The days are coming when all this will be thrown down,”  Jesus tells his followers in Luke 21:5-19, “not one stone will be left.”    The day did come when the temple was torn down (as it had been in the past) and the people of God were anxious about the future, fearful about the survival of their faith. Yet, the falling of the temple is used in scripture as a symbol of what needs to be torn down for a new temple to be built and for the people of God to be renewed in God’s image.  The safeguarding scandals that have rocked the church have also created fear and anxiety.  But Jesus calls us to be unafraid.  Our trust in the church may be shaken but our trust in God is renewed.  We are the temple of God, the body of Christ, the place where God chooses to dwell on earth.  We are the ones called to create a safe church for all: welcoming, inclusive, mindful of the vulnerabilities of those who long for God’s love and care.   Micah 6:6-8 reminds us that the power of God and the love of God do not reside in institutions but in our hearts and in our actions. This year’s safeguarding theme is “Action speaks louder”.   May our actions be shaped by Christ who teaches us to lift up the downtrodden, strengthen the weak and stand with the powerless in holding the powerful to account.  What does the Lord require of us? to do justice, love kind kindness and walk humbly with our God. 

For many of us God is an emergency service that we only contact when we are in dire need.  This is true for the people in Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22.  The land is suffering from severe drought and famine.  Earlier in Jeremiah the well-off and the comfortable are criticised for carrying on without a thought for the impact of their actions on the poor but in this reading all the people are united in their suffering.  Finally, they understand that they are ALL dependent on God, that they cannot be saved by their own efforts. 

It is this acknowledgment of need and dependency that Jesus praises in the tax-collector in Luke 18:9-14.  He knows that he is a sinner, he knows that he cannot remove his faults and weaknesses on his own.  The pharisee, in contrast, is criticised.  The pharisee is not a bad man.  By most people’s standards he is a far better man than the tax-collector.   He is giving away a tenth of his income in charity whereas the tax-collector was fleecing people for his own profit.  Why, then, does God not justify him?  It is not because his sins are worse than the tax-collector’s nor is it because God is any less ready to forgive his sins, it is because he doesn’t think he needs it.  He thinks that his own actions have already justified him.  God is ready to justify him – he is just not ready to ask or to receive.

The pharisee’s belief that his own actions make him perfect separates him from others, he judges them for not achieving what he has achieved.  In just the same way, the well-off in Jeremiah had previously separated themselves from the less fortunate.  If we have all, in St Paul’s words, fallen short of the glory of God, there is really no point trying to prove that some have fallen shorter than others.  Religion is not a self-improvement programme.  It is a relationship with God that draws into a relationship with others.  We are all united in our radical dependency on God.  The tax-collector comes to God pleading for help because he knows that he cannot save himself.  In the words of Pope Francis, “blessing does not require moral perfection to be received”, it is given “to those who ask for he

During this season - and to coincide with the national church’s Generosity Week - we celebrate God’s generosity and reflect on how we respond to the divine gifts upon which we depend for all that we are and all that we have.