Lord God,May my words and actions speak of your truth, today and always, Amen
In our readings today from both our gospel passage from Luke and Paul’s letter to the Colossians there are themes of earthly versus heavenly and those things we need to stop. Some of these are more explicit, some are more obtuse and I thought it might be interesting to explore not only these but also a bit about the traits of being human.
In Luke’s gospel Jesus is asked to arbitrate over the inheritance left by someone who has died. He talks of greed and warns that greed comes in many forms and, as he often does, Jesus then goes on to speak in a parable about the rich man storing up his crops in ever increasing sizes of barns and effectively putting his feet up!
In Paul’s letter there are similar elements as he is quite clear about what needs to be cast off, we all heard it….for example fornication, passion, and greed but also anger, malice, and abusive language. All of which I think we can hopefully agree with however not everyone in society would do so.
But as those of us who have needed to stop doing something we have done for a long time either through habit or self-satisfaction will know, for change to be most effective there needs to be a very good reason as well a replacement for the item dropped.
Habits are a very earthly function, not only by humans but by nature as a whole, from cockerels crowing at sunrise, and hedgehogs and badgers emerging as dusk sets in… to always sleeping on the same side of the bed whether or not you share the bed with another person and vaping on the way to the station. No one has ever said this is what is required or listed a set of instructions that this is the way to behave although in the case of nature this has been learned through survival instincts over thousands of years.
But in both readings there is a clear accent on stopping of non-Christlike habits but a distinct absence of what is required if the texts are read as standalone passages, as might be the case if a non-Christian was to walk in here today.
I don’t know about you but sometimes I prefer to be told what to do as the ‘new season’ me rather than thinking for myself as isn’t this just easier and simpler?
As random as it may seem…
It’s a bit like being on an extreme diet, we’ve all seen or heard of them. The TV advert says:
‘Eat nothing all day except these two protein shakes then eat whatever you like for tea and still lose weight’.
These diets are all very well and short term there is weight loss but equally we know that in the long term they are not successful because they cannot be maintained as what is being supplemented is insufficient and not sustainable.
My thinking took me to pondering the part of this that relates to the replacement for the things we are told to stop doing once we have stopped.
The question on my mind is ‘Have you ever thought about the Christlike gifts given to you by God that might help?’
Not physical gifts like food, family, wealth, a house possibly, rather the gifts that you might have been given inside of you, as part of your being, so much a part of you that maybe you do not even recognise they are there?
I am not sure if I am alone in not being aware of some of these. Sometimes it takes others to point them out to us as we are often blind to not only our own faults but also our attributes. Each and every one of us, here and in our community and across the world have attributes that are pure gifts of God.
Whilst we could consider these gifts in terms of gifts of the Holy Spirit which are written in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as being wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, and speaking and interpretation of tongues, these for me are far too much of a high level concept. After all, if we can’t learn to recognise the ‘out-working’ of these in ourselves then how will we ever recognise this overarching thinking?
I would like you to take a moment to think about something that you can do that might be perceived to be different to others, your own personal dietary supplements as it were, don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me or anyone else, all that is required just a little self-reflection……
If you need a little help it may be that you can bake the most amazing cakes even though you use the same recipe as your neighbour, it may be that you can listen to others attentively, it may be that you see tasks that need to be done that are not observed by others and just do them…..So take a moment to reflect on yourself……
In summary:
Earlier I was talking about casting off things that are not required by God and how rejecting these things takes firstly some strength of mind but also then requires replacements so that we can live openly in Christ trying to avoid falling into another hole created by our human nature.
Strength of mind is also a gift from God and it is also one of the replacements that is a gift that is important this morning.
God has provided us graciously with gifts and we don’t all have the same ones.
For me it is whether we store up these gifts or ‘replacements for wrongdoings’ in a barn, or rather in ourselves for a rainy day like the rich man who was to die the next day, or whether we use them for the good of others in sharing God’s love with our neighbours as opposed to hatred and self satisfaction.
We need these replacements for those things which we are called to reject because of our human frailty. If we share our gifts and talents that were given to us by God then I believe this means we are as Paul says, alive in Christ.
My ask for each of us is this… to self reflect on the gifts we know we have been given by God to help us not to do the things we should abstain from but also to kindly help one another to recognise the gifts we cannot see in ourselves.
Hearing what others think we are gifted with can be uncomfortable and some amongst us might refer to it as ‘Bleurgy’ so ..please be gentle.
Amen.
Service: Chris Royle 3rd August 2025. (St Luke’s Church Peterborough UK)
Readings: Ecclesiastes 1.2,12-14; 2.18-23; Psalm 49.1-12 (or 49.1-9); Colossians 3.1-11; Luke 12.13-21