Reflection | St Baldred's, North Berwick

Sunday 1st November

SIMON’S REFLECTION FOR THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS

Reflection

In the church, we keep feast days for some of the special saints of church tradition; the household names that we all know. We have days for St Peter, St Luke, St Frances, St Andrew, Mary, mother of our Lord, St Margaret and many others.

All Saints’ Day was not originally a day to remember these well-known saints, but was for those saints who had no special saint’s day of their own. It was for “the rest of the saints.” On All Saints Day then, in a sense, we are remembering the unknown saints; “the great multitude that no-one could count” described in the Book of Revelation.

I find this very poignant on many levels. For one thing, since the Reformation, the Anglican tradition, recognises names of its more modern Christian heroes but has no mechanism for giving them the title “saint.” More than that though, it is good for us to remember that we do not know the names of many of our benefactors. There is an anonymous tide of good will and good deeds inspired by the Holy Spirit that has brought the Christian faith to us through the generations and from across the world.

There is a bit of a parallel in this with our thinking about our heroes of the past year. I wonder who your heroes were? Captain Tom raising all that money for the NHS. Joe Wicks putting us all through our paces with his daily workouts. There were many people who did great things to help others, some of whom became known and for example recognised in our honours lists. There were, however, also a mass of people like doctors, nurses, good neighbours, essential workers, care home staff and others from all walks of life, who behaved selflessly and sacrificially in their service of others. Some of them were recognised and honoured but many are unknown to us though we have cause to be grateful.

The idea of a mass of unknown saints brings the saints a bit closer to us. When you make a statue or a stained- glass window in someone’s image, they suddenly seem less human and seem more distant from our everyday experience and who we are. But the saints were human just like us. They didn’t have any power that we don’t have. That’s the point. Because of what Jesus has done for us, the power that was in Jesus, can be in ordinary women, men and children just like us.

It can also be at work in us alongside our human fallibilities and failings. As St Paul wrote: “We hold this treasure in clay vessels.”

If the gospel just stopped with the great saving deeds of Jesus, we might wonder how the world could be changed for the better but it doesn’t stop there. We read on in the Book of Acts, how the power that was at work in Jesus, was at work in the people of the early church. We read on beyond the words of the bible to see many lives since then that have pointed us back to Christ. Sometimes that has happened in an extraordinary way but also sometimes in a more ordinary every day, way through “little” acts of love and service in Jesus’ name.

The New Testament recognises this by using the word “saint” in two ways. It uses the word to denote the named ones, the known heroes of the faith but it also uses it to denote “the rest of us” as St Paul, for example, often uses the word to refer to all Christians.

Of course, the saints we revere were extraordinary in one sense. It was not that they were already perfect or sinless but their lives were so centred on God and they had such a passion for God that they became transparent to God in an extraordinary way. Paul Tillich wrote: “The saint is saint, not because he is “good” but because he is transparent from something that is more than himself.” What makes them particularly transparent to God and what makes them speak most powerfully to us is their shared humanity.

Our gospel reading today could be read as a sort of manifesto for discipleship. Jesus tells the crowds who it is who will be blessed in the age to come. I wonder if we were asked who we thought was blessed in our own age and society, would it look anything like Jesus list? Would we include the poor, the meek, those who mourn, the persecuted? I suspect not.

The saints learned to embrace a different set of values to the values of the world. With their ordinary humanity they embraced the values of Jesus rather than the values of the world.

A rich businessman once said to St Theresa of Calcutta: “I would not do what you do for a million dollars.” She replied: “No, neither would I.”

On all Saints Day, we remember the saints and we remember that we are called to be transparent to God just as they were and that we are called to be saints too and to allow in our hearts, the Holy Spirit’s work of transforming us to God’s ways of doing things and God’s way of being.

Pope John Paul once wrote: “We need heralds of the gospel who are experts in humanity, who know the depth of the human heart, who can share the joys and hopes, the agonies and distress of the people, but who are at the same time contemplatives who have fallen in love with God. For this we need saints today. Amen.

Sunday 25th October

Simon’s Reflection for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost

It is said that when the rule to wear seat-belts first came in in Italy, there was a lively trade in the City of Naples in the buying and selling of T-shirts with a black diagonal stripe down the front to fool the police!

Sometimes people resent rules and laws. At the beginning of the Covid crisis, behavioural scientists were concerned that members of the public might not obey the extra rules that were necessary. We have seen recently, the mad dash in some places to have one last night out before new restrictions come into force. People can sometimes become over-focussed on obeying or disobeying rules and forget the purpose they serve; like keeping ourselves and others safe in the current situation.

Sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees.

The question posed to Jesus in today’s gospel story was not an easy question. The scribes of Jesus time counted 613 commandments in the Torah or the biblical law books. Some were regarded as “light” and some as “heavy.” As well as the biblical rules, there were many other rules that had grown up around them, so the question of which was the most important law was a difficult one.

In his answer Jesus gives a lens through which to see the laws of the Old Testament. He goes to the heart of them and tells his listeners what their purpose was. He gives two key commandments which underpin all the rest.

The first part of his answer would have been uncontroversial. No-one would want to deny that to love God was the key purpose of the law but alongside the command to love God, Jesus placed a lesser- known verse from Leviticus; the command to love your neighbour as yourself.

The real originality of Jesus’ teaching is in the prioritising of these two and placing them alongside each other. Jesus links love of God and love of neighbour. The clear implication of this is that you cannot love God if you do not love your neighbour.

In our Old Testament reading from the Book of Leviticus, we can see that love of neighbour seems to be defined as love of kin; i.e., love of your fellow Israelite but Jesus in his other teaching broadens the understanding of neighbour. The parable of the Good Samaritan places a much wider definition on who our neighbour is, as does Jesus’ compassionate attitude to Gentiles in the gospels. Jesus universalises the concept of neighbour.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote….”We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.” If you love your neighbour, you are recognising that the command to love goes beyond those that we might love because they are family or friends. You love your neighbour simply because he or she is a human being, made in the image of God, who just happens to live near you. When we do this we are recognising that we are all called to help one another through life no matter who we are. It doesn’t matter about nationality, race, gender, sexuality or any of the other irrelevant points where human beings carelessly drawn dividing lines. The impulse to look for divisions between human beings is not God-given.

So this is the heart of what God requires of us: to love God and to love our neighbour.

We know how the events of this year have helped us to recognise how important neighbourliness is. Many people have helped or have been helped by their neighbours and maybe even had more opportunity to get to know their neighbours and become friends.

It’s amazing how sometimes you can live in a place for some time without even knowing the names of your neighbours. We can all too easily live in our own isolated worlds. It is so important to relate to our physical communities and to help to make them actual communities where there is mutual care and concern and friendship.

At its best, the internet can sometimes do this through online community groups. It’s good that people help each other online. It’s interesting the way people will post things on online groups asking for advice. Sometimes they are things that they could find out for themselves like “When does Tesco open?” Sometimes though, they are things that the medium is really useful for like – “Were the children supposed to wear their PE kit at school today? Can anyone tell me?” Sometimes potentially life-saving advice can be given. A man in America posted a photo on local network with the question “Is this a dead cockroach – do I have an infestation?” A very speedy reply came back from some caring soul: “No. It is the tail of a rattlesnake! Be careful.” It’s good to see people helping one another simply out of a desire to help another human being; to help a neighbour.

That is our individual calling; to love God by loving our neighbour. It is also our shared calling as Christians to build something together and that is neighbourly, churches which are also neighbourhood churches. Our churches themselves are supposed to be about good relationships where we know and help one another and where the churches themselves are good neighbours to our local community and “stitched into” our local communities.

It is often said that the aggressive individualism of our age undermines community yet in many ways the church can buy into it and we the people of the church can buy into it. Let’s take to heart instead Jesus’ teaching that we are deeply inter-connected with each other and thankfully deeply, deeply connected to our loving Creator God and let us find ways to live out that truth and put Jesus’s teachings into action. Amen.

Sunday 18th October 2020

A reflection for the Feast of St Luke & Health Care Sunday from Jane, our curate.

Reflection

If I said to you, what do Sean Connery, Pam Ayres and Bugs Bunny have in common?…………….

You might guess it’s that they all have strong regional accents that make them distinctive. Sean Connery was apparently advised to ditch his Edinburgh accent early on in his career, but wisely refused. Pam Ayres has become known for her warm self-mocking Berkshire accent. Something important would be lost if she lost her accent. And as for the thought of Bugs Bunny saying ‘What’s up doc?’ without his Brooklyn, New York accent! Unthinkable!

Do you have an accent? Is it the accent of where you originated or where you live now? Or perhaps a mixture? Are there certain words you say that reveal where you are from?

Our accents reveal that there are differences between us. We have different cultures and we sound different, based on where we have lived and where our family has lived. In today’s gospel passage Jesus sends out 70 disciples to those who are different to them.

He has been in the area of Galilee in the north and he is headed for Judea in the south. To people who have not yet heard his message. And he sends the seventy disciples on ahead of him. To a people who are different in many ways. Racially, culturally, economically, politically, and linguistically different. The people in Judea spoke Aramaic differently to those in Galilee.

Jesus says they are to stay in the houses of those they meet. Remaining there, not flitting from one house to another. The direction to eat whatever is put in front of them is particularly telling.

Perhaps you were told as a child, ‘I expect you to finish everything on your plate’ or if you went to a friend’s house, told before you went that you must ‘eat whatever they give you’?

I must admit that going to friend’s houses when I was a child often seemed like an indulgence. My Mum was determined we would eat healthily. It was rather frustrating for us children. Rarely did a can of coke or a bag of crisps cross our threshold. Whereas some of my friend’s parents were much more relaxed about this. I remember going to one friend’s for tea. Her Mum warming up a tin of spaghetti alphabet letters in tomato sauce and giving us that on toast. I thought it was delicious.

On returning home I declared that all that fussing about with fresh vegetables was not necessary as you could get a perfectly tasty meal out of a tin and save yourself lots of bother! Needless to say, no tins of spaghetti letters appeared in our larder.

By Jesus encouraging them to eat what is put in front of them, he is saying building relationships with those who are different is much more important than maintaining purity codes. Jews had strict rules about what they were to eat and not to eat but Jesus looks beyond these. He sends out the disciples to proclaim that the ‘kingdom of God has come near’ to those they encounter. He sends them to show what the kingdom of God is like and not to enforce purity laws. The kingdom of God is not about keeping laws to be pure enough to please God. It’s about God’s love and justice flourishing in the lives of all. With all of our differences and despite all our flaws.

What must it have been like for the disciples to go empty handed and rely on the hospitality of others? No bag, no purse, no sandals. They are sent to serve, yet they are to be supported by those they serve. They are to rely on those they stay with. This requires humility. There is to be mutuality in their relationships.

Are our relationships with those we serve marked by mutuality? Jesus’s disciples are to receive as well as give, to build relationships of mutuality and respect and this requires humility.

The disciples are to go to those who are different, not to stay in their huddle. They are to go with humility and what are they to do? Jesus sends them to cure the sick and to bring peace. These are the actions of those who go to proclaim the Kingdom of God has come near. They remind us that God cares for the physical and mental wellbeing of all.

God cares about our bodies and minds. God calls us to care about the bodies and minds of others. Sometimes we can be overly focused on our minds. Or we may think that God is only concerned about souls. Our faith is an embodied faith. Jesus gave his body and his blood. We take communion with our hands and eat the body of Christ which then becomes part of us and we part of Christ. God cares about bodies and we are called to care about them too.

This Sunday, we are marking the feast day of St Luke, believed to be the author the gospel of Luke and of the book of Acts. As I’m sure you know well, Luke was a physician as well as a companion of Paul who worked alongside Paul in his missions. Luke brings a unique perspective to gospel writing. His gospel reveals that outcasts, the poor, those rejected by society are precious to God. His is the only gospel to include two of our best-known parables, the good Samaritan and the prodigal son. He knows we can walk by on the other side as religious leaders do in the parable of the good Samaritan when a man’s body is wounded and needs care and healing. And he knows that like the prodigal son we can wander far from God and expect that God won’t want us close.

The opposite is true. God’s infinite unconditional love reaches out to us and to all. Including to those who are different to us. To those who look, sound, and behave differently. We are called to reflect that changeless compassionate love. To care for the minds and bodies of others in whatever way we can in our times.

This healthcare Sunday we are filled with gratitude for the many healthcare workers in the NHS and other organisations who have worked with skill, courage and compassion in recent months and continue to do so. And we are reminded that God cares for minds and bodies and we are called to play our part in promoting the wellbeing of others. We may not be healthcare workers but we can offer kindness, friendship, a listening ear, a thoughtful act, a practical kind of love that blesses those we encounter. And as we offer this in humility, we may find that it is us who are blessed.

This morning, let us thank God for Luke, for all who work for our health and wellbeing. And let us pray for the grace to play our part in the wellbeing of all the people God loves. Amen.

Sunday 11th October 2020

Simon’s Reflection for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost

“Rejoice in the Lord always!” says St Paul. We might feel that that’s easier said than done with all that is going on nowadays but we can’t very well say to St Paul: “that’s easy for you to say!” St Paul is saying those words from prison. He is on lockdown. He probably doesn’t know how long he will be in prison. He lives under the shadow of a possible flogging or perhaps even death. He doesn’t, on the face of it, seem to have much to rejoice about.

So what sustains his rejoicing? Are there things in this that can help us or is this just positive thinking taken to insane extremes?

The kind of rejoicing in the Lord and the prayerful renunciation of anxiety that goes with it is not something that comes naturally to the situation that Paul is in nor to ours at the present. It is easy not to be anxious when things are going well. But not so when things are a struggle.

Paul’s peace comes out of loving and trusting God. It comes out of prioritising the things of God. In the other readings we read of the classic image of the fullness of the Kingdom of God as a great feast. St Paul knows he has an invitation to that feast. We have an invitation too. We have to make sure the invitation is a priority in our lives and not let the distractions of life help us forget it.

But as well as the future hope of the results of what God is doing in the world, Paul knows he has present help from God as well. He is immersed in prayer. In the beautiful letter to the Philippians, he invites people to ponder what is good. Actually, this is a great antidote to anxiety for all of us. We have to work at putting into our minds all the positive things of God’s good world. All good things come from God, if we dwell on those good things, then they can help us and hopefully lead us into thanksgiving from God. We have to work at it but there is help in that direction and a favourable wind that will carry us if we turn into it.

So Paul is rooted in trust of God and prayer but also in action to join in with building this wonderful future kingdom which is God’s plan for the world. Paul, for all his troubles, has a purpose. He is active in mission. He turns his sufferings and his imprisonment into something to help others. He urges the Philippians to see their adversity as something that brings them closer to Christ who suffered for them. He urges them to be united and not to argue among themselves. He urges them to “let their gentleness be known” to everyone.

This Sunday is kept by many churches as “Homeless Sunday.” I know in the past year, there have been times when I’ve felt a bit restricted about being confined to home but at least I have a home to be confined to and rather a nice one, with a garden.

In Scotland in 2019 5300 adults slept rough at least once a year and those sleeping rough regularly are 17 times more likely to be a victim of violence and die 30 years younger on average than the rest of us. While the Governments have made efforts to put people into temporary accommodation during the COVID crisis the nature of that accommodation with small bedsits, shared toilets made it more difficult for people to keep safe and to bear with the restrictions earlier in the year than the rest of us. There are also worries about what will happen in the coming months and church night shelters will not be able to help the homeless in the way they normally do this winter because of the hygiene restrictions. For many of us, it’s quite a leap if imagination to imagine what it’s like to have to live in these ways.

I have only occasionally heard of people sleeping rough in North Berwick, Gullane, Aberlady and Dirleton, but we do of course have many people struggling to pay their rents or their mortgages. We have many young people who can’t afford a home of their own and have to stay in their parental home and a lack of affordable housing for those on low incomes.

So how can we as Christians “let our gentleness be known”? Well, perhaps we can be more aware of the situation that others may be in. We can pray. We can speak out and campaign more for housing justice on our committees and our forums. We can give.

Our two churches have traditionally supported the Bethany Christian Trust, which has an excellent video on their website, and Scottish Churches Housing Action. We had also started collecting items for HomeStart Edinburgh but they have had to suspend their operations in the present crisis. There are many other housing charities, of course, that we might want to support like Shelter Scotland.

Jesus said: “Foxes have their holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” As we think of the homeless today, may we be drawn closer to Our Lord who was homeless: May we find that in trusting God, in prayer, in giving thanks and in helping others we find the gift that God gives of his peace that passes all understanding. Amen.

Simon’s Harvest Reflection

Sunday 4th October 2020

This Sunday we will give thanks in our churches and our “home- churches” for the harvests. We will give thanks for God’s wonderful provision of our needs and we will give thanks for all the people who supply us with our food and the things we need in order to live.

It’s good to celebrate the harvest. It reminds us to be thankful. It reminds us to notice things that we often take for granted. The extraordinary events of the past year have reminded us that we should not take so much for granted. Also, as we give thanks for the harvests we enjoy, we remember the fragility of our world and the many dangers that we face because of our over-exploitation of the world’s resources. Many voices tell us, persuasively, that we all need to think carefully about what, and how much, we consume and how it affects the world around us.

It has been very moving in recent weeks to see David Attenborough taking to Twitter and Instagram at the age of 94 to try to communicate with more people in his passionate concern about the destruction of wild-life habitat and the resulting extinction of animal species and about the dangers of global warming.

I understand that it was Socrates who posed the famous question: “Do you live to eat or eat to live?” He said that he ate to live. I sometimes think about that when I’m too interested in my dinner to get up and sort out some problem in the background which is going on with the children! I can’t deny sometimes being over-fixated on food and will heartily endorse the sentiments of the song from the musical “Oliver” : “Food glorious food!”

The rich man in Jesus’ story is perhaps an extreme example of someone who lived to eat in the worse sense. In a week in which supermarkets have put limits on the sale of toilet rolls again to stop hoarding, we hear a story about a hoarder. The man in the story has enough for himself and more but all that causes him to do, is to hoard for himself.

He doesn’t do the two things that we want to do at our harvest celebrations. He doesn’t give thanks to God. He doesn’t share what he has with those who have not. Furthermore, he takes life for granted, as if the purpose of his life is just to feed himself. He lives to eat. Jesus teaches us that food is important and to pray each day for our daily bread but He also reminds us in this passage: “life is more than food and the body than clothing.”

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying food of course. I have heard of monks and nuns who are so self-denying that they mix up all their food sweet and savoury so that they don’t enjoy the taste of it! I can’t help thinking that’s a pity. It’s good to enjoy the food but it’s not our sole purpose.

We live to please God and to do his good works. We live to sow seeds of goodness in the way that we live. St Paul tells us to be generous people. How very different is the attitude he encourages in the second letter to the Corinthians as he urges them to come to the support of the church in Jerusalem. God loves a cheerful giver!

If we are kind to life, life will be kind to us and we will also be acknowledging the deep, deep truth that we are all just receivers of God’s generosity so we shouldn’t clutch on to the things we have been given when God prompts us to share them. If we are really thankful, we have to be generous. Generosity is the fruit of thankfulness.

So let’s all try to be generous with the things that God has given us in abundance. As we recognise and are thankful for the beauty of the world that we enjoy, let’s live in such a way that it is there for others to share.

The harvest call to be generous because we are thankful doesn’t just apply to giving money of course, important as that is if we can afford to give. As we think of all the riches that God has given us, time, life, peace, joy in believing, comfort, blessing… we show our thankfulness by looking for ways to share those riches with others.

Amen.

Sunday 27th September

Simon’s reflection for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost

What do you find encouraging in today’s readings? I invite you just for a moment to reread the verses of the letter to the Philippians, verses 5 – 11; the ones that begin: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus….” There, have you read them? Good, then I’ll continue.

Now, I’m no biblical scholar and I don’t know enough to assess the different arguments among scholars about biblical texts. I do however believe that understanding the bible properly and with the help of good scholarship can strengthen our faith rather than weaken it, but what I want to say is what I know of that passage deepens my faith and is something that really encourages me. I’ll tell you why but first a bit of background.

The letter to the Philippians may consist of 3 letters put together. The letter or letters were written around the mid-50s AD, around 20 odd years after the death and resurrection of our Lord. Paul is writing them from prison, probably in Ephesus, and his purpose is partly to encourage the Christians of Philippi to bear with the sufferings they face and to see God at work through them, just as Paul, as a prisoner, is doing.

Many people think that the verses you read at the beginning were part of a hymn that was known by Christians at the time. There is a theory that this hymn was written in Aramaic, the language Jesus would have spoken. Paul of course wrote in Greek. Whether the words were written in Aramaic or whether St Paul composed it, I do not know, but, here’s what I’m trying to write about, what I find amazing is the things those Christians believed about the man, Jesus of Nazareth, so soon after his death!

Of what human being would anyone say that they were in the form of God and had some sort of equality with God; that they “emptied themselves” first by being born, which implies that they existed with God before birth and secondly by dying on a cross? To what human being would God give all power and authority? How did these first Christians come to believe such remarkable things about a human being? What had happened to make them believe such things?

Now some may say that people believed all sorts of things in those days. Well yes that is true. Other ancient cultures were inclined to call their ceasars or their pharoahs or their emperors “gods” but I don’t know of an example from antiquity of anyone describing a convicted criminal as a god, do you? After all, one of the main things that is corroborated about Jesus’ life outside the bible is that he died on a cross. Jesus suffered a humiliating and degrading criminal’s death; the ancient equivalent of the scaffold or the electric chair! I suspect those who died in such a way in those times would normally be thought of as life’s losers rather than “gods.”

Moreover, the people who first started thinking these things about Jesus were not Greeks or Egyptians or Babylonians but Jews. They were steeped in a culture which didn’t accept that men or women were “gods.” They had a strong history of opposing idolatry. Their own kings, even the greatest ones like David and Solomon, were not described as gods in the bible but, rather as very fallible human beings.

So, I still find it amazing. Something must have happened which made those people believe such things and I believe that something was the resurrection.

Paul says that the power that was in Christ can be in us. So while he is asking the Phillipians to imitate Christ’s humility and self-sacrifice, he is also saying more than that. “Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus” He speaks of the sharing of the Holy Spirit among Christians. He is saying that God can form us into more Christ-like people and a more Christ-like community, if we let Him.

Now perhaps in a way that can sometimes be even more difficult to believe, that God can be at work within us especially when we get things wrong so often.

But it does say that Christian discipleship is about more than simply being loving and kind to one another. It is definitely about that, but in order to do that we need to believe and trust in the one who emptied Himself out of love for us. We need to work at loving our neighbour and loving God at the same time as they both feed into each other. We need to let Jesus teach us what genuine love and genuine authority are and we need to learn from him.

Maybe discipleship is a bit like learning to dance. To do it well we need to learn and practice the steps but who wants to dance without music? Our relationship with God is the music. Amen.

Simon’s reflection for Sunday 6th September

The Book of Ezekiel teaches that we have a duty to challenge others when they are being sinful. Our gospel suggests that if another member of the church wrongs us we should challenge them. I wonder how we understand what our faith teaches us about difficult situations of conflict and grievance and when we should challenge others.

I don’t suppose most of us go around telling people off where we think they are doing something wrong. Sometimes though this can be a failing in courage. Some people do. I remember my mother used to get very cross if she saw people throwing stones or littering on Brighton beach and she would have no compunction about telling them off much to my embarrassment if I was with her! It takes courage to do that and a readiness to not be conflict averse. We can’t always avoid having to challenge people!

On the other hand, some people are a bit too eager to correct others and to point out other people’s faults and to take great satisfaction in doing so! Perhaps on this subject we should remember Jesus’s warnings about self-righteousness alongside today’s readings. Do not point out the splinter in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own!

We don’t always know the whole story. The police sent round a local circular recently pointing out that we should be aware for example that some people are exempt from wearing face masks in shops. This was in response to people being unfairly and rudely challenged by others. I suspect there have been a lot of inappropriate challenges in these tense times in this sort of case and others.

It is definitely true though that sometimes as the Book of Ezekiel teaches a failure to correct can be a failure to love. The Old Testament reading makes clear that the point of correction is not just the self-satisfaction of the person doing the correcting, it is the well-being of the person corrected. There is an important truth in this. We can’t wash our hands of one another. We all belong to one another and sin isn’t just an individual thing, it is a corporate thing. Sin doesn’t just affect the sinner. There are no victimless sins and love is not just letting people do whatever they want to.

The gospel passage reflects on a church situation where one person has sinned against another and it gives a sort of legal process of how to act in such a case. People have different views in biblical scholarship on how much this is a direct tradition of something Jesus taught and how far it may have been an application of Jesus’ teaching applied to the needs of the early church. Either way, it reflects how close-knit the early church was and also the deep sense of responsibility to one another that church members felt.

I’m not sure how exactly we could apply the advice intended for that early church to St Baldred’s or St Adrian’s. We probably wouldn’t encourage people to tell their grievances to the whole church gathering, for example! Mind you, I have known of awkward and painful situations where that has happened and perhaps that is where a sense of grievance has grown without being addressed quickly as the gospel suggests so some elements of it may well be relevant to our churches now if perhaps not all.

The first step on the procedure is to challenge the person that has wronged us, assuming of course that we are in the right. As I suggested earlier we might first want to try to give the other person the benefit of the doubt as we should for a brother or sister in Christ and think about whether we have misjudged the situation.

But it does happen that people sometimes wrong us and we shouldn’t also put ourselves in the wrong all the time. Again, it is important to challenge wrong-doing in an appropriate way both for our own sakes and for the sake of the other person. Our duty to love even when it is difficult and even to love our enemy is not a calling to be a doormat. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves.

This is advice which applies to our wider relationships too. But the question is in what spirit do we challenge another. As the gospel implies we should not merely challenge to vent anger but rather to achieve reconciliation. As the rest of the process shows reconciliation can be hard work.

Challenging appropriately when we feel hurt or wronged can be very difficult of course. We are only human.

What makes reconciliation more likely is if there is a loving relationship to draw on. In a church community where people are doing the right things, looking after one another, encouraging and nurturing one another and seeking to follow Christ by serving others. There will be more good relationship to draw on. If we have to tell someone that they are in the wrong, it is easier to hear that if they know that we love them! It is also easier perhaps, if we are aware of our own faults and we too can accept appropriate correction from others.

If we want to follow Jesus, we can’t duck out of the hard work, challenge and self-sacrifice that taking reconciliation seriously involves. Jesus was never afraid to call out wrong-doing but he was always ready alongside that to show that he wanted the good and the well-being of the other. Amen.