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Thought for the Week 6 June – 1st Sunday after Trinity
Today
is the first Sunday of Ordinary Time.
This is defined at the two parts of the church year that are not devoted
to some special seasonal observance, such as Advent or Lent. Ordinary time is
broken into two parts – the weeks between the Epiphany season and Lent, and
the much longer period between Pentecost and Advent. The term comes from the
joining of some Latin words to do with the passage of time, but the term ordinary
is not entirely inappropriate however you derive it. Some
preachers like to announce their sermons in Ordinary Time by saying something
like “Today is the second Sunday of the Church’s Teaching Season, and there
are only 29 more to go”. It is
appropriate to groan loudly if he or she says this! However, long as it is,
this period is probably just as important in the scheme of things as the more
glamorous seasons of Christmas, Easter and Epiphany, or the Advent season of
expectation, or the Lenten season of reflection and penitence. Ordinary
Time is that longish period of the year during which we can follow, and
enjoy, nature. Vines spring to life after the long winter. The trees are in
full leaf by now but their leaves still have that luminous brightness of
young growth. We emulate the green-ness of nature by wearing green in the
liturgies during this period. All over France, towns designated as Ville
Fleurie have colorful planter boxes full of geraniums and pansies, and people
are planning fetes of various kinds. We will be able to watch the tomatoes
climb their poles, the flowers herald small fruit that will rapidly grow and
ripen to bring delight to our salads. As
Ordinary Time progresses, the summer will become languid and hot – so will
we! The church buildings that are so frigid in winter will be blessedly cool.
Towards the end of Ordinary Time will come the harvest and then the glorious
colors of Autumn, and the wonderful cycle of nature will have run its course
again. We
humans seem to become settled during Ordinary Time – the cycle of spring,
summer and autumn. It is good for us. Many aspects of our lives proceed in an
orderly way, as we pursue the things we enjoy doing; taking the planned
holiday, wearing light and airy clothes, and in general enjoying life in a
casual way. Against
this setting, the life and work of Jesus are presented to us to study and
think about in a fairly orderly way. We are perhaps most receptive to
following the life, teaching and miracles of Jesus during an unhurried period
when nature and the weather seem to conspire to help us, when coming to
church is pleasant and easy, and when we are not being harried to catalog our
sins, or to struggle with hard theological doctrines that can stretch our
ability to understand or to believe. It
is true that miracles, by their very nature, must stretch our imagination,
sometimes to the limit, but in the context of Ordinary Time, as we walk with
Jesus from place to place, participate in the questions of the disciples,
identify with all those whose lives are changed forever by contact with
Jesus, we can develop a deeper and more secure understanding of just who he
is, and how we can relate to him. Week
by week we will encounter Jesus mainly through the eyes of Luke. His account
differs in quite a few ways from those of the two other Synoptic Gospels –
you remember that the Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark and Luke – excluding
John, which alone was based on another premise and some other sources. Some
points to keep in the back of our minds as the weeks progress, and Luke
offers us more and more insights into the life and work of Jesus, are, first,
that Luke is a gentile himself. He writes in Greek, mainly for an audience of
non-Jews. This makes him very accessible to us, despite the time warp. One
commentator has written that “Luke provides a deep impression of the
personality and teachings of Jesus Christ” and that is a very good
description. Next, there is the widely held view that Luke was a professional
man, a physician perhaps, but certainly a man with a logical and pragmatic
mind, and well educated. Although his story is clearly based on the previous
accounts of Mark and Matthew, it contains some unique material. This is an
indication that he also had other sources, including the material that
scholars call “Q” – a collection of sayings and stories about Jesus, long
lost. In Luke we find the story of the Good Samaritan, the story of the
Prodigal Son, the story of the Dishonest Steward – all unique to his account. In
some ways, Luke presents a problem for the preacher – because his account is
clear and accessible. There are few hidden agendas, and few obscure messages.
If one reads the gospel of Luke like a contemporary book it will certainly
yield a clear historical account, interspersed with illustrations and
anecdotes. In other words, it is good reading. The
role of women in Luke’s gospel seems to come naturally, and much more so than
in the other accounts. Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha of Bethany, and even
the Annunciation narrative all seem to flow from his pen in a very accepting
way. Quite right too, according to
modern thinking, but rather unusual given the times in which Luke was
writing. Our
job, though, is to take each Sunday’s passage from Luke and seek, not only to
understand it, but to find ways to bring some message into our own lives.
Sometimes that message is personal, affecting our particular hopes or fears,
our own faith or our own doubts, our own struggles if you will. Sometimes the
message concerns our community life together. Sometimes it will point towards
the wider world, threatening the security of our little comfort zones. Today’s
miracle story perhaps bridges a couple of these categories. There is a clear
connection between the account of Elijah restoring the widow’s son to life,
and Jesus doing the same thing. Let us not delve too deeply into the First
Book of Kings today, but do take note of the way in which the widow rails
against Elijah and then, in the same way Elijah rails against God. This tells
us something about the relationship between the Jews of old and their God –
and it has endured throughout the centuries. Even today, although we think of
it as a caricature, Jews have a special way of articulating their
relationship with God, and it differs from ours. You
may know the story of the Jewish man who desperately wanted to win the
lottery. Every week he would pray to God, asking for just this one favor.
Every week when the results came out he would loudly complain that God had,
yet again, failed to grant him his wish. One day, after berating God in this
way, the man was stunned by a thunderous voice from heaven, which told him
“The reason you have yet to win the lottery is that you have yet to buy a
ticket”. Luke
does not include this characteristic; instead he reveals the compassion that
moves Jesus when the situation is presented to him. The
miracle is impressive, yes, and achieves one of its purposes – to impress on
the viewers and hearers that this is no ordinary man. The miracle is also the
vehicle for the concern and compassion Jesus exhibits towards someone he has
never met, in circumstances not of his making, and involving a situation
already in progress. He is not asked to intervene, in this case, though in
others he is. Yet he sees the pain and
feels it. He sees the loss, and empathizes. He sees the changed and desperate
situation in which the widow now finds herself, and understands it. And he
does something about it. Raising
someone to life who is clinically dead is not something we are likely to be
able to do ourselves. If any of you ever pull it off, I would like to be one
of the first to know. But emulating
everything else that Jesus did that day - these are indeed things we can do,
and should do, whenever we can. We can indeed perceive and feel the pain of
others. We can indeed experience loss, and emphasize. We can indeed perceive
changed and desperate circumstances, and understand them. And, yes, we can
often do something about these things. If
your plan for emulating Jesus, as the gospel passage exhorts us to do,
involves winning the lottery, then don’t forget to buy a ticket. Otherwise,
call upon the riches and resources you already have – your seeing eye, your
listening ear, your compassionate heart, your will and your wits. These are
enough for you to bring about miracles of your own. As for opportunities to practice your own
miracle working skills, I think you already know that there is no shortage of
those. Revd
Tony Jewiss: Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for the Week page, click X at top right to close this window. |