Matthew 1.18 – 25

On this the fourth Sunday of Advent, the main character in our gospel reading is St Joseph. Now this poor fellow that appears in the nativity scene, unlike Jesus’ mother Mary, doesn’t get to feature in many other places in the gospels.

So, I wonder what you know about St Joseph?

a) What was his job?

b) Where was he born?

c) Who was he married to?

d) Where did he die?

e) Who is he the patron saint for?

f) What was his father called?

(See the answers at the end of this sermon)

This all sounds very respectable, but what a scandal we hear about Joseph and Mary this morning!

An unmarried woman. An unplanned pregnancy. An implausible explanation. It’s not hard to imagine what others were saying and thinking.

If Cissy and Ada (those two hilarious comic characters played by the late Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough) had been around at that time, the conversation over the back wall might have gone something like this:

Cissy: “Ey chuck, did you hear? That Mary from number 26 – she’s pregnant.”

Ada: “Well, I never would have thought it. Mind you, her mother had her later in life you know. But that Mary and Joseph should know better. I mean they aren’t even married yet.”

Cissy: “Well, I heard tell that Joseph’s not even the father”.

Ada: “Yer what – How could she do that to him? He’s such a good and just man.” Well, Who is the father?”

Cissy: “You know, I’m not sure, but that Hezekiah up at the Donkey stable put’s himself about a bit so I here. Anyhow, they say Joseph still intends to take her as his wife”

Ada: “He’s going to marry her after all this?”

Cissy: “The whole things a disgrace”.

Ada: “Her and her love child should be stoned”.

Cissy: “Ooo – that’s a bit harsh”

Ada: “Not at all – the law requires it. I do love a good stoning.”

Cissy: “I suppose your right – it is her own fault after all.”

Now I am sure Joseph heard the whispers and saw the looks, if not in the village, then certainly in his own imagination. Joseph knows this is a scandal. He knows there are questions of faithfulness. The love child in Mary’s womb proves that. By the light of day, it all seems pretty clear. Joseph will awake in the morning and do what he has to do. He will quietly send Mary away. But what appears to be one thing in the light of public scrutiny, becomes another in the night of silence, listening, and waiting.

Yes, this a scandal. But it is not a scandal of immorality. The real scandal is that God is with us. We thought God was up there, or out there, maybe somewhere in the future. But then Mary became pregnant. The scandal of that pregnancy is that God is intimately present. God’s holy spirit fills the womb of Mary. The wind of God is blowing through her life. The breath of God in her is so real that she begins to show like the pregnant woman she is. The scandal is that humanity can become pregnant with God.

Yes, Mary’s pregnancy raises questions of faithfulness. But it is not the usual question or accusation of betrayal and infidelity. Rather, this pregnancy is a statement of God’s faithfulness and commitment to God’s people. In this pregnancy God renews all the covenants of history and again chooses us to be his people. God’s continuing promise to show up and live in the midst of our lives is fulfilled in Mary’s pregnancy. This pregnancy is fleshly faithfulness.

Yes, the child within Mary is a love child. That is not, however, a euphemism for being illegitimate, a child born to unmarried parents. No, this child is the revelation of God’s love for humanity. Love that can be seen, heard and touched. This embodied love of God will feed and nourish God’s people.

Joseph’s daytime resolution to quietly dismiss Mary has given way to a night of dreaming, pondering, and wrestling. Joseph’s view of Mary, her pregnancy, even himself has been enlarged and opened. He has begun to see this situation, this scandalous pregnancy, through the eyes of faith rather than the stares of the villagers. Mary’s story and the angel’s words now speak louder than the villagers’ voices.

The only reason this could happen is because Joseph entrusted himself to the night, to the inner world where angels appear, guide, and speak God’s word. The night of faith shows reality to be more than the daytime drama with which we often live. It is the place where God speaks the truth about us and sees more than we sometimes see for ourselves. It is the night of Emmanuel. Joseph experienced God with him. He found holiness hidden, where it has always been hidden, in plain sight amongst the scandals, the talk, the looks, the questions and doubts.

So Joseph awoke in the morning and did what he had to do. He began emptying himself. He let go of fear. He let go of the villagers’ voices and stares. He let go of his doubts and questions. He let go of his own reputation and standing in the community. He let go of his ideas and hopes for what his marriage to Mary could have been. He let go of the law and punishment. With each letting go Joseph emptied himself so that, by God’s grace and mercy, he might become the womb that would protect, nourish, and provide security to Mary and her child.

He would be the womb that sheltered Mary and Jesus from Herod’s rage and the slaughter of the innocents. He would be the womb that safely took Mary and Jesus to Egypt. He would be the womb that sustained their lives in that land. He would be the womb that brought them back to Nazareth when the time was right.

Isn’t that what wombs do? They are the place where life is created and sustained, nourished and grown. They offer security and protection. They are that deep interior place where God’s life and breath meet and unite with ours to create something beautiful and sacred. The womb Joseph offered was as important as the one Mary offered. Even as God was acting in Mary’s womb to create new life, divine-human life, so God was acting in Joseph’s to sustain that life.

At one level today’s gospel is about Mary and Joseph but at another level it is about you and me. It is about us becoming more open and receptive, more womb-like in this final week of Advent so that we all might give birth to God’s Son in our time and our culture.

Joseph guides us to Christmas reminding us that before a womb can be filled it must first be empty. He invites us to enter the night of faith and to begin emptying ourselves of all that keeps our womb closed. We must let go of all those things that make our womb inaccessible. Things like fear, guilt, resentment and anger, the villagers’ voices and stares, the thoughts that say we are not enough, the doubts of God’s presence, the isolation and loneliness of loss and sorrow. Letting go creates space, openness, and opportunity for God.

Over and over we let go, emptying ourselves until we find that we are nothing and have nothing. That nothingness is our empty womb offered with scandalous faith that it will be filled with God, we will be re-created, the world will hear good news, and once again we will discover God is with us.

What do you know about St Joseph? (Answers)

a) Carpenter

b) Bethlehem

c) Mary

d) Nazareth – (Traditionally thought to be around AD18)

e) Fathers, pregnant women, Those looking for work, immigrants and estate agents!

f) Jacob (according to St Matthew) or Heli (according to St Luke)

Sermon  11.2-11

Each year in the UK over 154 million Christmas crackers are pulled (and just as many bad jokes are read)!

Between us, we Brits eat 308 million slices of turkey, we listen to Christmas songs 460 million times and around a billion Christmas Cards are bought each year.

The British people spend around £4.9m on Christmas nights out during the festive season and over £19 million on presents with each UK household spending an average extra £500 every December – all these big numbers, all the excitement building up.

You can almost feel it – you can almost taste it – you can almost touch it. Christmas Day is less than a fortnight away!

For most people Christmas is a time for excitement in some form or another. Whether the excitement is because we can’t wait to celebrate – or we’ve got some friends or family coming to visit that we haven’t seen in a while – or like me, you get a bit of time off work. There is usually some reason for joy and excitement.

But what happens after Christmas is over? It’s back to normal – sort of.

Some of us step on the scales and realise how much we’ve overindulged. We look at our credit card statements and realise how much it’s all cost and we wonder was it worth it? Did it meet our expectations? Did Jesus coming at Christmas match the excitement? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

That’s the question before John the Baptist today. Did Jesus’ coming to earth match the excitement that John had built up?

Did the cost of following Jesus outweigh the benefits? Jesus, you know – the one who John claimed would come after him and that would baptise with fire. The one coming after him whose sandals he said he was not worthy to tie – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Who is so important and exciting that “I must decrease so he may increase”.

But now in our gospel reading today – we find John languishing in prison and he starts to reflect on what it’s all cost him. Not his credit card – not his waistline – but his freedom.

 And so, from jail, John sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus – “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?

Now why would John ask that?  Well, it’s because Jesus didn’t turn out to be all John expected him to be. John had become so bold believing Jesus would “cover his back”. He called the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers”. He seemed to insult Abraham – remember he said “don’t think just because you’re Abraham’s children”.

But then he goes too far and criticises the King, Herod for marrying his brother’s wife and for that he finds himself in prison.

And Jesus? Well, Jesus was not following John’s expectations.  Remember, John said that the chaff would burn with unquenchable fire.  But Jesus didn’t seem to be pointing the finger of judgment against the evil doers.  This was a disappointment for John sitting in prison, awaiting his own judgment instead of his enemy’s.  Instead, Jesus is proclaiming forgiveness, healing the sick, bringing Good News to the poor.

 Was this really what Jesus was supposed to be doing?  Couldn’t anybody just do that? Are you the one who is to come? Or should I hope for someone else?

Sometimes Jesus said and did things that weren’t what people hoped for.  Like riding into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of in a chariot drawn by horses.

Sometimes Jesus says and does things that aren’t what we hope for.  Maybe at times we are tempted to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else?” And, certainly, many have done just that- looked for someone or something else.

Each of us has expectations about the kind of Saviour we want.  Some want a judgmental Messiah who points out where everyone else is going wrong.  To punish the evil doers by locking them up and throwing away the key – with no second chances. Some of us want Jesus to back our favourite cause, a Messiah who will assure us that God is on our side on a particular issue. Or maybe we want a gentle shepherd who will not demand anything of us, but only tell us that he loves us.

Jesus will at times upset our expectations. But that’s when we have to remember to trust His words – “your will be done, not mine”.

John wondered if Jesus was really the one in whom he should hope.  Maybe Jesus wasn’t exactly what John was expecting: He did bring fire – but it was the fire of the Holy Spirit. He did seek out  sinners – but forgave them. He confronted the unworthy– but he confronted them with grace – like Zacchaeus – like the woman caught in adultery – like the Samaritan leper – like the demon possessed man called Legion – even an undeserving dog, the Canaanite woman begging for crumbs from his table.  Grace upon grace.

John the Baptist couldn’t see that grace for himself being locked away in his prison cell. And maybe, at times, it is hard for us to see God’s grace in our times of suffering. But it is there. It’s always there. Paul struggled too with his thorn in the flesh – praying three times to have his suffering removed with the response from God: My grace is all you need – my grace is sufficient.

There will be times when we feel let down by God, like John did. There will be times when we may feel like looking for another Saviour. But Jesus is the only one in whom we can put our hope. As Luke says in Acts 4 – there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among people by which we must be saved. Jesus Himself says in John 14 – I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the one who was promised by God. But it’s the mystery of God we don’t always understand.

Jesus himself struggled with this when he cried out from the cross – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was repeating the very words of King David – God’s most loyal subject who cried out words that John the Baptist could also have cried out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.

Words that maybe you have cried out at times expecting more from God. But we heed the words of James today – Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

 Just as Christmas Day is near, so too is the return of our Lord, as St Paul reminded us recently: Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;

So, friends, you don’t need to look for another saviour. Trust and have patience. Patience in a God who does not want anyone to perish, but loves you as His dear child. Jesus is the one we have been waiting for – Jesus is the one we continue waiting for. And in the words of St Paul: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 3.1-12

Did you hear what John said? The wrath of God is coming. It doesn’t matter who you are or who your family is. The axe is out and ready. Right now the blade is against the tree. And the chopping is about to begin. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is being cut down and burned.

The unquenchable fire is raging, waiting to be fed the chaff. And that’s just the beginning. He said a greater one is coming, one more powerful than himself is on the way.

After listening to John it’s tempting to look at the advent wreath, with its two lit candles, and see the season of Advent as merely the countdown to Christmas.

It’s tempting to leave this wild man behind. We know Christmas came last year. It will come again this year just like it has for over 2000 years. It’s only a few more weeks away.

So maybe we can dismiss John’s message as allegory, metaphor, or symbolism. Maybe it’s the rambling of a man who’s spent too much time by himself in the desert eating grasshoppers.

Or perhaps we hear the message and think about all those other people to whom it applies. You know, the Pharisees and the Sadducees; someone other than us.

But do you know what? We can’t do that. The Church says this viper sermon of John’s is the gospel, the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. For most of us, though, threats, anger, and judgment are not good news.

We would rather hear and think about the sweet baby Jesus.

But John is not preaching a Christmas sermon. John doesn’t mention a beautiful night with a bright shining star to guide us. There are no humble and gentle shepherds guarding their flocks by night. No wise men bearing gifts from afar. John’s not looking at a manger scene where the little Lord Jesus lays down his sweet head. He seems to have forgotten the innocent and faithful Virgin Mary. And the name Jesus isn’t even mentioned in today’s gospel. This is Advent, the season when wrath, axes, and unquenchable fire are talked about as good news.

John is looking for God to do something drastic right now. John’s message is quite literally, “Repent – turn or burn!” His refrain is, “Wrath, axes, and fire. Wrath, axes, and fire.” God’s coming and He’s going to get you.

I suspect that part of our discomfort with John and his name-calling, his preaching of wrath, axes, and fire is, or at least should be, that at some level we know he’s right.

When we look around our world, read the newspapers, watch the evening news, or examine our own lives we’re confronted with the reality of John’s sermon.

Our world and our lives are not as they should be, as they can be, as God wills them to be. We could each name the sinful or broken places of our lives and our world: anger, violence, greed, poverty, homelessness, war, lives controlled by fear, years of guilt that have crippled us. The list could go on and on.

There’s only one sin worse than the evil itself and that is indifference to that evil. Indifference is more insidious; more universal, more contagious, and more dangerous.

Often we live such busy, exhausted lives that we have become indifferent to what is happening in the world, indifferent to the needs of another human being.

Maybe our world view, even our church view, is so small that if something does not directly affect our lives or the lives of those we love then it is of no consequence to us.

Sometimes the pain and fear in our lives causes us to be indifferent to those relationships that need forgiveness and reconciliation. Maybe you have become indifferent to yourself and can no longer see the original beauty with which God created you. Perhaps indifference has convinced you that your life is meaningless. Indifference comes in many different forms. It is always sneaky, often disguising itself as freedom or independence.

John’s cry of repentance is the call to turn away from our indifference to engage, at a life-changing level, with the coming kingdom and the way that kingdom reorders our relationships and priorities. John’s words are words of interrogation. Do we care enough to change our lives and the world in which we live? Do we love enough to get angry about the suffering and plight of other human beings – even if we’ve never met them?

God does. That’s why divine wrath, axes, and fire are good news. God loves enough to get angry. The good news is that our God is not indifferent. God is not indifferent to creation. God is not indifferent to the evil and suffering in this world. God is not indifferent to His people. God is not indifferent to your life or my life.

God’s concern and love for creation are the source of His anger and Anger is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love.

God’s anger is the rejection of indifference. God is paying attention and is present in our lives. The anger of God is a form of His presence and love in this world. God’s anger is not offered as a punishment but as an encouragement to change, to turn our lives around. That can be frightening and even painful. But there is an agony even more excruciating. That is the agony of being forsaken, discarded, rejected, and abandoned. It is the agony of being the object of indifference.

God’s anger is never the goal. The goal of divine anger is not punishment and retribution. Divine anger is the means, the instrument. The goal is love and relationship. Divine anger recognises and celebrates the existence, the sacredness, and the value of every human life.

Divine wrath is God’s expression of longing for us. It is God saying to you and me, “You are worthy of my time and attention. Your lives are worthy of being judged. I care for and love you enough to get angry when you settle for less than I am giving you, when you accept being less than you are called to be.”

Wrath, fire, and axes are God calling us to turn away from, to repent of, our indifference. Where does indifference rule our lives? How have we become indifferent to ourselves, to others, even to God? In what ways does indifference deny you the Kingdom of Heaven?

Wrath, fire and axes are not about destruction or punishment. They are about life, love, and relationship. The unquenchable fire of God’s love burns away our indifference. The healing axe of God cuts away all indifference. The wrath of God reminds us that God cares and that we matter.

To name the places and ways of our indifference is the beginning of repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven has come just a bit nearer than it was before.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

As we journey through Advent, towards the Nativity, there is little doubt what many of us will be doing  – there is the rush to get everything organised for Christmas – cards written, gifts bought and sent, the preparation of food, plans about whose turn it is to go visiting and anxieties about who’ll be offended if we don’t pay them enough attention etc etc…. The rush is on and it’s not surprising that there’s often a hint of panic in people’s conversations – “I’ll never be ready!”

But pretty soon, it will all be over! In a few weeks a new year will have brought us another set of resolutions, in a few more the decorations will have come down, the furniture of life will be back in place and we’ll be back to – well, back to what?

Will life be just the same, or will we be changed?

If we take Advent seriously, there is a chance we will be changed because we will have had an opportunity to reflect again on what it means to say that God came into the world in the humility of the birth at Bethlehem and that he still comes into the world in all its mess and pain and joy, longing for us to recognise Him.

Advent is a godsend, a gift which stops us in our tracks and makes us realise that we hold dual citizenship (of this world and His kingdom) in awkward tension. We are all part of the scene – as Christians we can sometimes appear to be rather superior about what we call ‘commercialisation’ and say that the real Christmas isn’t about that. But actually, if you think about it, the real Christmas is about precisely that: it’s about God coming into the real world. Not to a sanitised stable as we portray it in carols and on Christmas cards, but to a world that needed, and still needs, mucking out! Advent reminds us that the kingdom has other themes to add to the celebration, themes that are there in our scripture readings for the season: Repent, be ready, keep awake, He comes!

Advent reminds us that not only do we live in two worlds – the one that appears to be going mad all around us and the one that lives by the kingdom of God’s values, but that we operate in two different timescales, in chronological time and beyond it. And the point of intersection – where these two worlds meet is now. Scripture readings and prayers which are often used during Advent, remind us that now is the time when we have to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Now is when we meet God, because we have no other time.

At whatever level we operate, it’s a time for preparation – a time to put things right – to repair broken relationships or reach out to those with whom you have grown distant – and that might include working on your relationship with God.

Whatever else we have to do, there are only so many praying days to Christmas. It is prayer that gives us the opportunity to focus our recognition of God in every part of our lives. Prayer is not just what we do in what we call our prayer time. Prayer is how we give our relationship with God a chance to grow and develop and, just like any other relationship, it needs time. We don’t stop being related when we are not with the person concerned. We don’t stop being a partner, a wife, husband, child, parent or friend when that person is out of sight or when we are concentrating on something else. But we do become less of a related person if we never give them time.

So, Advent says, make time, create space so that our understanding of God’s love for us (and our love for God in response) can grow. The world is saying “Get on with it – don’t wait for Christmas to hold the celebrations”. Advent says, “Wait, be still, alert and expectant.”

The shopping days will come to an end – there will come a moment when we really can’t do any more. The point of praying or making a space is that we get into the habit of remembering God who comes to us every day and longs for us to respond with our love and service. And so, my dear friends, Heed the voice of St Finnbarr and those like him, “Repent, be ready, keep awake, He comes!”

When I was a child, back in the late 1970s and early 1980s,  growing up on a council estate in Rotherham in South Yorkshire, I remember that my friends and I used to play all sorts of games in some rather dangerous places.

One of my particular memories is of us running wild on a building site when the estate was being expanded – no security fences in those days of course – those golden days of yesteryear when we didn’t  feel it was necessary to keep the estate kids safely away from the piles of bricks, rickety scaffolding, rusting machinery and half completed buildings.

One of the games we loved playing involved finding a huge  heap of sand or half completed wall – anything we could climb up on. The first one to the top of the heap or wall would claim the kingdom and shout, “I’m king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal.” The rest of us would charge the kingdom. Some tried pulling the king down. Others tried pushing the king off the castle. We all wanted to take over the kingdom.

Each attack on the king was in some way an unspoken demand for proof. “If you’re really the king, prove it. Defend yourself. Show us your power and strength. Save yourself and your kingdom. Because if you don’t I’ll take it for myself.” Each one of us wanted to climb the heap of sand and proclaim that we were king (or queen of course) of all that we surveyed!

It was a great game. We had a lot of fun and I’m sure many of you played very similar games, if not the same!

But when we look back and reflect on how we played, I wonder if it did begin to nurture in us an outlook that has become a bit of a problem.

You see from being children we have grown up – but many of us have never stopped playing the game. We have become adults and ‘King of the Castle’ has become a way of life.

Our heaps of sand or half built walls, our high places are now made up of our personal success and money, power and control or reputation and popularity.

For some of us, the heaps of sand have become our families, our children, or the fairy tale of living happily ever after. Others have climbed the walls of being right, holy, or respectable.

Often our kingdoms have become ways of thinking, political parties, or social groups. Our nation and even our church have become king of the castle playgrounds.

There are all sorts of kingdoms. Each one of us can probably name the sand heaps of our lives, the sand heaps on which we have played king or queen of the castle.

The adult version of king of the castle has become about filling our emptiness, fighting our fear, and ultimately establishing some type of order and control.

What began as a child’s game has become the reality of our adult lives.

For many of us life is a constant scrambling to establish and maintain our little kingdoms, to convince ourselves as much as anyone else that we are okay, we are enough, we are the king or queen. And isn’t that a hard way to live?

Today, the Feast of Christ the King, celebrates and reminds us that playing king of the castle does not have to be the final reality of our lives.

Life can be different. We do not have to spend our lives trying to get to the top of a three-foot heap of sand. We do not have to spend our lives trying to keep our balance on top of a half-built wall as others try to push us off.

Christ the King invites us to stop playing the game. Life does not have to be, was never intended to be, an ongoing game of king of the castle.

If we choose to stop playing the game, it means we must give up our little kingdoms. We cannot celebrate Christ the King if we continue fighting our way up the sand heap.

We can have one or the other but not both.

Today in our service we will again pray, “your kingdom come.” It rolls off our tongues with ease and familiarity.  But I wonder if we really know what we’re asking for and do we really mean it? Implicit in that prayer is the request, “my kingdom go.” “Your kingdom come, my kingdom go.”

It’s one thing to pray for God’s kingdom to come. It’s another to let our kingdom go. After all we’ve been kings and queens of our own castles for a long time. Or at least we’ve convinced ourselves that we have.

It’s not easy to let go of our kingdoms and more often than not I think we try to negotiate a deal with God. “Ok God. Prove you are the king and then I’ll step down. Show me evidence of your kingdom and then I’ll let go of mine.”

The leaders, the soldiers, one of the criminals – they all want the same thing. They want to see proof that Christ is the king. They want to see evidence of his kingdom. We all do. After all, if Jesus is really the king, the one to rule our lives, and we are supposed to believe that – then let him prove it. “Save yourself if you are the Messiah of God. Save yourself if you are the King of the Jews. Aren’t you the Messiah? Then prove it. Save yourself and me.”

At one level I think we want to see Jesus come down from the cross. We want to see his wounds disappear. We want to see a well-dressed king – one with physical strength, military might, and political power. We want to see something spectacular, something beyond the realities of our ordinary lives.

At a much deeper level, however, these demands are about more than just Jesus saving himself from death, from physical pain, from political defeat.  At this deeper level we are crying out: “Save yourself and us from our own unbelief. Save yourself and us from our need to control. Save yourself and us from the fear that this little heap of sand I call my kingdom is all that there is to my life. Show me. Right now. Prove who you are.”

But you know what – he won’t do it – at least not in the way we usually want. Jesus will not offer us proof of his kingship. Instead he offers us the kingdom. He invites us to share in his kingship.

That happens in the silence of the deepest love.

The leaders are scoffing at Jesus. He responds with silence. The soldiers are mocking him. He responds with silence. One of the criminals derides him. He responds with silence. All are demanding proof. None are getting what they ask for. Jesus does not take himself or the criminals off the cross. He doesn’t answer the leaders. He refuses to respond to the soldiers. He is silent.

In that silence the other criminal begins to understand. It’s not about getting proof of Christ’s kingship – it’s about letting go of our own kingship. It’s about coming down from our little heaps of sand and realising that we already are, and always have been, royal members of God’s holy kingdom.

This realisation underlies the criminal’s cry, “Jesus remember me. Remember me not because of what I have done or left undone. Remember me in spite of those things. Remember me not because of who I am, but because of who you are.” His cry to be remembered is the cry of one who has emptied himself of everything, has let go of every last kingdom, and whose very life and existence are entrusted to the God who remembers. That is the reign of Christ.

The reign of Christ does not mean we now have all the answers, that everything is fixed, that there is no more pain, or that every problem has been eliminated. Jesus will not take us off our crosses. Instead, he gets up there with us. He does not fix our lives. Instead, he enters into the reality of our ordinary existence. We are remembered – and right here today, in the reality of our everyday lives, in the midst of our pain, in the midst of our dying, in the midst of our brokenness, in the midst of our guilt – Christ the King says to us, “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Who was Margaret of Scotland? I wonder what you already know about her – or what you think you know about her?

It’s strange to start at the end, but Margaret died on 16^th November in the year 1093 and that’s the reason that her feast day is on this day.

She’s not one of particularly well-known saints, especially outside of Scotland and many people don’t have any idea about who she was or what she did, but as we learn about her today and we get to know her story better, I’m sure most of us will come to admire her, and maybe even see her as a role model for ourselves and for our lives as followers of Jesus.

So let’s take a brief look at her life. Margaret was the granddaughter of the English king Edmund Ironside, but because of dynastic disputes she was born in Hungary, in the year 1047. She had one brother, Edgar, and a sister, Christian, and many people in England saw her father Edward Ætheling as the rightful heir to the throne of England. Those of you who know your history  will confirm that Edward the Confessor became King of England in 1042, but that he never had children, and in 1054 the parliament of Anglo-Saxon England decided to bring Margaret’s family back from Hungary so that her father could inherit the throne when King Edward died. So, the three siblings were brought up at the Anglo-Saxon court under the supervision of Benedictine monks and nuns, who trained them according to the Benedictine ideal of a life of work and prayer.

It’s hard to overstate the influence of those Benedictines in Margaret’s life. From them she learned the importance of balancing times of prayer and times of working for the good of others.

Margaret’s father died in 1057, and her brother Edgar became heir to the throne. But his succession was not to be – King Edward the Confessor died in 1066, and we all know what happened in that year? Of course, William the Conqueror invaded England and claimed the throne for himself. Edgar and his sisters were advised to go back to Hungary for their own safety, but on the way their ship was blown far off course by a fierce gale. They spent some time in northern England and then sailed up the coast to the Firth of Forth in Scotland, where King Malcolm gave them a warm welcome to his kingdom.

Margaret was now about twenty years old; Malcolm was forty, and unmarried, and he soon became attracted to her. But she took a lot of persuading because she herself wanted to become a Benedictine nun, and besides which Malcolm had a very stormy temperament! It was only after a very long time of reflection that she finally agreed to marry him, and their wedding took place in the year 1070, when she was twenty-three. In the end, although she was much younger than him, she was the one who changed him; under her influence, he became a much wiser and godlier king.

Of course, Margaret was now in a high position in Scottish society, and was very wealthy according to the standard of the day. But she continued to live in the spirit of inward poverty. She saw nothing she possessed as belonging to her; everything was to be used for the purposes of God. As Queen, she continued to live the ordered life of prayer and work that she had learned from the Benedictines. In a very male-dominated society she was only the wife of the king, but nevertheless, mainly because of her husband’s deep devotion and respect for her, and because of her own personal integrity, she came to have the leading voice in making changes that affected the social and spiritual life of Scotland.

Margaret would begin each day with a prolonged time of prayer, especially singing the psalms. In this she was following the example of the Benedictine nuns; the Rule of St. Benedict prescribes seven prayer services a day, and in this way the whole book of one hundred and fifty psalms would be prayed through once a week!

After her prayer time, we’re told that orphaned children would be brought to her, and she would prepare their food herself and serve it to them. It also became the custom that any destitute, poor people would come every morning to the royal hall; when they were seated around it, the King and Queen would enter and ‘serve Christ in the person of his poor’. Before they did this, it was their custom to send out of the room all other spectators except for the chaplains and a few attendants because it was important to Margaret that what they did was done for the love of God and the poor, not to win spiritual brownie points from admiring onlookers.

The church in Scotland had been formed in the Celtic way of Christianity. But Margaret had been raised in the way of Rome, and she was keen to bring Scotland into unity with the rest of the world. However, she didn’t do it in a domineering or authoritarian way. She often visited the Celtic hermits in their lonely cells, offering them gifts and caring for their churches. But she also held many conferences with the leaders of the Church, putting forward the Roman point of view about things like the date of Lent and the proper customs for celebrating the liturgy and so on. In the end she convinced them—not so much because of the strength of her arguments, but by the power of her holy life.

In those days many people in Scotland used to go on pilgrimages to see the relics of St. Andrew at the place now called ‘St. Andrew’s’. Margaret wanted to help the pilgrims, so she had little houses built on either shore of the sea that divided Lothian from Scotland, so that poor people and pilgrims could shelter there and rest after their journeys. She also provided ships to transport them across the water. And interestingly enough, that place in eastern Scotland is still called ‘Queensferry’!

I think it’s fair to say that most people from the past who are recognised as saints were monks and nuns who lived lives of celibacy, far removed from the demands of the world and the pressures of family life. But Margaret is remembered as having a happy family life. She had eight children—six sons and two daughters and her three youngest, Edgar, Alexander, and David, are remembered as among the best kings Scotland has ever had.

I love hearing about the lives of the saints, not just because of their intrinsic value as stories about people who have gone before us in our lives of faith, but because there is always something we can take, reflect on and use to shape our own lives as followers of Jesus.

Like Margaret, we’re all busy people. Many of us work long hours at demanding jobs. Some of us are retired of course, but so many times I hear retirees claiming they’ve never been so busy and wondering how they had time to work!

So, how are we to avoid becoming burnt out? Where can we find strength from God to deal with the everyday challenges that life sends our way?

Surely our answer as Christians is that we need to stay in touch with God so that we come to know his presence in our daily lives – God loves us and wants each of us to experience his love. One of the best ways of staying in touch with him is prayer. In prayer, we can lay down our burdens in God’s presence. We can bring our requests—for others and ourselves—to the one who’s best able to deal with them. We can thank God for the blessings we receive and ask God’s forgiveness for our wrongdoings and shortcomings. We can listen to the voice of God in Scripture and in silence and seek a word from God to guide us through our day.

Now praying seven times a day, as Margaret did, might be a bit much for some of us! But maybe we could manage once or twice? Perhaps at the beginning and end of the day, we can turn to God for strength and peace.

‘Love God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself’.

Jesus’ vision is a life of loving relationship with God and our neighbour. Many of us are getting better at doing a lot to help our neighbour, but my friends,  let’s not forget about our relationship with God. Margaret of Scotland was a very busy person, but she never forgot her daily time with God in prayer. Let’s follow her example, and be people of prayer as well as people of good deeds. The two belong together, and when we combine them, like St Margaret, we’ll find richness in the life for which we were made.

I wonder if you have ever played that game where you try to remember objects on a tray? A feat of memory! Memory yes, but not really remembering. If you have ever played this game, I bet you are now remembering it. The fun, the laughter, the people you played it with. This is Remembering. Mentally and emotionally placing yourself back into a moment.

Remembering thoughts, feelings, smells, relationships. The difference between memory and remembering. One is simple factual recall, the other forms us as human beings.

Remembering connects us individually and collectively: telling us who we are, where we come from, and linking us to our community, our friends, and our families.  

The loss of life in the Great War was dramatic, traumatic, and affected every community across our country and beyond. After the Armistice in 1918, many didn’t talk about it for years, but collectively the nation needed to remember.

The trauma and loss of life were so significant that remembering became vital. Not simply recalling a list of battles fought and campaigns won or lost, but a re-membering, of people, of lives, of relationships. The importance of lost individuals as members of the community.

Remembering each individual within a collective remembering of millions. Because those who died had value, they had innate worth. For all it is the overwhelming numbers we recall in history books, grief was for the individual.

So why do we still fall silent? In 2014 I went to see the Sea of Poppies Installation at the Tower of London. I eavesdropped on the crowds’ conversations and many of them were remembering a specific family member. A family member of whom they have no ‘memory’ and yet, re-membering was still important. 100 years later a Great Niece or a Great Grandson was there, moved to tears. A treasured moment, not because of memory, but because that individual mattered within their family story. It is through remembering that generations and their stories interweave and matter. Sadly, this ‘war to end all wars’ did not end conflicts, so we also remember many who have died in conflicts since. Generations past, and indeed present, whose stories of war and its impact are remembered.

When we are in despair, we can feel that God has forgotten us. That we have been abandoned. Even Jesus on the Cross shouted out ‘My God, my God, why have you Forsaken me?’ (Mark 15.34b).

This heartfelt cry of the deep human fear of being forgotten certainly found an echo in the trenches of the First World War, and for many who have known armed conflict. The Old testament prophet, Isaiah speaks into this space. ‘Can a mother forget the babe at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands’ (Isaiah 49: 15-16).

In the middle of desolation, forsakenness, the isolation of being forgotten, it is being remembered which gives us back our humanity, evidenced on the engraved palms of God. Remembering is a human action that helps us to feel valued. God tells us that remembering is even more a divine action that gives value to humanity.

Today is our opportunity to remember and grieve personally and collectively for the individuals from our community. Giving back our humanity in the worst of circumstances. God tells us that we matter more to him than a baby does to its mother, that remembering us is a divine action that gives value to humanity, that he is prepared to sacrifice himself for us.

Today we remember those who have also followed that command; that greater love hath no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends. We, their friends, will remember them, and their innate worth as human beings, both to us and to God.

Is it easy to be a Saint? I wonder if any of us could do it?

Take St Notburga – could you do what she did? She was a cook in the household of Henry and Ottilia of Rattenberg, living in the Tyrol around the turn of the fourteenth century. She was so devout that she would give the leftovers to the poor rather than to pigs as Ottilia had commanded her to do. One day Henry became suspicious of her and ordered that a bag she was carrying when she was leaving the cast should be searched. Miraculously the leftover food in the bag had turned into sawdust, but nevertheless she was sacked by Ottilia anyway. Would you risk losing your job to do the right thing?

Or could you be like St Marcella. She was a high born roman noble woman who converted Christianity at the end of the fourth century. Following the death of her husband, she was pursued by a number of wealthy influential suitors, but turned them all down and gave away her entire fortune to the poor before committing herself to an austere life in the service of Christ. Could you give away everything you have and forsake your closest relationships for your faith?

Or how about St Richard Gwyn of Wrexham. He was a catholic at the time of the reformation and was threatened with ghastliness if he did not conform to the Church of England. He took to making up rude, comic songs about the vicar for which he was clapped in irons. He then rattled his chains during sermons which so annoyed everyone that he was convicted of high treason and was hung, drawn and quartered in Wrexham’s beast market. Whether you agreed with St Richard or not, could you stand up so strongly for what you thought was right?

Most Episcopalians are familiar with the church year: that great cycle of prayer and liturgy that takes us from Advent, through Christmas and Epiphany, on to Lent and Easter, and into the long stretch of Sundays after Pentecost. Fewer among us might be familiar with the cycle of the saints’ calendar. While most of the saints and great lights of the Church have a special feast day or celebration assigned to them, it is rare that they get a mention in church on Sundays for the simple reason that the assigned Sunday liturgy nearly always takes precedence, though here in East Sutherland we have had a few saints days kept on a Sunday when permissible – some of you might recall that we remembered St Bartholomew back in August, and later this month we’ll learn more about St Margaret of Scotland. But as I said, there aren’t many Sundays where we are able to ‘keep’ the particular saint’s day.

It is, in some ways, a pity, because there is always much we can learn from the lives of the saints. Some were great scholars; others were illiterate. Some were ancient; others modern. But what is particularly striking about the calendar of the saints is that it is a bit of hodge-podge – messy and unpredictable. In the calendar of the blessed, saints come and go in no particular order. Ninth-century saint follows twentieth; European, Far East; young, old; and so on.

Just this month, for instance, ancient Willibrord, whose feast is kept on the seventh of November, hobnobs with Reformation-era, Richard Hooker, of November third, and medieval Hugh of Lincoln, of November seventeenth. It must make for some very interesting conversations in high places.

The calendar of the saints mirrors our own lives in many ways. People come to us in no particular order. We probably did not choose the particular members of our church community, for example. Friends and future spouses appear seemingly out of nowhere, and we do not get to choose the people without whom we would not be here: our own parents.

Those described as blessed, or saints, in our gospel text today are also a pretty diverse range of characters,  perhaps an unfortunate and desperate one. They are not particularly popular, or well-off, or prosperous. They are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the despised. If they have anything in common, it is perhaps that they are those people who are not in control of things. They are those who are often described as ‘victims’ or ‘vulnerable’.

I’m not sure that there are many of us, including martyrs and saints, who actively want to be victimised, used, manipulated, cheated, or made to look a fool. And certainly, our scriptures do not require that of us. We read the daily papers and we shake our heads as we learn about all the evil things our fellow human beings are capable of, including the shedding of innocent blood. I imagine that we certainly do not want such things to happen to us – no matter how committed we are to the Gospel.

But somewhere in our fear of being hurt or made a victim we may, if we are not careful, also lose our ability to be vulnerable; to take a chance on another human being, on life, on God. Because if we dare to open ourselves to others it is quite possible, some might say likely, that we will get hurt. But, you know, unless we are willing to take that risk, we may find ourselves living lives of fear and loneliness -in other words, lives that can be devoid of human warmth and caring and love.

So, the saints do have something in common, in spite of their variety and age and culture. They have learned to become vulnerable, to be fully human, and to take chances on others, even when it may seem to go against common sense or their own self-interest. And like it or not, each of us will also be given plenty of opportunity to experience this vulnerability in our own lives – at work, at home, among friends, and sometimes at church as well.

So what about being blessed? What about being a saint? We can determine our state of saintliness and blessing by our willingness to be open to the needs of others. Sainthood becomes not so much some unattainable goal of moral excellence as it does a way of life marked by commitment to others and their needs.

We will not always be good. We will not always get it right first time. We will fail. We will have plenty of reasons to witness and to accept our own vulnerability. But then we are in good company. After all, what words other than ‘vulnerable’ and ‘committed’ should we use to describe a God willing to become one of us with all the messiness of our self-doubts, and strings of failures, and hurts, and even death?

It probably does not take much effort to be poor, grief-stricken, or hungry. But being blessed – well that is something else. That involves a radically different way of seeing the world. It requires a worldview that embraces the poor, and the exiled, and the remnant, and the refugee. Not just because our Lord asks us to do this in the gospel, but because we should recognise ourselves in the very least of those we know. We should recognise that our saintliness and blessing comes only in embracing wholeheartedly and without reservation all those others in need of God’s blessing.

Is it easy being a saint? I am afraid it is more difficult than we ever thought. Difficult, that is, if we try to do it through our own power and with our own wisdom and cleverness and effort. But it is paradoxically easy when we hold on to the blessed cross of Christ that forever committed God to the world; the cross that consecrates us in the blood of the Lamb, who gave himself that we might live. Blessed be God in all His saints, both living and departed!

Luke 18.9-14

“The Pharisee and the Tax collector” — that’s the traditional name of the parable we read today.

We’re in Luke 18 — If you’ve noticed, we’re on a long trip through Luke’s gospel, a trip we always take in Year C in the season after Pentecost

And over these these past few Sundays in Luke — well, it’s like being at an Elton John concert. Peter and I went to see Elton John a few years ago, and it was two solid hours of well-known hits. No warm up acts, no obscure songs – All killer, no filler, if you know what I mean? Hit after hit after hit!

Well, Jesus rattles off hit after hit in Luke — the Good Samaritan (Luke 10); the Wedding Feast (Luke 12); the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son (Luke 15); last week, the Persistent Widow, and now today — hit, hit, hit, hit; no warm ups, no covers, no B sides.

I want to look at this latest of Jesus’ greatest hits, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, under three headings — players, point, and power:

• The players in the parable (who are they? why does it matter?); (2) the point of the parable (what it teaches us); and (3) the power of the parable (how can it change our lives?).

First then, the Players:

Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Two men; two very different identities. Identity is at the heart of this parable, as it is very much at the heart of Twenty first century life. It sometimes feels that we are in the middle of a great cultural identity migration. Gender roles are merging. Racial identities are being shed. In the last few years we’ve been made to see how trans and bi and poly-ambi-omni we are.

Everything touches on identity, even our very own selves  that some of us mediate through online social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, images of how we want the world to identify us.

If you asked the players in the parable “Who are you? What defines you?” you’d get two very different answers.

Who was the Pharisee? Even the name of this group is about identity — the Hebrew word it comes from, perushin, literally means “separated ones.”

Pharisees claimed their identity by being separate, set apart, holier than everybody else. So, this Pharisee prays: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, not even like this tax collector.”

Now put the question of identity to the tax collector.

Remember Rome was a long way from Palestine. It would take a

huge bureaucracy to collect taxes there, so Rome sub-contracted the job.

Some Jews became “tax farmers,” private citizens who collected taxes for Rome, and the system was set up so they had to collect more than Rome demanded to make their own profit. Nobody in Jewish society was more despised than tax collectors.

The identities of these two men couldn’t have been more different. Just think about how they prayed.

The Pharisee stands confidently before God, but away from the others in the temple.

He knew he was righteous, and his prayer was completely self-directed:“I thank God that I . . . I don’t steal or commit adultery; the law says fast once a week, I fast two; it says give ten percent of what you earn, I tithe even on what I buy.”

The tax collector prayed differently — He beat his breast, which some of us do at mass sometimes — it’s a sign of penitence. He looked down, a sign of humility. Rather than “God, look how righteous I am,” he said “God, have mercy on me because of how righteous I’m not.”

Two men; two prayers; two different identities. Those are the players.

So what about The Purpose of the Parable: Jesus says “I tell you, this man (the tax collector) went home justified rather than the other (the Pharisee) . . . .” This parable is answering a particular question. That’s its purpose. “Who is qualified to enter God’s kingdom?” And the answer was shocking — because It’s not the religious chap, the one who tithes and fasts.

May I just say something that probably should be clear but maybe isn’t? Fasting — is good. Jesus assumed his followers would fast. Tithing, sharing our blessings with the poor, serving others with our wealth — is good. Giving’s hard — but it’s good.

It’s not the Pharisee’s practice of tithing he has to change; it’s not his commitment to the religious practice of fasting he has to lay aside; it’s thinking that those things make him righteous. They don’t!

The one person who gets into heaven is the one who knows he doesn’t have to pay a price of admission. The purpose of the parable is to drive home one truth: Good works won’t buy a place in Gods Kingdom; His merciful Grace is the only game in town.

So, what about The Power of the Parable:

Almost every biblical commentator will tell you to watch out for a trap.

The story is dangerous because we could just adopt different criteria for righteousness before God.

“Ok, maybe I can’t keep all the commandments like the Pharisee, but . . . what if I look down my nose at all the religious types and flip the situation?” Still trying to justify ourselves, this time by our great humility, we find our mouths praying the words: “God, I thank thee that I am not like the Pharisee!” And that’s a sure sign that actually our hearts haven’t changed at all.

Who is the hero of the story? It’s not the Pharisee, and it’s not even the Tax Collector with the heart of gold — it’s God.

God saves not because we keep the law or even because know we can’t. Our God saves for one reason: He loves us.

And that, my friends, is the power of this parable. Power to change.

Understand that God knows you completely, but he loves you completely. God knows us — he knows how much we want to buy him off, how lots of times pride lies underneath our religion — he knows us to our depths, but he loves us to the skies. And that changes hearts.

As I end my sermon this morning, please just take a moment to close your eyes and listen.

Who are you? What is your identity?

You are not your CV and the jobs and roles you have held in the past.

You are not your online social media account.

You are not the rules you keep or what other people think of you.

You are not your sexuality or the relationships you have.

You are not your brokenness.

You are, quite simply, God’s beloved child.

God already knows all about us — our failures, how sometimes we’re unhappy, how we can feel awkward or out of place or alone. And he loves us. Love like that changes us — in fact, it’s the only thing that ever does. That’s the gospel — a God who won’t be distant. Who knows us to our very depths, but loves us to the skies — and he’ll call us home fully justified, if we will just let him.

2 Kg 5.1-3, 7-15             Psalm 111                        2 T 2.8-15                         Luke 17.11-19

Throughout the chapters of the Gospel of Luke previous to today’s reading, the Evangelist again and again and again presents the Good News through telling stories. He illustrates a series of personal encounters between Jesus and others – sometimes with his followers, sometimes his opponents, sometimes strangers. There were crowds of the curious and hopeful and various individuals – a tax collector, a centurion, a grieving mother, a sinful woman, a man inflicted with demons. As Luke relates these stories, he shows Jesus responding with love and grace and using the occasions to teach the values of God, while challenging the contrasting and distorted ways of the world.

Now, having reached Chapter 17 in the liturgical calendar, we find Luke recalling an episode in which Jesus was engaged by 10 lepers begging for mercy. These unfortunates suffered from what we now call Hanson’s disease. This malady, known among humans for thousands of years, went untreated in biblical times and caused permanent damage to skin, nerves, limbs and eyes, compromised the immune system, and hastened death. Though it is now known to be only mildly infectious, the ancients considered it highly contagious and forced lepers to stay away from others, identifying their condition by announcing, “Unclean. Unclean,” when approached.

As a result, they were excluded from the general society and forced to make their own communities, not unlike leper colonies that still exist in some parts of the world. They became dead men walking – at the mercy of others, ostracised, alienated from the richness of family life and the comfort of communal religious practices.

Like others, the lepers in today’s gospel were outcasts who bound themselves to one another out of necessity and because no one else would touch them. All that mattered was their disease, as evidenced by the inclusion among them of a Samaritan who would have been a hated and shunned foreigner in mainline Jewish society.

This band of 10 had nothing to offer others; nothing to offer Jesus when they saw him coming. But they recognized him, perhaps by his reputation as a holy man, and approached within shouting distance the one they knew by name. They cried out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Possessing enough inspiration, or maybe just a sense of desperation, they reached out to Jesus with an appeal for healing that went beyond all conventional expectations.

Jesus did not hesitate in his response. He did not back off or require the lepers to confess faith in God. He did not inquire about whether they were worthy. He did not ask anything of them. Jesus saw them and said simply, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

According to Jewish law, a cured leper had to appear before the priests, who would conduct a series of elaborate ritual actions in order to declare them cleansed. The lepers, who had hoped in Jesus, now displayed enough faith to obey him. They immediately left his presence to go to the priests as required and to begin the new lives Jesus made possible.

What Jesus did for them, of course, bore remarkable significance. Not only were they cured of a horrendous, disabling disease, but the cleansing also enabled them to overcome what was perhaps the greater affliction. Now they could return to the community, to become a part of the body that had cast them out. Now they could participate in life fully, restored physically and socially, and surely, experiencing the beginnings of emotional healing.

Yet, we might ask, did they gain everything Jesus hoped for? Did they achieve spiritual healing, as well? We will never know about all of them, but we have assurance that one did – the Samaritan who returned to give thanks. If we wonder what led to his distinguishing himself by praising God and falling at Jesus’ feet in gratitude, we might speculate that it was easier for him – as a double outcast – to see clearly the remarkable nature of what had happened. More likely, however, it was due to his greater maturity and deeper strength of character.

Whatever the reason, Jesus was saddened that he was the only one who turned back, and he used the one and the nine to teach his disciples another lesson about the values of God. He was clearly disappointed by the behavior of the nine, and in earshot of his followers, he said to the now-cleansed Samaritan leper, “Your faith has made you well.”

In place of the word “well,” some translations use “made whole” or “saved.” There is ambiguity about the Greek meaning, but its use by Jesus surely implies more than simply being cured from a disease. “Your faith has made you whole,” seems closer to the way Jesus used this episode to provide a new teaching. The Samaritan was not simply cured like the others, but experienced something more important.

His response to being cleansed demonstrated that his view of God was closer to what Jesus came to reveal. He acted not out of selfishness to gain certification of his cure, not rushing to the priests without reflection, but paused to put his cleansing in a wider perspective, seeing God as the centre of the personal miracle he was experiencing. Before anything else, the Samaritan gave thanks for the chance to renew his life. This was the beginning of his transformation, and it provided a fitting model for Jesus to honour. He was not only cured physically, but he also gained spiritual wholeness.

There are a number of “take aways” from today’s gospel – community, inclusivity and wholeness in the life of the world and in Christianity. Think about the Eucharist. The moment we experience among our fellow Christians, in prayer and at the altar rail, is unity in its purest form. Receiving the sacrament of bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, all else is shut out but the holy context. We are at one with God and one another, in a sublime moment of grace.

In this moment we are made whole. Even if we lose this reality as we go back to our seats, we know it as a deep truth on which to draw on our journeys of faith. In that moment, we know that everyone is like the Samaritan, freed from alienation and separation from others in a realm of God that includes a circle of universal inclusion.

Luke’s story of this encounter between Jesus and the lepers allows him to teach us about the disappointment Jesus felt because the nine failed to give thanks and the joy he experienced in discovering that the Samaritan recognised the deeper truths of God. When Jesus reflects on the difference, he speaks no less to us than the disciples of old. Today we are reminded of the sadness of our Lord when we, like the nine, fail to follow him, but we also are led to emulate the Samaritan. We can take joy in committing ourselves anew to respond in love and gratitude to the grace, forgiveness and wholeness of God that we all can have simply by accepting this freely offered gift.