Reflections during a time of mourning – Penny Ashton

One of the privileges of being a reader, is that you are at times called upon to sit and pray with people who are near to death.  Until I was first asked to do this, I was not aware of quite how powerful this comparatively simple act can be, and how much appreciated by friends and families – even if they are not able to be present, and do not profess any faith.  It has also been my privilege to be with families and endeavour to help them put together a funeral service that says what they want to have said after the loss of a much-loved relative.

The readings that we have heard today are frequently used in the funeral service, and are wonderful words to read of comfort for the living, and as a testament to the fact that the last enemy – death – has been overcome by Jesus on the cross.  I hope it is as much a comfort to others as it is to me, that Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was a person of deep faith since her childhood, and that death will have held no fears for her.  We have that assurance that although the person who was queen for most of our lives – in some cases for all of our lives has died, our God is still in control.

If you have been watching any television at all during the last week, you will have become aware that anyone who ever met the queen, has been called upon to tell in detail their impression of her, and I can’t help feeling that there is not a lot left for me to say – especially as I was not one of the over 30% of the population who had met her!  Instead of trying to add to what they have said, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the themes that so many have repeated about her character traits that made her so loved and admired by all who met her.

The first word that comes to mind is duty.  Queen Elizabeth saw clearly from a young age that her life was to be one of duty and service.  She pledged herself to our service on her 21^st birthday – as she put it recently – ‘in my salad days, when I was green in judgement’ and she has not deviated from that course for over 70 years.  There must have been times in those many years when she would have far rather worn her comfortable clothes and spent a day with her family or her pets, or perhaps watching her horses race on television than touring a factory to be shown the intricacies of manufacture, to remember the facts given in briefing, to ask intelligent questions at the right time, and to remember the names of all the people she was introduced to.  Or to stand for long periods of time watching folk ceremonies enacted for her benefit in varying climates.  I don’t remember if she ever wore a wristwatch, my memory is that she did not, and I wonder if that would be because even to glance at it, or to let her expression of polite interest slip for a moment would have sent the wrong message to anyone who could see her – and the cameras were never off her.  She made herself available to all her prime ministers weekly when possible, and many of them have said how valuable her counsel – given from her accumulated wisdom, and without entering the field of political discussion – had been to them.  Her duty for many years took her on tours away from her growing family, and there is a very poignant picture of her returning from a long tour and being greeted at the station by her two eldest children – then pre-school age, and of Prince Charles not really recognising her.  If it hurt – and I am sure it did, she didn’t show it.  And always to return to the red boxes of ministerial papers awaiting her approval.

The second word we could consider is discretion.  More than one prime minister has said that the only time when they could speak completely freely about their concerns and know that it would go no further was when they spoke to her.  The family’s unofficial motto, adopted by her mother from a saying of Benjamin Disraeli of ‘never complain, never explain’ may have at times been infuriating for some of us who would have liked to know her point of view, but on the whole it has served her well, and she has not deviated from it.. You could perhaps add to it ‘least said, soonest mended’ and it demonstrates her intention of taking the long view in all situations.

The last word we will look at is faithful.  Her majesty never made any secret of her faith in God, and whenever possible has attended Sunday church services and we are told that she prayed daily.  She said in 2002 ‘I know just how much I rely on my faith to guide me through the good times and the bad.  Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God’.  She spoke freely of her faith in every Christmas broadcast, but I only learned recently that the poem used by her father in his speech in 1939, and later quoted again by her – ‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year..’ had been given to King George by the then 13 year old Elizabeth as she thought he might find it useful.  Queen Elizabeth was not only faithful to God though.  The personal interest that she takes in all branches of the armed forces has been clear in all her dealings with them, as recently as last June, during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, she made a careful inspection of the guard, and this has won her the undying affection and loyalty of those who serve.  Although her reign has seen the disintegration of the empire, she has overseen the founding of the Commonwealth of Nations which she saw as a family, with all the strengths, faults and differences that a family goes through, and she has remained faithful too to that family, visiting almost every member nation within it at least once.

Something that has only become clear in the last week, however, is that she was not just good at her job.  We all know that at some stage we will have to pass on our baton to the next generation, and from what I have seen of our new King, she was also a good teacher.  I hope I am not the only one who has been impressed by the way he has almost seamlessly dropped into the role that was hers.  Although this is a time when he too needs to grieve the loss of a much loved mother, he has put this to one side and has met with officials, politicians and dignitaries in each of the four nations, has listened to long and multiple tributes to his mother in four parliamentary meetings, has walked in long slow processions behind her coffin, and has met, shaken hands with and smiled at crowds wherever he has gone. On Wednesday of this week he returned to Highgrove his home, but his day ‘off’ was to be spent telephoning those heads of state he had not yet spoken to, and dealing with any government business that has come his way.  I think he has made an amazing start.  We can see I think that we owe a debt of gratitude to her late majesty, and I think that her wish now would be that we give all our support to her son.  He has stated his intention and wish to reign as she did – our job is to support him with our prayers.

The Servant Queen and the King she serves – Copyright – Bible Society, Hope, LICC  2016

Commemoration Service – Her Majesty the Queen – 11^th September 2022

Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to the Royal Dockyard Chapel in Pembroke Dock, Wales.

Revelation 21:1-7

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It doesn’t really need saying that there has been a seismic change in our country this week and in our very foundations. Remembering and casting our minds back; firstly we installed the long expected new prime minister on Monday and Tuesday. This was then rapidly followed by the deeply unanticipated death of our cherished and beloved late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday, with the proclamation of accession to the throne for His Majesty King Charles III only yesterday.

It has been hard to take in, for many both destabilising and upsetting as grief for what has past grasps us. In the early hours of Friday morning, I even woke up hoping it wasn’t true and it all had been a dream, but it is true.

For Elizabeth, our late Queen, I am confident of her eternal rest in the loving arms of God  after a life lived and nourished by Christian devotion and prayer. And also that in a new way she is reuniting with those who have gone before her, her beloved Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, her parents and her sister.

The reading recommended for this Service of Commemoration speaks of that heavenly destination. It is part of the Revelation of John and we are in both visionary and apocalyptic speak (the latter being something we don’t tend towards today but was much more common in the times of Jesus). These words are trying to convey something of the deep truths of God’s love for us. However, it doesn’t help us that the message is also deliberately hidden within it, in case the words were to get into the hands of the persecuting authorities in the times it was written.

Into these words from Revelation, we feel the sense of God being with us, God’s people – the home of God is among mortals – it says. This is the sense of God we have with us through the Holy Spirit in this life. The Holy Spirit unleased by Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension that changes things once and for all and forever. We also know that in this world, we see these things of God in a glass darkly, but one day as it says in 1 Corinthians 13, we will see God face to face. I have always interpreted that one day as when we die and pass into God’s eternal presence and rest for ourselves. I also think that in the Revelation reading the phrase when the first things pass away – where death will be no more, with no more mourning, crying and pain is key. I have long understood this too to mean that journey into God’s eternal presence as well.

It is a comfort to know that our beloved Queen has made that transition from this world to the next, and is restored, and renewed in the loving heart of God. Difficult as these matters are to put into words for us and for the writer of Revelation!

And yet, we need to recognise this huge change and hold the future for our country in our hearts and prayers at what was already a very difficult time. We need to pray for our new monarch as well as grieve for what is now passed and gone.  That grief will be buoyed however by a spirit of heartfelt thankfulness for the devoted service to our country and the commonwealth of nations made by our late Queen Elizabeth.

We may remember before the jubilee, I asked lots of individuals from both of the communities I serve as priest, what they most admire about Elizabeth our Queen. In Pen Selwood I did this at the Beacon lighting ceremony and in Wincanton at various events and one of our community coffee mornings. The list of things said ran to several pages for both communities. with common themes emerging about loyalty, service, fortitude, resilience, devotion, duty, strength of character and resolve, steadfastness and so forth. We need to be thankful for all of that and so much more!

Back in June on the Sunday of the Jubilee weekend, I watched the Platinum Jubilee pageant. It was a wildly colourful array of different images from the decades of the Queen’s reign and aspects of celebration from across the country and cultures in the United Kingdom. The scifi geek part of me, loved the bit with the daleks going up the mall, and one of the Dames in Jaguar cars broke down and the smart jaguar having to be pushed. I also like the contribution of the West Country carnival tradition via the Bridgewater carnival float, which took in various carnival teams from Somerset I gather!

At the end of all the diverse and glorious spectacle, it was comforting and reassuring to see her Majesty on the balcony once again, this time in that brilliant emerald green outfit. Yet, at the time, there was also something deeply poignant about it. I had a strange sense that these times were passing, which I couldn’t really put my finger on at the time and I told one of my friends about how I was feeling. I was and am so glad as a country we had been able to show our Queen our profound appreciation for her unprecedented 70 years on the throne.

On social media, shortly after the Platinum jubilee, a drawing of the Queen walking into the horizon appeared, holding the paw of Paddington bear in one hand and her handbag over the other arm, and a corgi sauntering behind. It is a drawing by Eleanor Tomlinson. It kind of spoke into the way I had been feeling.

When I visited that friend I had spoken to, she gave me a genuine print of the drawing as a result in August. Here it is. I know this has been circulating since the Queen’s death too along with some other variants and words. In its own way it is another representation, like our passage in Revelation, of the Queen leaving this realm and the public domain, pointing to the big transition we are currently experiencing – and the Queen’s final eternal journey using William Penn’s words – beyond the horizon of our sight.

As we bid our final farewells to our much loved monarch through this time of mourning and the funeral to come, let’s do it with grateful thankful hearts for all that has been and her long, long reign over us.  As we do this we must also contemplate what can we learn from our Queen and particularly about her deep faith in God, and I am going to re-use a little bit here of what I said on Friday evening.

We have learnt a huge amount through Queen Elizabeth’s life and now her death. We have seen a shining example of a Christ centred way to live. A way based on the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in her heart and life. The way of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. The way (in Church of England speak) of seeking the common good and treating everyone graciously, and with dignity and respect.

We have a lot we can continue to learn from our late Queen in how she lived her life. In her death, as I said earlier we have the reassurance of her eternal rest in the heart of our loving God in heaven. Gathering in this good and faithful servant of God’s and our country. Queen Elizabeth knew the way, and the truth and the life that Jesus spoke of. She knew it through God’s overflowing love for her and that is overflowing love we know too.

Let us give thanks for all that has been as we mark the end of the era of Elizabeth II and also pray for our new King – His Majesty King Charles III at the dawning days of his reign. The focus of this service is very much and rightly on our late beloved Queen, but I do want to conclude these thoughts, with two future looking prayers for the times to come: a prayer for our new monarch and a more traditional prayer by William Penn. Let us pray

Everlasting God, we pray for our new King. Bless his reign and the life of our nation. Help us to work together so that truth and justice, harmony and fairness flourish among us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Life is eternal and love is immortal and death is only an horizon and an horizon is only the limit of our sight. Lift us strong Son of God, that we may see further. Amen

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995

Some material included in this service is copyright: ©  The Archbishops’ Council 2000-2022, Picture from the Press Association,

Trinity 12 – September 4^th 2022 – Rev Alison Way

Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Luke 14:25-33

In the name of the Living God, loving Father, risen Son and ever present Holy Spirit. Amen

Back in the 1980’s in the video of the pop song – Wake me up before you go-go!, the members of the pop group Wham wore t-shirts emblazoned with the words Choose life. These t-shirts were designed by the clothes designer Katharine Hammett and even now nearly 40 years on, they are still available.

It is a simple statement that – choose life – but behind its very simplicity are also lots of complications. Lots of things can appear to be attractive in how to choose life today, but not all of them can actually help us to have the abundant life God wants for us. Lots of things can appear to be attractive in choosing life but aren’t like:-

• Material things

• All-encompassing relationships

• The many and varied things we get addicted to today

• Making choices that impact our global neighbours without a second thought!

For want of casting aspersions, from the original wearers of the choose life t-shirts, we know the downside of the non-life giving side of some of these kind of things and others! We also know the dilemma choosing life is certainly well beyond the scope of choosing a t-shirt

So in choosing life what should we do is what will bring us life and life in all its fullness today, and is in line with God’s love for us and careful gentle stewardship of the resources we have. Both of today’s readings suggest in different ways how to tackle making life giving choices and both today’s readings are warnings at significant times! Let’s look at them in turn starting with that bit of Deuteronomy.

In it, Moses is setting a significant choice before the Israelites. In their story – we are at the point of the Israelites having bigger and better things and times on the verge of the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness. We have to remember that we are hearing this not just from the mouth of Moses however! Any account in the book of Deuteronomy is a much later version of the story of Moses than when these events first occurred. It is one that was written to make sense of other things that happened to the Israelites later in their story. Deuteronomy was written to help explain why the difficult things – like the destruction of the temple, the loss of the promised land and the exile happened, and to help the Israelites make sense of that too. If you like this is a writing on the wall passage – shock tactics, reminding the Israelites of the importance of choosing God day by day and not going their own way. Choosing the way of adhering to God’s laws for them and a way of explaining why when they didn’t manage to choose God’s way and keep God’s laws. Then things went pear shaped in the form of the destruction of the temple, loss of the promised land and exile in Babylon.

Moving on to the even trickier gospel – Jesus is saying these words as he journeys towards Jerusalem and as he faces a very difficult time ahead. Jesus is trying to help his disciples and the crowd travelling with him at this point to face up to the difficult times that are ahead of him and are potentially ahead of them if they take their discipleship seriously. In these words from Jesus, he tackles some of the things that can get in the way of our discipleship and some of them will come as no surprise. Like setting too much store by our material possessions – which is where it ends, but more surprisingly at the beginning other potential limiters such as our families and even our own lives.

Remember when Jesus is saying these things on the way to his cross at Jerusalem. He is knowingly facing a horrendous prospect of letting go of everything. And if nothing else today – this jarring speech remind us of the length he was willing to go for us all. Giving up on his material possessions, family, his friends deserting him and his own life in his quest to save us. This is also evident in those familiar but deeply challenging words – whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

This is without doubt a wake up call of Jesus to shake off complacency and being too comfortable with ourselves. Though we tend to view family and self as positives and adhere strongly to Christian family values, we can also probably recognise circumstances when family stuff has held us back or others that we know back. Or where self-obsession (or what’s in it for me) has got in the way of creative and Christlike discipleship

We understand what Jesus means with the gift of hindsight, but it must have been tricky for the crowd of his day – who did not know the cross was ahead for Jesus. We know the choice to be Christian can be costly and for Jesus it cost everything, for the love we now experience in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In between these very challenging words of Jesus are the 2 one liner parables – The one about building a tower and the other about waging a war. Both of these seem to be about being more planned and organised and rigorous in our journey of discipleship, and being sure we understand what we are embarking on before we set out.

We would think someone exceedingly foolish to start to build a tower and then not be able to finish it because they did not have enough materials. At the moment we are on the way to raising the funding for our roof appeal thanks to Roger and Richard – We clearly can’t start until we know we can pay for it!

The second one line parable is no more comfortable about not waging wars unless you are likely to win. This is even more jarring in the light of current world events. We have been praying for peace in Ukraine for six months now! The backdrop of the reasons for this conflict are so challenging and the difficulty of anyone ‘winning’ or likely to be winning in this war and others makes all this very stark! The war is in part contributing to the many other difficulties we are facing in terms of the cost of living crisis too.

What is the point of the shock tactics of Jesus here and that is surely what they are in modern media parlance. Don’t be naïve about the journey ahead. Discipleship is not always going to be the easy choice or an easy journey. But it is definitely the way to choose life and hope for now and forever. What does it mean to choose life? it means to choose God and all that God has for us and to live the abundant life he has for us, but not to be surprised when difficult times come along as well as good ones. As is the circumstances at the moment and also to make sure when we are choosing life, we think beyond ourselves to our neighbours across the world in our stewardship of the beautiful world God made for us. Amen

– References The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995.

Trinity 11 – 28^th August 2022 – Year C – Rev Alison Way

Proverbs 25:6-7, Luke 14:7-14

In the name of the Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit, Amen

One of the keys to understanding, the teaching of Jesus we have just heard is where Jesus was when this happened. A few verses before where we start, two things have been revealed. Firstly, Jesus was in the house of the leader of the Pharisees, having a meal on the Sabbath. That is quite startling! That the leader of the Pharisees had invited him in the first place. This was a big risk for that leader – and many others would not have approved of that choice. Yet one of the best ways to get to understand someone is to sit and eat with them. Clearly this leading pharisee was curious and wanted to understand more about Jesus.

The second thing we didn’t hear but precedes this, is that Jesus had healed a man with dropsy on the Sabbath. He had asked his hosts – Is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath or not? And they had remained silent. So Jesus had healed him and sent him on his way. I suspect this must have been pretty uncomfortable for the hosting Pharisee leader and Jesus then does not mince his words before turning his attention to humility and hospitality, where he said to those gathered with him to eat (the leader of the Pharisees and his guests) – If one of you has a child, or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on the sabbath day? and again they didn’t respond.

We are not regular guests of Pharisees, so we don’t have a great deal of experience of the complex web of social niceties and conventions! This kind of meal was a big deal. Guests arranged around U-shaped tables, were defined by social order, around the host at the bottom of the U. Those nearest to the host were the most important. Therefore, it was obvious who was important and who less so. Time was taken over the food and then teaching and dialogue. With an invitation of this sort it was usual to respond in kind. Those gathered would have known the proverb we heard about the honour of being asked to move closer and the shame of being moved to the edge of the table and conversation.

In the gospel we heard, Jesus suggests something that is subtly different to start in a lowest place at a gathering like this, and then be encouraged to move to a high place by the host. He is not wanting people to think of themselves more highly than they should. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Hidden beneath the surface here is also a reference to the song of Mary when she is called by God (The Magnificat from Evensong). He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and exalted the lowly. The same word is used for lowly as those who humble themselves in our passage.

Being humble and the quality of humility, are both important Christian teachings. Humbleness is the state of being modest and lacking in pride or arrogance:. Christian humbleness includes – Understanding ourselves in relation to the wonder and awesomeness of God, that should help us not to get too puffed up with our own self-importance. Like a number of things today, we don’t tend to value humility as we should. And tend to think it is all rather Uriah Heap like  (The Charles Dicken’s character) and being ever so humble. Humility is firstly deeply under rated and widely misunderstood.

Here are some reflections on what humility really means in Biblical terms

• Humility is a freedom from arrogance that grows out of the recognition that all we have and are comes from God.

• The Greek philosophers despised humility because to them it implied inadequacy, lack of dignity, and worth-lessness.

• This is not the meaning of humility as defined by the Bible. – Jesus is the supreme example of humility – He is completely adequate and of infinite dignity and worth.

• Biblical humility is not a belittling of oneself (but an exalting or praising of others, especially God and Christ).

• Humble people focus more on God and others than on themselves.

• Biblical humility is also a recognition that by ourselves we are inadequate, without dignity and worthless. Yet, because we are created in God’s image and because believers are in Christ, we have infinite worth and dignity.

• True humility does not produce pride but gratitude.

• Since God is both our Creator and Redeemer, our existence and righteousness and our very being depends on him.

We need to work on and aspire to humbleness and humility, to help us keep a balance and the self-seeking and promoting sides of our personalities in check. It is pretty constant in Luke that the theme of reversing social status is present. In the world Jesus brings, social status and wealth are not the markers of how important we are. God’s standard is about the quality of our loving response to his love for us. We should not be in the humbling and humiliating business but building each other up in love, and developing our understanding of God’s love for us and the value of humility in our hearts and lives.

End with a silence to ponder and a prayer

SILENCE

Father, In Micah 6:8 You say, “O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Today we choose to walk humbly with You. We choose to live by Your Holy Spirit and to follow Your lead. Help us to hear You clearly, for we do not want to walk by pride or self-sufficiency, we want to walk with You. In Jesus name, Amen

References: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/humbleness, The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995. Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship – Edited by Joel Green et al https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/prayer/beautiful-prayers-for-humility.html

Trinity 10 – 21^st August 2022 – Rev Alison Way

Isaiah 58 9b-14, Luke 13:10-17

In the name of the Living God, loving Father, risen Son and ever present Holy Spirit Amen

Let’s start with a story – so if you are sitting comfortably I shall begin. The lion was proud of his mastery of the animal realm, so one day he decided to tour the jungle to check on the obedience of his subjects. He went straight to the rhinoceros. “Who is the king of the jungle?” the lion growled. “Why you are of course,” the rhinoceros stammered. The lion gave a mighty roar of approval.

Next he asked the tiger, “Who is the king of the jungle?” The tiger bowed and answered quickly, “O mighty lion, everyone knows it’s you.” Next the lion found an aged elephant who happened to suffer from a painful tusk. “Who is the king of the jungle?” the lion asked with an earth-shaking roar that made the elephant’s tusk throb and her head pound. The old elephant seized the lion in her trunk, whirled him overhead, and slammed him against a tree, pounded him on the ground by his tail, and dunked him in the watering hole until he stopped making bubbles. Finally she tossed the half-dead lion on the bank and sauntered off.

The lion staggered to his feet, coughed up half the watering hole, and looked around at the crowd of hyenas and monkeys that had gathered to watch. “Just because she didn’t know the answer, she didn’t need to get mean about it,” he said haughtily and limped into the underbrush.

Through the prophet Isaiah, our God tried to make certain that no one could think that God was such a king as this unfortunate lion. The point being made in our old Testament reading from Isaiah is that only the living God could make the heavens and the earth, foretell the future, and control the destinies of nations and the individuals within each nation. Only God reigns in heaven above and on earth below. Then in worshipping God – it needs to be about God first and foremost,and not about our own preferences.

This part of Isaiah is written when the Jewish people have returned to Jerusalem, and in the process of rebuilding the temple. Things as they say are on the up for them after several hundred years of terrible times. In these words we have pointers to this like – ¹²Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

However as is the way when things start to get better, the people were obviously also beginning to move away from their need for God and doing things to their own design and to meet their own needs rather than the path God had for them. This is most keenly characterised in their approach to the Sabbath. The voice of God to the people of Judah through his servant Isaiah begins thus with three sentences beginning with if:

• The first is ¹³If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day. This is about taking time to be with God and not going after everything else – a lesson we also need today surely. Where 24/7 is more prevalent than 6 days shalt thou labour and rest on the 7^th! The human is not designed to work flat out all the time and we know the consequences of this choice if we try it (or if we know people who have). Yes – we can manage it for a while, but eventually the wheel will come off our wagon and it is often not remotely pretty when it does!

• The next if – asks us to take a different approach to Sabbath rest than the devices and desires of our own interests – if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honourable; This is definitely a call to make our Sabbath rest distinctive and important. In our day and age I don’t think it is for the extremes of Jewish observance, but time to be, time to reflect, pray and worship God, time spent in recreation, time spent with our nearest and dearest and time spent refreshing ourselves for the work ahead. Honouring ourselves in the sight of God’s awesome holiness and respecting time as a gift and a delight

• The third if continues to point out the perils of the path of self-interest and more rigorously – if you honour it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; But this is then followed by the reassurance of the better way ¹⁴then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;

Several hundred years later in the synagogue on the Sabbath, we then encountered Jesus seemingly on the wrong side of the Sabbath too. At least according to the leader of the synagogue who was outraged that Jesus healed the crippled woman. What Jesus was doing was asking the Sabbath to be life-giving rather than a mass of rules and regulations. He was striking at the heart of the matter that worship should be our delight and our first instinct, and not be bound up in legalism and laws. In his day – the required strict Sabbath observance was really only possible for those who had means where as it should be for everyone.

In a way this does bring us back full circle to the kind of King the lion was where it was all about fear and not daring to step out of line, except if the citizen was stronger than him like the elephant. The kind of kingship Jesus has over our lives is not about legalism and rules and laws. What we should or should not be doing which so governed the lives of the Jewish people of his day. It is about matters of the heart. Sabbath is without doubt a good discipline and life giving for us, but it must include making space for delight in the Lord and should be approached with a lightness of Spirit.

That made Jesus heal this woman, release her from years of suffering and made her whole. I am going to end with some wise words from an ancient monk called Dorotheos. He tells us to think of God and humans as the centre and circumference of a circle. Any time two of us humans here on the edge move towards God at the centre, we will by necessity be moving towards one another. Likewise if we are moving away from one another, then we cannot be moving towards God! Amen.

References

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995

Story addapted © ROOTS for Churches Ltd (www.rootsontheweb.com) 2002-2022. Reproduced with permission.

Commentary ideas of Dorotheos – Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship – Edited by Joel Green et al

A Sermon preached by The Revd Ken Masters at Wincanton

on the 8^th Sunday after Trinity, 7 August 2022

Readings: Genesis 15^1-6; Luke 12^32-40

Alison has asked me to include a reference to Mary Sumner, whom the Church of England remembers on Tuesday.  So, let me tell you – or remind you – of her life.

Mary Elizabeth Heywood was born in 1828 at Swinton near Manchester, the third of four children.  Her father, Thomas Heywood, was a banker, and her mother a woman of personal piety.  When Mary was four, the family moved to Colwell in Herefordshire, on the western edge of the Malvern Hills.  But a year after the move, Mary’s six-week-old brother died.  It was at Colwell that her mother started holding mothers’ meetings.

Educated at home, young Mary learned to speak three foreign languages and to sing well.  To complete her musical education, she travelled with her mother and elder sister to Rome. While there she met her future husband, George Henry Sumner, the son of Charles Richard Sumner, the Bishop of Winchester – a brother of the next Archbishop of Canterbury [1848-62] and related to William Wilberforce.

Mary and George were married in 1848 at Colwell.  Three years later George became Rector of Old Alresford in Hampshire, in his father’s diocese.  Busy for many years bringing up her three children, Mary became more and more concerned about family life and the fact that mothers received no particular support from the Church.  In 1876 she rather hesitantly began holding meetings of mothers in the parish, to offer mutual support.  Her plan was quite radical in its day as it involved calling women of all social classes to support one another and to see motherhood as a profession as important as those of men, if not more so. The first meeting was held in the Rectory, but Mary was so overcome by nervousness that her husband had to speak for her and invite the women to return next week.  At that second meeting she had gathered enough courage to lead the meeting.

Nine years later, in 1885, she was part of the audience in the Portsmouth Church Congress, some 20 miles from her home. The first Bishop of Newcastle, Ernest Wilberforce, had been asked to address the women churchgoers.  He felt he had very little to say to women and invited Mary to speak in his stead.  Although nervous once again, she gave a passionate address about national morality and the importance of women’s vocation as mothers to change the nation for the better.  A number of the women present went back to their parishes to found mothers’ meetings on Mary Sumner’s pattern.  Edward Browne, then Bishop of Winchester, made the Mothers’ Union a diocesan organisation.

The Mothers’ Union concept spread rapidly across the dioceses throughout the United Kingdom.  Within 15 years, at the turn of the century, it had 169,000 members.  When the Mothers’ Union Central Council was formed, Mary Sumner was unanimously elected president; a post she held into her nineties.  During the Diamond Jubilee, in 1897, Queen Victoria became patron of the Mothers’ Union, so giving it an unprecedented stamp of approval.  The Mothers’ Union set up branches throughout the British Empire, beginning in New Zealand, then Canada and India, and later in Africa.

Mary Sumner died on the 11th August 1921 at the age of 92, and was buried with her husband, who had died 12 years before, in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral.

Today, the Mothers’ Union, which grew from an organization in one parish to a world-wide society has some four million members – the majority of them in India and Africa.  And, it has to be said, in the United Kingdom there were 222,000 members in 1993, but the number has now reduced to about 93,000.

On its website The Mothers’ Union describes:

Its vision is of a World where God’s love is shown through loving, respectful, and flourishing relationships.

Its Aim and purpose are:

To demonstrate the Christian faith in action by the transformation of communities worldwide through the nurture of the family in its many forms.

And the website appeals:

Join our four-million strong movement to:

• Strengthen communities all over the world

• Help the most disadvantaged at home

• Shape how we advocate for the rights of families

• Build supportive, loving relationships

• Develop your own relationship with God

So, as we give thanks for Mary Sumner, we may gratefully reflect upon the way God takes small beginnings and one rather nervous servant to provide another channel of His love to the world.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sources: Saints on Earth (2004); Wikipedia; MU website.

Trinity 9 – August 14^th 2022 – Rev Alison Way

Jeremiah 23:23-29, Luke 12:49-56

In the name of the Living God, loving Father, risen Son and ever present Holy Spirit. Amen

I want to start with a riddle. A pilgrim came to the fork in the road. One road led to safety and the other to death. In each fork stood a guardian. They were identical twins. One twin always spoke the truth and the other one always lied. To find the right road to travel – The pilgrim was allowed to only ask one question – only one and he didn’t know which twin was which. He could only ask one question to one of the twins and to save his life he had to find out which road led to safety. So what did he ask?

Let me give us a moment to ponder that.

The question he asked was – If I ask your brother which way leads to safety which way will he tell me to go?

Both twins will point to the road to death – so the man would go down the other one. If he asked the Truthful twin –  which way his brother would send him – and knowing his brother would lie would point him to the road of death. If he asked the lying twin which way his brother would send someone to safety – knowing his brother would say the truth and as he always lies, he would also direct the man to the road leading to death!  So the pilgrim had his answer and would go down the path not indicated by either twin and that led to safety and life!

And so it can be in life. How do we know who to believe? And what to base our walk of faith upon? This is also one of the points our reading from Jeremiah was getting at. Jeremiah was living in a time when the prophets were saying things had come from God. When they were actually the schemes of their own hearts and not what God wanted at all…. Combatting these self-serving prophets was one of the things God placed on Jeremiah’s heart… In the passage – Jeremiah firmly tells the prophets to speak the word and interpret dreams faithfully!

The beginning of this passage reminds us of God’s presence with us and our inability like the prophets of Jeremiah’s time to hide our poor choices in secret places God cant see! We may (not that I am recommending this) be able to deceive some people some of the time, but we can NEVER deceive or hide anything from God’s heart of love for us. As it says God knows the secrets of our hearts.

I had a good look at where that reading finishes too – What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord. Starting with the wheat and the straw, this probably relates to a proverb of Jeremiah’s day. Grain is the valuable food stuff and the straw the leftovers at best mixed with mud to make bricks! The wheat is valuable and the straw is relatively worthless. In comparison with the wheat being prophecy true to God and the straw being prophecy for one’s own devices and desires. I also wondered if there is a hazy reference for the hard time of the Israelite people when enslaved to the Egyptians in this, particularly the times when they had to make bricks! And then the same number of bricks when they had to collect the straw as well. That being the fate of those following false prophets, perhaps.

Anyway moving on to the second bit – Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? Fire can be refining and purifying as well as destructive. Likewise a hammer can be destructive and used to smash things to pieces, but a hammer in the hand of a stonemason can craft blocks and intricate carvings or shape heated metal with an anvil. The interpretation of God’s word for us or a Godly interpretation of a dream is like the refining properties of fire and the craft of shaping stone blocks with a hammer. The destructive properties of fire and hammers is like being taken in by self-serving interpretations of God’s word or a dream. Like the pilgrim riddle I started with, the dilemma for us is spotting the refining of God from a much more destructive choice for ourselves from self-serving messengers.

Our gospel today adds another level of complexity. Jesus did not come to us, to bring God’s heart of love for us so everything could stay the same. Let me be clear. The power of the Holy Spirit is here to change us for the better from the inside out. That reading sounded like serious family melt down, with all those different relationships father and son, mother and daughter etc being divided. One of the things Jesus has come to say is that the cultural norms of his day, the duties and obligations within those relationships needed to change in the light of his coming. As people respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

For example, the expectation of the eldest son to inherit his father’s position was being challenged as this might not be the call on the eldest son’s heart by God. A new daughter in law was to be loved and cherished by what Jesus taught, rather than remain on the fringes of the family.

The message of Jesus disrupts and disturbs the status quo and frankly it always has! But in following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we open out our hearts and lives to new hopes and new possibilities and the flourishing life God intends for us – which may well be beyond our imagining. There is no guarantee here of a comfortable ride!

I was very struck last week with the talent and skill on show in the gymnastics I saw at the Commonwealth Games live and many other sports on the television. How does the seed of such talent get fanned into flame? Some were children of previous competitors, like Eilish and Liz McColgan. For others it was brave and heartfelt choices, stepping out of comfort zones in families – which changed things forever for all of them as they nurtured an athlete, gymnast or whatever  activity it was as the spark of talent was spotted. And in yet another area, this was the activity taken up later in life with two over seventies Scottish gold medallists in para lawn bowls

The point really is to spot the opportunity, fan into flame the sparks of God’s gifts to us and how his spirit is working in us (Even when it feels most unlikely!) –  I have great personal experience of this – which is a story for another day. To spot the grain for us in dreams and God’s word, rather than fall for the straw and false self-serving interpretations of dreams and God’s word for us.

To finish – I think this means we need also to think through where ‘duty and obligations’ like the family relationships in Jesus’s day might be holding us back too.  Be bold, be brave, let’s travel where the Holy Spirit leads us. I am going to end with a verse of a powerful modern hymn, which resonates with God’s love and challenge for us

in Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My comforter, my all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand

References

• The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995
• Word Biblical Commentary – Jeremiah 1-25, Peter Craigies, Page Kelley and Joel Drinkard
• CCLI – Song reproduced under CCLI 217043 for St Peter and St Paul’s Church Wincanton – In Christ alone – Stuart Townend and Keith Getty.

Trinity 8:  Riches in heaven 

Have you been following the Commonwealth Games?  There seems to be little else on television, so I am sure you have been almost unable to avoid them.  If like me you live with someone who doesn’t like any sports this can make life difficult.  It is amazing the value that the athletes place on their performance – I think it must take a particular mindset to train as much as is necessary to be able to achieve what they do.  I can see that there must be a thrill in winning, but for me it would not be worth the effort needed to possibly get there.  Fortunately, we can’t all be the same!  We have also been watching this week Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak competing for something that they both very much want although they may only find out whether it is a treasure or not when they have won (or not won) it.  It could be said that they are in competition for power, whilst for the athletes it is glory.  I am very glad that I don’t particularly want either. 

In our following of the story of Abraham, we are learning interesting things about how to pray.  Two weeks ago we heard Abraham negotiating with God over the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The passage we heard today comes a little earlier in Abraham’s story when he seems to be downright angry with God, and is telling Him so in no uncertain terms.  And yet, God gives him the most wonderful promise – that not only will he and Sarah have a son, but that through that son his descendants will one day be too numerous to count.  I have on one occasion seen a 1988 edition of the BBC That’s Life programme which told of the work of Nicholas Winton with the Kindertransport bringing Jewish children from Czechoslovakia who had fled there from Nazi Germany to safety.  The programme particularly moving, as not only was Nicholas Winton present in the theatre, but unknown to him, the rest of the audience was made up entirely of people he had rescued and their descendants and this was revealed to him at the end.  The sheer number of people showing their gratitude was very moving.  I believe that there is a similar scene at the end of the film Schindler’s List and they give us an idea of the scale of God’s promise to Abraham. 

Our theme from the two readings seems to be value, and we are being asked to think about what we most value in life.  It is clear that Abraham placed the highest value on having a son.  Jesus is telling us that things on earth will lose their value over time and that we should look for something of heavenly value that will last.   This goes very much against the current thinking, when individual rights seem to be valued above almost anything.  Advertisements constantly tell us that we should have something because it is the best, and ‘we are worth it’, and aspiring for things to own drives much of our economy.  On the day I wrote this, the Bank of England released figures forecasting increasing inflation and economic gloom for this country for the next year or more, which makes Jesus promise of treasure in heaven much more attractive as any money we may have in the bank loses value constantly by the rate of inflation. 

Jesus’ teaching seems to fall into three sections in our gospel reading today – in the first part he is talking about considering what we value, and to an extent seems to be advising an earthly decluttering of our lives.  The teaching that we have just heard follows immediately after the better-known passage reminding us that God knows what we need, and cares for us much more that the wild birds or the wild flowers and grasses.  And yet his followers still seem to be worried.   He then goes on to remind us that we must learn to trust and allow things to happen at the right time, giving the two illustrations of slaves awaiting the return of their master from a wedding feast – an occasion that in those days could last for several days, and of a householder whose home is broken into.  The theme of these two analogies seems to be that we need to be ready as the timing will not be made known to us in advance.  I am sure you remember many stories of people who have thought that they had calculated the timing of Jesus’ return, and have sold all that they possess in order to be waiting at the proper place and time.  So far, as far as I am aware, nobody has got the sums right for that one yet, so we need to continue to keep ourselves in a state of readiness for when our Lord and Master comes.  This is hard teaching for those of us who would always rather put off doing things until they become urgent! 

There is a promise in Jesus’ teaching here which must have horrified those who heard it, and which I had not noticed before.  Jesus says that the householder who finds his slaves alert and ready at whatever hour he returns will himself wait on those slaves.  And yet Jesus is perhaps prefiguring for the disciples the time to come when he will wash their feet.  Jesus is not asking us to do anything that he himself was not prepared to do. 

We are being told three things in today’s readings – that we can and should be honest with God, and tell Him what we are really thinking – and let’s face it, He does already know, so there is little point in trying to hide things.  That we must live simply – and any excess that we have needs to be shared, but above all, we must be watchful and ready because we will not know when he will return and bring measurable time to an end. 

Leviticus 23:9-14, Matthew 15:32-29

In the name of the Living God, loving Father, risen Son and ever present Holy Spirit. Amen

Today we are keeping Lammas – Marking the first fruits of the harvest in the festivals of the agricultural year. In our Old Testament reading we had Moses hearing from God the importance of giving thanks for the first fruits of the harvest when they entered the promised land. It was at a time when God gave Moses a lot of instructions for the people of God and in some depth too. Setting out the festivals they were to mark – all five of them and the part we are thinking about the blessing of the first fruits is the start of the countdown to the festival of weeks, seven weeks later! It is important to realise this was all given to Moses by God significantly before Joshua led them into the promised land, and by the time these instructions need to be followed, Moses had been dead some time!

The basis of the ritual described for the first fruits of the harvest is to make a present for God FIRST. A gift of praise in thanks for God’s blessing on the land. There is a ritual order of different things here described to make sure the offerings achieve this purpose. The sheaf, then a lamb, then a grain offering of flour mixed with oil and a drink offering of wine and none of the new crop must be consumed until all this is done. What all this is doing is acknowledging God’s ownership of the land and its harvest.

If the people of God were to eat the harvest before giving thanks for it, they viewed this as a direct affront to God for having blessed their land – hence the importance of this feast. By giving thanks to God for the first fruits, the people of God are expressing their deep gratitude for the harvest that God has given them, recognising their reliance on God in everything.

In our days, we too can lose sight of where we stand on God’s world. The world belongs to God and everything that lives on it and grows on it. At best we are stewards of the world – here to look after it (and currently in all honesty, we are not always doing a particularly good job of that). In our market economy we are often at least one, two or more steps removed from the actual harvesting. We could do with a bit more humility and understanding on our reliance on God in all things and the beautiful world God made for us and for the things we often take for granted.

These are VERY challenging times for those who do produce the food we eat as I said at Rogation in May. In relation to all of that which I am not going to repeat, can we please pray for the protection and safe transit of the grain supplies in Odessa to where it is most needed. An agreement has been reached to allow this to be shipped out which must be an answer to prayer. But let’s keep going with the prayers as the grain begins to be moved.

As I have said a number of times before, I think it is important to give thanks for all we have  and recognise we have a lot to be thankful for! Engaging in ritual can help us do this, just as much as it helped the people of God in the times of Leviticus. We are also remembering to give thanks symbolically today as we gather our harvests for 2022 (whatever they may be).

I do know that much of the grain harvesting around here started a bit earlier than this because of the dry weather this year! We need to find ways to pray and give thanks for whatever it is as this is really important. While I am on this topic  – which coincidentally is probably also about 7 weeks away too, at our harvest festivals, I want everyone to bring something to represent Harvest for them in 2022. Obviously it could be something we have grown, but it could also represent something else from our lives that particularly characterises a harvest for 2022. The more creative the better! I am warning us now so we have some time to think about it!!! This applies to both church harvests (26^th Sept in Pen Selwood and 2^nd October in Wincanton).

Moving to thinking about that familiar but not quite gospel story. 

• Wasn’t it five thousand men, beside the women and children not four thousand?

• And wasn’t it five loaves and two small fish, not seven and a few small fish?

• And wasn’t it twelve baskets and not seven?

(And in fact though we can’t see it the word for basket is different too.) The word for basket in the story of feeding of the five thousand is Kophinos. This is a typical thin necked flask shaped basket used by Jewish people of Jesus’ day. But the word for basket is sphurides in the feeding of the four thousand story. This kind of basket is much more like a picnic hamper routinely used by the gentile people of Jesus’s day!

There are 2 stories – First feeding five thousand and then feeding four thousand (plus women and children). The two stories are describing separate events about a chapter apart in Matthew’s gospel. But also if you unpick the story, Jesus has done quite a lot of travelling between the two events and time has passed. Distances something like going from Bristol to London via Manchester. One commentary I read, felt that the feeding of the five thousand took place in Spring, and the four thousand in high Summer! So months had passed too.

The most critical point to grasp here is the people witnessing these two amazing events are different. The feeding of the five thousand was to a predominantly Jewish crowd, though Matthew in his gospel is not explicit about this (and his intent was not in this direction). However, digging under the covers, before this Jesus has been travelling extensively in gentile areas and this gathering will include people from there who had followed him. The different baskets also reflect this very clearly.

This shows that Jesus had come to feed the hungry. Not just the hungry who were descendants of Moses. But everyone! We see mercy and compassion in Jesus’ acts here and a pointer to the heavenly bread we share week in and week out in Communion. To apply to our situation Jesus is involved in feeding the hungry of the nations. As Christians we need to do what we can to feed the nations of the world following the example of Jesus. In the difficult days ahead, let’s make sure we live as lightly as possible on our good earth, have a serious thankfulness habit and encourage in whatever ways we can the distribution of food to those who most need it. We need to promote fairer sharing of resources and better stewardship of the world God has blessed us with. Amen

References

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995

Word biblical Commentary – Leviticus by John E Hartley and Matthew Donald A Hagner 1995

The gospel of Matthew – William Barclay 1975 Saint Andrew’s Press

Trinity 6 – Persistence in Prayer

Since we have looked at the Lord’s prayer in some detail during Lent of this year, I do not propose to look again at the beginning of our gospel reading, except to note something that my on-line commentary points out – that with the Lukan version of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus appears to be saying ‘When your pray, use these words’ implying that this is a prayer that we should use as he has given it to us.  This settles a question that I have had for some time as to whether Jesus was giving us an actual prayer to use – as we do, or giving us an idea of how we should pray.  It is quite comforting to know that we may not have got this wrong for 2000 years!

It is interesting, however, that Luke records Jesus praying on five occasions, so he seems to be aware of the importance that Jesus placed on remaining in regular contact with his heavenly father.  It is also the only direct teaching that we have recorded of the disciples asking for guidance on how to do something, and here they are not just looking for theoretical guidance on prayer – they want a prayer to use that will unite them and this is just what Jesus gives.  There is more than one account in the gospels of Jesus sending them out to preach, teach and heal, but on no occasion are they recorded asking how they should preach, or what the central point of their teaching should be.  Apparently being with Jesus had taught them of the importance of prayer, if they had learned nothing else.  More than one book has been written with the title ‘Prayer, the Christian’s Vital Breath’ and in the Salvation Army hymn book a verse of a hymn begins ‘Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, The Christian’s native air.’ (Salvation Army Songbook, no 625 v5.) I wonder how long any of us can go without breathing!

Our Old Testament reading continues from the reading that we heard last week in which Abraham entertains three strangers who tell him that in time he will have a son.  This promise is made to Abraham several times throughout his story and both he and Sarah, his wife understandably have increasing difficulty in believing it.  The part of the story that was missed out of our readings was that Sarah on this occasion was listening from inside the tent, and when God promised that they would have a child she laughs as it is so ridiculous to consider bearing in mind her age.  This is a story that we often used to tell to Tiny Church, as it illustrates the importance of generosity as shown by Abraham to his guests and the faithfulness of God in keeping his promises.  It also brings to mind the instruction in Hebrews 13:2; ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’

A detail that I had not noticed before is that as the story continues, we read of two men continuing their journey to Sodom, with the implication that the third member of the group who stayed behind and had the conversation with Abraham that we heard in today’s reading was possibly God!  The conversation shows Abraham apparently negotiating with God.  It seems clear that Abraham was trying to save the cities as he was aware that his nephew Lot and his family were living there, but God seemed to end the conversation before Abraham could bring the numbers down that far.   This example of Abraham negotiating in prayer is possibly the sort of thing that Jesus had in mind when he told the parable that we heard in our Gospel reading.

I was once told that it can be dangerous to try to pull too much meaning out of a parable, as Jesus told them as quick illustrations of the point that he wanted to make, and todays seems to be a case in point. This parable is one that is difficult to understand as it seems to imply that God is like the reluctant neighbour, and the only reason he grants our prayer requests is because he wants to shut us up.  I am as sure as I can be that this was not what Jesus was getting at!

There is an interesting point that Jesus is putting over which relates to the customs of the day in that society.  Hospitality was not a matter of choice; it was a matter of honour both in Jesus’ day and in Abraham’s.  We heard last week how Abraham set his household in some turmoil when the guests arrived unexpectedly getting Sarah to make fresh bread and a servant to find the best animal in the flock to make a meal for them.  In the same way the host who is awoken by unexpected guests who turn up in the middle of the night when he has nothing to offer them has no compunction about waking his neighbour and his family to borrow what he needs to fulfil his obligation.  My on-line commentary has an interesting comment on why the neighbour actually does agree to get up and provide him with what he needs – it says this:

‘In the parable the sleeping neighbour’s desire to avoid shame in the eyes of the knocking host, and probably in the eyes of all his neighbours once his inhospitable behaviour became known, led him to get up and give his neighbour bread. The Greek word (anaideia translated for us as persistence) means shameless, or avoidance of shame,” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22:2 (June 1979):123-31).

So Jesus is most definitely not telling us that we must continue petitioning God for what we want in order to browbeat Him in to granting our requests, although it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that is the point of the parable.  Jesus is actually giving us a contrast that tells us more about the nature of God.  God does not grant our requests to avoid shame as was the case with the neighbour, or to get himself a bit of peace.  He grants them out of his love for us.  Jesus is not comparing God with the reluctant neighbour; he is showing us the contrast.  God is so much more than a friend or neighbour – he is our loving father.

But, because God is our father, who answers our prayers out of His love for us, he does not always give what we ask for, or when we ask for it.  Many of us have children and can, I am sure remember times when we have refused requests from them simply because we knew, as they did not that in the long run the desired answer would not be good for them.  I am not suggesting for a moment that our prayers centre around our wants and desires in the way that a child’s request might do, but until we can see things from the aspect of eternity – as God does, we can at times seem as ignorant as the child begging for another ice cream!  That is why Jesus is very specific in his explanation to this parable, that the one thing that God will give, freely and unreservedly is the gift of His Holy Spirit to those of His children who ask for it.  The emphasis of Jesus’ teaching here though is probably not so much God’s willingness to give His spirit, as to give wisdom and guidance that we need when we bring situations to Him in repeated prayer.  God does not always give us what we want, but He does give the good that we need.  This is something that I need to remember when praying into a situation that is ongoing, and sometimes seems to be hopeless.  Jesus is also encouraging us here to continue to be faithful in prayer.

We have a loving, generous and faithful God who takes delight when we come to Him in prayer.  We need to remember that there is no situation that is too big or too hopeless to bring to Him – He wants to know what are the concerns on our hearts.  Perhaps the lesson from this parable is the chorus that many of us may have sung at Sunday School – ‘Day by day then let us pray, for prayer changes things’.