Pew Sheet, Sunday, 16th February 2025, 3rd Sunday before Lent

Luke’s version of our Gospel passage occurs after Jesus has spent the night praying alone on a mountain before finally choosing those disciples who will go on to become his twelve apostles. When he descends from the mountain, he finds a huge crowd waiting for him, not only of Jews, but of others from the coastal, former Phoenician areas of Tyre and Sidon (in modern Lebanon) too. And we are told that he healed them all, no matter who they were or where they came from without discrimination. His healing was for everyone, and so ‘drenched’ was he in the power of God, that those there only had to reach out and touch him to be healed. It is a remarkable illustration of the healing power of God, and the way in which God treats every single one of us with complete impartially and without favour, no matter who we are, or where we too might come from. It is a picture of God’s loving grace, and a reminder that he desires health, healing, and wholeness for each one of us in their entirety.

The passage then takes a surprising turn however, for having shown that we are all equal in God’s sight, Jesus then appears to imply that God does have favourites after all in a series of utterances we often call, “The blessings and the woes” which, in a nutshell essentially say this: “Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, sad, and expendable, and woe to you who are rich, full, happy, and popular.” Unlike Matthew, who spiritualises these words and renders them differently by saying ‘poor in spirit’ for example, or those who ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’, Luke delivers Jesus’ words to us at the most basic and literal level possible, so that in an age when wealth and fortune were seen as a sign of God’s favour, and sickness or poverty as a sign of God’s disfavour, Jesus turns them on their head and rewrites commonly held notions about what it means to be blessed or cursed (for that is what the woes mean), and show that there is an inherent bias in Kingdom thinking towards those whose lives the world sees as having little purpose, value, or meaning.

It is easy to read these words and, if we are comfortably off in comparison to others, like most people who attend Church in the UK, to feel a sense of shame or embarrassment about them, for there is no doubting that ‘Church’, and the Church of England in particular, has become in many places, a middle or upper class institution which finds little resonance in the lives of those who live in our sprawling housing estates or struggle to make ends meet week to

week let alone month to month. That is not to say that there are no poor, or marginalised, or hurting people who struggle like that in the Church, but they are often simply in the minority, and easily overlooked or forgotten there as elsewhere.

The poor, conversely, are less likely to be preoccupied with the same concerns and obsessions which take up so much of our time and energy (our liturgy, our buildings, our preferred worship styles, our social networks or petty squabbles for instance), occupied as they are with getting by and getting through the next seven days until we ‘do’ Church again. In many respects, that does make them so much more blessed, because they have a much greater dependence on the goodness of God than we might consciously feel in our own self-sufficiency, and are often more thankful for, and generous with the little they have, as I learned only too well in my time amongst some of the poorest of the poor in Africa.

The Episcopalian priest, theologian, and writer Barbara Brown Taylor argues that Jesus is not accusing anyone here, but is simply pointing out the injustice in the world as it is, and turning it on its head, so that those who think themselves cursed and cut off by God could know that they are not; and that those lucky enough to enjoy good fortune should not become smug or self-satisfied, the greatest danger or woe being that they might then forget the goodness of God and their utter dependence on him in doing so. Our utter dependence on God is no less than that of the poor, but it can be much harder to realise that fact when we have plenty, and this quickly leads to spiritual death. It is telling that Jesus moves immediately from these words to talk about the centrality of love (even for your enemy), of mercy, and of avoiding judgemental attitudes toward others immediately after today’s passage, for these are the antidote to slothful ease, lazy contentment, or proud haughtiness towards those less fortunate than ourselves, and a healing too of sorts (though we may not recognise it as such) from the one who loves rich and poor alike, but cannot abide ingratitude, pride, self-centredness, avarice, or presumption in either.

Collect

Eternal God, whose son went among the crowds and brought healing with his touch, help us to show his love in your Church as we gather together;
and by our lives as they are transformed into the image of Christ our Lord.

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.

They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse. Who can understand it?
I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

Luke 6:17-26

He came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you,
revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”

“Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in

heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.”

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”
“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”
“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”
“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors
treated the false prophets.”

Post Communion Prayer

Merciful Father,
who gave Jesus Christ to be for us the bread of life,
that those who live in him should never hunger.
Draw us closer to him in faith and love,
that we may eat and drink at his table in your kingdom,
where he is alive and reigns now and forever.

This Week’s Events

Monday (Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977)

Bell Ringing, 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan on 07835 461361.

Tuesday

Zoom In Morning Prayer, 9am. Meeting ID: 539 3978774 password: TuaR0T or contact Sue on [email protected] (The 0 in R0T is a zero not an ‘O’)

Evening House Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more information.

Wednesday

Morning Coffee, 10.00-11.45am in the St Laurence Room.

Midday Communion, 12.00 noon in St Laurence Church.

Thursday

Daytime House Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more details.

Friday

Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Contact Derry on [email protected] if you would like to join in this term.

WINSLOW SCHOOL NEEDS YOU
George’s move has left a vacancy for someone to become a Foundation Governor at Winslow Church of England Primary School. If you would like to help, especially if you have children at the school, please talk to Steve or Paul Cresswell.