Sunday
29th August - 13th after
Trinity (green)
Theme: The generous spirit
Readings: Jeremiah 2:4-13
Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16 Luke 14:7-14 Ps 112
Theme: The generous spirit
Readings: Jeremiah 2:4-13
Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16 Luke 14:7-14 Ps 112
Collect:
Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Comment
The good news of Jesus is all about grace – undeserved love, unmerited favour. We are a people who have received astonishing grace from God, who loved us so much that he gave his only Son for us all. Jesus willingly went to the cross for us, so that we can be forgiven, set free, and welcomed into the family of our Father God. There’s no way we deserve or merit any of this. It is sheer grace, generous love.
We who have received such love cannot just hug it to ourselves. If our hearts are open for such love to enter, they are also open for such love to go out to others. We who have freely received cannot but freely give.
We cannot receive such generosity from God without becoming generous ourselves. The generous Spirit infects our spirits with his own generosity.
Hebrews 13 shows some of the practical outworking of this generous love.
It begins with love towards the other members of our spiritual family.
We are to treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. (Each of us have different experiences of family life; we are to think of an ideal middle eastern family, where families are close and caring and willing to help family members whatever their needs may be.)
One aspect of that love is giving hospitality. Some of us have experienced middle eastern hospitality, given generously by complete strangers. In our own culture we have to be careful, of course, but we must not let our culture stifle our generosity, especially to those who may be our spiritual brothers and sisters even though we don’t really know them.
Where our brother or sister is unable to come to us – through imprisonment, or more often in our experience through ill health or family circumstances – we can go to them. I’ve just heard of a cousin of mine who drove from near Cambridge to St Bees in the Lakes and back one day to spend a few hours with another cousin who is ill – that meant so much to the one who was visited.
Love of course must not stray into infidelity – marriages must be safe-guarded. Neither should it be limited by financial concerns, whether that be chasing after more and more or worry about decreasing resources. The writer here is echoing what Jesus had to say about
anxiety: we are to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and he will provide for us. (That doesn’t mean that we should not plan for the future, but it does mean that we should trust God to give us the daily bread we pray for.)
Leaders of the church need of course to show the way in this generosity of spirit. The writer assumes that the leaders of the people he is writing to were good role models! (In his day they would include all the
apostles!) However, we must not think that the way Christian leaders behave is beyond us, as if they were ‘super spiritual’ and had a hot line to God. They, too, are imitating Jesus, and Jesus is our good shepherd just as much as he is theirs. What he can do for those we look up to in the faith, he can do for us.
Our deeds must match our words. God is love; Jesus shows it, so must we.
Questions
1) What are the limits to our generosity? Are those the right limits?
2) Who are your role models? Why?
Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Comment
The good news of Jesus is all about grace – undeserved love, unmerited favour. We are a people who have received astonishing grace from God, who loved us so much that he gave his only Son for us all. Jesus willingly went to the cross for us, so that we can be forgiven, set free, and welcomed into the family of our Father God. There’s no way we deserve or merit any of this. It is sheer grace, generous love.
We who have received such love cannot just hug it to ourselves. If our hearts are open for such love to enter, they are also open for such love to go out to others. We who have freely received cannot but freely give.
We cannot receive such generosity from God without becoming generous ourselves. The generous Spirit infects our spirits with his own generosity.
Hebrews 13 shows some of the practical outworking of this generous love.
It begins with love towards the other members of our spiritual family.
We are to treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. (Each of us have different experiences of family life; we are to think of an ideal middle eastern family, where families are close and caring and willing to help family members whatever their needs may be.)
One aspect of that love is giving hospitality. Some of us have experienced middle eastern hospitality, given generously by complete strangers. In our own culture we have to be careful, of course, but we must not let our culture stifle our generosity, especially to those who may be our spiritual brothers and sisters even though we don’t really know them.
Where our brother or sister is unable to come to us – through imprisonment, or more often in our experience through ill health or family circumstances – we can go to them. I’ve just heard of a cousin of mine who drove from near Cambridge to St Bees in the Lakes and back one day to spend a few hours with another cousin who is ill – that meant so much to the one who was visited.
Love of course must not stray into infidelity – marriages must be safe-guarded. Neither should it be limited by financial concerns, whether that be chasing after more and more or worry about decreasing resources. The writer here is echoing what Jesus had to say about
anxiety: we are to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and he will provide for us. (That doesn’t mean that we should not plan for the future, but it does mean that we should trust God to give us the daily bread we pray for.)
Leaders of the church need of course to show the way in this generosity of spirit. The writer assumes that the leaders of the people he is writing to were good role models! (In his day they would include all the
apostles!) However, we must not think that the way Christian leaders behave is beyond us, as if they were ‘super spiritual’ and had a hot line to God. They, too, are imitating Jesus, and Jesus is our good shepherd just as much as he is theirs. What he can do for those we look up to in the faith, he can do for us.
Our deeds must match our words. God is love; Jesus shows it, so must we.
Questions
1) What are the limits to our generosity? Are those the right limits?
2) Who are your role models? Why?