• Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 and Psalm 49:1-12  • 
• Colossians 3:1-11  • 
• Luke 12:13-21

​Generally speaking, the modern world is haunted by two great fears -- poverty and violent attack. Fear of the first, curiously, has grown rather than diminished as the world has become wealthier with the consequence that promising economic growth is always a prominent feature of elections and political campaigns. Similarly, promises of greater security are responses to a widespread fear of war and terrorism in countries whose military security is greater than it ever has been.
    People in the world to which Jesus preached were far more vulnerable to both poverty and violence than we are. Even so, in several places, including the Gospel passage for this Sunday, Jesus warns against the danger of wealth, and the futility of our efforts to protect it. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul takes up the same theme - 'Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth' and then goes on to articulate a set of values that are to be preferred to the pursuit of sexual satisfaction and material wealth.

     If these truly are 'Christian values', there could hardly be a sharper contrast with the values of modern consumerism. In the world of ‘Love Island’ and ‘EuroMillions’, sexual activity and material possession are rated so highly that 'other worldly' values seem to lack any pulling power. Yet Christ’s example of the rich landowner is an undeniable reminder of reality. Wealth is only as valuable as the things it is spent on; power is only as valuable as the things it secures.
     So asking what things are truly valuable is inescapable. it is a profound mistake to interpret (and discount) Paul’s phrase 'the things that are above' as referring to another world -- 'pie in the sky when you die'. The heavenly 'things' include love, truth, beauty, integrity, grace. These are values to which every human life – rich or poor, strong or weak -- can meaningfully aspire. We easily mistake means for ends. Possessed as we now are of greater wealth and power than human beings have ever known, there is an even greater risk of making this mistake.

• ​Genesis 18:1-10a and Psalm 15  • 

• Colossians 1:15-28  • 
• Luke 10:38-42

On the majority of Sundays in the Christian year, the lectionary readings include a passage from one of Paul’s letters. This is a fact with which we are so familiar that its extraordinary nature is often lost on us. These are letters written by an early follower of Jesus to tiny groups of people in towns and cities that in many cases no longer exist. Yet almost 2000 years later, millions upon millions of people, in countless different languages, read them and listen to them in the most worship filled moment of their week. What explains that amazing connection between an obscure past and a global present?

​The Gospel for this week is one of Jesus' most famous, and familiar, parables -- the story of the Good Samaritan. Its sheer familiarity means that some of its implications are easily overlooked. This parable is not simply a morally improving lesson about how much better kindness and generosity are compared to selfish hardheartedness. For the devout Jews to whom Jesus told the story, ‘the priest’ and ‘the Levite’ were exemplars of orthodox religious practice. Their passing by on the other side was not simple hard heartedness, but reflected a desire to avoid the religious pollution that would result from contact with a (possibly) dead body. This desire would have been widely shared. Conversely, the Samaritans were not despised as an ethnic minority, but held to be second class Jews because they subscribed to a debased form of Judaism. These facts intensify the meaning of the story. They make its subject matter more than moral rectitude, and pose a question about the nature of true religion.

​The Gospel for this week is one of those passages that modern readers find hard to relate to. Taken as a whole, even without the yet more difficult verses that the Lectionary omits, it seems to portray Jesus as encouraging a kind of fanaticism in the simple people he recruits to his cause. Relying on their primitive beliefs about demons and Satan, he promises them paradise in exchange for complete devotion. Isn’t this what happens today, when religious extremists recruit credulous suicide bombers?
      If we believe in the Incarnation, we have to accept that the eternal God chose to be born into a world radically different from the modern post-Enlightenment societies with which we are familiar. To discern God’s enduring purpose for us, consequently, we must try to understand the reality of that kind of world.
      Three features of this Gospel episode are especially important. First, the people Jesus chose to spread the word of God’s kingdom on earth were not highly educated, politically powerful or socially prestigious. They were notably ordinary ‘simple folk’, and in the verses that follow the lectionary’s extract, Jesus underlines that fact. Secondly, he gives these simple people the power to do some very remarkable things. This is in sharp contrast to their normal powerlessness within the social and political structures that then prevailed. No wonder they return from their excursions ‘with joy’.