This week’s Readings and Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity
The Collect for This Week
Gracious Father, by the obedience of Jesus you brought salvation to our wayward world: draw us into harmony with your will, that we may find all things restored in him, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The Post Communion Prayer for this week
Eternal God, comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken, you have fed us at the table of life and hope: teach us the ways of gentleness and peace, that all the world may acknowledge the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Psalm 82
God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgement: 2 ‘How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? 3 Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. 4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.’ 5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 I say, ‘You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.’ 8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever. Amen
The Old Testament Reading for this Sunday is from the book of the prophet Amos, Chapter 7, verses 7 to17
This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. 8 And the Lordsaid to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb-line.’ Then the Lord said,
‘See, I am setting a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; 9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.’
10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the very centre of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. 11 For thus Amos has said,
“Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.”’
12 And Amaziah said to Amos, ‘O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; 13 but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’ 14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycomore trees, 15 and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
16 ‘Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, “Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.”
17 Therefore, thus says the Lord: “Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parcelled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.”’
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The New Testament reading for this Sunday is taken from the Letter of St Paul to the Colossians, Chapter 1 verses 1 to 14
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
3 In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. 7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s ]will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.[
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from the Gospel according to St Luke, Chapter 10, verses 25 to 37
Hear the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to Luke Glory to You, O Lord
25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26 He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27 He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ 28 And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii,[k] gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to You, O Christ
The sermon this week
As there is no service in church this week, we don’t have a sermon to share. However, here is a reflection on the Gospel reading, taken from an internet post of their weekly sermon by the Taunton United reform Church
I suspect that if ask people what the message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is they will say something like, ‘Love your neighbour’ or ‘Go and do thou likewise’. There are hundreds of hospitals and charities in the world named after this parable. We all know about The Samaritans of course. The parable calls us to let go of all those fears and constraints that hold us back from loving our fellow human beings. And that’s a message that we need to hear, and that we will probably always need to hear. But, those of us who gathered on Tuesday, thought about this parable a bit earlier in the week – and we could see that it’s actually doing something a bit more complicated and a bit less obvious than telling us to ‘be good’. It’s telling us that people we expect to be good sometimes aren’t – and that people we expect to be bad are sometimes good. And perhaps it also challenges us to accept that sometimes we are not the do gooders, but the wounded. And that sometimes we’re not the ‘givers’ but the receivers – and that we can receive grace and goodness and kindness from people and in places we least expect… So the ‘be good neighbours’ message is a good one – but it’s not the whole story…
For centuries and centuries people in the Church have been talking about what this story means – and there are lots of different takes on it. I think it may be that the reading of this story that is most popular – if you take Christianity as whole and think about Christians all over the world and throughout history – might just be one we wouldn’t naturally think of.
From the early teachers of the Church right up to today in many places this story is actually read as a parable of the whole story of the Gospel, the story of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. It’s not read first of all as a kind of moral exhortation to us, but as a kind of celebration of what God does for us. So today I’d like to unfold this way of reading the parable and see whether God will speak to us through it. It has something to say – especially when you are feeling a bit worn down by all the usual messages about being a good neighbour – perhaps when you are feeling a bit battered by life yourself…
Have a look at the picture that’s printed inside the order of service – and you will see that the Good Samaritan is shown as Jesus. That’s how many have seen this parable. If you go to the great cathedral in Chartres and look at the stained glass windows – you’ll find a window depicting the fall of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from Eden. And then right there below it, as a kind of answer to the story of Adam and Eve, is a window showing the parable of the Good Samaritan. This story is understood to give the answer to the woundedness not of one particular injured man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, but of all humanity. The wounded man represents all of us, in this view. The priest and Levite who pass by represent all those people and systems and ways of thinking that just can’t help us or who will not, and the Samaritan represents Jesus Christ, who God sends to heal us and care for us and restore us from death to life. And I know that you might say that Jesus can’t really have meant the story to mean that, but lots of Christians have understood it this way. And it does at least lead us away from the trapof thinking of ourselves as the Good Samaritan, as the one called to acts of charity and healing. It helps us see ourselves in the place of the wounded man, and to know ourselves as those in need of healing and grace. We are so easily led to see ourselves as the hero of the story – when perhaps we might need to see ourselves first of all in that place of woundedness. We need to see ourselves as those who belong there I think, before we can truly know what it means to give to others. Do you see what I mean?
I find this way of looking at this text more moving and grace giving than all the many calls to be good Samaritans which I have heard and even spoken myself. Perhaps because I’m aware of my wounds and of the wounds of all of us, I cherish the story of the Gospel that tells me that God has sent his Son to find me, and pick me up and heal me and take care of me. And of course that Gospel story becomes all the more poignant and healing, when I see that Jesus was not only good, like the Samaritan, but also wounded himself like the poor traveller on the road. The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection are, I believe, the real oil and wine for the woundedness of human beings like you and me. This really is the Gospel of Christ.
You will know, perhaps, a little about the story of the hymn writer John Newton. He was a slave trader, but had a conversion experience and, eventually, abandoned his former trade and joined the abolitionists. He wrote the world’s favourite hymn, Amazing Grace. But he wrote other hymns too, among them one on the parable of the Good Samaritan – which we shall sing in a moment. It may not be the world’s greatest hymn – but I think it shows that this way of reading the parable really works… in a way. It moves me away from thinking of myself as the hero of the story and it helps me see what is true – that I am the wounded one and Jesus is the real hero of the story of God’s dealings with the world.
An exercise which Christians are sometimes invited to do with any Bible story is to ask ‘where are you in the story?’ –‘which character do you identity with?’. I think, throughout my life, there are many times when I’ve thought of myself as the religious ones – the priest and Levite – too hurried by holy tasks or obligations to stop to help one in need – and I’ve known myself accused and challenged. And sometimes I’ve thought of myself as the Good Samaritan, or hoped at least to be like that, the one who helps, and who needs to be encouraged to love my neighbour, whoever needs me. And do you know, there are days when I could easily be the robbers, when rage and anger fill me and when I feel the frustrations that many people feel. But maybe one place where I can often see myself in this story, and perhaps where you can too, is in the place of the wounded one. Life hurts. There are days when all of us know what it is be beaten – and if not literally, then in other ways. There are times when we feel utterly alone, our suffering unnoticed. This is not what some individuals endure, but is what it is to be a human being.
And often when we’ve thought about where we are in the story, someone might ask us, ‘Where is Jesus?’. Of course you might say, ‘He’s the narrator’. But I think you can also quite properly say that Jesus is the good Samaritan, the one who comes to rescue us on the difficult journey of life. Jesus is the one who reveals God’s response to human woundedness – and who lifts us up from our place in the depths. This is the Gospel.
If we were having communion today you could also see this story acted out in bread and wine. There is wine for the healing of our wounds. There is the hospitality which waits to welcome us home. And there is the story of the sacrifice which Christ made once for us.
You see ‘the Gospel’ is not first of all an imperative to ‘be good’ – though I know that lots of people think that’s what our message is. The Gospel is the story of what God has done for us, and for what God is still doing within us, through Christ. We are not here so that we can strive to be good – but so that we can hear the good news that God has come to us while we are unable to do anything much, come to us in our woundedness, and making us whole. We are all hurt, all flawed, all weak. But Christ, like the good Samaritan, can take us to a place where we find new life. And he is even ready to be wounded himself out of love for us. This is the Gospel of Christ – thanks be to God.