Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 120, Sunday 7 September 2025, Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) … Christ takes up his Cross, Station 2 in the Stations of the Cross in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 7 September 2025).

We are spending the weekend visiting family and friends in York, and later this morning I hope to attend the Parish Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church on Marygate in the city centre. I am disappointed to miss the parish fete at All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this afternoon (2 pm to 4 pm). But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 27) …the reredos by Sir Ninian Comper above the altar in the south aisle in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 14: 25-33 (NRSVA):

25 Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace, and reminds us of the ‘Cost of Discipleship’

Today’s reflection:

In the various editions of the NRSV translations of the Bible, the heading or sub-heading for the passage that is today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14: 25-33) is ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.

The Cost of Discipleship is the title of one of the best-known books by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed on 9 April 1945 in a German concentration camp before even reaching the age of 40, and just weeks before the end of World War II 80 years ago.

This youthful pastor was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and he is widely regarded as a modern saint and martyr. His statue by the sculptor Tim Crawley above the West Door of Westminster Abbey places him among the 10 martyrs of the 20th century.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on 4 February 1906 in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau), now in Poland, and grew up in a comfortable professional German home, where his family was nominally Lutheran. When he was 13, he decided to study for ordination.

He studied at the University of Berlin, at the age of 18 visited Rome, and studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1930-1931).

Following the rise of the Nazis in 1933, Bonhoeffer saw Nazism as a counter-religion and a danger to Christianity. In October 1933, he became the pastor of two German-speaking parishes in the London area, and began his friendship with Bishop George Bell of Chichester.

On his return to Germany, Bonhoeffer ran the seminary of the Confessing Church at Finkenwalde, which was shut down by the police in 1937. He went to New York in 1939 but chose to return to Germany, aware of the cost of discipleship that lay before him and fearing a Nazi victory would destroy Christian civilisation. For Bonhoeffer, true discipleship now demanded political resistance against the criminal state.

He was arrested in March 1943 and survived as a prisoner until he was executed on 9 April 1945, only a few days before the end of World War II.

For my generation, Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential theologians on our reading lists. We drew endlessly on such books as The Cost of Discipleship, as well as No Rusty Swords and Ethics. We bandied around phrases such as ‘religionless Christianity’ and the ‘man for others,’ perhaps without fully grasping their meaning and implications.

We were quick to dismiss any church activity we deemed unfashionable as purveying ‘cheap grace.’ And we saw Bonhoeffer as a role model for our resistance to racism and apartheid, nuclear weapons and modern warfare, and even the very political and economic foundations of society.

Like all great theologians, like all great thinkers, philosophers and writers who are now dead, it was easy to quote him and to use him for our own ends: he could hardly answer back and say ‘I have been misunderstood’, ‘you have misquoted me’ or ‘you have quoted me out of context.’

Bonhoeffer has been claimed in recent years, on the one hand, by so-called ‘conservative evangelicals,’ who are happy with his theological method but unwilling to take his radical discipleship to the point of challenging social and corporate sin in our society; and, on the other hand, by radical reformers who would tear down all our received wisdom and traditions in their vain attempts to construct their own brand of ‘religionless Christianity.’

Unhappily, in recent years, theological rigour has gone out of fashion in many centres of learning. Where once students were happy to explore how faith could find understanding, many have slipped into the cold comfort of position-taking, relying on their own protestations of faith instead of warming to the challenge of new thinking and exploration. Theologians are no longer great names; even among the general public today, people are less likely to take their questions about faith and belief from the theological giants of the last century, such as Bultmann, Barth and Bonhoeffer, and more likely to be detracted by the silly, peripheral questions about truth and religion raised by Dan Browne in his Da Vinci Code, on the one hand, or Richard Dawkins in his The God Delusion on the other.

So, almost 80 years after his death, we might ask reflect today on who Bonhoeffer was, and why his writings and thoughts continue to have relevance for us in our society today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the potential to become a great musician or poet and playwright. Instead, he studied theology in Tubingen, Rome and Berlin, travelled through Rome and North Africa, and later spent time in Barcelona, New York, Cuba, Mexico and London, giving him an experience of the world church that would make a leading contributor to the foundation of the modern ecumenical movement.

He was still in his 20s when Hitler came to power. In a radio address two days after Hitler assumed office in 1933, Bonhoeffer warned against the idolatry of the ‘Fuhrer’ principle. He went on to become involved in the Pastors’ Emergency League, was closely associated with those who signed the Barmen Declaration, helped to form the Confessing Church, and, outside Germany, became a close friend of the saintly Anglican bishop, George Bell.

The Barmen Declaration declared that the Church must not be allowed to become an instrument of political ideology, and rejected ‘the false doctrine that the Church should acknowledge, as the source of its message over and above God’s word, any other events, powers, figures and truths as divine revelation.’

Bonhoeffer paid the price for speaking out. His licence to teach was withdrawn, he was dismissed from his university, and eventually the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde was closed. However, at Finkenwalde, he produced his two best-known books, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) and Life Together (1939).

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. The sacraments and forgiveness are thrown away at cut price. We offer grace without price and grace without cost, instead of offering costly grace, which calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

When synagogues throughout Germany were set on fire in 1938, Bonhoeffer told the Church: ‘Only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chant.’ In his Bible, he underlined two passages in the Psalms that read: ‘They are burning the houses of God in the land,’ and, ‘No prophet speaks any longer.’ He marked the date in his Bible and wrote later: ‘The church was silent when she should have cried out.’

When World War II broke out, he became involved in the resistance, making contacts in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. And yet he found time to write his book Ethics. His contacts with George Bell failed to stop Britain’s policy of obliteration bombing and demanding ‘unconditional surrender.’ The German opposition was left without hope, and a disappointed Bell wrote his hymn ‘Christ is the King’:

Let Love’s unconquerable might
God’s people everywhere unite
In service to the Lord of Light. Alleluia.

In prison, Bonhoeffer worked on his Letters and Papers from Prison and wrote: ‘What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed, who Christ really is, for us today … We are moving to a completely religionless time … if therefore man becomes radically religionless – and I think that is already more or less the case … what does that mean for Christianity? How can Christ become Lord of the religionless as well?’

The final chapter of his last, unfinished book begins: ‘The Church is only her true self when she exists for humanity … She must take her part in the social life of the world, not lording it over men, but helping and serving them. She must tell men, whatever their calling, what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.’

He was hanged at Flossenburg at dawn on 9 April 1945. An oft-quoted line from The Cost of Discipleship foreshadowed his death: ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ His last recorded words as he was led to the scaffold were a message for George Bell: ‘Tell him that for me this is the end, but also the beginning.’

It was not the end, it was only the beginning. By the 1950s and the 1960s, he was the theologians’ theologian, and his influence was immeasurable. More recently he was ‘canonised’ by having his statue placed on the west front of Westminster Abbey. In recent years, he has been the subject of a new made-for-television movie in America. But what is his relevance today?

‘Bonhoeffer is one of the great examples of moral courage in the face of conflict,’ says Martin Doblmeier, director of Bonhoeffer, a recent 90-minute film. ‘Many of the issues Bonhoeffer faced – the role of the church in the modern world, national loyalty and personal conscience, what the call to being a ‘peacemaker’ really means – are issues we continue to struggle with today.’

1 Firstly, Bonhoeffer reminds us that faith assumptions and presumptions are no substitute in the seminary and the theological college for intellectual rigour and questioning. Indeed, he shows us that this is a more effective way of building faith than by trying to impose our individual views on others, and impose them judgmentally.

2 Secondly, in this post-modern world, Bonhoeffer continues to challenge us when we find new ways to make our Christian faith subject to, and relevant to, the overarching fashionable political and social ideologies of our day. Is the ‘Fuhrer principle’ reflected in the calls and slogans at Trump’s rallies or in the campaigns of far-right leaders rising across Central Europe today? How often have the different brands of Christianity been called on in recent decades to justify the nation-state as it embarked on disastrous wars of pride, one after another, whether it was the Falklands War, or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or indeed whether it was Catholic Croats or Orthodox Serbs indulging in ethnic cleansing to create nation states with a single religious identity.

3 Thirdly, Bonhoeffer’s story of the Church remaining silent when it should have spoken out as the synagogues were burned down in 1938 is a challenge to us today. Once again synagogues and mosques too are being attacked and burned down, this time in the US, and being daubed and attacked across Europe. The stranger is not being welcomed, the refugee is being turned back, many of our new immigrants are the victims of pernicious racism, migrants are left isolated and in cramped, dehumanising conditions. The Cross, in this case the Cross of Saint George, has become a weapon in the hands of bigots and hate-mongers. Civilians – including children, the elderly, hospital patients and staff, journalists – are being slaughtered in Gaza. Hostages are still being held by Hamas almost two years after they were abducted. Are we speaking out, speaking out now, before our silence becomes complicity in something even worse?

4 Fourthly, in his concern with growing secularisation, a concern so well articulated in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer tells us we need to face up to the growing secularisation of society and of humanity. If he could see in the 1940s our need to speak about God in a secular way, how much more pressing is that need today? We are so obsessed with maintaining not so much our Church structures but our Church pomp and sense of self-importance, leaving us unable to reach out to a secular world with a ‘religionless Christianity.’ We often use Christianity as a garment to cloak and protect us and to ringfence our prejudices about others and their sexuality, class, ethnicity and background, rather than asking, like Christ, what they need and accepting Christ’s charge to go out into the world. How can we find the language that enables us to speak in a secular way about God, and how can we live up to our missionary charge in the world today by being able to present to postmodern humanity Jesus who is ‘the man for others’?

5 Fifth and finally, how as a Church can we resist the temptation to continue dispensing cheap grace? So often, success in the Church is measured by how well we fill the pews, and whether we send people out happy and clapping. But sometimes prophetic voices can be isolated and left speaking to empty pews. A congregation that goes out into the world feeling uncomfortable but challenged may be better prepared to take the light of Christ into the world of darkness. Dispensing cheap grace should never be the task of the truly prophetic priest.

It is not easy to rejoice in these challenges. But we can accept them as blessings, and must give thanks for prophetic life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr priest and prophet, who challenged us to consider ‘the Cost of Discipleship’.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer questioned the proper role of a Christian in the midst of political turmoil … ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die’

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 7 September 2025, Trinity XII):

The theme this week (7 to 13 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Cementing a Legacy’ (pp 36-37). This theme is introduced today with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG:

How can one person’s legacy spark lasting change?

A remarkable act of generosity and hard work is bearing fruit in the Diocese of South West Tanganyika, part of the Anglican Church of Tanzania. This ambitious project has culminated in a brand new housing and retail complex which has roots that stretch back decades – to the life and legacy of Ms Eira Lloyd.

Ms Lloyd served as a missionary and teacher in Tanzania for 35 years, between the 1940s and 1980s. She dedicated her life to the Anglican Church of Tanzania, working closely with Mothers’ Union. Tanzania became her home and her love for her community endured beyond her lifetime. When she passed away, she left a legacy gift to the diocese, enabling this project to take shape in her memory.

The diocese, recognising the potential of her gift, fundraised to acquire land and developed a detailed plan with support from USPG. Thanks to funding from Trinity Church Wall Street and local efforts, the vision became a reality. The rental income from the 12 hostel rooms and retail space will support the diocese’s educational work and care for orphans, women, and young people in the region.

‘It takes a lot of planning and hard work to get to this point. It proves what tremendous fruit can come from the small seed of faithful service,’ reflected The Revd Canon Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary USPG, drawing on the wonderful legacy of Ms Eira Lloyd.

Inspired? Visit uspg.org.uk to find out more about leaving a legacy.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 7 September 2025, Trinity XII) invites us to read and meditate on Luke 14: 25-33.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of 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:

God of all mercy,
in this eucharist you have set aside our sins
and given us your healing:
grant that we who are made whole in Christ
may bring that healing to this broken world,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of constant mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that our thankfulness may grow,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (seventh from left) among the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (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

Patrick Comerford’s sermon in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on 5 February 2006, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was published in ‘A Year of Sermons at Saint Patrick’s, Dublin’ (pp 19-22)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 119, Saturday 6 September 2025

‘While Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSVA) … cornfields near Lismore, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 7 September 2025).

We are spending the weekend visiting family and friends in York, and later today I may visit Durham and Durham Cathedral. It means, of course, I am going to miss Το Στεκι Μασ / Our Place, the ‘pop-up’ coffee shop in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford, from 10:30 to 3 pm today. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

The 12 loaves of shewbread or Bread of the Presence depicted in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 1-5 (NRSVA):

6 One sabbath while Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ 3 Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?’ 5 Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

‘While Jesus was going through the cornfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSVA) … cornfields near Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire, with the tower of Saint Mary’s Church in the background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

There are two minor details that continue to puzzle me about this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 6: 1-5).

On this Saturday morning, I am slightly puzzled about the timing or the day when this event takes place. The NRSV and NIV translations refer to ‘one sabbath’, although footnotes explain that other ancient authorities read ‘on the second first sabbath.’ The KJV and similar translations refer to ‘the second sabbath after the first’.

But the KJV is based on the Textus Receptus, and the phrase in question, ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ (en sabbáto deuteropróto) only exists in the Textus Receptus, a later text, and not in the earlier manuscripts or the critical versions. The phrase is omitted by many manuscripts, including the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus.

In any case, what day did this event occur on?

When was ‘the second first sabbath’ or ‘the second sabbath after the first’?

Is the second sabbath after the first not the third sabbath?

Because the Greek word δευτερόπρωτος (deuteróprotos) is limited to Luke 6: 1, it is not found in all the manuscripts – or in other, contemporary Greek texts – and it is difficult to define and impossible to agree on.

One suggestion is that it refers to the Sabbath following the first day of Passover or Pascha, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Some of the other efforts to provide explanations include:

• the first Sabbath in the second year of a seven-year cycle comprising the period from one Sabbatical year to the other;
• the first Sabbath after the second day of Passover;
• the second Sabbath after the Passover has taken place;
• the first of the seven Sabbaths the people were to ‘count unto’ themselves from ‘the morrow after the sabbath’ until Pentecost (see Leviticus 23: 15);
• the first Sabbath in the Jewish religious calendar of the time – about the middle of March;
• the Sabbath during Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks;
• the first Sabbath in the civil year – about the middle of September;
• the Sabbath for the presentation of the second offering of the first fruits;
• or, simply, some ‘technical expression of the Jewish calendar’ – without asking or explaining what that may be.

Indeed, the term δευτερόπρωτος (deuteroprotos) is an awkward, clunky combination of the words δεύτερος (deuteros, ‘second’) and πρω̑τος (protos, ‘first’). Its use may point to unskilful work and textual emendation on the part of copyists. If so, then it is not necessary to try unravel this conundrum.

The phrase has confounded scholars from as early as the fourth century, when Jerome, in a letter to Nepotianus, confesses that he consulted Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and was unable to determine what the phrase meant:

‘My teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, when I once asked him to explain Luke’s phrase σάββατον δευτερόπρωτον, that is ‘the second-first Sabbath,’ playfully evaded my request saying: ‘I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, everyone will put you down for a fool’ (Jerome, Letter LII, 2).

I suppose I may simply accept it is not essential that we know the precise meaning of this calendar term. It is more important to get to heart of what this story is about.

The second minor detail that continues to puzzle me about this morning’s Gospel reading is why Luke’s account does not include a peculiar detail in Saint Mark’s version of this event (Mark 2: 23-30).

In Saint Mark’s account, Jesus and his disciples are criticised for ‘harvesting grain’ on the Sabbath. They are simply plucking some heads of grain to munch on as they walk through a grainfield (verse 23). When the disciples are challenged about what they are doing on the Sabbath, Jesus cites an event in I Samuel 21: 1-6, and refers to a time when ‘Abiathar was high priest’.

In that event, David and his men ate the 12 loaves of shewbread from the tabernacle in Nob. David approaches Ahimelech the priest in Nob and asks for food for his men They were on the run from King Saul, but David keeps that fact from Ahimelech. Ahimelech gives David some of the ‘bread of the Presence’ (verse 6) and then, at David’s request, gives him Goliath’s sword, which was being kept in Nob (verses 8-9).

Later, when Saul summons the priests to Gibeah to question them, Ahimelech is the priests’ spokesman (I Samuel 22: 6-14). The passage implies that Ahimelech is the chief priest during the time David fled from Saul. Abiathar fled to join David and served as his priest all through David’s years of wandering and exile. He was appointed high priest after David became king, and he shared the high priesthood with Zadok, Saul’s appointee, until David’s death.

Neither Matthew (Matthew 12: 1-8) nor Luke mention Abiathar. Did Matthew and Luke eliminate the reference to Abiathar, realising there was an error in the original source?

To explain why in Saint Mark’s account Jesus refers to Abiathar as the high priest, several theories are put forward, although each one is equally tortuous and difficult. They include:

• Since Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech, it is possible that both men took part in high priestly duties.
• Abiathar was more closely associated with David than Ahimelech and was a long-time high priest during David’s reign.
• Abiathar, being present in Nob when David visited the tabernacle, is called the ‘high priest’ in anticipation of his future title.

Each explanation is eager to avoid accepting a literal reading of the conflicting or irreconcilable texts. To accept that there is a conflict between the passages means accepting that I Samuel is wrong, that Mark’s text is wrong, or that Jesus has made an historical error.

In addition, this event took place not in ‘the house of God’ (verse 4), for the Temple in Jerusalem had not yet been built, but in ‘the Tent of Meeting’.

It is interesting that the people who are most likely to refuse a literal exegesis of one or both passages are those most likely, in a very contradictory way, to demand a very literal exegesis of their own concoction when it comes to their interpretation of passages, for example, on sexuality. Is it any coincidence that these self-styled ‘conservative evangelicals’ are also those most likely to reject a literal exegesis of the Eucharistic passages in the New Testament.

Both Jesus and the Pharisees regard the decision to provide the shewbread as righteous by both Jesus and the Pharisees.

The important points in this morning’s reading are not in the debate over the day on which the events took place, nor are they to be found in debating who knew who was once the high priest and when.

The important points in this morning’s reading are that the Sabbath is most sacred when it is about God and about people rather than about the minutiae of interpreting rules and regulations. And one of the most important emphases in Jesus’ ministry is to feed the hungry: the physically hungry with bread, and the spiritually hungry with him as the true Bread of Presence, the Bread of Life.

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields in Comberford, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 6 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 6 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we ask for your protection and guidance over the ELA meeting this year in Kenya. Bless and inspire all who have gathered to deepen their understanding of you.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; 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:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XII:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of 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

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … walking through the fields along Cross in Hand Lane near Lichfield (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

‘While Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain’ (Luke 6: 1, NRSV) … following a public footpath through the fields in Comberford, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 116, Wednesday 3 September 2025

Jesus Heals Simon Peter's Mother-in-Law … a panel in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025). Sunday was also the first day of Autumn, when the Season of Creation began, and it continues until 4 October.

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Gregory the Great (604). Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 4: 38-44 (NRSVA):

38 After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

40 As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. 41 Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

James Tissot ‘The Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-law’ (La guérison de la belle-mère de Pierre), 1886-1894 (Brooklyn Museum)

Today’s Reflection:

There are four parts in this morning’s Gospel reading:

1, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (verses 38-39);

2, Jesus heals many other people, including people with diseases and people who are exorcised of demons (verses 40-41);

3, Jesus retreats to a deserted place but is followed by the crowds (verses 42-43);

4, Jesus moved on from preaching in the synagogues in Galilee to preaching in the synagogues in Judea (verse 44).

Most people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories are unnamed, so that many of the women he heals are not named too. Indeed, in the healing stories told of men, only Lazarus and Malchus are named. But the high priest’s servant Malchus is only named by John (John 18: 10), and not in the synoptic gospels. Mark refers to blind Bartimaeus, but this is a reference only to his father’s name and not the name of the blind man himself (see Mark 10: 46).

In all the Gospel stories in which Jesus heals women, the women too are anonymous. In this morning’s Gospel reading, even Simon Peter’s mother-in-law remains unnamed, and she is identified only by her relationship to Simon Peter. Indeed, there is no mention at all of her daughter, Simon Peter’s wife.

All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell this healing story (see Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-40). Matthew says Jesus ‘touched’ the woman's hand, Mark say he ‘grasped’ it, and in Luke he simply ‘rebuked the fever’. Mark says the house was the home of Peter and Andrew, who both interceded with Jesus for the woman. Luke alone says she had a high fever.

The healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the first story of physical healing in Saint Luke’s Gospel, and it follows immediately after the first story of spiritual healing, of an unnamed man in the synagogue in Capernaum. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and the demon-possessed man trigger a wave of sick and possessed people being brought to Jesus.

Mother-in-law jokes illustrated many seaside postcards and were part of the stock-in-trade of comedians in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Those mothers-in-law were never named, and the jokes served to emphasise the domestic role – perhaps servile role – of women in homes and families in those days.

But mothers-in-law were also mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, nieces, daughters, they had careers, hopes and ambitions, fears, illnesses, and sufferings, they had love and emotion, and they had names … none of which were acknowledged in those postcards or comic sketches.

Those attitudes were reinforced by many of the ways in which I have heard men in the past interpret this morning’s reading. Yet a closer reading of this story shows that it does not reinforce a woman’s place as being servile or secondary, the ‘complementarian’ view offered by some commentators who claim they are ‘conservative evangelicals.’

It is not a story about a woman taking a weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.

The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo), used in verse 39 in reference to this woman means to wait, attend upon, serve, or to be an attendant or assistant. Later, in Acts and other places in the New Testament, it means to minister to, relieve, assist, or supply with the necessaries of life, or provide the means of living, to do the work of διάκονος (diakonos or deacon (see I Timothy 3: 10, 13; I Peter 4: 11), even to be in charge or to administer (see II Corinthians 3: 3, 8: 19-20; I Peter 1: 12, 4: 10).

The word describing this woman’s service also describes the angels who minister to Jesus after he is tempted in the wilderness (Mark 1: 13; Matthew 4: 11), the work of his female disciples (Luke 8: 1-3), and describes Martha of Bethany when she serves while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet and learns, before Jesus specifically affirms Mary’s choice (Luke 10: 38-42).

Most significantly, this word describes Jesus himself, when he explains to his disciples that ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (see Mark 10: 43-45).

Being healed is not just about personal relief but also about being restored to a place where one can serve and contribute to the community. The Book of Common Prayer describes God as the one ‘whose service is perfect freedom,’ and this is modelled by Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to Jesus healing her is a model not just for women but for all Christian service. In the kingdom, serving is not women’s work, it is everybody’s work.

Christ Healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a fresco in Visoki Dečani Monastery, a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo and Metohija, 12 km south of Pec (© Copyright: Blago Fund, Inc)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 3 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 3 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Father, for those suffering from division, whether in heart or in community, bring your healing touch. Guide us to live in unity, showing love and respect to all.

The Collect:

Merciful Father,
who chose your bishop Gregory
to be a servant of the servants of God:
grant that, like him, we may ever long to serve you
by proclaiming your gospel to the nations,
and may ever rejoice to sing your praises;
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:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Gregory to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Saint Gregory in a stained-glass window in Saint Giles Church, Cambridge … the Church Calendar in ‘Common Worship’ today remembers Saint Gregory the Great on 3 September (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

A whirlwind tour on Saint Giles Day of half a dozen churches dedicated to Saint Giles

A statue of Saint Giles above the west door of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … today is feast of Saint Giles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The church calendar today remembers Saint Giles (1 September). I visited Saint Giles-in-the-Fields Church in London a few days ago, and hope to describe the church in the days to come. But, on his feast day, I thought I should look at some of the churches I know that are dedicated to Saint Giles.

Saint Giles is said to have been born in Athens ca 645-650, the son of King Theodore and Queen Elizabeth. He is the patron of beggars and people with disabilities because, although he was disabled, he devoted his life and his personal wealth to helping people in their sufferings and afflictions.

Saint Giles died ca 710. The monastery he founded at Saint-Gilles in Provence became an important place on the pilgrimage routes both to Compostela and to the Holy Land. Most mediaeval churches dedicated to Saint Giles stand by roadsides, offering weary travellers a sign of rest and peace.

1, Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford:

The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, the parish church of Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, the parish church of Stony Stratford, is part of the rich tapestry of a pretty market town on the banks of the River Ouse that marks the boundary between Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

Stony Stratford first developed along the Roman Watling Street, on the boundary between the ancient manors of Calverton and Wolverton. The de Veres, Earls of Oxford, held Calverton from 1244 until 1526, while on the Wolverton side the title was inherited by the de Wolvertons who held the land until the 14th century. Both manors provided chapels of ease from the 13th century, and so Stony Stratford became the first town in Buckinghamshire to have two churches. The church in the Calverton part of the town was dedicated to Saint Giles, while the other within the Manor of Wolverton was dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, and fairs were held in the town on the festivals of both saints.

The chancel or east end of Saint Giles was so ruinous in 1757 that it was taken down, and Saint Giles was rebuilt in 1776-1777 to designs by the Warwick-based architect Francis Hiorne (1744-1789). He was the architect of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, and may have used his church in Stony Stratford as a prototype for his much larger church.

At the same time, Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall, commissioned Hiorne to design Saint Anne’s Church on Donegall Street, Belfast (1776), later replaced by Saint Anne’s Cathedral. Hiorne was also consulted on the design of Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast (1783). Donegall was a large landowner in Belfast, Co Donegal, Co Wexford, and Staffordshire, his properties once included Comberford Hall, and he gave his name to Donegal House in Lichfield.

When he was rebuilding Saint Giles, Hiorne retained the 15th century tower, and this is the only part of the original structure still standing. The 80 ft tower with embattlements is in the perpendicular style and has a clock and a peal of six bells.

Inside Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford, looking east … the church was rebuilt by Francis Hiorne in 1776-1777 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hiorne redesigned the church in ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic,’ a style marking the beginnings of the Gothic Revival in architecture. The church is a lofty building, with a nave, two side aisles, a chancel, and galleries on either side.

A Lady Chapel was created in the south-east corner of the nave in the late 19th century, stained-glass windows were installed, a Gothic chancel screen was installed, and the side galleries were added and decorated. A series of stained glass tableaux by NHJ Westlake was installed beneath the galleries in 1889-1897. Above the galleries, stained-glass lozenges depict saints and martyrs and scenes from Scripture.

When the old vestry in the basement of the west tower was inadequate by 1892, two new vestries for the clergy and choir were built beside the north side of the chancel. They were designed in the 13th century English Gothic style by the local architect, Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924).

Changes continued in the 20th century. The statue of Saint Giles and the hind above the west doors and a stained-glass window by Kempe & Co date from 1903. The apsidal sanctuary was replaced by a squared-off sanctuary in 1928. The Lychgate and Calvary in the south-east corner of the churchyard were built in 1931.

A fire caused considerable damage to the interior of Saint Giles in 1964. The Diocese of Oxford questioned the need for two churches and parish priests in Stony Stratford. At first it was thought the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin should be extended and become the parish church. It was decided, however, to close Saint Mary the Virgin and to retain Saint Giles and to reorder the church. Saint Mary the Virgin was closed, the two parishes were combined and Saint Giles Church was reconsecrated as the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, on Palm Sunday 7 April 1968.

2, Saint Giles, Oxford:

Saint Giles Church at the north end of the wide thoroughfare of Saint Giles in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Church in Oxford is at the north end of the wide thoroughfare of Saint Giles, best known for the Martyrs’ Memorial to the south. The 900-year-old church stands at the point where Saint Giles forks and divides to become Woodstock Road to the left or west and Banbury Road to the right or east, and it faces both Little Clarendon Street and Keble Road.

Oxford’s main war memorial adjoins the south end of Saint Giles churchyard, and other nearby landmarks on the west side include the former Radcliffe Infirmary and Observatory, Somerville College, Saint Aloysius Oratory Church, the Eagle and Child, which sadly has been closed too long, Saint Cross College, Pusey House and Blackfriars; to the east, the nearby landmarks include Saint John’s College and the Lamb and Flag.

Inside Saint Giles Church, Oxford, facing the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles is a pretty church first built in the 12th and 13th centuries. But the first record of a church on the site dates from the Domesday Book in 1086, when a landowner named Edwin declared that he wanted to build a church adjoining his land, outside the north wall of the city.

When the church was first built it stood in open fields, 500 metres north of the city walls, with no other building between it and the city’s north gate, where the Church of Saint Michael at the North Gate stands. About 1,000 people lived within the walls of Oxford at the time.

Soon, however, before the area outside the city walls began to be settled, and Saint Giles had a parish of its own that had become widely spread and thinly settled. Oxford has expanded over the centuries, and Saint Giles is now a city centre church.

The incumbents of Saint Giles have included two notable associates of Archbishop William Laud: William Juxon (1609-1615), who later became President of Saint John’s College, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury; and Thomas Turner (1624-1629), later Dean of Canterbury

3, Saint Giles, Cambridge:

Saint Giles Church is at the corner of Castle Street and Chesterton Road in Cambridge, beside Cambridge Castle and to the north of Magdalene College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Church at the junction of Castle Street and Chesterton Road, Cambridge, dates from 1092, but the original Norman building underwent various transformations until 1875, when a new church was built on the site and the old church was demolished.

The church added ‘with Saint Peter’ to its name when neighbouring Saint Peter’s Church became redundant. It is home to both a Church of England parish and the Romanian Orthodox Parish of Saint John the Evangelist.

Saint Giles Church is also a venue for concerts, musical events, conferences, celebrations, commemorations, charity sales, an annual parish Summer Fair and a Christmas Tree Festival.

Saint Giles Church is a Grade II* listed church at the corner of Castle Street and Chesterton Road, beside Cambridge Castle and to the north Magdalene College.

From the outside, the church is simple and austere in style, without a spire. But inside it is richly furnished in the style favoured by the Oxford Movement and the Tractarians.

Some parts of the older building were incorporated into the new, Victorian church, including the 11th century former chancel arch, which is now the entrance to the Lady Chapel, and a 12th century doorway.

Inside Saint Giles Church, Cambridge, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Church was founded in 1092 by an endowment from Hugolina de Gernon, the wife of Picot of Cambridge, baron of Bourn and county sheriff, who lived at Cambridge Castle. According to Alfred of Beverley, writing in the 12th century, Hugolina was suffering from a long illness and the king’s physician and other doctors were unable to treat her. She had prayed to Saint Giles on her deathbed, promising to build a church in his honour if she were to recover. She recovered and she built the church.

The Victorian church was designed by the architects TH and F Healey of Bradford, and was built a little north of the church it replaced. The church is built of brick with Doulton stone dressings and a Westmorland slate roof, and retains a collection of mediaeval and 18th details. It also has 19th century fittings by many leading church decorators.

The 18 stained glass windows on the south and south sides of the nave are by Robert Turnhill of Heaton, Butler and Bayne, and were installed in 1888. They depict saints arranged in chronological sequence, beginning with Saint Clement of Rome and ending with Bishop Samuel Seabury.

4, Saint Giles, Cheadle:

Saint Giles’s Church and its 200 ft spire dominate the Staffordshire market town of Chealde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner once described Staffordshire as ‘Pugin-land’ after visiting Cheadle, the market town dominated by Saint Giles’s Church and its 200 ft spire. He wrote: ‘Nowhere can one study and understand Pugin better than in Staffordshire – not only his forms and features but his mind, and not only his churches but his secular architecture as well.’

John Talbot (1791-1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers and commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle.

Pugin’s interior, including his rood screen, remain largely intact in Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lord Shrewsbury, once ‘the most prominent British Catholic of day,’ extended his family’s Irish connections when he married Maria Theresa Talbot, daughter of Thomas William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford – an Irish branch of the Talbot family that were patrons of Pugin too.

Pugin died when he was only 40 on14 September 1852; Lord Shrewsbury died two months later, on 9 November 1852. But church architecture and church decoration would never be the same again – in England or in Ireland.

5, Saint Giles on the Hill, Norwich:

Saint Giles on the Hill, also known as the Wisteria Church, has the tallest church tower in Norwich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although we stayed overnight in Norwich last year in Saint Giles House Hotel on Saint Giles Street, I never managed to get inside the church that gives its name to the street. Saint Giles on the Hill sits is also known as the Wisteria Church. Saint Giles has the tallest church tower in Norwich at a height of 120 ft. The wisteria was planted by a former priest at the church in celebration of his daughter’s wedding over 100 years ago and it still flourishes each year.

Saint Giles is the patron of lepers and nursing mothers, and a hospital for lepers was formerly close by beside the gate in the city walls, called Saint Giles Gate. The church was originally founded by a priest called Elwyn and given by him to the Benedictine monks of Norwich Cathedral. Later, the dean and chapter who appointed a chaplain.

Saint Giles (centre) above the south porch in Norwich, with statues above by David Holgate of Saint Margaret and Saint Benedict (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The church is noted in the Domesday Book (1086), but the present church dates from 1386. The tower was almost finished by 1424, and the building was complete by 1430. The porch was added about a century after the main church was built, and which has a noble carved stone façade, a fine fan vaulted roof and a small room above, called a parvise.

The main church consists of a nave with two side aisles, separated by an arcade of five bays. The church was restored by Richard Phipson in 1866-1867.

6, Saint Giles, Git, Sarawak:

Saint Giles Chapel in Git stands on a hilltop location above the village,and is reached by a steep climb of steps (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

During our extended visit to Kuching last October and November, the Revd Dr Jeffry Renos Nawie took us on a number of whirlwind tours of the seven churches and chapels in his parishes and seven other churches and chapels in the Diocese of Kuching. His parish and mission area in the Diocese of Kuching covers vast rural areas south of Kuching.

Father Jeffry is a former principal of Saint Thomas’s, the Anglican diocesan boys’ school in Kuching, and has a doctorate in education. After he retired, he worked as the diocesan secretary in the diocesan office close to Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and at weekends he served in Saint George’s Church, Punau, on the fringes of Padawan.

Today, Father Jeffry is the parish priest of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, which was designated a mission district last year (26 May 2024) by Bishop Danald Jute of Kuching.

Saint Giles Chapel in Kampung Git marked its 60th anniversary last year (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Giles Chapel in Kampung Git, near Siburan, south of Kuching, marked its sixtieth anniversary last year. Kampung Git is a small Bidayuh village about 30 km south-west of Kuching. The chapel stands on a hilltop location above the village, and is reached by a steep climb of steps.

Saint Giles Chapel has an interesting belltower, with an old graveyard behind the chapel, and a school below the chapel.

The arms of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury, represented on the doors of Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 114, Monday 1 September 2025

Reading from the scrolls in the synagogue … ‘Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur,’ Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879), Vienna, 1878 (Tel Aviv Museum of Art)

Patrick Comerford

We have arrived at the beginning of a new month, the beginning of September. We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and yesterday was the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025). We are celebrating the 1700th anniversary this year of the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 CE. One of the decisions at Nicaea was that the New Church Year begins on 1 September, a tradition still observed by the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Rite Catholics.

Today is also the first day of Autumn, Creationtide begins today, the beginning of the Church year in the Orthodox calendar, and continues until 4 October, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Giles of Provence, Hermit, who died ca 710. Saint Giles is the co-patron of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. There is an organ rectital by Jacob Collins in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church at 12:45 today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘He stood up to read and … he unrolled the scroll’ (Luke 4: 18-19) … a scroll in the Jewish Museum in the Ghetto in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 4: 16-30 (NRSVA):

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23 He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum”.’ 24 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

‘He went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom’ (Luke 4: 16) … inside the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning we begin a series of readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel that bring us to the end of the Church year.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we find ourselves at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. After his baptism by Saint John the Baptist (see Luke 3), he returns to Galilee and his home towns of Capernaum and Nazareth, the small towns where he has spent his early years.

In this reading, Jesus not only returns to his home region, but he also lays out the agenda or reads the manifesto for his ministry for the coming years, yet sets the scene for his rejection by his own people.

The reading opens with Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as is his custom. He is called up to read the Scripture and comments on it. The synagogue was controlled by a board of elders and by the chazzan or attendant. On Saturdays, the sabbath service began with the shema, ‘Hear O Israel …’, a simple declaration of faith (see Deuteronomy 6: 4-9), and included prayers, fixed readings from the Torah or the first five books of the Bible, a reading from the Prophets, a sermon, and a blessing.

The two readings were in Hebrew, with a running translation into the vernacular, that was normally Aramaic but might have been Greek in some places. It would have been normal for literate adult male Jews to be called in turn to read the Scriptures in the synagogue: first those who were of priestly descent, the Cohanim, then the Levites, and then the other Israelites. So, on this particular Saturday, Jesus may have been the third person called on to read, or he may even have been further down the list.

The scroll of Isaiah is given to him by the chazzan or attendant, who combines the functions that we might associate with a sexton, verger, churchwarden and Sunday school teacher. And it is to him that Christ returns the scroll when he is finished reading from it (verse 20).

The portion Christ reads from (verse 18-19) is actually three verses, and they do not come in sequence: Isaiah 61: 1, part only of verse 2, and a portion of Isaiah 58: 6. So, even if Christ had been handed a pre-selected portion of Scripture to read, he makes a deliberate choice to roll back the scroll and to insert a portion of an extra verse, Isaiah 58: 6.

Having read while standing, Christ then sits down, the normal posture at the time for someone who is about to teach. When he sits down, all eyes are on him (verse 20), so it is he and he alone who is expected to preach and teach that morning. The reading may need explaining and interpretation before the people who hear it realise they have just heard good news.

Christ tells the people in the synagogue that the Scripture is fulfilled in their hearing. Scripture has not been read that morning just to comply with part of the ritual; it actually has immediate meaning, significance and relevance that day. Christ is not merely reading the words, he is promising to see them put into action, to transform hope into reality.

His reading from Isaiah amounts to his manifesto or mission statement:

• to bring good news to the poor
• to proclaim release to the captives
• recovery of sight to the blind
• to set free those who are oppressed
• to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The ‘year of the Lord’s favour’ is the Messianic age when salvation would be proclaimed. Isaiah, in the original text, is describing the Year of Jubilee, when every 50 years slaves were set free, debts were cancelled and ancestral lands were returned to the original family.

As he finished the reading, Jesus put down the scroll and said: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (verse 21).

At first, those who hear him are overawed by his words and his wisdom. But there is an unexpected turn of events as the people wondering why he is not doing in Nazareth what he has been doing in Capernaum and other places.

Jesus reminds them that prophets are seldom accepted in their own place, and gives two provocative examples: Elijah, who was sent to a poor widow in Zarephath, near Sidon, a Phoenician city beyond Tyre; and Elisha, who healed Naaman, a gentile general from Syria.

His remarks so anger the people of Nazareth that they think of killing Jesus.

Driven out of that synagogue and out of town, I think of Christ having three options:

1, To allow himself to be silenced.

2, To keep on preaching in other synagogues, but to never put into practice what he says, so that those who are worried have their fears allayed and realise he is no threat.

3, To preach and to put his teachings into practice, to show that he means what he says, that his faith is reflected in his priorities, to point to what the Kingdom of God is truly like.

Christ takes the third option, as we see as the readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel continue. He brings good news to the poor, he releases this poor captive, he can now see things as they are and as they ought to be, the oppressed may go free, and all are amazed.

This morning’s Gospel reading is good news, and not just to the poor and oppressed in Nazareth in the past. Who are the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed among us today?

How do we respond to them and their needs?

Do we remain others take to the streets of our town and cities, outside hotels and in our public spaces, to further oppress them, even using the law and misusing the symbolism of the cross to further their violent actions?

And what do we do so that the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed among us know that we believe compassion for them is at the heart of Christ’s ministry, message and mission?

‘He stood up to read and … he unrolled the scroll’ (Luke 4: 18-19) … a scroll in the Klausen Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 1 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 1 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, heal the wounds of division and bring reconciliation to those experiencing pain and separation. May your love unite us all, regardless of our differences.

In my prayers this morning, I am also including the members of the PCC of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, who are meeting the Bishop of Buckingham and the Archdeacon of Buckingham this afternoon.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; 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:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

The icon of Saint Giles by Brother Leon Lidderment of Walsingham in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (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

‘Adoration of the Torah’ by Artur Markiowicz (1872-1934) in the Jewish Museum in the Old Synagogue, Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)