Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Twentyfirst Sunday after Trinity. Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Ahnes' and 11.15 at St Thomas'.
If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "New Every Morning is the Love"
Today's Gospel
Matthew 22:34-46Whose son is the Messiah?
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’ He said to them, ‘How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’ ”?
If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Reflection
In Matthew 22 we reach the climax of a series of encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees. Both deem themselves to be theological experts in the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible), albeit they disagree fundamentally on some matters such as resurrection. Both are also determined to undermine Jesus’ teaching and moreover are trying to manipulate him into committing blasphemy so they can arrest him.
As the public questioning continues Jesus turns the tables on his interrogators with a question of his own. Whose son is the Messiah?
In asking this question we can see the subtlety in how he deals with arrogance of the these so called learned theologians and lawyers. He does not go all out to prove his argument and belittle the experts. He has already proved his knowledge of the Bible in the previous encounters.
Rather, he takes a much more nuanced approach to help them, and more importantly those around, work out for themselves the significance of who the Messiah is. He does not openly proclaim that he is the son of God, instead his question challenges them to analyse the words of the scriptures and work it out for themselves.
He turns the encounter from a contest into an exercise in helping all those around to interpret the scriptures for themselves. So he draws their attention to Psalm 110 written by David many years earlier. The experts’ response is to think in human terms, that the Messiah is a descendant of David. They were unable to make the connection which David himself had foretold, that the Messiah would not only be a human descendant of David’s line but also at the same time David’s Lord – Jesus was providing them the answer from their revered holy scripture in the expectation that some of them would weigh the words of the psalms and join the dots - that the Messiah was not merely the earthly Son of David, but was God himself made flesh. That the Messiah was both fully human and also fully divine. For us we are also called to believe in the mysteries of God and accept the truth that with God, nothing is impossible. Rev. Paul
Our Prayers
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your divine mystery, which we sometimes struggle to perceive.
Help us to accept the wonder of all you are and to trust and love you,
with our whole hearts, and souls and minds.
Amen
Today's final hymn is "We Have a Gospel to Proclaim"
Notices
Upcoming events can be seen in the posters below -
