Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton, Sunday 14th August 2014, Trinity 12, at St George's Campden Hill and St John the Baptist, Holland Road.
Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton, Sunday 14th August 2014, Trinity 12, at St George's Campden Hill and St John the Baptist, Holland Road.
“Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
It’s a question as much for us today as it was for the crowd Jesus was addressing 2000 years ago.
I want us to consider how we might best answer this question.
But before doing so I think we also need to understand it in the context of Jesus’s time.
This morning’s gospel reading from Luke makes very uncomfortable reading as. Jesus foretells that he is an instrument of division.
It is generally thought that Luke was writing in the years in the run up to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 since no mention of this cataclysmic event is made in his or the other gospels. Luke had very much in mind the needs and challenges being faced by his fellow early Christians. The growth of the early church was causing tensions within both Jewish and Gentile communities and of course families. For these communities to hear from Luke that Jesus had said that such suffering would happen was both sustaining and a comfort.
The prophecy “five in one household will be divided, three against two, mother in law against her daughter in law” comes from the Book of Micah. Jesus was all too aware that the Roman overlords of Israel would not tolerate insurrection, that the Holy land with its vital trade routes was a strategic asset that would not be relinquished. He went out of his way not to stoke up tension against the Romans. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
“Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” is now understood to be one of Jesus’ prophecies of the coming fall of Jerusalem.
How indeed are we to interpret the current time? We know we are more interconnected than ever before, with the web and global supply chains and immediate dissemination of news.
Everything is available at a click, provided you have money. We are now living in what is called the GIG economy, the rise of the freelancer where technology is used to link the contractor with the organisation that needs its services.
In the US 35 percent of workers are working in this way and the “sharing” economy, as it has been called, ranges from less skilled gig workers to professionals.
A gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. The trend toward a gig economy has begun.
We think of digital platforms such as Uber, Airbnb or perhaps the restaurant delivery company Deliveroo, platforms where technology allows capacity to be increased and goods and services to be made much more widely available.
How do we interpret this change, this interconnectedness? The more the majority are joined together, the easier it is for others to feel left out.
So if interconnectedness is one side of the coin, the other is marginalisation,
Deliveroo is embroiled in a pay row with its couriers. This week more than 100 of its riders staged a protest outside the company’s London offices in a dispute over a new wage structure. Another example of division.
As Christians, we are called to love our neighbour. “Who is my neighbour?” the young man asked Jesus and received the response in the form of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Our neighbour today in the GIg economy era is the Amazon and Deliveroo driver, the person of the other end of the telephone line in the call centre, everyone seen and unseen who enables us to live our life. The kingdom of God is grown by the way we greet our neighbours.
We also need to be aware of the potential for these digital platforms to be used to allow create new businesses. One more encouraging example in the US, is the Bronx based Co-operative Home Care Associates business. It now employs 2,000 people with above average wages and more favourable scheduling standards and benefits.
As we seek to interpret the current time, we should be alert to the potential of new technologies for good. We should embrace the potential of the world, always thinking prayerfully.
As we look for sources of encouragement, I would like us to reflect on the final verses of today’s reading from Hebrews, which in this fortnight of the Olympic games, is as perfectly timed, I think we might say, as a pair of synchronised divers.
Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight of 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.
The writer of Hebrews is speaking of all those who have gone in faith, a stadium full of believers cheering us on as we run the race before us.
If you watched the Mens Coxless fours final in the rowing on Friday, the commentator kept mentioning how the British oarsmen were not looking out of the boat around them at the other competitors. They were completely focused on the task in hand.
In the same way, and I am no sprint runner, but I am told, that if the sprint runner looks around at the other competitors, they will lose.
This week as we watch the Olympics and the crowds in the stadiums, let us be reminded of the clouds of witnesses, those people of faith who have gone before us cheering us on as we go about of daily lives.
Let us always remember the need for compassion - and in the words of today’s Collect, to give thanks for “the abundance of God’s mercy, our God who is more ready to hear than we to pray.”
Amen
“Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
It’s a question as much for us today as it was for the crowd Jesus was addressing 2000 years ago.
I want us to consider how we might best answer this question.
But before doing so I think we also need to understand it in the context of Jesus’s time.
This morning’s gospel reading from Luke makes very uncomfortable reading as. Jesus foretells that he is an instrument of division.
It is generally thought that Luke was writing in the years in the run up to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 since no mention of this cataclysmic event is made in his or the other gospels. Luke had very much in mind the needs and challenges being faced by his fellow early Christians. The growth of the early church was causing tensions within both Jewish and Gentile communities and of course families. For these communities to hear from Luke that Jesus had said that such suffering would happen was both sustaining and a comfort.
The prophecy “five in one household will be divided, three against two, mother in law against her daughter in law” comes from the Book of Micah. Jesus was all too aware that the Roman overlords of Israel would not tolerate insurrection, that the Holy land with its vital trade routes was a strategic asset that would not be relinquished. He went out of his way not to stoke up tension against the Romans. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
“Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” is now understood to be one of Jesus’ prophecies of the coming fall of Jerusalem.
How indeed are we to interpret the current time? We know we are more interconnected than ever before, with the web and global supply chains and immediate dissemination of news.
Everything is available at a click, provided you have money. We are now living in what is called the GIG economy, the rise of the freelancer where technology is used to link the contractor with the organisation that needs its services.
In the US 35 percent of workers are working in this way and the “sharing” economy, as it has been called, ranges from less skilled gig workers to professionals.
A gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. The trend toward a gig economy has begun.
We think of digital platforms such as Uber, Airbnb or perhaps the restaurant delivery company Deliveroo, platforms where technology allows capacity to be increased and goods and services to be made much more widely available.
How do we interpret this change, this interconnectedness? The more the majority are joined together, the easier it is for others to feel left out.
So if interconnectedness is one side of the coin, the other is marginalisation,
Deliveroo is embroiled in a pay row with its couriers. This week more than 100 of its riders staged a protest outside the company’s London offices in a dispute over a new wage structure. Another example of division.
As Christians, we are called to love our neighbour. “Who is my neighbour?” the young man asked Jesus and received the response in the form of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Our neighbour today in the GIg economy era is the Amazon and Deliveroo driver, the person of the other end of the telephone line in the call centre, everyone seen and unseen who enables us to live our life. The kingdom of God is grown by the way we greet our neighbours.
We also need to be aware of the potential for these digital platforms to be used to allow create new businesses. One more encouraging example in the US, is the Bronx based Co-operative Home Care Associates business. It now employs 2,000 people with above average wages and more favourable scheduling standards and benefits.
As we seek to interpret the current time, we should be alert to the potential of new technologies for good. We should embrace the potential of the world, always thinking prayerfully.
As we look for sources of encouragement, I would like us to reflect on the final verses of today’s reading from Hebrews, which in this fortnight of the Olympic games, is as perfectly timed, I think we might say, as a pair of synchronised divers.
Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight of 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.
The writer of Hebrews is speaking of all those who have gone in faith, a stadium full of believers cheering us on as we run the race before us.
If you watched the Mens Coxless fours final in the rowing on Friday, the commentator kept mentioning how the British oarsmen were not looking out of the boat around them at the other competitors. They were completely focused on the task in hand.
In the same way, and I am no sprint runner, but I am told, that if the sprint runner looks around at the other competitors, they will lose.
This week as we watch the Olympics and the crowds in the stadiums, let us be reminded of the clouds of witnesses, those people of faith who have gone before us cheering us on as we go about of daily lives.
Let us always remember the need for compassion - and in the words of today’s Collect, to give thanks for “the abundance of God’s mercy, our God who is more ready to hear than we to pray.”
Amen