Praying Together 26th January 2025

Meditation for Epiphany 3

Collect

Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
Renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Luke 4:16-21 describes Jesus explaining the meaning and significance of His fulfilment of the prophecy. ‘When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ ‘

He demonstrates the humility, service and self-sacrifice which is the measure of true leadership in God’s Kingdom.

I can’t help making a comparison between Jesus’ example and the self-centred leadership described throughout the Old Testament – the Books of Kings, Daniel and others, and many others throughout the ages – up to and including ours today. Daily, we hear of continuing war and violence, societal discord and injustice propagated by those in power seeking their own aggrandisement. Is it any wonder that this aggressive role-model behaviour percolates down to young people? It’s all very well blaming a lack of parental discipline, social media, peer pressure to conform, the desire for instant gratification and other aspects of our current society, but I think those are simply symptoms of an underlying cause – a lack of personal values, identity and an empty future with wordly populist leadership that is the total opposite of the leadership that Jesus shows.

What, then, you might ask, is the answer? What can we do about it? St Paul makes it clear. In 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 – we are to live in the Spirit, use our individual gifts as the body of Christ, to be faithful, hopeful and loving. In Galatians 5, he describes that Christian life – avoiding those things that deprive us of our inheritance in the Kingdom of God, and instead demonstrating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness and self-control. In the face of a sinful society, it is up to us to offer servant leadership through the example of living, not just talking, not just going to Church once a week, but being the Body of Christ. Every Day, every hour, every minute. (Yes I know we won’t be able to – but that doesn’t stop us trying.) Most importantly, in the face of what appears to be a society built upon prejudice and hatred, we are sustained and strengthened by the knowledge that in the end, love will triumph, leaving the wordly values of the tyrant to be forgotten. Let’s leave Percy Shelley to have the last word.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”, 1819

You call us,
Wanderer of seashores and sidewalks,
inviting us to sail out of our smug harbours
into the uncharted waters of faith
to wander off from our predictable paths to follow You
into the unpredictable footsteps of the kingdom;
to leave the comfort of our homes and accompany
You into the uncomfortable neighbourhoods we usually avoid.

As we wait,
in our simple, sometimes crazy,
constantly uncertain lives,
speak to us, Spirit of Grace:
of that hope which is our anchor;
of that peace which is our rock;
of that grace which is our refuge.

Rev. Bob Gibson, United Church of Canada.