Paying Together 17th August 2025

So the commandment is a challenge. To love those who betray you. Those who jeer. Those who wield the whips embedded with flint, hammer in the nails, pierce your side.

Meditation for Trinity 9 2025

Collect

Almighty God, who sent your Holy Spirit to be the life and light of your Church:
Open our hearts to the riches of his grace, that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in love and joy and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isaiah 5: 1 – 7

Let me sing for my beloved, my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watch-tower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me
and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
righteousness, but heard a cry!

Hebrews 11: 29 – 12: 2

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.

And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, without us, be made perfect.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Luke 12: 49 – 56

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
father against son
   and son against father,
mother against daughter
   and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
   and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’

He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Three readings from scripture – and none of them really suitable for a recruitment poster for Christianity… …just one offering a promise that despite suffering and torture, there will be what has been cynically called ‘Pie in the Sky when you Die’. Not exactly evidence that would stand up in a court of law.

Isaiah says that Israel has been given a beautiful vineyard, but has turned it into a bloodstained wasteland, the consequences of which will be exile. They didn’t learn then – apparently they still haven’t. Neither, to their shame, has the rest of the world.

The writer to the Hebrews gives examples of the potential persecution to be experienced when people choose to live by faith – and that their reward will not be of this world, but when we eventually take our place in the heavenly kingdom. That faith will be tested to the limit, but it will be the only way to survival.

Jesus warns the people that they are ignoring the signs of impending conflict and division, in which families will be torn apart. They consider themselves so clever in wordly knowledge but fail to see the wider picture. The result will be personal disaster.

We look at the world in which we live today, recognise all these situations, and feel increasingly helpless in the face of endless violence and conflict. But we are not. The call from the writer to the Hebrews is a call to faith, and we are challenged to choose to comply.

In faith, we give thanks for the beauty of the vineyard, and accept our responsibility to speak out against those who would destroy it.

In faith, we look to Jesus and choose to follow Him despite the possible consequence and disturbance of our well-being. We refuse to allow sincere difference of opinion to degrade into prejudice or violence.

In faith, we give thanks for those who have gone before and whose faith inspires us to follow their example.

And most importantly, we ask that our faith is strengthened in the power of the Spirit when it is tested – and that we will have the courage to live as the Body of Christ, who alone offers life.