Sunday Worship
Welcome to our Sunday Worship. Our services are at the usual times of 9.15 am at St Agnes' Church, and 11.00 am at St Thomas'.
If you're unable to be with us in person, the Gospel, a short reflection and a prayer are shown below so that you can worship from home.
Our first hymn this morning is "Beauty for Brokenness"
Today's Gospel
Luke 9:51-62 The Cost of Following Jesus
When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
Reflection
In this short reflection I would like to focus on the second half of the passage above. We see what looks like really harsh responses from Jesus to would be followers in response to what look like quite reasonable requests. On the face of it, Jesus seems to be expecting us to put aside all our personal belonging and homes, to turn our backs on our loved ones and not even grieve for the dead if we are to secure a place in his kingdom.
However, if we put aside the hyperbole in these extreme examples, perhaps we can see the underlying message and then look at how it applies to us. I do not think that Jesus expects us all to lead itinerant nomadic lives with no ties and cares for our families, or that if we love our families, we will be barred from following Him. I believe his reaction is more to call out how we assess our priorities, because it is how we do this that exposes the true intention in our heart.
How many times have you had good intentions but then not followed up on them? Maybe you intended to ask your neighbour if they want the bins putting out because they had broken their arm, or you thought it would nice to offer to cut their lawn because their mower is broken. But you put it off and then you see the bin wagon has already been or someone else has cut the grass. Deep down perhaps your actions showed that your intentions weren’t aligned with your heart so you prioritised other things ahead of smelly dustbins or getting rid of the cat droppings on the neighbour’s lawn before you cut it.
Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself"
There is no ambiguity in this statement, he is making it quite clear where our priorities should lie. Jesus is not condemning our family commitments, rather, He is challenging our priorities and how often we allow anyone or anything to come before our commitment to love and serve Him unconditionally.
I would be surprised if anyone reading this, does not want to follow Jesus. Similarly, I don’t doubt that the intentions of the three people in the Gospel reading were genuine and that they also truly wanted to follow Jesus. But once we start to make excuses for not doing something today, we need to ask ourselves where is God in our list of priorities and where is God in our heart? Have we just put God into an hour slot on Sunday or do we invite Him into our lives every day? Let us show God that we love Him as much as He loves us!
What we do not know, from reading this passage, is what the eventual outcome was for the three would be followers of Jesus. I would like to think that at some point they got their priorities right and that we can do the same. Paul
