Collect and Readings for Second Sunday after Trinity – Genesis 18.1-15, 21.1-7, Exodus 19.2-8a, Psalm 116.1, 9-17, Psalm 100, Romans 5.1-8, Matthew 9.35 -10.23

The Prayer for today

Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth: send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you. Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Stand on a railway station at rush hour and you see the harassed and tense faces all around. Perhaps that is an unfair place to pick, but it is noticeable that the stress and conflicting demands and expectations, and the relativism of our society, which places huge pressures on individual choice of action, combine to make ‘peace of mind’ a yearned-for impossibility for many. This week’s readings speak quite a lot about hope and being at peace with God and oneself.

In the passage from Exodus, we find the people of Israel being given the hope of becoming the treasured possession of God, of being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, if they are prepared, as a whole community, to work with their God rather than against him. We hear their confident response: ‘We will do everything the Lord has commanded.’ What poignant reading this must have made for those in exile. With the scattered trail of sin and rebellion behind them. What poignant reading it makes for us as we think back to promises confidently made and subsequent failures!

The wonderful thing about Christianity is that it speaks hope, not to a non-existent strong people who can save themselves, but to the reality of a well-intentioned and blundering race who know that saving themselves is not one of the things that humans can do.

In the reading from Matthew, we feel Jesus’ fondness and longing for the people, whom he describes as harassed and disturbed, agitated and without peace. He urges his disciples to join him in praying earnestly for more workers in the harvest, knowing that God will be dependent on human co-operation and availability to accomplish the healing and gathering in. That is just as true for us today as it was then, and we need to take Jesus’ urgency to heart. True religion is being at peace with God, and the absence of peace is obvious in our society.

Immediately after this, the twelve are sent out, in the role of ambassadors, to proclaim the kingdom of God and accompany the news with signs of healing. All the detailed instructions they are given point to a loving commitment which is total and without ambition, personal gain, or personal comforts. This still needs to be our attitude, as the Church, so that our motives are transparent and uncluttered by sub-agendas or empire-building. We are called simply to love people into the kingdom, where they can know the joy and hope of being at peace with God.

Hope is an intriguing word. It is a mixture of desire for something and expectation of getting it. If either of those is missing, it isn’t hope, and if either is overbalanced, there is no peace. But when you have both in balance, hope makes you very happy and contented in the present, as well as in the fulfilment. Paul addresses this phenomenon in his letter to the Romans. We are justified by faith or provided with an ‘honorary pass’ to God’s presence through Jesus’ self-giving death, rather than trying hopelessly to earn it. It is this which gives us freely the illusive peace we all crave.

This is not just for the good times, but for the grim ones as well. The kind of love that was ready to die for us when we were God’s enemies, in effect is hardly going to let us down now that we have been reconciled to God. We can be assured that our loving God will provide everything we need in the way of support and comfort during the worst sufferings life may throw at us. In fact, it is his love in us that enables us to grow and develop through such times.

Some things to think about:

1. Is it foolish to talk about rejoicing and suffering in the same breath?

2. How would you interpret Jesus’ instructions to the twelve for workers in the harvest today?

God bless Rev’d Fiona Robinson