St Patricks Church, Kenmare
With Bishop Michael Burrows
Bring your own Teddy Bear and your picnic. Bring your friends too!
SUNDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2023 AT 12:00
This picture by the Victorian artist W. H.Trood, always reminds me of Church Council meetings. Can’t imagine why…
It’s a measure of just how well Jesus understands human behaviour that He finds it necessary to teach about resolution of disputes, even among the fellowship. Worse, and sad to say, it’s quite often that this Gospel teaching (which is clearly about addressing sin and subsequent reconciliation) is used instead as a means of exerting discipline in church congregations when there has been disagreement and argument, especially by those in leadership positions who don’t like their authority questioned. It is deployed – wrongly – as a Scripturally-based multiple step approach to getting one’s own way and suppressing disagreement.
The way it goes is this. If someone doesn’t agree with you:
Step 1 – Take him or her on one side and ‘in love’ tell them they are wrong.
Step 2 – If that fails, get a couple of people who will take your side of the argument, and again ‘in love’, tell him or her they are wrong.
Step 3 – And if that doesn’t work, claim your authority to insist the whole church should fall into line in agreement with you, and then tell ‘the transgressor’ in public how wrong they are – of course, still ‘in love’.
Step 4 – Boot them out of the fellowship and treat them as you treat dogs.
Which is not what Jesus is saying at all. The steps Jesus suggests are ways of making sure that actually you’re not the one holding the wrong end of the stick. At each level, there is a need to test and validate your belief by eliciting the opinion of others, all the while being conscious of your own fallibility. Certainly, the other person may be wrong – but so could you be. Never forget that just because someone dances to a different drum than yours, they must inevitably be the one who is in the ‘sinner’.
There’s an even bigger sting in the tail regarding your subsequent action in dealing with ‘sinners’ when all else fails. Jesus tells us to treat our opponent as a Gentile or a Tax collector in the same way He treated them. How? The same way He treats Jews, Greeks, Slaves, Free, Men, Women: as sinners, but still people who He loves enough to die for.
Yes of course we have a responsibility to address sin – but before we criticise others, we need to start with ourselves. Today’s Gospel message is not about condemnation. Rather, it’s about not being the one who casts the first stone.
Previous Posts
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
George VI, 3 September 1939, speaking after the Declaration of war
“In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in our history, for the second time in the lives of most of us we are at war. Over and over again we have tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences between ourselves and those who are now our enemies. But it has been in vain. The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead and war is no longer confined to the battlefield.”
… but War has never been confined to the battlefield. It’s never the armed forces alone who will suffer the consequences. Families, communities, civilians, children and generations yet unborn – all of these will feel the long-term effects of conflict. Allegiances will be made and broken, loyalties tested and betrayed.
And the Satan feeds and grows fat on the human pain.
Essentially, I believe that the root cause of all conflict is personal greed; the desire to want more than a neighbour and to exercise power over them. And as a result of the struggle, revenge will feed revenge in an endless cycle through generations. Even though we know that in the end, there can never be a victory through violence. ‘Those who want to save their life will lose it’, said Jesus, but though people hear Him, they don’t actually listen. ‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink’ ??? You’ve got to be joking!!!!
Let there be peace on Earth? We know the answer. I know it begins with me. But I’ll wait until someone else takes the first step. And so the wars will go on.
Previous Posts
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
The spectacular landscape of South West Kerry is framed by the way that rock, over many hundreds of thousands of years, has been eroded by water, moved by earthquake, smoothed by slow-moving glaciers and weakened by weather. We pick up a tiny pebble, and tell our children stories of how it used to be a huge boulder. The mountains are moving still, and the skyline changes constantly.
The rock on which Christ’s Church is built, however, is changeless. It weathers all the storms that the world sets against it, and will always stand firm. How? Through us. The rock on which the church was to be founded was Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah. His faith, and the strength of the Spirit, began an unstoppable witness to the Gospel. Over the years, there have been many assaults upon it – some intentional, some insidious, some selfish, some merely through apathy. But still it stands, preserved by the light of burning martyrs through the ages.
And today, our faith and our openness to the Spirit’s guidance echo Peter’s confession. We are part of the rock, and generations yet unborn will know peace and freedom through our witness. The gates of Hell stand no chance, no matter with what weapons Satan uses to defend them.
We pray together:
Heavenly Father – we can only imagine Peter’s reaction when Jesus asks Him the question. There will have been a silence – the disciples are looking at each other, willing someone else to answer. They know that this is the pivotal moment of their lives. Deep in their heart, they do believe – but to say the word out loud means commitment to accepting the consequence, whatever that may be, whatever dangers will be faced. In the end, it is Peter, once again, who takes the step that faith demands. Thousands since that day have proclaimed the same. And so do I. Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ. I pray that my faith will be as strong as rock, and upon that stone, may your church continue being built. Amen.
Previous Posts
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
This has to be one of the most puzzling stories in the Gospels. At first glance, you would be forgiven for feeling that Jesus is being both rude and misogynistic, possibly even racist – “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” – calling a woman in desperate need a ‘dog’.
But that’s not the Jesus I know, the Jesus who is at ease with sinners, occupying troops, lepers and even women, sharing meals and healing them despite the ‘religious’ rules forbidding Him to do so.
So we have to delve a bit further into the significance of what is happening – and when we do, there seem to be two possible interpretations, both of which demand that the passage is contextualised by an awareness of its background.
One possibility is that throughout the Gospels, Jesus is continuously learning about the breadth of His mission. The woman challenges Him to consider whether His ministry is exclusive – for the Jews only – or universal – even to the ‘dogs’, if they accept Him and place their trust in Him. “Great is your faith – let it be as you wish”. Remember that this event takes place before the Transfiguration, when God proclaims Jesus as the Son in who He is well pleased, to be followed by the journey to Jerusalem which results in the fulfilment of Jesus destiny. Everything that has gone before incrementally prepares Him for the cross.
The other explanation is that Jesus knows exactly what He is doing. In front of the Pharisees and scribes, who have taken great offence at Jesus’ teaching (Matthew 15:12) Jesus offers a practical demonstration that, though God has chosen salvation to come from Israel, it is not just for Israel, but the whole of creation. The Messiah they want would reject the dogs (the Gentiles, the unclean, the women). That’s not what they get.
There are arguments for either interpretation. Food for thought.
But whichever, there is no argument that the woman is healed. As are we all, whoever we may be – Jew, Greek, slave, free, man, woman. One in Jesus, the Christ. That’s the important bit.
Previous Posts
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
All too often, we are in the same situation. We travel through the sea of life with the wind against us. Even though we know we ought to trust and obey, we choose to stay in the deceptive safety of the boat rather than take the risk. To step out would be asking too much of our faith, and deep down, however strong our desire to put our belief into practice, we cannot ignore the feeling that we might sink. But once in a while, once in a very Blue Moon, we might close our earthly eyes and leap over the side. When we do, there is nothing that Jesus asks us that we can’t achieve. Yes, perhaps our faith will fail us halfway through, and Jesus will have to reach out to us to rescue us – and He always will. Sometimes, though, just sometimes, we dismiss the rationality of this physical world, and accept the alternative reality of living in the Kingdom. And instead of walking, we fly.
Previous Posts
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.