A future that's bigger than the past

Here's the sermon that I shared today at St Mary’s Langdon Hills and St Catherine’s Wickford:

St Paul states in Philippians 3:20 that ‘Our citizenship [as Christians] is in heaven.’ Pause for a moment to reflect on how transformational those words are; ‘Our citizenship is in heaven.’ Paul literally shifts the centre of the universe, from this existence and our daily reality, to the realm of essence, the things that last forever, the habitation of God and of those whom God has called to share the life of eternity. Rather than earth being the source and testing ground of truth and coherence, the measure of all things becomes heaven. So, when we’re assessing whether something is right or wrong, when we’re determining the current state of the Church, the question to ask is, does it stand the test of eternity? Will it abide with God forever? Or does it belong to the world that is passing away?

I want us to follow Paul today and start to concentrate on where we’re going. We’re going to heaven – where there is more than enough love for all, more than enough joy, more than enough truth, more than enough space for everyone to flourish. When we do so, we arrive at a new definition of the Church: a bunch of people who all come from different places but are all going to the same place. We’re a people pooling our resources for a journey we make together to a place none of us have ever been. There are no experts, because we’re all citizens of a country we’ve never visited and longing for a home we’ve never known.

How do we prepare for that journey? We look at the glimpses we have in scripture of heaven, including our Gospel reading today – the story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17.1-9). In speaking of that story Sam Wells says: “There’s glory – the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. There’s the pattern of God’s story in Israel and the church, a story that finds its most poignant moments in the midst of suffering and exile. There’s the loving, tender, presence and heavenly voice of God the Father – a voice that for the only time in their lives, the disciples hear and understand. And there’s the extraordinary realisation that, even though all this could have gone on without them, the disciples have been caught up in the life of the Trinity, the mystery of salvation, the unfolding of God’s heart, the beauty of holiness.”

Up until this point, “the disciples know Jesus does plenty of amazing and wonderful things and says many beautiful and true things, but they still assume he’s basically the same as them.” It’s only as they go up the mountain with him that the veil slips and they’re invited in to a whole other world. A world in which “Jesus is completely at home,” “even when the Father’s voice thunders from above.” “And more remarkably still, it seems there’s a place for them in it, hanging out with the likes of Moses and Elijah. They’ve been given a glimpse of glory. It’s a glory that’s faithful to the story of Israel, a glory that has Jesus at the centre of it, a glory that has God speaking words of love, a glory that has a place for them in it, however stumbling and clumsy they are, and finally a glory in which Jesus touches them tenderly in their fear.”

The glimpse of glory that they are given is a glimpse of heaven. In the glimpse of heaven they are given they first see Jesus with his face shining like the sun. The light of the glory of God shines in the face of Jesus. God is seen – seen, not heard - in Jesus. What the disciples see of God in the Transfiguration is demonstration, not proclamation; the light of God seen as it is lived out in the life of his Son.

Second, they see Jesus in conversation and in relationship with Moses and Elijah. Moses, Elijah and Jesus are together in community, communing one with the other. The letter to the Hebrews speaks about a great crowd of witnesses in heaven made up of the prophets, saints and martyrs who have gone before but with whom we are in relationship. We see here, in the Transfiguration, a glimpse of that community of saints of which we are part.

Third, we see that such glimpses are currently temporary while they encourage us to yearn that they become permanent. Peter responds to the Transfiguration with the hope that Moses, Elijah and Jesus can tabernacle together (or live together in tents) just as God tabernacled (or dwelt in a tent) with the Israelites in the wilderness. Although, he yearns for a longer, more permanent experience, Peter has to accept the temporary nature of the Transfiguration in his present reality. A cloud overshadows the disciples and, when they look up, Jesus is alone again.

As citizens of heaven we are given glimpses of heaven in order that we begin to live as if we were already there. What do the glimpses of heaven that we see in the Transfiguration show us about how to live as if we were already in heaven?

First, the light of God was seen as it was lived out and demonstrated in the life of Christ. The church, therefore, should be about modelling and making possible forms of social relationship not found elsewhere. The church should seek to shape communities whose habits and practices anticipate and portray the life of God’s kingdom. Our role in mission is to cultivate assets and thereby foster and advance abundant life. Social engagement isn’t an add-on to the core business of worship; it’s a form of worship, because in the kingdom disciples are humbled, moved and transformed as they stumble into the surprising places and come face to face with the disarming people in whom the Holy Spirit makes Christ known. Christianity caught on in the second and third centuries because it created institutions that gave people possibilities and opportunities the rest of the world had yet to imagine. That’s what Christianity originally was: a revolutionary idea that took institutional form. That’s what it needs to become again. The church must model what the kingdom of God means and entails in visible and tangible form.

Second, this modelling and demonstration of God’s future now will be centred on community. The Transfiguration shows us Christ in communion with the prophets, saints and martyrs. The chief end of humanity is, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it, to glorify God by enjoying him forever. Heaven is all about relationships; enjoying God, each other, ourselves, and Creation. Therefore, Christianity must take the present opportunity to be what it was always called to be: an alternative society, overlapping and sharing space with regular society, but living in a different time – that’s to say, modelling God’s future in our present. It’s not enough to cherish the scriptures, embody the sacraments, set time aside for prayer, and shape disciples’ character in the ways of truth, if such practices simply withdraw disciples for select periods, uncritically then to return them after a brief pause to a world struggling with inequality, identity, and purpose. Rather, what we need is to become and to model communities of ordinary virtues, but ones infused with grace: thus trust, honesty, politeness, forbearance, and respect are the bedrock of such communities, while tolerance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and resilience are among its abiding graces. What I’m describing is the transformation of churches into dynamic centres of abundant life, receiving, evidencing, dwelling in and sharing forms of social flourishing and being a blessing to their neighbourhood.

The Lent Course that we will shortly begin explores the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ in terms of: being waited on by Angel Neighbours; being a neighbour to those close to us; giving hospitality to strangers; standing up for the oppressed; carrying another’s load; and being a neighbour to those on the road. That course will, therefore, provide an opportunity for us to explore together how to become and how to model being a community of ordinary virtues infused with grace.

Third, we recognise the temporary nature of our community whilst longing, like Peter, for a more permanent experience of heaven on earth. That reality is implied by the phrase ‘The future is always bigger than the past.’ In essence, we don’t know, but we’re learning. We haven’t arrived, but the journey’s great. We’re not sure exactly where we’re going, but it’s getting better all the time. We’ve had some wonderful experiences, but the best is yet to come. So, we pray for the kingdom to come in future, on earth as it is in heaven, while seeking to create temporary signs of that kingdom in the here and now.

The experience of what it’s like to feel as though we’re already in heaven is what we call the kingdom of God. Entering in to that experience of glory is where we’re going. God invites us all to be in heaven, not because any of us have a right to be there, or because God is trying to set straight a historic injustice or present imbalance, but because God chooses never to be except to be with us in Christ, and that being-with is not a for-some-people thing but a for-everyone thing, and it’s not a for-now thing it’s a forever thing. We prepare for that reality by learning to live with everybody now and receive their unexpected gifts with imagination and gratitude in recognition that these are the people with whom we’ll be spending eternity, lucky and blessed as we all are to be there. So, we’d best use these earthly years as a time for getting in the mood of heaven. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Barratt Band - My Spirit's Free.

Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent

Pancake Party
St Catherine’s Hall
Tuesday 17th February

Drop in between 2.30pm and 4pm or stay all afternoon and help raise funds for St Catherine’s tower restoration.

£5 to include 2 pancakes and tea or coffee

Gluten free available on request

Names before 15th February please

Pay on the day

Ash Wednesday (18 February)

Eucharists with the imposition of ashes will be held at 10.30 am at St Andrew's Wickford and at 8.00 pm at St Mary's Runwell.

Lent Course - Who Is My Neighbour?

A course from St Martin-in-the-Fields in conjunction with the National Gallery, exploring Art and the Bible Story. We are offering this six week course from week commencing 23rd February. The final week will be decided by each group. Lent Course groups are meeting on Tuesday and Thursday evening at 7.30 pm and on Thursday afternoon at 2.00 pm. Email to jonathan.evens@btinternet.com if joining a group would be of interest.

Stations of the Cross

A set of Stations of the Cross by the late Valerie Dean have been installed at St Andrew's Wickford for Lent and Holy Week. We will pray these Stations during Holy Week.

Valerie's Stations of the Cross have a very clear and intense focus on details which are evocative of the whole. They have previously been shown at St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Diocesan Offices of the Diocese of Chelmsford.

Valerie Dean returned to England in the summer of 2007 after living for 27 years in Belgium. There, she studied art for six years and had various exhibitions, in and around Brussels. On returning to England, she became involved in the Kent arts scene and exhibited, regularly, in the Francis Iles gallery, in Rochester. She also took part in the Canterbury Arts Festival and exhibitions in Whitstable.

She worked in acrylics and her technique was usually to put materials and colours on canvas or board, to see what emerged. It was a dialogue between the artist and her materials. Because of her background, this often consisted of figures around a religious theme. They just appeared! Very often, people seemed to want to appear in her paintings, a little like the pictures in the fire that she used to see in her childhood. At other times, she found that buildings and places she knew inspired her.

See also 'Fear not, for I am with you: An exhibition of religious paintings by David Sowerby'
9 January – 3 April 2026
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

St Andrew’s is usually open: Sat 9am-12.30pm; Sun 9.30am-12 noon; Mon 2-3.45pm; Tue 1-4.30pm; Wed 10am-12 noon; Fri 10am-1pm. https://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html

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Emmylou Harris - Prayer In Open D.

The way of greed or the way of generosity

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

The story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16. 19 – 31) is one of the best known in the New Testament. Its powerful imagery makes it difficult to ignore. This parable, more than perhaps any other of the parables told by Jesus, is a story of contrasts. Contrasts between rich and poor, hell and heaven, and, perhaps most significant of all, between the way of greed and the way of generosity.

As in the parable of the Rich Fool, where a farmer stores up what he has for himself and then dies when he had expected to eat, drink and be merry, this parable is about the dangers of gaining wealth solely for oneself. Here, the focus isn’t on the inevitability of death but instead the impact of greed in the afterlife.

The selfishness of the rich man in this life results in separation from God in the next. When he realises his predicament, the rich man wants to warn his siblings who are still alive so that they will follow the path of generosity rather than the path of greed, but is told that they have all the warning they need in the scripture – Moses and the prophets. If they don’t pay heed to their sacred writings then they are unlikely to pay heed to anything else.

So, the contrast between the way of greed and the way of generosity is the central contrast within this parable. The parable is told to encourage its hearers to take the path of generosity in their lives.

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is chiefly aimed at the Pharisees who, we are told in an earlier verse, were lovers of money. It was not only the Pharisees’ love of wealth that set them apart but, more importantly, their hardness of heart. While we might feel revulsion at the lavish lifestyle of the rich man, the horror lies in the fact that he ignores the needs of his neighbour.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus draws the rich as well as the poor into fellowship. He eats with the rich and teaches them about the kingdom of God in their own terms (Luke 14: 16 - 24, 28 - 30). Jesus does not prejudge people on the basis of what they own. We see in Mark 10 that he loves a rich man who is overwhelmed by the command to sell all he owns and give the money to the poor. What is significant is people’s attitudes towards wealth and what they do with it.

Most of us are not wealthy in the sense that the rich man in Jesus’ parable was wealthy, so we may think the parable has little to say to us. One way in which the contrasts made in this parable continue to play out in our society today is in attitudes to payment of tax.

Christian Aid has in the past estimated that developing countries have lost at least $160bn of tax every year because of tax dodging by unscrupulous businesses. Tax dodging hurts us all, especially when global companies and large sums of money are involved. It robs countries of the taxes they're owed – money that could be spent on essential services. Christian Aid has shown that in poor countries tax dodging results in a lack of clean water, sanitation, roads, schools and hospitals; and in people going hungry. Their tax justice campaign has highlighted how developing countries lose $160bn every year - one-and-a-half-times what they receive in international aid. Church Action on Poverty has shown that in the UK tax dodging contributes to cuts in benefits for families, children and disabled people, reduced care for the elderly, less childcare and fewer libraries, youth services and other vital community facilities.

Financial secrecy is at the heart of these problems – especially the secrecy offered by tax havens. Thanks to loopholes in the global financial system, money that could provide vital services like schools and hospitals, is being pocketed by unscrupulous companies. In addition, the wealthy are also often funding others to make the political argument that our problems in our society are to do with levels of immigration rather than levels of tax compliance. This is a deliberate distraction away from the reality that, if those with wealth were to pay their due instead of engaging in tax avoidance, our problems of debt and poverty could actually be eradicated overnight.

Christian Aid’s campaigning arguing that wealthy people and companies pay the tax they owe and that developing countries obtain the revenue that is rightfully theirs is not one that is biased against the rich. Instead, it asks us all to consider the following questions:

• Who is our neighbour?
• Are we so wrapped up in our own fulfilment that we forget our neighbours whose potential is denied?
• Are we ready to share our resources so that we can all become the people God would have us be?

These questions are as pertinent now as they were in Jesus’ day. And now as then, they are not questions to be put off for another day, so supporting such campaigns is one way to respond to Jesus' teaching in this parable.

Our lives in a world of 6.5 billion people mean that the question of ‘who is my neighbour’ is many times more apposite and complex today than when it was first put to Jesus by a lawyer (Luke 10). The story of the rich man and Lazarus does not call us to condemn wealth, but to notice the needs of our neighbours – both on our doorsteps and further afield – and to examine our own lives in the light of this. Next year, in Lent, our reflections will be on precisely this question – ‘Who is my neighbour? – so, it is very helpful to reflect on this passage now, in advance of that course.

Jesus teaches that our resources are for the benefit of everyone. He continually considers those who are poor and those who are on the margins of society first. Interestingly, this is seen in this parable by the fact that it is the only one of Jesus’ parables where someone is given a name. And the named person is Lazarus, not the rich man.

In our society, the rich and powerful are constantly named to us, giving the message that these people are of more value than others. Who is it that we name and value? Is it the people society gives value to, or is it the people of the poor countries who are eating the scraps from our table? The answer to that question will reveal whether we are walking the way of greed or the way of generous love.

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Methuselah - Luke.

True love of neighbour means we receive, as well as give

Here's my sermon from today's Communion Servive at St Catherine’s Wickford:

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25 - 37), don’t we? And we all know what the story is about? It’s very clear, isn’t it? It’s a call to kindness, a call to care, a call to help others, unlike those who passed by on the other side. We know all that, don’t we? So, there’s really no point in my reiterating what we already know and therefore I can just leave you to reflect on the calls to kindness that you experience in your daily life. How do you meet those? How do you respond?

There isn’t really anymore to say, so I’ll just leave it at that for today. Or, is that actually the case? Is there perhaps something more to this parable that isn’t generally spoken about? Might there actually be an aspect to this parable that is generally overlooked?

Let’s think for a moment about the hero of the parable – a Samaritan. Samaritans were contemptible people, as far as the Jews of Jesus’ day were concerned, considered as social outcasts, untouchables, racially inferior, practicing a false religion. While Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. The Samaritan’s had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. They also claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile.

Samaritans were of mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry, claimed descent from Jacob and worshipped the God of Israel. So, Samaritans were close to the Jews in their birth and beliefs but they were also different in significant ways, a volatile combination in any era. As a result, Samaritans and Jews engaged in bitter rivalries, which in Jesus’ day could lead to political hostilities that, sometimes, required intervention from the Romans.

Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders seem to have taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter each other's territories or even to speak to one another. Jews avoided any association with Samaritans, travelling long distances out of their way to avoid passing through a Samaritan area. Any close physical contact, drinking water from a common bucket, eating a meal with a Samaritan, would make a Jew ceremonially unclean - unable to participate in temple worship for a period of time – this may be part of the reason why the priest and Levite don’t stop to help.

The artist Dinah Roe Kendall painted a version of the parable of the Good Samaritan which set the story in South Africa at the time of apartheid. Doing so, seems to me, to be an accurate parallel with the kinds of emotions and cultural practices that were at play in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans and it shows up clearly the twist in the tail of Jesus’ story.

Jesus, as a Jew, didn’t illustrate his point - that people of every race, colour, class, creed, faith, sexuality, and level of ability are our neighbours – by telling a story in which a Jew was kind to someone else. Instead, he told a story in which a Jew receives help from a person who was perceived to be his enemy. The equivalent in Kendall’s painting is of the black man helping the white man, who represents the people that have oppressed him and his people.

So, Kendall’s version of the story brings out part of the twist in the tail that Jesus gives this story; the sense of receiving help from the person who is your enemy. What her version doesn’t deal with, however, is the idea that the enemy who helps is someone of another faith. The Jews were God’s chosen people and a light to the other nations and faith, so what would have been expected from this story would have been for the Jew in the story to bring the light of faith to the Samaritan. But that is not how Jesus’ story unfolds. Instead, the person who is one of God’s chosen people receives help from the person of another faith.

For Jesus to tell a story in which a Samaritan was the neighbour to a Jew was, for the reasons we have been considering, deeply shocking. We can sense this in the story as recorded for us by Luke, as the lawyer in the story is unable to bring himself to utter the word ‘Samaritan’ in answering Jesus’ question. The story is doubly shocking because the Jews in the story, the Priest and Levite, do not act as neighbours to the man. And trebly shocking, because it was probably their expression of devotion to God that prevented them from being neighbours. Priests were supposed to avoid impurity from a corpse and Pharisees thought that one would contract impurity if even one’s shadow touched the corpse. It was safer, therefore, not to check than to risk impurity.

Perhaps we can get a sense of how shocking this was by asking ourselves who, in our own day, are we least likely to think of as neighbours? Who do we think of as those least like us? Who do we think of as enemies? Who do we think of as contemptible? The point of the story is that Jesus says our neighbour is not our own people but those we think of as enemies or as contemptible because of their birth or beliefs. The least likely people, the people least like us, these are the people that Jesus calls our neighbours.

To find a contemporary equivalent for this aspect of the story, we have, perhaps, to think about relationships in this country between Christians and those of other faiths, and within those relationships, recognise that relationships between Christians and Muslims are often those which are currently most conflicted, with some Christians believing that Islam represents a threat to the Church and Western civilization. Within this context, the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges Christians as to what we can receive from those of other faiths and, particularly, those who we might view as enemies. Jesus says to us, through this parable, that loving our neighbours is not simply about what we can give to others but also about what we receive from others.

Our neighbours, understood in this way, are those to whom we should give – “go and do likewise”, Jesus said to the lawyer - and they are those that we should love as we love ourselves. They are also those from whom we should receive because it was the Samaritan in the story who provided help, not any of the Jewish characters. So, we need to ask ourselves how we can receive, grow, learn from and be blessed by those we think of as enemies or as beneath contempt because of their birth or beliefs.

You see, if our focus is just on what we can give, then we are in a paternalistic relationship with our neighbours or enemies. If our focus is just on what we can give, then what we are saying is that we hold all the aces and we will generously share some of them with you. In other words, we remain in a position of power and influence. Immediately we acknowledge that we can receive from our neighbours or enemies, then the balance of power shifts and we make ourselves vulnerable. In this parable, Jesus says that that is where true love is to be found and it is something that he went on to demonstrate by making himself vulnerable through death on the cross.

We often protect ourselves from the need to engage with, learn from or show love to those who are different from us by using aspects of the Bible to justify our lack of contact or compassion. But Jesus rules this approach out for his followers by giving us the examples of the priest and Levite. George Caird has written that “It is essential to the point of the story that the traveller was left half-dead. The priest and the Levite could not tell without touching him whether he was dead or alive; and it weighed more with them that he might be dead or defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care.”

This is religious rule-making justifying a lack of compassion. Caird says that, “Jesus deliberately shocks the lawyer by forcing him to consider the possibility that a semi-pagan foreigner might know more about the love of God than a devout Jew blinded by preoccupation with pettifogging rules.” Who do we, as the Church, stay away from because we are afraid of contamination or defilement? What aspects of scripture do we use to justify our lack of contact?

Jesus told this story in order that we reach out across the divides and barriers that people and groups and communities and nations construct between each other. He told this story so that Christians would be in the forefront of those who look to tear down the barriers and cross the divides. To the extent, that we fail to do this we are more like the priest and Levite in this story that the Samaritan who was a neighbour to the person in need.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the sting is in the tail, the deepest point is that one of God’s chosen people receives help from his enemy who is of another faith. Jesus is taking us deep into the heart of love and saying that we will not truly love our neighbour until we understand and accept that we have much to receive from those that we perceive to be our enemies. In other words, true love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give.

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Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Homeless.

humbler church Bigger God - w/c 13 February 2022

 

Welcome to our exciting HeartEdge programme for 2022. We hope you will be able to join us, whether at online events or at our in-person events around the world. You can find all our events on our website — and if you're a HeartEdge partner, you can upload your own events through the members' area.

Last year, we launched Living God's Future Now, an online festival of theology and practice. We hosted workshops, webinars, spaces to gather and share ideas, lecture series, and more. This year, we're continuing our programming with a new theme — humbler church, Bigger God.

HeartEdge is fundamentally about a recognition of the activity of the Holy Spirit beyond and outside the church, and about a church that flourishes when it seeks to catch up with what the Spirit is already doing in the world. There was a time when church meant a group that believed it could control access to God – access that only happened in its language on its terms. But God is bigger than that, and the church needs to be humbler than that. Kingdom churches anticipate the way things are with God forever – a culture of creativity, mercy, discovery and grace – and are grateful for the ways God renews the church through those it has despised, rejected, or ignored.

We hope this reflects the lessons we've learnt from the past year: still trying to live God's future now, re-imagining our faith and our calling as a Church in a changing world. Thank you for joining us for the journey — we can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Tuesday

Being Better Neighbours

Tuesday, 15 February, 14:00. Click here to register.

What does it look like for Christians and our churches to be better neighbours to those in our local communities? With: Alastair McKay (facilitating), Executive Director, Reconciliation Initiatives; Al Barrett, Vicar of Hodge Hill, Diocese of Birmingham; Ellen Loudon, Director of Social Justice & Canon Chancellor, Liverpool Diocese; Karen Lund, Archdeacon of Manchester, Diocese of Manchester; and Tom Wilson, Director, St Philip’s Centre, Leicester.

Sermon Preparation with Sally Hitchiner and Sam Wells

Join us for our weekly discussion of the lectionary readings for the coming Sunday with Sam Wells and Sally Hitchiner.

Tuesdays 4.30 - 5.30pm BST live-streamed here.

Wednesday

Community of Practitioners workshop

Wednesday 16 February, 16:00–17.00 GMT, Zoom. Email jonathan.evens@smitf.org to register.

This is a space for practitioners, lay and ordained, to reflect on theology and practice. Each week, we alternate between 'Wonderings' and discussion of a theology book. This week we will be discussing ‘The Hidden Wound’ by Wendell Berry.

Saturday

Music and Liturgy for Lent

Saturday 19 February, 11:00–12:00 GMT, Sacred Trinity Church, Chapel Street, Salford M3 5DW. Click here to register.

Andy Salmon (North West Co-ordinator of HeartEdge and Rector of Sacred Trinity Church will give tips about creative liturgical resources for Lent whilst Andrew Earis (Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields) and the Manchester HeartEdge Choral Scholars will share musical resources to help freshen up your lenten experience. We will be broadcasting on Zoom but people are also welcome to come in person. On 19 March we will run a sister event on Music and Liturgy for Easter.

Sunday

Theology Group

Sunday 20 February, 19:00–20:00 GMT, Zoom. Click here to register.

The St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge Theology Group provides a monthly opportunity to reflect theologically on issues of today and questions of forever with Sam Wells. Each month Sam responds to questions from a member of the congregation of St Martin-in-the-Fields who also chairs the session and encourages your comments and questions. With Rachel Godden as chair.

Advance Notice

Faith in the time of the ‘new normal’
3, 17 & 31 March, 7 April, 7:15pm. Register here.

A series of Lenten conversations hosted by The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education. This series aims to help congregations and house groups reflect on how Christians may understand the changes we’ve been through as a society, and the new ‘place’ we may be entering.

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St Martin's Voices - Gloria.

Lent Courses: St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge

There are a wealth of options for Lent available through St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge:

Lent Study Course 2021 - St Martin-in-the-Fields

When I first read Stephen Verney’s book “Water into Wine” it changed the way I read this Gospel. He helped me to see for myself: “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Stephen Verney talks about his love affair with John’s Gospel that lasted all of his life and his book helps to enter into that love too- tasting the water which through Christ has become the best wine of all and to understand John’s Gospel in a new way.

This thoughtful, insightful and beautifully written book is the product of a life-time’s immersion in the Gospel; ‘Stephen Verney’s life was a stained-glass window through which St John’s Gospel Light flowed in abundance”.

Wednesdays 6.30 – 8.45pm (online)
17, 24 February, 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 March

• 17 February – Ash Wednesday: Come and See
• 24 February – Water into Wine- An Introduction (John1-2.11)
• 3 March- Born from Above (John 2.12-4.45)
• 10 March- Healing (John 4.46-9)
• 17 March- Freedom (John10-12.50)
• 24 March- Transformative Love (John 13-17)
• 31 March- Life through Death (John 18-20, 1.1-18)

Click here to book your place



Inspired to Follow: Who is my neighbour?

A course which journeys through Lent by exploring different dimensions of the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’

Inspired to Follow: ‘Who is my Neighbour? – A journey through Lent’ – Sundays in Lent, 14:00 (GMT), Zoom meeting.

Register here to receive a zoom invitation - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inspired-to-follow-who-is-my-neighbour-tickets-133589749537.

‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’ helps people explore the Christian faith, using paintings and Biblical story as the starting points. The course uses fine art paintings in the National Gallery’s collection as a spring board for exploring questions of faith.

• Sunday 21 February: Session 1 - Being Waited on by Angel Neighbours
• Sunday 28 February: Session 2 - Being a Neighbour to Those Close to Us
• Sunday 7 March: Session 3 - Giving Hospitality to Strangers
• Sunday 14 March: Session 4 - Standing Up for the Oppressed
• Sunday 21 March: Session 5 - Carrying Another’s Load (Simon of Cyrene)
• Sunday 28 March: Session 6 - Being a Neighbour to Those on the Road

Lent Course: Creating a New Communion

Lent 2021 at HeartEdge

Tuesdays @ 10.00am GMT for 90 minutes

23 February, 02 March, 09 March, 16 March, 23 March

Register for a zoom invite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lent-course-creating-a-new-communion-tickets-138238445913.

Creating a New Communion

Exploring how generosity, gratitude, giving and fundraising call us into communion with God and with one another.

Suitably for clergy and lay leaders

Inspired by Henri Nouwen and his wonderful book The Spirituality of Fundraising join this five-session free online study and discussion series, hosted by HeartEdge, and facilitated by the Dioceses of Hereford and York.

Through Lent we’ll explore together Nouwen’s deep conviction that the ground of our common humanity and our life’s work is to accept the “call to be deeply, deeply connected with unconditional love, with our own fragile humanity, and with brothers and sisters everywhere.” What does this mean for you? For your ministry? For the church of today? For generosity, gratitude, giving and fundraising?

Here are the contributors:

Jo Beacroft Mitchell, Generous Giving Team Leader, Diocese of York – Having worked extensively with churches as they develop their mission and funding programmes, Through the course, Jo is keen to explore how the often necessary and challenging discussions around our practical needs as communities of faith, can in fact lead to transformative discussions about what we are ‘for’ as a church and what it means to live out an incarnational and practical faith in community with others.

Stewart Graham, is Director of Fundraising at The Archbishop of York Youth Trust. An experienced fundraiser in individual giving, legacies and donor relationships and partnerships, he focuses on changing cultures to inspire and engage people to fundraise and to look at how they can help change the world!

Richard Jones is Lead Parish Giving Adviser within the Diocese of Hereford. He is currently negotiating the challenges of emigration to the USA amidst politics and pandemic! He has previously served within two dioceses within the Church in Wales; altogether working with matters of generous giving and stewardship for eighteen years. He is passionate about resourcing the mission and ministry of the church, especially the rural church – which is fortunate as he now serves in the most rural diocese within all of the Church of England!

Mark Simmons is Parish Giving Adviser (Ministry Development) within the Diocese of Hereford and brings a wealth of experience from his many voluntary and paid roles including his role as Chair of the UK & Ireland board of the Community of the Cross of Nails. He is an experienced mediator and negotiator, he has worked mostly in peace building, international development, human rights, and educational leadership, notably in youth leadership programmes in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He has spent the last two years training for local licensed ministry and is a serving Churchwarden at his local village church in rural Herefordshire.

Pre-session reading of ‘The Spirituality of Fundraising’, by Henri Nouwen although not essential, is recommended.

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Water Into Wine Band - I Have Seen The Lord.

Receiving from our enemies

Here's the reflection that I shared during today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Samaritans were contemptible people, as far as the Jews of Jesus’ day were concerned. They were of mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry, claimed descent from Jacob and worshipped the God of Israel. So, they were close to the Jews in their birth and beliefs but they were also different in significant ways, a volatile combination in any era. As a result, Samaritans and Jews engaged in bitter rivalries, which in Jesus’ day could lead to political hostilities that sometimes required Roman intervention.

For Jesus to tell a story in which a Samaritan was the neighbour to a Jew was therefore deeply shocking (Luke 10: 25-37). We can sense this in the story as recorded for us by Luke, as the lawyer in the story is unable to bring himself to utter the word ‘Samaritan’ in answering Jesus’ question. The story is doubly shocking because the Jews in the story, the Priest and Levite, do not act as neighbours to the man. And trebly shocking, because it was probably their expression of devotion to God that prevented them from being neighbours. Priests were supposed to avoid impurity from a corpse and Pharisees thought that one would contract impurity if even one’s shadow touched the corpse. It was safer, therefore, not to check than to risk impurity.

Perhaps we can get a sense of how shocking this was by asking ourselves who, in our own day, are we least likely to think of as neighbours? Who do we think of as those least like us? Who do we think of as enemies? Who do we think of as contemptible? The point of the story is that Jesus says our neighbour is not our own people but those we think of as enemies or as contemptible because of their birth or beliefs. The least likely people, the people least like us, these are the people that Jesus calls our neighbours.

They are the people to whom we should give – “go and do likewise”, Jesus said to the lawyer - and they are the people that we should love as we love ourselves. They are also the people from whom we should receive because it was the Samaritan in the story who provided help, not any of the Jewish characters. So, we need to ask ourselves how we can receive, grow, learn from and be blessed by those we think of as enemies or as beneath contempt because of their birth or beliefs.

We often protect ourselves from the need to engage with, learn from or show love to those who are different from us by using aspects of the Bible to justify our lack of contact or compassion. But Jesus rules this approach out for his followers by giving us the examples of the priest and Levite.

George Caird has written that “It is essential to the point of the story that the traveller was left half-dead. The priest and the Levite could not tell without touching him whether he was dead or alive; and it weighed more with them that he might be dead or defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care.”

This is religious rule-making justifying a lack of compassion. Caird says that, “Jesus deliberately shocks the lawyer by forcing him to consider the possibility that a semi-pagan foreigner might know more about the love of God than a devout Jew blinded by preoccupation with pettifogging rules.” Who do we, as the Church, stay away from because we are afraid of contamination or defilement? What aspects of scripture do we use to justify our lack of contact?

Jesus told this story in order that we reach out across the divides and barriers that people and groups and communities and nations construct between each other. He told this story so that Christians would be in the forefront of those who look to tear down the barriers and cross the divides. To the extent, that we fail to do this we are more like the priest and Levite in this story that the Samaritan who was a neighbour to the person in need.

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The Choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields - When I Needed A Neighbour.

CHURCH LEADERS PLEDGE TO THE NATION

With Easter this weekend, HeartEdge partners YourNeighbourhood.org want to get the message far and wide that the Church is here for the nation. So, this Easter, together with them we are asking 1000 UK Church leaders to publicly commit to supporting their local communities, to bring a message of hope, so that no-one will be alone, without the help they need, during the COVID-19 crisis.

Here's a message about the pledge from Russell Rook:

Dear friends,

Please sign our YourNeighbour.org pledge to the Nation and encourage church leaders in your network to sign too.

Our nation is suffering, daily life is out of balance, the Covid-19 crisis is making life a challenge for everyone across the UK. For Churches in the UK this will be an unusual Easter. However, while our celebrations may look different, our message of hope remains the same.

This Easter we want to bring Churches together to send a united message to our nation; our pledge as church leaders across the UK. Our pledge is that we are committed to playing our role, alongside other groups, institutions and organisations, to bring hope to our communities.

With Easter this weekend, we want to get the message far and wide that the Church is here for the nation. We would like 1000 UK Church leaders to publicly commit to supporting their local communities, to bring a message of hope, so that no-one will be alone, without the help they need, during the COVID-19 crisis.

We are working with press and media to publish this pledge this weekend. Join us in spreading good news this Easter. You can read, and sign the full pledge here

Whatever the future holds, churches in the UK stand ready, willing and able to serve. We are praying for our country and our communities, and committed to caring for our neighbours in days and years to come.

Thank you for everything you are doing to support local churches at this time of crisis

Many blessings,

Russell Rook

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The Alarm - The Stand.

St Martin-in-the-Fields & HeartEdge at Greenbelt

 

The HeartEdge panels at Greenbelt were very well attended, with more coming than could be accommodated within the tent. HeartEdge was in Exchange, Greenbelt’s venue for thinking about business, and how we can make enterprise work better for the common good. Exchange was supported by Midcounties Co-op, Co-op Energy, Phone Co-op, Anthony Collins Solicitors, Co-operatives UK and by New Internationalist magazine. Our thanks to all of them for their organisation and welcome.

Each session provided plenty of ideas, stories and challenges for those attending from the material our stellar selection of panellists prepared and the responses they gave on the day. We had lots of useful conversations with people afterwards interested in HeartEdge and the mission models and theological ideas we are sharing. A good number of HeartEdge members were also present renewing their inspiration and appreciating the experiences and ideas you shared. In the sessions themselves people commented positively on the energy of our panellists, as well as the energy of the dialogue within the panels and with the audience.

In the first panel on re-imagining church and culture, artist Jonathan Kearney argued that art markets and education have been hijacked by capitalism and managerialism squashing imagination. He suggested that gift, generosity and care for culture were all necessary for a cultural renaissance. Giles Goddard of St John's Waterloo spoke about the Waterloo Festival which is part of that church's engagement with their wider community and which speaks of love, hope and transformation. He argued that capitalism has appropriated culture, so it is important for the church to be engaged with delight and light.

Andrew Earis spoke about preparing a BBC service on the Manchester bombing including the importance of using a diversity of local people as well as diverse music. He aims to open hearts and minds to a broad range of music and says that music in concerts and services are all church. Yoghurt, salt and ointment were all used by Anna Sikorska as visual aids to talk about art and culture. Church can be a part of a cultural renaissance, she said, but needs partners as involvement can't be done alone. The church may sometimes be on the edge of the cultural renaissance, but conversations of re-imaging culture may best happen with other partners on the edge. She showed a Stations of the Cross tea towel designed with homeless people at St James Piccadilly as an example of engaging broadly.

Cliff Mills of Anthony Collins Solicitors began the second panel session on re-imagining church and commerce by stating that commerce is not secondary to Church, but is a valid expression of mission. In this session we heard from Ruth Amos who spoke about faith in the business world from an entrepreneur’s point of view. Faith is sustaining in challenging times. Faith within the work-place in a manufacturing sector is expressed in dealing with colleagues, dealers, suppliers, and other third parties. David Alcock of Anthony Collins Solicitors shared the journey of that law firm which is committed to values and has a social purpose. He spoke about faith in the context of: interacting with colleagues and clients; areas of work to focus on or get out of; and strategic direction and planning. Rob Wardle of Cre8 spoke from his own experience, at a micro level, about how ‘work’ within and for church or charity seems like a natural thing for him to do. He spoke about drawing inspiration from the old monastic tradition where the work of our hands is understood to be sacred and described why Cre8’s principles seem to appeal to entrepreneurs.

Mark Kinder shared experience from 11 years of running a church (St Paul's Walsall) which has within it shops, coffee shops, charity offices etc. in a context of significant deprivation (within 3% most deprived parishes). His key points: included addressing misunderstanding/suspicion of commerce as somehow dirty which reflects a Gnosticism within modern Christian thinking; re-imagining commerce as part of Kingdom of God - human flourishing, work as creation gift, etc. to give examples of how jobs and training have been created; re-imagining sustainability for a church in an Urban Priority Area - developing property income to diversify and addressing the shortage of housing in Walsall; re-imagining commerce itself in a way that recreates the relationship between customer and provider which modern commerce has removed.

Sam Wells offered three models of church and commerce and reflected on how to work out which is the best fit for what your congregation is and needs:

1. Instrumental. Undertake a legitimate trading activity that has no direct social impact, make a profit, and then transfer that profit to other activities that do have direct social impact, whether simply the sustainability of the congregation and its building, or such mission projects as it pursues.
2. Exemplary. Undertake a trading activity that has no direct social impact, but seek to do so in an exemplary way, paying good wages, having a minimal environmental footprint, using locally generated resources, promoting fair trade practices, and so on, while still transferring profit to the activities mentioned under (1) above.
3. Social. Undertake a trading activity whose profit return is evidently secondary to the indirect social impact sought.

In the third panel session on re-imagining church and congregation Wale Hudson-Roberts began by suggesting that understanding inclusivity presents those that currently have power and prestige within churches with the challenge of relinquishing that power, in order to give place to those who are less powerful or on the edge. Simon Woodman said that his church, Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church had come to an understanding that to realise that it mattered deeply that ‘everyone’ belongs because everyone absolutely belongs with God, was an old insight newly found. This commitment to inclusion is the beginning and not the end of a journey of belonging.

Philippa Boardman argued that ‘Buildings building community’ and ‘Being a parish for the whole parish’ are keynotes in renewal. Church becomes a place in which bridges are built within the community as people are brought together for the common good. Rosemarie Mallett said that church is not just for those in the pews, but for all those around. Her church, St John’s Angell Town, is a black congregation in a Victorian church building in the middle of four brutalist-style estates. The major asset for churches and communities are their young people. 

In the final panel session on re-imaging church and compassion there was critique of housing policies including the lack of genuinely affordable house, the rhetoric of the 'undeserving poor' and of Brexit. Al Barrett said that he is interested in forming a neighbourhood where generosity is practised. Richard Frazer of Greyfriars Kirk spoke of the need to protect those on the fringe of church from those at the centre.

Pam Orchard of The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields shared her thoughts in a letter to a 'stranger' on how we can work together to provide compassion. It gives me a real sense of achievement to see you helping other clients with art projects, she wrote, noting that no one has a monopoly on experience and saying that together we make a great team. Anthony Reddie spoke about the dangers of contractual compassion and the respectability politics that often seem embedded into Mission Christianity. 

Sam Wells also spoke on the theme of 'Who is my Neighbour?', saying that we become human beings by encountering those who are other and that this is an adventure for us.

The beautiful setting of the Colonnades at Boughton Hall provided a perfect setting for the choral music of St Martin's Voices in Great Sacred Music sessions on prayer and love led by Sam Wells and Andrew Earis. St Martin's Voices also sang at a service in Shelter that I led with Andrew Earis entitled 'Tell out my Soul!' exploring the inspiration of hymnwriters and the theology of some of the most popular hymns as included in the Songs of Praise Top 100 Hymns.

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St Martin's Voices - I Stood On The River Of Jordan.

HeartEdge Mailer: March 2018

Welcome to the HeartEdge Mailer for March. Loads to inspire and equip this month - including:

• Portrait from Prison, plus Adam Curtis on fear of change. And face paints!
• Purple Shoots in the West Country plus a social enterprise 'how to' guide
• Big Lunches, Dave Andrews on compassionate community work and 'Down to Earth'
• Plus John Swinton, Maggi Dawn, Inderjit Bhogal and Jess Foster!

We're defined by our four Cs - HeartEdge churches and organisations are about becoming:

• Active in commerce 
• Engaged with culture
• Nurturing congregation
• Developing community

HeartEdge: Events

21 May, 7.00pm: St Martin in the Fields, London: “Who is my Neighbour? - The Global and Personal Challenge". Sam Wells chairs a panel discussion with Rabbi Shulamit Ambalu, Dr Megan Warner and Revd Richard Carter. Sam Ahmad Ziaee who will talk about his journey aged 16 from Afghanistan to the UK. Edited by Richard Carter and Sam Wells, and published by SPCK. The event is free and open to all. Copies of the book will be on sale at £10. Book here.

Thur 24 May, 2pm - 4pm: St Martin-in-the-Fields, London: HeartEdge Start:Stop Workshop. Learn about Start:Stop, the popular 10-minute work-based reflections for people on their way to work, with Revd Jonathan Evens. Session include - growing a new congregation; engaging with working people; ministering in the workplace and communicating with busy people. Book here or call 020 7766 1127. HeartEdge members - free. Non-members - £10.

24 - 27 August: Boughton House, Leicestershire, Greenbelt: Sam Wells, Vicar of HeartEdge members St Martin in the Fields will be speaking at Greenbelt Festival this August Bank-Holiday. Carol Ann Duffy, Paula Gooder and Pussy Riot also feature. Details here.

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Carol Ann Duffy - Prayer.

St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series Introduction

Autumn Lecture Series Intro

With the UK voting to leave the European Union and with increasing division, xenophobia, and confusion over future national and international relationships, the St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series examines the crucial question: Who is my Neighbour?

Dates:

• 19 September - Rowan Williams 
• 3 October - Michael Northcott 
• 17 October - Sarah Teather 
• 24 October - Sarah Coakley 
• 31 October - Stanley Hauerwas 
• 14 November - Sam Wells 

Find out more:

http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/press-releases/who-is-my-neighbour-the-ethics-of-global-relationships/

http://stmartininthefields.eventbrite.com/
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Great Sacred Music - A Hymn for St Cecilia.

Who is my neighbour? The Ethics of Global Relationships

Who is my neighbour? The Ethics of Global Relationships - September – November 2016

With the UK voting to leave the European Union and with realisation of increasing division, xenophobia, and confusion over future national and international relationships, the St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series examines the crucial question: Who is my Neighbour?

What does the Christian commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself actually means for us today. Lectures by renowned theologians and thinkers will reflect on this subject in relation to issues of ecology, immigration, fear and discrimination, the present political climate both in UK, Europe and the USA and how that the lives of our poorest neighbours may in fact be God’s gift to us as a Church and as a Nation.

Rowan Williams who gives the first lecture in this series writes:

“The way that our world works, as many people have said in recent years, seems to be a way in which the boundaries and barriers are rising higher between different parts of the human race. It is a world in which very few voices are saying that the death of a child in Africa or the suffering of a woman in Syria, diminishes the reality of the child or woman in Britain, or the other way round. And if the church is not saying that, God forgive us, and God help us. That’s unity. There is our calling to let the Son of God be revealed in us, to be a sign of a unity that brings alive that deep sense of connectedness in the human world…. Each person is diminished by the pain of another and each person is enriched by the holiness of another”

All lectures from 7.00pm-8.30pm at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and are free and open to all.

To ensure a place please book a free ticket on Eventbrite

Monday 19 September, 7.00pm
Rowan Williams: Who is my neighbour? The Ethics of Global Relationships

Monday 3 October, 7.00pm
Michael Northcott: My neighbour and the ecological crisis

Monday 17 October, 7.00pm
Sarah Teather: My neighbour the refugee

Monday 24 October, 7.00pm
Sarah Coakley: My neighbour beyond fear and discrimination

Monday 31 October, 7.00pm
Stanley Hauerwas: My neighbour, my nation and the presidential election

Monday 14 October, 7.00pm
Sam Wells: My neighbours, God’s gift

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Bruce Springsteen - How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.

Paying attention: Ethics

"All this should make us think a bit harder about how we as Christians approach the whole business of ethics. . . . if the desert literature is right, then we all need training in listening and attending almost more than anything else. Unless we are capable of patience before each other, before the mysteriousness of each other, it’s very unlikely that we will do God’s will with any kind of fullness. Without a basic education in attention, no deeply ethical behavior is really going to be possible; we may only keep the rules and do what is technically and externally the right thing. but that 'doing the right thing' will not be grounded yet in who we are, in the person God wants us to become, and it may not survive stress and temptation. It may also be quite capable of existing alongside attitudes and habits dangerous to ourselves and each other; it may not bring us life with and through the neighbour. Our Christian codes of behaviour quite rightly tell us that some sorts of action are always wrong - torture or fraud, killing the innocents or the unborn, sexual violence and infidelity - but to see why that is so requires us to go back a step or two to see why this or that action is bound to speak of inattention, why this or that action makes it impossible to listen for the word in another person. Unless we can grasp something of that, our ethics will never really be integrated with our search and our prayer for holy life in community."

Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes: The wisdom of the desert

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Jennifer Warnes - Joan Of Arc.

The Good Samaritan: Giving and Receiving

The artist Dinah Roe Kendall painted a version of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25 - 37) which set the story in South Africa at the time of apartheid. Doing so seems to me to be an accurate parallel with the kinds of emotions and cultural practices that were at play in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans and it shows up clearly the sting in the tail of Jesus’ story.

The Jews at the time considered Samaritans as social outcasts, untouchables, racially inferior, practicing a false religion. While Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. The Samaritan’s had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. They also claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile. Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders seem to have taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter each other's territories or even to speak to one another. Jews avoided any association with Samaritans, travelling long distances out of their way to avoid passing through a Samaritan area. Any close physical contact, drinking water from a common bucket, eating a meal with a Samaritan, would make a Jew ceremonially unclean - unable to participate in temple worship for a period of time – this may be why the priest and Levite don’t stop to help.

Jesus, as a Jew, didn’t illustrate his point - that people of every race, colour, class, creed, faith, sexuality, and level of ability are our neighbours – by telling a story in which a Jew was kind to someone else. Instead, he told a story in which a Jew receives help from a person who was perceived to be his enemy. The equivalent in Kendall’s painting is of the black man helping the white man who represents the people that have oppressed him and his people.

So Kendall’s version of the story brings out part of the sting in the tail that Jesus gives this story; the sense of receiving help from the person who is your enemy. What her version doesn’t deal with, however, is the idea that the enemy who helps is someone of another faith. The Jews were God’s chosen people and a light to the other nations and faith, so what would have been expected from this story would have been for the Jew in the story to bring the light of faith to the Samaritan. But that is not how Jesus’ story unfolds. Instead, the person who is one of God’s chosen people receives from the person of another faith.

To find a contemporary equivalent for this aspect of the story, we have, perhaps, to think about relationships in this country between Christians and those of other faiths, and within these relationships, recognise that relationships between Christians and Muslims are often those which are currently most conflicted, with some Christians believing that Islam represents a threat to the Church and Western civilization. Within this context, the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges Christians as to what we can receive from those of other faiths and, particularly, those who we might view as enemies. Jesus says to us through this parable that loving our neighbours is not simply about what we can give to others but also about what we receive from others.

If our focus is just on what we can give then we are in a paternalistic relationship with our neighbours or enemies. If our focus is just on what we can give then what we are saying is that we hold all the aces and we will generously share some of them with you. In other words, we remain in a position of power and influence. Immediately we acknowledge that we can receive from our neighbours or enemies, then the balance of power shifts and we make ourselves vulnerable. In this parable, Jesus says that that is where true love is to be found and it is something that he went on to demonstrate by making himself vulnerable through death on the cross.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the sting is in the tail, the deepest point is that one of God’s chosen people receives help from his enemy who is of another faith. Jesus is taking us deep into the heart of love and saying that we will not truly love our neighbour until we understand and accept that we have much to receive from those that we perceive to be our enemies. In other words, true love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give.

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Victoria Williams - Love.