Sunday Worship
Welcome to our Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish. Our Church services are at the usual times of 9.15 am at St Agnes' and 11.00 am at St Thomas'.
If you can't be with us in person, the Gospel reading, reflection and prayers can be found below.
Our first hymn this morning is "God Forgave My Sin (Freely, Freely)"
Today's Gospel
Luke 18:9-14 The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, `God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."
Reflection
`God, be merciful to me, a sinner!
That’s a really powerful admission and request for mercy. Just take a moment of stillness and say it to yourself a few times. Think about it, it’s a truly awesome sentence. Think firstly about the admission – I am a sinner! The truth is we are all sinners, some little sins and some larger sins. Whoever we are we commit sins, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes consciously. Sometimes, we even try and convince ourselves that they are for a greater good, or maybe ‘the lesser of two evils’. There is only who is without sin and that is Jesus.
Next think about the request. “God be merciful to me”. We are asking God to show us mercy. What is mercy? I suppose one way of looking at it is that we don’t get the punishment we deserve or there is some sort of leniency. In last week’s reflection we considered the importance of being persistent in our prayer life and also being humble and honest when we talk with God. Say again to yourself, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner! Hopefully, you are beginning to see how powerful this short prayer that the tax collector said actually is. How uplifting it can be if we say it with honestly and humbleness.
God sent Jesus—who never sinned - to pay the price for our sins. Even though we deserve to be punished for the sins we commit, God was merciful and allowed Jesus to take the punishment for us. That should make us feel very humble, indeed!
Having spent my formative years in that great county of Yorkshire, I have to admit, that I had never heard the phrase “Ee’s got a shilling on ‘imself”, until I started working in Oldham. At the time there was no google to turn to for a quick translation, but when I’d heard it a few times, I worked out that it meant that someone had a sense of superiority or self-importance, some might say, ‘full of themselves’.
Jesus addressed the Pharisees directly with this parable as he could clearly see that they clearly had a shilling on themselves. They looked down on other people and believed that because they obeyed the laws and were in many ways better off, they were justified in God’s eyes. They were arrogant and haughty and they believed the way to enter God’s kingdom was just by following the rules. However, these were not just the rules given by God to Moses, there were hundreds and thousands of man-made rules, often that benefited the Pharisees and Kings through the ages.
However, Jesus did not tell them the parable to admonish them; whilst he wanted to show them the error of their thinking, he also wanted to give them a positive message, that there was always time to repent and that if they did, then they too could ask for God’s mercy as the way to share in His kingdom.
As we say again, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner!, let us reflect with contrition as the tax collector did. He was truly sad about the fact that he was a sinner, and he was humble in his need for God’s mercy. The only thing we can offer God is our faith and willingness to repent and ask for God’s to be merciful to us. Paul
