July 11th



Lectionary gospel reading is
Luke 10:25-37 - Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan.

As I've just come back from a thought-provoking General Assembly, I think I want to say something about where we're at, as a church. At General Assembly this weekend we acknowledged the closure of more than 20 churches, and welcomed just 3. We heard stories of exciting things happening in some places: but I also spoke to plenty of people living with fear, decline & near despair.

I am reminded, in re-reading this story, of an Orthodox understanding of the characters involved. In some icons of the Good Samaritan, he is shown with a halo. Maybe that's not so surprising, as he is described as 'Good' - but in icons halos are not for good people, but for God's people - the Saints - and particularly, of course, the halo points to Jesus. In some icons (above) the Good Samaritan figure is even named as Jesus Christ.

Our reading of the story changes dramatically as we remember that Jesus is the Good Samaritan. This doesn't let us off the hook about 'going and doing likewise', but it stops us getting totally consumed by the 'I ought to be a better person' trap.
1. We are the body of christ - we are called corporately, as the church to do good in our world, not only as individuals.
2. Whatever assails us on the road of life, Jesus is there to rescue us. Jesus will change and shape and revive his church - not all our schemes and plans and frameworks.

Then instead of asking 'how can we be better people', the question then becomes 'how can we be more aware of the presence and leading of Christ?'. Maybe General Assembly's role is to be donkey - the vehicle used by Jesus to carry us home...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Faith and Guidance

Genesis 12: 1-9; Romans 4: 13-25   It’s been quite a week for politics. Whatever your party affiliations, there has been a lot of unpredictability and upheaval  - there are going to be 3 by-elections very soon - and we might all be left feeling breathless and wondering ‘what happens next?’.   We might wonder what guidance we might expect our political leaders to seek. And we might, this week, have had our own moments of wondering where to turn for guidance or direction in the turmoil of life.    So it’s rather helpful to look at the story of Abram.   Like all good stories this one is long and multi-faceted and well worth exploring.   Just before the part that we heard, we are told (in Genesis chapter 11)  that Terah, the father of Abram, took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (son of Haran, who had died) and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife, and set off from Ur of the Chaldees for Canaan. But when they reached Harran they settled there, and there Terah died, leaving Abram as the h
Read more

Abraham and Isaac - a good question!

Genesis 22: 1-14       Matthew 10: 40-42 Isidor Rabi, who was born in Austria in 1898, moved to the United States as a child and won the Nobel prize for physics in 1944. He was once asked by an admiring friend, “Why did you become a scientist, rather than a doctor or lawyer or businessman, like the other immigrant kids in your neighbourhood?” Rabi responded: “My mother made me a scientist without ever intending it. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: ‘So? Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. She always asked me a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question today?’ That difference – asking good questions – made me a scientist.” I think we could say that living in a relationship with God – which for us means following Jesus Christ – is based on the same principle. Did you ask a good question today? What might our ‘good questions’ be as we read the scriptures today? Let’s look closely at the story of Abraham, bei
Read more

Epiphany 2: Nathanael... & Jacob

Genesis 28: 10-22 (not the lectionary reading!); John 1: 43-51 I love the Sundays of Epiphany – starting with the visit of the Magi (which we celebrated last week) and then moving on to other stories of God’s presence on earth being revealed to people. I think what I most love is the idea that we don’t just pack away the Christmas decorations and forget about God’s love being incarnate in Jesus, but we allow the story of Jesus’ coming to earth to open our eyes to other ways in which God’s love is present to us.   What can be better to start the new year than a series of reminders that God is with us and that we can expect to meet with God in 2024.   Today we heard two very related Biblical stories of God’s presence.   The first is the vision given to Jacob, when he saw angels going up and down a ladder between earth and heaven.    You might think that Jacob is a specially holy person to be given this vision: nothing could be further from the truth. Jacob is the twin who was born holdin
Read more