St Luke 21 5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,  ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’ They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’  And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.  ‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’  Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;  there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.  This will give you an opportunity to testify.  So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance;  for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Reflection

This passage is rooted in the hope that God will remain present in the world, even when it seems like things are coming to an end.  By the time that Luke wrote these verses, the Temple’s destruction had already happened.

Jesus also promised to give his followers the words and wisdom they need to testify, and that he will be with them when they face persecution.  He acknowledged the reality of human suffering and the terrifying forces of nature, but he also said that these are opportunities to testify and used symbols and imagery to talk about events that had not yet happened, but the gospel drama itself is set in Jesus’s lifetime.
 
Apocalyptic literature such as this, uses unsettling language and imagery as a means to assure the faithful that they should keep their trust in God even when facing the most challenging of circumstances. Even while describing the terrible events, Jesus told his listeners not to be afraid.

I think that the point is that when bad things happen – we should “not be afraid” or follow anyone proclaiming that these are signs of God’s judgment and instead trust that God remains in our hearts and minds. That assurance of God’s faithfulness to us in the face of difficult times, is confirmed by Luke in the final verse. Jesus detailed the suffering that his followers can expect to face from arrest to execution.

Luke tells us that Jesus himself will provide strength and wisdom for such testimony.   Ultimately, their experience of persecution will not end in death but in a victory for their souls.   Backing up all of these statements in the final verse of this passage, is the importance of trusting in God even in the midst of hardship and persecution.  This is a passage grounded in hope — in the hope that God remains present in the world and in our lives even when things get so bad that it feels like the world is in real trouble.

Prayer

Father of all, 
even when we wade through deep waters, 
you are always with us.  
Give us the strength to hold you before us, 
in our hearts and minds – 
a light in the darkness 
that will always keep us on the right path.  Amen.
 

 

1 April 2025
 

St Luke 20 : 41 – 47

Then Jesus said to them, ‘How can they say that the Messiah is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms,

“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’

In the hearing of all the people he said to the disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

Reflection

Some of Jesus’s harshest words in the Gospels are reserved for the scribes and the teachers of the Law. The word “hypocrite” is seldom far from our saviour’s lips when he’s chastising people who should know better.

Who are “the scribes” in our societies today? Who are the people that prance about, and want the best seat, and do things for the sake of appearance? Are they our politicians? Turning up for photo shoots at their local food banks but then failing to vote for measures that would alleviate the root causes of poverty. Or are they our social media influencers? Promoting brands on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook but failing to disclose that they’re being paid for their product placements. All too often, I fear the scribes of our age are us – Christians. Many of us say long prayers for the sake of appearance but then fail to play our part in putting our prayers into action.

Jesus’s words are especially sobering for any of us in positions of responsibility. Whether we’re ministers or elders, lay preachers or worship leaders, verses 45, 46, and 47 of Luke chapter 20 should be a litmus test when we’re trying to discern the right course of action – whether it’s writing a sermon, or visiting a friend, or opening our big mouths in public.

Franciscan friar and popular writer Richard Rohr offers another useful litmus test: “I would even say that anything said with too much bravado, over-assurance, or with any need to control or impress another is never the voice of God within us… Why do humans so often presume the exact opposite – that shaming voices are always from God, and grace voices are always the imagination?” [1]

As we continue our journey together through Lent, let’s try our hardest to listen for those voices of grace, giving us the words to share that will build people up, instead of those voices of shame, criticising other people to make ourselves feel better.

[1] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-loving-voice/

Prayer

Loving God,
please help me to be more like Jesus and his disciples, 
and less like the scribes and the teachers of the Law.
Please help me to listen to your words of grace 
echoing throughout my heart, 
drowning out the shameful cries of my ego.
Please help me to keep my prayers short, 
and to be your servant in the marketplace and at the banquet.
In Jesus’s name I pray, Amen.

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Ryan Sirmons

Welcome and Introduction

May the grace and peace of Christ be with you and greetings from all the saints of the churches of the Northwest and Central, Newcastle upon Tyne pastorate of the United Reformed Church. Jesmond, St. Andrews and Kenton, St. James is in the city centre and West End United Reformed Churches.  This message is for Sunday, the 30th of March 2025, the fourth Sunday in Lent and also Thursday.  Mothering Sunday.  Our scripture readings are Joshua chapter 5 verses 9 through 12 in the Hebrew Bible on what happened when manna from heaven ceased after the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites  had ceased and their disgrace of their enslavement had been rolled away.  And St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians chapter five, verses 16 through 21, where we are reminded that in Christ we are a new creation and we can see things in a new way.  Please  pray with me.
  
Your word, O God, lights our way.  
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts 
radiate with the light of the way, the truth, and the life.  Amen.

Call to Worship

No matter how long you have wandered, 
come, let us worship God here.
No matter what you have done or not done,
come, let us worship God here.
No matter how lost you might think you are,
no matter how much you think you cannot be found,
the mothering Spirit of God is here.
Come, let us worship God here,
and return the embrace that has always been.

Hymn     You Are Welcome Here
© 2017, 2018, Chris Muglia. Published by Spirit & Song®, a division of OCP. All rights reserved. OneLicence # A-734713  Sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission.

Come, all you wounded and weary.
Come, all you heavy of heart.
Come with your fear and your burden.
Come with your pain and your scars. 

Come to the ocean of mercy.
Be revived, renewed and refreshed.
Wherever you are, no matter how far,
come, find your peace and your rest. 
 
You are welcome here; come as you are.
You are welcome here, with open arms.
Bring your burdens, bring your pain bring your sorrow and shame.
You are welcome here; come as you are.

Come, all you tired and lonely,
all you anxious who long for your place.
Bring your addictions and battles;
find your forgiveness and strength.

You are welcome here; come as you are.
You are welcome here, with open arms.
Bring your burdens, bring your pain bring your sorrow and shame.
You are welcome here; come as you are.

Open your heart; discover your place 
and your purpose.
Open your eyes; see the new life 
that awaits you here.

You are welcome here; come as you are.
You are welcome here, with open arms.
Bring your burdens, bring your pain bring your sorrow and shame.
You are welcome here; come as you are.
 
Prayers of Approach, Confession and Grace

God of all, 
You wander through the wilderness of life with us. 
You feed us and call us. 
Your love never leaves us. 
You invite us to be Your people, and You will be our God. 
You call us here to worship, praise, sing, hold silence, repent, 
and turn again to You, the source of love and life.
Illuminate our hearts, Holy One, 
so that we see no-one only by their usefulness to us. 
Open our ears to hear afresh the sacred stories of Your steadfast love, 
so that we might be a story-full people. 
Let our joyful imaginations aide us 
in seeing ourselves in these sacred words 
so that Your Word may fill our hearts. 
This we pray in the name of our brother Jesus, 
who gave up his life so that we may know abundant life, 
Amen. 

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins. 1 John 1.8-9a

Let us confess our sins together and seek God’s grace. 

Gracious God, in striving for comfort and ease, 
in the seeking of advantage over neighbour, 
in participating even distantly in the violence of the world, 
or in shielding ourselves in ignorance 
so that we might avoid the hurt that comes 
with loving the world as You love it, 
we confess we have sinned, 
in thought, word, and deed. 
We have not loved our neighbour as ourselves.
We seek your mercy and forgiveness,
that we may turn again to You,
and recover our true identity,
shaped in Your image,
filled with Your grace and truth. Amen.

Silence

God is always making all things new! We are a new creation in Christ Jesus! The Lord says: If you want to become my followers, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Give us the courage to live as Your new creation, forgiven, loved, and whole. Amen.

Kyrie Eleison

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us. 
Glory to God in the highest, glory to God’s people on earth. Amen. 

Hymn     For the Healing of the Nations
Fred Kaan (1965) Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713  sung by Frodsham Methodist Church Cloud Choir and used with their kind permission.

For the healing of the nations, Lord, we pray with one accord,
for a just and equal sharing of the things that earth affords.
To a life of love in action help us rise and pledge our word.

Lead us forward into freedom; from despair your world release,
that, redeemed from war & hatred, all may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care & goodness fear will die and hope increase.
 
All that kills abundant living, let it from the earth be banned:
pride of status, race, or schooling, dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice may we hallow life’s brief span.

You, Creator God, have written your great name on humankind.
For our growing in your likeness, bring the life of Christ to mind
that by our response and service earth its destiny may find.
 
Reading     2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.  So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.  So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Hymn     God of Freedom, God of Justice 
Shirley Erena Murray © 1992 Hope Publishing Company sung by members of Franklin United Methodist Church. OneLicence # A-734713  

God of freedom, God of justice, you whose love is strong as death,
you who saw the dark of prison, you who knew the price of faith —
touch our world of sad oppression with your Spirit’s healing breath.

Rid the earth of torture’s terror, you whose hands were nailed to wood;
hear the cries of pain and protest, you who shed the tears and blood —
move in us the power of pity restless for the common good.
 
Make in us a captive conscience quick to hear, to act, to plead;
make us truly sisters, brothers of whatever race or creed –
teach us to be fully human, open to each other’s needs.

Reading     Joshua 5:9-12

The LORD said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.  While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.  On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.  The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

Sermon

In my first pastorate, something was explained to me.  “You see, Ryan”, my church secretary said,  “when we moved here, the question was, which church do you go to? Then it became, do you go to church?  Now, no one asks, and it’s a surprise that a new neighbour might actually want to go to any of the churches.”  It’s been a rapid shift in the course of one person’s lifetime for an institution as iconic as the Church to find itself down to only 5 percent of the nation’s attendance on a Sunday.

And that’s combining cathedrals, mega churches, and all the rest, such as us.  A huge shift for an institution that anchors itself across the countryside and in the centre of cities. An institution which has inspired passion and rage, lifetimes of dedication, attention to detail, and a call to look into one’s own life.

Pilgrimages, incredible wealth and devotion, wars, and so much else not to mention.  An institution charged with a very real and life changing task. of introducing people to Christ and nurturing disciples along their life’s journey.  Church was, for the generations which preceded us, not only a given, but important, necessary, like manna. 

This might feel like a bit of a reversal of the biblical story but bear with me.  When the Hebrews were liberated from Egyptian slavery, they wandered in the desert for 40 years.  During that time, an entire generation were fed with a miraculous bread, manna, that appeared as if from the very ground itself. 

It was a given nourishment that came from God sustaining people in body and spirit along their journey.  It could not be stored up, for even one day later would lead to corruption and rot.  The people had to appreciate it in the moment. And yes, they got sick of it and complained to God and Moses alike. 

They desired variety, spice, difference.  When they finally had their own land, they celebrated their first harvest earned by the sweat of their brow at the Feast of Passover with their own grain, harvested by their own hands, freed from enslavement.  Now that they could grow and harvest their own sustenance, the manna disappeared. 

Did they panic?  No.  Maybe they got a little anxious.  But they let go of the lifeline that had sustained them through an age, and then turned to adapting their knowledge and work to the fields at hand.  What’s this to do with us?  Church.  The manna we relied upon is coming to an end.  For us, it might not be bread from heaven.

Our manna was the cultural Christendom, which built temples of faith, such as this one.  It envisioned a world where cross and empire fused together, inseparable for an eternity, united in grand benevolence.  It assumed that people would always be loyal to the church, always invest in it, and raise their children to think the same. 

Any deviation of that was to be pitied.  And yet, after over 300 years of challenge to the dominance of cultural Christendom,  Christendom is on fire, to borrow a phrase from Brian Zahn, an American pastor.  What has long and faithfully served as the gravity for how we understood Church is on fire.  What to do? 

The first is to acknowledge that our cultural manna was not bad.  There’s often a somewhat youthful temptation to challenge it in its entirety. Yet it provided strong reinforcements for how people could access and live good and faithful lives in service to God and humanity.  It was a faith adapted for its time and its place, and where it was abused, coopted for things that were not of Christ, we can and should acknowledge that was sin, not Christianity. 

But it was manna.  It fed and nourished us through a long journey.  And it saw a lot of winning of justice and hope for people along that journey.  Our second action is to realize that we are supposed to grow up and grow out of dependence on manna.  Today, being Mothering Sunday, an apt metaphor is that mothering is that mothering, an act that can come from male and female alike.

But also recognizing the unique role of women and mums in society is to help our children to grow up into strong and successful, creative and inventive, prophetic adults.  But children are not born that way.  We mother them with what is appropriate for infants and then children growing up and up and up until such time as they must be weaned off that and become as independent of the parent as possible. 

Our cultural manna was what was needed at a time, perhaps, but now we are being weaned off of it.  Like a mother, God is reminding us that we will need to tend the fields around us to create a harvest which we can celebrate together, free of the cultural manna that long sustained us.  Yet the need for a ministry that invites people into a relationship with Christ is very real. 

We are in an age of unbelief where our faith, our church, our morals, and our ethics can feel dusty or even despised. And we can tell from our own lives and our own experience that, quote, believers, pastors, and well-known Christian leaders publicly lose their faith.  We cannot help but ask, in dark corners of our hearts, if our faith is indeed in vain. 

It’s certainly being asked in the world around us.  Pastor Zond asks, as we all should, does that mean we who still believe are simply whistling past the graveyard and stubbornly, stubbornly forestalling our own inevitable loss of faith?  Is it possible to hold on to Christian faith in an age of unbelief? 

To which we could, I hope, say yes, but the yes we say will be different than the one long prescribed by our addiction to the cultural manna of Christianity, our old cultural Christianity.  It perhaps follows the beliefs of Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote, “I believe in Christ and confess him not like some child. My Hosanna has passed through an enormous firmness of doubt”.  

Our present age is an enormous furnace of doubt that will challenge, deconstruct, and reconstruct our faith.  But it forges our hosanna.  Our faith will come as it did for the newly settled Israelites, from knowing the fields we are ploughing and tending them by our own hand.

God has given us the fields and the climate in which to do ministry, but gone are the days when we could rely upon cultural Christianity alone to develop our ministry. The Spirit is calling us into that work now.  In Sunday school, you always know the answer when you don’t know the answer.  Christ.  It’s the same here. 

While so much may be changing, at the core of it all is a call. to turn to Christ.  The ancient Church used the word repentance for that turn toward Christ, and it’s been turned into some fire and brimstone thing that adorns sandwich boards of street preachers. But that’s not what it is. Repentance is a recognition that we often go the wrong way. 

The breadcrumbs of manna are no longer there to feed and guide us. Though we do have the witness born through history, that people have found faith, justice, and love, and often had to re-find it after losing it.  And Christ has always been found amongst the people around us in the community with whom we minister. 

So the problem with repentance is that it isn’t exactly as straightforward as the sandwich board carriers demand it be.  It’s hard work.  It was hard work for the Israelites to produce their own grain, yet the reward was significant.  Their grain was the representation of a partnership between them and God, born of the soil, nurtured by the sun and the water, and tended and harvested by human hands, shaped into creative, delicious, and nutritious things.  But they had to work hard to know that soil, to know the crops, and care for them.  Repentance, for us, will be hard, too.  The potential harvest of connecting lives with real, visceral, and meaningful faith is massive.  We may not feel up to it.  But Church, we’re literally in the Promised Land right now.  Turning to Christ is not some form of magical thinking, it’s modelling our collective lives in the way Jesus himself did by prioritizing people. 

Developing relationships, leveraging everything in our power and beyond to participate in thriving lives and thriving communities.  To pray, to hold silence, to honour the Sabbath and stop.  It’s what those who mothered us wanted for us.  It’s what God wanted for the Israelites.  And as the manna of cultural Christianity dries up, it’s what God is calling us into as well.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Hymn     Wonders of Your Love 
© The Revd Amy Sens Used with express permission for this service. 

My going out, my coming in
You know them all before I do.
You made my body secretly,
you knit me in my mother’s womb.

Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in You, they rest in you O God.
Your everlasting gracious mercy and wonders of your love.

If I should fly over the moon 
or hid deep in the salty sea
You’d know where I was every second,
You would be right there with me.

Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in You, they rest in you O God.
Your everlasting gracious mercy and wonders of your love.

When I look at the things you’ve made,
the stars, the trees or my two hands,
Creation is a wonder to me,
more than I can understand.

Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in You, they rest in you O God.
Your everlasting gracious mercy and wonders of your love.
 
Affirmation of Faith

With the whole church:
we affirm that we are made in God’s image,
befriended by Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

With people everywhere:
we affirm God’s goodness at the heart of humanity,
planted more deeply than all that is wrong.

With all creation:
we celebrate the miracle and wonder of life,
the unfolding purposes of God forever at work in ourselves and the world.

Prayer of Intercession

Grant us your loving grace in the morning,
and we will live this day in joy and praise. Ps 90.14

Eternal God, we rejoice this morning in the gift of life,
which we have received by your grace,
and the new life you give in Jesus Christ.
Especially we thank you for:

St Luke 20: 27 – 39

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless;  then the second  and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage;  but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’  For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Reflection

The first paragraph here is a typical, ‘Let’s try and catch Jesus out’, passage!  Although the scenario sounds a bit extreme, this is an issue which is quite pertinent to modern society with so many second or third marriages, blended families etc. Indeed this is a passage which came very much to my mind when, over 20 years ago, my husband and I were talking about the possibility of marriage. He was a widower and older than me. One of the very practical things we needed to discuss was where he would be buried. Would I be happy with him being buried with his late wife? That would clearly be important for their children, but what about me? 
 
In my years as a hospital chaplain one of the questions people often wrestled with was what it would be like after they had died. It is a natural question, but inevitably one coming out of this world’s experiences. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. Jesus is politely telling them they need to shift their mindsets! Jesus is clear. The way things are in the heavenly realm cannot be described in earthly terms; but Jesus is also clear that those we call dead are in fact alive, albeit in a different way. God is God of the living, here and hereafter. Therefore, in God we can place our trust, for now and for the beyond. 
 
As for me, I was able to say with no hesitation at all, that I was happy, when the time comes, for my husband’s body to be buried with that of his late wife, because I know that will be just his body, and his spirit will have been set free. 

Prayer

God of the here and now,
God of the then and when,
in the complexities of this world, 
reassure us that your love extends beyond our earthly understanding, 
and that in Christ all shall be made alive. 
Amen

(cf 1 Cor 15:22)

St Luke 20: 20 – 26

So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.  So they asked him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth.  Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’  But he perceived their craftiness and said to them,  ‘Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?’ They said, ‘The emperor’s.’  He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’  And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.

Reflection

Johnny Nash once sang that ‘there are more questions than answers and sometimes that seems true of the Gospels. Jesus often asks searching questions which provoke confusion. In return he is often questioned himself, but the questioners very rarely get the answer which they expected, or even one which makes sense to them. That’s what happens here. To use a sporting metaphor Jesus not only escapes the fiendish snooker set by his opponent, but lays a tricky one of his own in return.

Christians still discuss what this passage means. Is it about the separation of the sacred and profane, the heavenly and the earthly, or a rejection of the power of empire? Perhaps some of this ambiguity has to do with the nature of money itself. Jesus asks for a particular coin, a denarius, which featured an engraving of the Roman Emperor, making a theological and political claim about his divinity. The coins we use today in the UK do the same thing, proclaiming that the monarch rules by the grace of God and is defender of the faith. On all bank notes issued by the Bank of England there’s a puzzling statement – ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of….’ This seems puzzling – doesn’t possessing the note mean you already have that money? But it goes back to days when a bank note represented gold held in a vault, which is where the real value lay. Today money, whether notes and coins or their digital equivalent in our increasingly cashless society, has value because we believe it does. If everyone loses confidence in a currency then it ceases to have that value, and becomes worthless. Is faith the same? By having faith, are we creating a new world, new meanings and new values? Is that how we reach the Kingdom of God?

Prayer

Loving God,
sometimes we find your word hard to understand,
sometimes you challenge us and make us think,
and sometimes we ask for help
and don’t like the answers we hear.
Help us to trust in you and be ready to listen,
help us to hear and recognise your voice when you call,
and help us to put our faith in the values and actions
which bring your Kingdom to our troubled world.
Amen.

St Luke 20: 8 – 19

Jesus began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenants, and went to another country for a long time. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard; but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.  Next he sent another slave; that one also they beat and insulted and sent away empty-handed.  And he sent yet a third; this one also they wounded and threw out.  Then the owner of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.”  But when the tenants saw him, they discussed it among themselves and said, “This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours.”  So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?  He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.’ When they heard this, they said, ‘Heaven forbid!’  But he looked at them and said, ‘What then does this text mean: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”?

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’ When the scribes and chief priests realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared the people.

Reflection

Just imagine if a homeowner let out their home and the tenants allowed all manner of alterations to be carried out. Some awful mistakes can happen when those who are tenants begin acting as if they are the owners. The Jewish leaders asked Jesus about the source of His authority, so he answered their question by telling a parable about some wicked tenants of a vineyard, who had wrongfully assumed ownership of that which was not their own. If God owns the vineyard and Jesus is the Son and rightful heir to it, then He is acting under God’s authority. The religious leaders have wrongfully usurped the authority of God, the rightful owner. 

On hearing this parable, Jesus’ audience would immediately have thought about Isaiah 5:1-7, where the prophet called Israel God’s vineyard and warned that He would lay it to waste because it produced only worthless grapes. Jesus showed that God expects fruit from His vineyard, but emphasized God’s great patience and love in sending many messengers and finally, His beloved Son. If His people produce no fruit and kill His Son, they will face His terrible judgment. But even though they kill His Son, He will triumph by becoming the chief cornerstone.

These things apply not only to ancient Israel, but also to us, whom God has graciously grafted into His vine (Rom. 11:17-24).
 The parable reveals five things about God and those who profess to be His people:

1.     God expects fruit from His people
2.     God’s great patience, seen in His repeated, gracious messengers should motivate us to live accountability to Him.
3.     God’s great love, seen in sending His beloved Son, should motivate us to live accountability to Him.
4.     God’s righteous judgment on those who reject His Son should motivate us to live accountability to Him.
5.     God’s certain, final triumph in Christ should motivate us to live accountability to Him.

Prayer

Let the love of God course through our veins.
Let the goodness of God pulse through our bodies.
Let the power of the Spirit flow through our souls.
And let the wonder of God 
resonate through our minds
 as we seek to serve and live accountability to Him. Amen

inspiration in your inbox Wednesday 26 March 2025   St Luke 20: 1-8 One day, as he was teaching the people in the temple and telling the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came with the elders and said to him, ‘Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who gave you this authority?’ He answered them, ‘I will also ask you a question, and you tell me: Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?’ They discussed it with one another, saying, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say, “Why did you not believe him?” But if we say, “Of human origin”, all the people will stone us; for they are convinced that John was a prophet.’ So they answered that they did not know where it came from.  Then Jesus said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.’ Reflection Jesus is getting close to his death on the cross. Jesus had seen to it that the religious leaders could not ignore his arrival. He has entered the city triumphantly, he has shown authority in clearing the temple court, and now he is dominating the whole temple area to call out the unrighteous practices. If you read the gospels closely, you will see that Jesus is constantly teaching and preaching the gospel to the crowds. The authority of his teaching was the very reason why the people were hanging onto his every word – such as the importance of the Word.  Ultimately, there is no difference between the nature of Jesus’s authority and its source as his reply makes clear. He answers with a counter question, a familiar technique in contemporary literature, not to delay his answer but because it will leave the religious authorities exposed.  In framing their catch question, they assumed no one is entitled to exercise authority unless they have received authorisation through the proper channels.  But here they are mixing authority with power.  Social theorist Max Weber describes power as having a coercive element (I have to do) and authority as having a noncoercive one (I want to do): the difference between the two motives is huge. Jesus has no political clout, no military to command, no prestige or wealth to his name.  He does not make people do what he commands.  Instead, the people have to want what he proposes.    The religious authorities refuse to answer because they cannot admit to their rejection of a John whom the people regard as a prophet. Jesus immediately goes on to tell a parable which will make them uncomfortable. It did not occur to the religious leaders to give him their support and, in doing so, they failed to see that those who sacrifice the most in the way of love end up with the greatest authority.    Prayer   O Lord,  all power is yours to mould and shape, to love and forgive;  all authority is yours to challenge the unjust, to judge the world;  all love is yours to sacrifice yourself on the cross and not count the cost   that we may discover our place in your kingdom. Amen.

Today’s writer The Revd Nicola Furley-Smith, Secretary for Ministries, Purley New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

St Luke 19: 45 – 48

Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there;  and he said, ‘It is written,

“My house shall be a house of prayer”;
    but you have made it a den of robbers.’

Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.

Reflection

I was down in London recently, at a conference (on powerful mediaeval women, should you be curious, however irrelevant here!). With some early Christmas purchases in mind, I strolled along Piccadilly and dropped by St James’s Church, a 17th century Wren building, Lucy Winkett of Radio 4 fame the current rector. (Many years ago I found myself companioning a group from that parish visiting Russia for celebrations of the millennium of Christianity there, so I feel still a tangential connection!), and I am occasionally in the audience for the regular lunchtime concerts it holds).

The connection to today’s Daily Devotions passage, at least in my mind, is that around the building, in the green-space churchyard, are hosted commercial and other stalls, a market for food, crafts, complementary therapy, clothing and collectibles. The church has its own on-site cafe, operated by Redemption Roasters, a speciality coffee company with barista training and potentially employment for prisoners, ex-prisoners, people at risk of offending. Money changes hands!

Veritably, in another sense from Jesus’ words, a “den of robbers” (and other former offenders). Some church folk might be wary of hybrid religious/commercial enterprises; others thankful for any financial share that comes our way.

The institution, and (it would seem increasingly many of its leadership), are focused often on reputation management. There is a companion form called “scandal management”, in the Biblical and conventional usage of the term “scandal”.

What might our Lord have made of it? It is evident that the life and person of Jesus was itself rejected by many, particularly the religious rulers and the respectable, as being disreputable: his teachings, his hanging around with social outcasts, his lifestyle, and (ultimately) his death (“a stumbling block [scandal] to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles”[1 Cor. 1:23, RSV]. And obstacles are risks, and it would seem, to be swerved. It is safer that way, apparently.

Prayer

Jesus, our brother, 
we were taught from our early years, 
to be careful about the company we kept. 
It could blacken our reputations. 
Folk might think ill of us. 
Yet, we cannot avoid the truth 
that this is where we find you, 
eating and drinking and talking and laughing 
with the socially and spiritually marginalised. 
May we open our hearts and our embrace 
to those whom others reject, 
and may we embrace our own outsiderness. Amen.

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it,  saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side.  They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

Reflection

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, wildly acclaimed by crowds of disciples.  They are proclaiming peace in heaven, joyfully praising God.  But peace in heaven does not yet mean peace on earth – the inhabitants of Jerusalem have not caught the vision.  So as Jesus draws near, he laments – he sees the devastation that is in store for the city.   Keening in sorrow as if for the dead, he utters an oracle of woe in line with the prophets of Israel. His words to the inhabitants of Jerusalem are charged with emotion and helpless regret.

If only they had recognised that this was “the time of their visitation from God!” On that day, as Jesus approached the city, God was presenting them with the prospect of future well-being and peace.  But they were dull-sighted.   They had a reputation for killing prophets and Jesus, as we know, would face humiliation and judicial murder.  In the spiritual blindness of the city’s inhabitants, God’s offer was wasted – it was now “hidden from their eyes.”

Jesus saw this and he wept.  He could see the days of calamity that were to come. The rejection of “the things that make for peace” would have disastrous consequences.  The days would come when unspecified enemies would besiege, capture and destroy Jerusalem. The city’s inhabitants would be crushed with inexorable cruelty, its buildings razed to the ground. 

We don’t need too much imagination to recognise that such things are happening in our world today.  A world that is in need of the peace God offers; the peace that was proclaimed with joy by the Christmas angels on Jesus’s birth, and fleshed out by Jesus himself in the synagogue in Nazareth.  This is the peace we actively pray for in our own time, a peace that is sealed by the final revelation of God’s love on Easter Day.

Prayer

Merciful God,
your word pierces the blindness of our world,
and signals the dawn of peace and justice;
bring us to know our place
in the unfolding of your purposes,
and instil in our hearts
the wonder of your salvation.
through Jesus Christ your son, our saviour.
Amen