call it the ‘Parable of the Persistent Widow,’ for we are told to take this woman and not the judge as our example: an example of how to pray to God, as opposed to an example of how to prey on people.

And yet, let us take some time first to look at the judge.

Are we asked to think that God behaves like an unjust or capricious judge?

Is this a judge who exercises his office without fear or favour?

Is justice about that?

Is justice about seeing that the law is enforced?

Or is it about seeing that justice is done, and is seen to be done?

How many judges implement the law without dispensing justice?

How many judges implement the law without dispensing mercy?

Is this not what happened in Nazi Germany, in apartheid South Africa, or in racist states in the American ‘Deep South’?

How many judges in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa merely applied the law?

Could a Jewish widow expect justice from a judge in Nazi Germany?

Could a black widow expect mercy from a judge in apartheid South Africa?

The woman in our parable is not asking for what is her legal right. She is not asking for her neighbour to be punished. But she may be asking for something she is not entitled to: justice.

When we find ourselves saying we cannot accept a judgmental God, is that because our image of a judge is of a distant figure who applies the full rigour of the law, rather than an accessible figure who dispenses justice and mercy?

These contrasting images of God are found too in our Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 31: 27-34); it concludes:

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to one another,
‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,
for I will forgive their iniquity,
and remember their sin no more. – (Jeremiah 31: 34)

Who is ‘the least of them’ in our readings this morning?

Certainly, a widow would fall into that category at the time of Christ. She would have no man to argue her case for her, and so would go unheard. All other cases – commercial, civil and criminal – would take priority in the courts before her request to be heard.

Who is the widow in this story?

The first part of the Old Testament reading might suggest parallels between this widow and the chosen people who have turned their back on God: a people whose covenantal relationship with God has died, and a woman whose covenantal relationship, her marriage, has come to an end with death.

Without love, there is no covenant. Without love there is no true religion, and no true marriage.

We are reminded this morning that a true relationship with God is marked by love – God’s love for us, our love for God, and our love for others.

If that love is the foundation of our Christianity, then justice becomes more important than law, and mercy more important than rules, and God the Judge becomes a loving rather than a tyrannical image.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of the just, loving and merciful God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

In those days they shall no longer say: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’ (Jeremiah 31: 29) … grapes on a vine in Lichfield last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 18: 1-8 (NRSVA):

18 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming”.’ 6 And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

‘Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice’ (Luke 18: 5) … the sign at the Wig and Pen near the courthouse in Truro, Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God:
Increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect of the Word:

O Lord God,
tireless guardian of your people,
you are always ready to hear our cries.
Teach us to rely day and night on your care.
Inspire us to seek your enduring justice.
for all this suffering world,
through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

Hymns:

59, New every morning is the love (CD 59)

596, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God (CD 34)

81, Lord, for the years (CD 5)

‘Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me’ (Psalm 119: 98) … the Ten Commandments woven on the mantle on the Aron haKodesh or Holy Ark in the Nuova or New Synagogue in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg’

‘I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg’ (Luke 16: 3) … ‘Christ the Beggar’ … a sculpture by Timothy Schmalz on the steps of Santo Spirito Hospital near the Vatican (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday, 22 September 2019,

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV).

11.30 a.m.: The Parish Eucharist, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick.

Readings: Jeremiah 8: 18 to 9: 1; Psalm 79: 1-9; I Timothy 2: 1-7; Luke 16: 1-13. There is a link to the readings HERE.

‘Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land’ (Jeremiah 8: 19) … the Famine Memorial by the sculptor Rowan Gillespie on Custom House Quay, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

This morning’s readings share a common thread: ignoring and exploiting the plight of the oppressed and the poor is turning away from God and turning towards idolatry. We are called to turn around, and in turning to the needs of the poor we find that we are turning to God.

In the Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 8: 18 to 9: 1), the Prophet Jeremiah is filled with grief and he is sick at heart, distressed at the nation’s conduct and its consequences for the poor people throughout the land. The poor cry out, wondering where God is to be found in midst of their plight, and feel they have been deserted or abandoned by God: ‘Is the Lord not in Zion?’

So, let me tell this morning’s Gospel story (Luke 16: 1-13) in another way. When I left school, I started training as a chartered surveyor and estate manager. I never finished that training, but I can visualise some of the characters in this story.

A very, very rich man lives in a big city, let’s say it’s Dublin. He has a luxurious lifestyle made possible by the income from the apartments, hotels and office blocks he owns in the city centre. He has been a major property developer, and a key shareholder in one of the business banks lending to developers.

He has hired an estate manager to run his property holding company, his building society, and his insurance agency while he spends most of his time in his large country house in Kildare or Meath, or in Marbella playing golfing and on his yacht.

All the work of painting, maintaining the lifts and the plumbing in his apartment blocks, working the bar and servicing the rooms in his hotels, and working at the call centres in the office blocks, is done by people who travel in and out from the rims of the city, people whose grandparents probably once lived in the small terraced houses that once stood along the docks or the canal banks but were levelled to build those apartments, office blocks and hotels.

They pay their mortgages to the bank that financed the apartment blocks and similar developments. Their overdrafts are from the same bank. Their mortgage, insurance and life assurance policies are from an agency he owns. They find themselves increasingly in debt, paying school fees, running a car or two cars, meeting hire purchase payments for fridges, freezers, TVs, the children’s school fees and laptops ... What they earn is never enough to pay off their mortgages, their overdrafts, their term loans.

Their families are slipping further and further into debt, working harder and harder to pay what cannot be paid.

But they never meet the rich developer. The immediate face of this system, of his companies and his investments, is the face of the estate agent who manages the blocks – a man whose grandparents came from the same families as the people who now suffer under his management.

However, his parents had escaped the system, he got a good education, and then got sucked into the system.

The developer hears rumours that the estate manager, who is also his insurance agent, has been squandering the developer’s resource, and gives him his dismissal notice. Now, remember that ‘squandering’ is not necessarily a bad word here – the sower in another parable squanders seed by tossing it on roads and in bird-feeding zones, and the shepherd in last Sunday’s parable potentially squanders 99 sheep by running after the lost one; the widow searching for her lost coin risks losing her other nine as she sweeps everything out.

Anyway, the estate agent has to work out his notice, but is no longer authorised to let, to rent, to buy, to sell, to do anything at all in the developer’s name.

He probably shares the same background only a generation or two ago with the maintenance workers, the tenants, the workers in the office blocks. But when he is out on his ear, they are not going to help him to find a place to live, or find a new job, given that up to now he has allied himself with the developer’s interests, collecting high rents, refusing to bring down rents when the reviews are due, managing the work rotas for the maintenance workers, forcing them to work longer hours rather than taking on the staff needed for the job, dealing unjustly with both tenants and workers.

He has been demanding higher rents and premiums, and longer working hours, yet providing fewer and fewer services – doing what all good economists advised him to do: increasing profit margins and productivity and cutting costs at one and the same time.

He may be shrewd, but that is why he is called ‘the dishonest manager’ (verse 8).

So what does the agent do?

He does something that is extraordinarily clever.

He gathers all the tenants and workers who owe him money, and he declares that their debts have been written down, more than the courts could ever write them down, to something that might be repaid, freeing families from heart-breaking choices. He has been upping their rents and their premiums; now he brings them all back to a payable rate. And in doing this, he manages to wipe out the arrears that have been mounting up.

The smart agent manages not to tell the tenants or the workers that he has been sacked. Nor does he tell them that the developer has not authorised any of his largesse. But the tenants and the workers now think the developer, their landlord, is more generous than anyone else in his position could be. The developer is now a hero in their eyes – and, by extension, the agent is too.

The developer comes for his quarterly or annual visit to pick up the income the agent has collected for him, and he gets a surprise that is exhilarating and challenging. The people are delighted to see him. Workers shake his hands, tenants lean out of balconies to wave at him, children want to have photographs taken with him.

Then, as he inspects the books in the small office the agent has worked from in the complex, he finds out what the agent has done in telling the tenants and the workers that the developer has forgiven their debts.

He has a choice to make.

He can go and tell them that it was all a terrible mistake, that the agent’s stroke amounted not to generosity but to theft, or at least to dishonesty, and has no legal basis – he can tell them they are still responsible for the unpaid rent, for the overdrawn loans.

The warm welcome could quickly turn to nasty protests.

Or, the developer can go outside, bask in the unexpected welcome he has received, and take credit for the agent’s actions. At least he has cash in his hand where once he might have had nothing because of defaulting tenants and clients. That would save him going to court, but has he to take the agent back to work for him?

What would you do?

Picture yourself in this dilemma, both as the agent and as the developer.

From the agent’s point of view, does it matter any more what the developer decides to do?

Whatever decision the developer makes, his future is safe: either he gets his job back, or his own people are going to look after him.

But here is the big problem: what the agent did is clearly dishonest. He has taken the landlord’s property and squandered it – even after he was sacked and had no right to do anything in the developer’s name.

What is it that the agent has done, without permission? Who has he deceived?

The agent forgives. He forgives things that he had no right to forgive. He forgives for all the wrong reasons, for personal gain and to compensate for his past misconduct. But that’s the decisive action that he undertakes to redeem himself from a position from which it seems he could not be reconciled, to the developer any more than to the tenants and workers.

So what is the moral of the story?

This story is unique to Saint Luke’s Gospel, and for him there is a significance that is important throughout the third gospel: Forgive. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want. Forgive for the right reason. Forgive for the wrong reason. Forgive for no reason at all. Just forgive.

Remember, Saint Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer includes the helpful confusion: καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν: καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν (‘and forgive us our sins for indeed we ourselves are forgiving everyone who is [monetarily] indebted to us’) (Luke 11: 4) – the monetary indebtedness is obvious in the original Greek.

We pray it, but do we put it into practice?

The arrival of the Kingdom of God is no occasion for score-keeping of any kind, whether monetary or moral.

Why should I forgive someone who has sinned against me, or against my sense of what is obviously right? I don’t have to do it out of love for the other person.

I could forgive the other person because of what I pray in the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday if not every morning.

I could forgive because I know I would like to be forgiven myself.

I could forgive because I know what it is like to be me when I am unforgiving.

I could forgive because I am, or I want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Christ’s power to forgive and free someone just like me.

Or I could forgive because I think it will improve my life and sense of well-being.

It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive.

Extending the kind of grace God shows me in every possible arena – financial and moral – can only put me more deeply in touch with God’s grace.

If a crafty agent, a dishonest manager, an unjust steward, the sort of person we meet in this Gospel reading, can forgive to save his job or give himself a safety net when he is sacked, then those of us who have the experience of real grace, we have been invited to the Heavenly Banquet, we who pray in the words of the Psalm, ‘Remember not our past sins; let your compassion be swift to meet us’ (Psalm 79: 8), we who believe, as the Apostle Paul says in the Epistle reading, that Christ ‘gave himself a ransom for all’ (I Timothy 2: 6) – we have a better reason than most people to forgive.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

A ‘Shop To Let’ sign within view of Sidney Sussex College chapel, Cambridge … can we reconcile the values of the Kingdom and the demands of commercial life? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 16: 1-13:

16 Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” 3 Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” 6 He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” 7 Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

10 ‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave 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.’

‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much’ (Luke 16: 10) … old pennies on a table in a pub in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Colour: Green.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
Give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect of the Word:

O God,
you call us to serve you:
enable us to be faithful in minor tasks
so that we may be entrusted
with your true riches.
We ask this through Jesus your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord God,
the source of truth and love:
Keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus’ (I Timothy 2: 5) … an image in the Monastery of Rousanou in Meteora, Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Hymns:

597, Take my life, and let it be (CD 34)
81, Lord for the years your love has kept and guided (CD 5)
601, Teach me, my God and King (CD 34)

The Unjust Steward … part of the East Window in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick, made 1878 by Mayer & Co and illustrating 10 parables (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.