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We all long for a world of justice and peace but, as our readings reveal this morning, such a world does not come on its own. In Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob is stuck. He has taken his brother Esau’s birthright and fled but now he cannot move forward with his life until he faces what he has done and seeks forgiveness. First he faces a struggle. A struggle which leaves him both wounded but also blessed. Today, on Racial Justice Sunday, we acknowledge that we, like Jacob, often feel paralysed, overwhelmed by the many injustices in our world, unsure how to take meaningful action. We need to be reminded that such struggles bring their own blessing and by them we are transformed. The widow in Luke 18:1-8 is also struggling to find justice but refuses to give up her struggle even when justice seems an impossibility. Today we are grateful to Abigail Oyedele who is joining us from Citizens UK to encourage us with us examples of how people in our local community have transformed situations by their actions so that we too will not give up trusting that “the arc of history is long but it tends towards justice.”
This Autumn, the Church of England is celebrating
THE SEASON OF GENEROSITY.
A time set aside to give thanks for God’s gifts; to reflect on what it means to live with gratitude for all that we have and all that we are; and to commit ourselves to living generously.
At Holy Spirit we are dedicating three Sundays (from Sunday 28th September to Sunday 12th October) to the themes of this season: Generosity, Giving and Gratitude.
This week our final Week Three, 12th October, when we receive five of our young people into Communion, our theme will be GRATITUDE and how it shapes our lives and transforms our understanding of who we are.
Today, as our children receive their first communion, our focus is on gratitude. When Jesus heals ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19, only one gives thanks. The word used is the same word Jesus uses when he takes bread and wine at the Last Supper. It is the word from which the term Eucharist derives. God invites all of us to the table, each one of us has a place. Yet to take our place we must stand shoulder to shoulder with all those whom God invites. This is something which Naaman, in 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15, finds difficult. He is offended that a man of his wealth and status has been invited to take his place among the general public who come to wash in the Jordan River. His sense of entitlement very nearly prevents him from receiving the gift God is offering, it seems too humble, too ordinary to be of value. All of us come to God’s table in need, all of us are hungry for what God has to offer but often our egos and our own sense of what we deserve prevents us from receiving God’s abundant grace. When we stand shoulder to shoulder with our children around the Lord’s Table, we acknowledge that none of us are more worthy than anyone else, that all we have is a result, not of our efforts, but of God’s generosity and mercy. Knowing this, we can be truly grateful that we too are included in God’s grace and that we are privileged to invite others to join us at the Lord’s table.
This Autumn, the Church of England is celebrating
THE SEASON OF GENEROSITY.
A time set aside to give thanks for God’s gifts; to reflect on what it means to live with gratitude for all that we have and all that we are; and to commit ourselves to living generously.
At Holy Spirit we are dedicating three Sundays (from Sunday 28th September to Sunday 12th October) to the themes of this season: Generosity, Giving and Gratitude.
Week One, 28th September, focuses on GENEROSITY, what it means to be a people created and sustained by God’s generosity and how we might live generously in response.
Week Two, 5th October, celebrates GIVING as we hold our annual HARVEST THANKSGIVING and bring donations to support the work of the Ace of Clubs day centre and the Food Bank. In this week we reflect on how giving transforms the lives of those who give and those who receive.
Week Three, 12th October, when we receive five of our young people into Communion, our theme will be GRATITUDE and how it shapes our lives and transforms our understanding of who we are.
The story of the first ever Harvest Festival is told in Deuteronomy 26:1-11. The very first thing that the people are to do when they enter the land is to take the first fruits and share them. They are to offer them to God in recognition that all things come from God but they are also to celebrate God’s gifts by inviting all who live in the land, friend and stranger, foreigner and neighbour. Furthermore, they are also to remember that they too have been strangers, foreigners, enslaved, poor, they are to acknowledge our shared humanity, our shared need for God and one another.
This the gift that Jesus offers in John 6:25-35 when he declares that he is “the bread of life”. He has just fed 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes and yet the crowds do not understand: “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” The bread was the sign, what it was pointing towards was community: the building of trust, the commitment to common well-being, the desire to share.
We are a people called to be in communion, with God, with creation and with one another. We share one bread and one cup as a symbol of our union. Just like the Israelites in the promised land we too are called to offer our first fruits, to give of what we have and of ourselves. Giving is life-affirming and life-giving not just for those who receive but also for those who give. We are a harvest made to share.
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.
This Autumn, the Church of England is celebrating
THE SEASON OF GENEROSITY.
A time set aside to give thanks for God’s gifts; to reflect on what it means to live with gratitude for all that we have and all that we are; and to commit ourselves to living generously.
At Holy Spirit we are dedicating three Sundays (from Sunday 28th September to Sunday 12th October) to the themes of this season: Generosity, Giving and Gratitude.
Week One, 28th September, focuses on GENEROSITY, what it means to be a people created and sustained by God’s generosity and how we might live generously in response.
Week Two, 5th October, celebrates GIVING as we hold our annual HARVEST THANKSGIVING and bring donations to support the work of the Ace of Clubs day centre and the Food Bank. In this week we reflect on how giving transforms the lives of those who give and those who receive.
Week Three, 12th October, when we receive five of our young people into Communion, our theme will be GRATITUDE and how it shapes our lives and transforms our understanding of who we are.
The money is a distraction. This week is Generosity Week and, in both of our readings, the rich come to a bad end: In Amos 6:1a, 4-7 the prophet warns that those who “lie on beds of ivory … eat lambs from the flock … drink wine and anoint themselves with the finest oils” will be “the first to go into exile” and in Luke 16:19-31, the rich man who in his lifetime received good things ends up being tormented in Hades. But it’s not the money that is the problem it is what we do with it and what it does to us. In both readings the rich have two problems, they have distanced themselves from God and from neighbour. High on mount Samaria the rich “are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph” because they believe themselves to be secure, to be set apart. The rich man in the parable lives safe behind his gates and does not even notice Lazarus’ suffering.
Living generously begins not with our money it begins with our hearts. Hearts that are radically open towards both God and neighbour. As we gather around God’s table, we see that we are in need of both God and one another. When we acknowledge that we depend upon God for all that we are and all that we have, life becomes a gift to share.
I doubt that anyone would choose Jesus to be minister of finance: Last week he commends the actions of the shepherd who abandons 99 of sheep to look for one that’s lost. This week, in Luke 16:1-13, he commends a dishonest land manager who squanders his master’s wealth.
At the heart of these parables is a call to prioritise the relational above the transactional. Like the first reading, Amos 8:4-7, they are a plea for solidarity and unity which stems from an understanding of the deep interconnectedness of all life.
Both Luke and Amos were written in the context of great economic inequality in which poor tenant farmers often ended up enslaved as bonded labourers who could, in the words of Amos, be bought for the price of “a pair of sandals”.
Despite his dubious motives, the manager in the parable releases people from their debt and so sets them free. At the start of the parable, he is solidarity with the rich landowner, he too desires to increase his own position at the expense of others. It is only when he experiences insecurity that he can begin to empathise with the experience of the vulnerable and stand in solidarity with them.
Both Amos and Jesus invite us to embrace a life that is relational: to acknowledge that all that we are and all that we have come from God and that we flourish when our lives are used for the well-being and building up of all of God’s creation. In the words of Desmond Tutu, it is “in seeing the many ways in which we are similar and how our lives are inextricably linked, we can find empathy and compassion… ultimately, it is the humble awareness of our own humanity that allows us to give and to forgive.”
The story of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-10, reassures us that, whatever wrong turns we take, we still belong to God. But it also tells us that if we belong to God, we also belong to each other. The one and the ninety-nine need to be reunited. Jesus addresses this story, not to the one lost sheep, but to the “99 righteous persons”, who have neglected to search for the missing one and are incomplete without it.
The story of God’s people wandering in the wilderness in Exodus 32:7-14 reverses the situation: here it is not one sheep who has wandered off but the whole people of God who have “turned aside” and followed their own path.
Moses is the one remaining. He is offered the chance to become a great nation but he refuses the blessing unless it is shared with all God’s people. He reminds God that, for better and for worse, they all belong to God, all heirs to God’s promise.
Would it have been easier for Moses to abandon his people to their fate? hell yes! God’s people are not always easy to live with. But faith is not given to us as individuals, it is given to us as a community. A relationship with God is always also a relationship with all God’s people. The one cannot be saved without the many, the many cannot be saved without the one. Just as we all need God, we all need each other. God’s promises can only be enjoyed when all share in them.