Weekly Bible Notes

Ordinary 13 Year A  (Trinity 5)

Introduction

We wish Nelson Mandela a very happy birthday

Following the success of the birthday party celebration in Hyde Park London, we wish Nelson Mandela a very happy birthday. His birthday speech was poignant for this week, calling for people to take on the task of working for peace in the world. He gave the assembled crowd and the folks watching at home a challenge, seeking fresh hands to carry on his work. His courage and forgiveness has ensured that he has probably become the most admired human being on Earth. His visit to London shows yet again the power of his moral authority. No one who has met Mr Mandela can fail to be moved by his aura of principle, courage and stubborn optimism.
 

‘Poverty is not natural,
it is man made’

Nelson Mandela

Opening Verses of Scripture   Romans 12:11

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Collect Prayer for the Day — Before we read we pray

Lord of heaven and earth, you sent your Holy Spirit to be the life and power of your Church. Sow in our hearts the seeds of your grace that we may bear the fruit of the Spirit, in love and joy and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Methodist Worship

First Bible Reading  

Genesis 22: 1-14

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"  "Here I am," he replied. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"  Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

Jeremiah 28:5-9

Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah before the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD.  He said, "Amen! May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied by bringing the articles of the Lord's house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon.  Nevertheless, listen to what I have to say in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people: From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the LORD only if his prediction comes true."

Second Reading  Romans 6:12-23

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.  What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Gospel Reading  Matthew 10:40-42

"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

Post Communion Sentence

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the church is governed and sanctified: hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people, that in their vocation and ministry they may serve you in holiness and truth to the glory of your name; through our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. .
 

Commentary

The short reading from Matthew’s Gospel is part of the speech Jesus made when preparing to send out his disciples to evangelise the world. So not much of a demand was being made then: just to bring the whole world to a knowledge of Christ and his mission! How they must have squirmed! How they must have wondered if they were up to the challenge! They must have asked themselves whether Jesus has made an error in sending them off to do the task.  The speech by Jesus is typically radical. He is saying that they are to be his envoys and that welcoming or rejecting him is the same as welcoming God. They probably had not seen themselves, frail and ill-prepared as they felt themselves to be, as being a stand in for Jesus. We modern day Christians are the direct successors of those first disciples and must pick up their task of telling the story of Jesus to the world. It is an awe-inspiring thought. I don’t know if you think of yourself as an evangelist? You probably wouldn’t want to give yourself such an exalted title. But that is what we are called to be, just as that disparate band of tax-collector, fishermen, carpenters and manual workers were called to be. And just as they knew they would encounter difficulty and hostility on the road, so might we.  Jesus offers a surprising view on how people are rewarded for their efforts: it is not an obvious reward which they receive in this life. We are unlikely to be met with pats on the back or rounds of applause when we tell people about our faith. Jesus told the disciples, as he tells us,  that we might find the task challenging and hard, but that the job is of such importance that anyone who  recognises this, even in a trivial way, such as with a cool drink on a hot day, will reap a heavenly reward.   Rev Dr Joan Crossley

Meditation

My treat this week was to pop into an exhibition  on the Orient in European Art. The show was all about how travellers perceived the Middle East from the seventeenth century onwards. These intrepid travellers braved disease, bandits and  hostile terrain to go to the Holy Land. When they arrived there, they encountered a dramatically different landscape, bright, arid, practically treeless. The Holy Land was a huge shock in every way. The traveller from Britain and France also encountered an entirely new religion, in Islam which they struggled to understand. . They were at once attracted and repelled  by the people  and focussed on the decadent  life style of the Pasha with his harem. Middle Eastern people were caricatured as being lecherous (why else would they not allow their women to show their faces?); they were portrayed as being cruel (there are several images of slave markets in the exhibition). In short, although the travelling artists thought they were being honest when they painted Middle Eastern subjects, they were influenced by the ideas they brought to bear on the place and its people. I can only compare this to being introduced to someone whom you have had described to you as being rude,  sarcastic and critical. You might find it hard not to interpret every word from their mouth in the light of this prior “knowledge”. In our daily lives we often experience this problem, of pre-judging a situation or a set of people. We know what we expect to find and so we do find it. I will admit that it is very hard not to make assumptions and have prejudices, especially as we get older. With experience and weariness we take short cuts to sum up people and situations and we might well jump to the wrong idea. It is right as Christians to continually re-evaluate. It is important that we allow the Holy Spirit, always moving and directing us to change us. God cannot work in us if we are entrenched in our ideas. We must be faithful but not bigoted. It is a balance that we need to continually strike in ourselves. Rev Dr Joan Crossley

Hymns

1. Praise to the Lord 16
2. For the healing of the Nations 402
3. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy 230
4. Forth in thy name 381
 

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Additional Material

Commentary

The passage from Matthew this morning is a simple one, but it has a powerful message. Over the past two Sundays we have heard how Jesus sends out his disciples. He calls for commitment from them, he is honest about the dangers they will face, including rejection by their own families. In the reading from Matthew today we hear Jesus reassuring the disciples that he will reward those who receive them and treat them kindly.
"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,
and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."

The disciples are to go out in the name of Jesus. They are to speak his words, they are his representatives, not their own. For this reason the response which people make to the disciples will be a direct reflection upon Jesus whose job they are doing. It is similar to the way in which we treat ambassadors from other countries. If we insult them, then it is not just a personal insult, we insult the country which they represent.

Jesus is clear, kindness shown to his disciples is kindness to him, because they are acting on his behalf. And of course if they act on behalf of Jesus they act for God himself. This is a serious warning to those who might offer hospitality, it is also a reminder to the disciples that they are not out campaigning for themselves, they are nothing short of the visible presence of God himself.

It seems that everybody will be judged by the way in which they treat the disciples. Jesus does not just consider how kings will change government policy. Rather he uses the example of how an ordinary person might respond by offering a drink. It is only a small thing, it does not require great affluence, and so the point is made, we do not have to be rich to help, and poverty is no excuse because we all have something to offer. To provide a cup of cold water to a thirsty person is not costly, but it might be extremely welcome, indeed it might be the gift of life itself.

We do not know what reward Jesus has in store for those who help and offer support, but we do know that the reward is guaranteed. In Acts 20:35 we read the following words of Paul

‘In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Paul quotes Jesus and speaks of the importance of helping those less fortunate. He states what has been discovered by those who give, that we gain blessing in helping others. Perhaps that is sufficient reward in itself.

It is important to remember that Jesus is not commending general hospitality, but rather hospitality to his disciples. Providing hospitality to the disciples shows support for their message. But we fail to do justice to the ministry of Jesus if we fail to recognise the importance of showing kindness to any vulnerable person. Jesus healed freely, he fed freely, he cared for all without distinction.

This was a message and pattern of behaviour which Jesus would have known from the Scriptures. Proverbs tells,
Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31: 9

As the Christians church across the world we must go and preach as those early disciples preached. As we go we must recognise that things have changed since those first disciples went out. The church is no longer in the position of needing to ask for water. Rather we know of all too many people in countries where there is no water and the church now represents many who have power and wealth. In this the church has a prophetic voice to raise. We want to make the proclamation of the Good news to the poor, but good news which the poor are waiting to hear is that they are poor no more.

If we are to take the commission by Jesus to all his disciples that we should go out and reveal who he is, then we need to consider how we might best do this. If we copy the example of Jesus then we will show the love of God in acts of kindness and speak words of compassion indiscriminately. It is particularly appropriate that this week we have included in Partnership News resources from the Make Poverty History Campaign. Please use these to inform your thoughts and prayers in the week ahead.  Charles Royden

Meditation

It is not from your own possessions that you are bestowing alms on the poor, you are but restoring to them what is theirs by right. For what was given to everyone for the use of all, you have taken for your exclusive use. The earth belongs not to the rich, but to everyone. Thus, far from giving lavishly, you are but paying part of your debt. (St Ambrose, 340-397)

Meditation

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked how it was that she could continue to tend the sickest and most wretched of the poor in the slums of Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa said that as she looked at each person for whom she was caring she tried to imagine that she was tending the Lord Jesus’ wounded body – His nail-scarred hands, feet, and side. And so it was that in each act of caring, the Kingdom of God embraced and even reached out through Mother Teresa as she welcomed Christ in her neighbour and as she embraced the neighbour as if that person were the Lord Himself! God remembers each act of hospitality.
 

 

Speak out, judge righteously,

defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Proverbs 31: 9
 

A most important gathering will soon take place when leaders from the "Group of 8" (G8) industrialized countries meet July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland. The agenda of each G8 meeting is traditionally driven by the host country, so there is symbolic importance in the fact that that the United Kingdom was also host when the G8 group reached historic agreement on $100 billion worth of debt cancellation in 1998. Since the UK will also hold the presidency of the European Union from July-December, there is some hope that the muscle of the G8 host will be applied to ensure effective European compliance with commitments made at the Millennium Summit.

In preparing for the July G8 meeting, campaigners have been concentrating on three broad areas in which they hope leaders will make progress: debt, aid, and trade. 

The Manifesto

Trade Justice, Drop the Debt and More and Better Aid

Today, the gap between the world’s rich and poor is wider than ever. Global injustices such as poverty, AIDS, malnutrition, conflict and illiteracy remain rife. Despite the promises of world leaders, at our present sluggish rate of progress the world will fail dismally to reach internationally agreed targets to halve global poverty by 2015. World poverty is sustained not by chance or nature, but by a combination of factors: injustice in global trade; the huge burden of debt; insufficient and ineffective aid. Each of these is exacerbated by inappropriate economic policies imposed by rich countries.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. These factors are determined by human decisions. 2005 offers an exceptional series of opportunities for the UK to take a lead internationally, to start turning things around. This year, as the UK hosts the annual G8 gathering of powerful world leaders and heads up the European Union (EU), the UK Government will be a particularly influential player on the world stage.
A sea change is needed. By mobilising popular support across a unique string of events and actions, we will press our own government to compel rich countries to fulfil their obligations and promises to help eradicate poverty, and to rethink some long-held assumptions.
Make Poverty History urges the government and international decision makers to rise to the challenge of 2005. We are calling for urgent and meaningful policy change on three critical and inextricably linked areas: trade, debt and aid.

1. Trade justice
Fight for rules that ensure governments, particularly in poor countries, can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment. These will not always be free trade policies.
End export subsidies that damage the livelihoods of poor rural communities around the world.
Make laws that stop big business profiting at the expense of people and the environment.

The rules of international trade are stacked in favour of the most powerful countries and their businesses. On the one hand these rules allow rich countries to pay their farmers and companies subsidies to export food – destroying the livelihoods of poor farmers. On the other, poverty eradication, human rights and environmental protection come a poor second to the goal of ‘eliminating trade barriers’.
We need trade justice not free trade. This means the EU single-handedly putting an end to its damaging agricultural export subsidies now; it means ensuring poor countries can feed their people by protecting their own farmers and staple crops; it means ensuring governments can effectively regulate water companies by keeping water out of world trade rules; and it means ensuring trade rules do not undermine core labour standards.
We need to stop the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) forcing poor countries to open their markets to trade with rich countries, which has proved so disastrous over the past 20 years; the EU must drop its demand that former European colonies open their markets and give more rights to big companies; we need to regulate companies – making them accountable for their social and environmental impact both here and abroad; and we must ensure that countries are able to regulate foreign investment in a way that best suits their own needs.

2. Drop the debt
The unpayable debts of the world’s poorest countries should be cancelled in full, by fair and transparent means.

Despite grand statements from world leaders, the debt crisis is far from over. Rich countries have not delivered on the promise they made more than six years ago to cancel unpayable poor country debts. As a result, many countries still have to spend more on debt repayments than on meeting the needs of their people.
Rich countries and the institutions they control must act now to cancel all the unpayable debts of the poorest countries. They should not do this by depriving poor countries of new aid, but by digging into their pockets and providing new money.
The task of calculating how much debt should be cancelled must no longer be left to creditors concerned mainly with minimising their own costs. Instead, we need a fair and transparent international process to make sure that human needs take priority over debt repayments.
International institutions like the IMF and World Bank must stop asking poor countries to jump through hoops in order to qualify for debt relief. Poor countries should no longer have to privatise basic services or liberalise economies as a condition for getting the debt relief they so desperately need. And to avoid another debt crisis hard on the heels of the first, poor countries need to be given more grants, rather than seeing their debt burden piled even higher with yet more loans.

3. More and better aid
Donors must now deliver at least $50 billion more in aid and set a binding timetable for spending 0.7% of national income on aid. Aid must also be made to work more effectively for poor people.
Poverty will not be eradicated without an immediate and major increase in international aid. Rich countries have promised to provide the extra money needed to meet internationally agreed poverty reduction targets. This amounts to at least $50 billion per year, according to official estimates, and must be delivered now. Rich countries have also promised to provide 0.7% of their national income in aid and they must now make good on their commitment by setting a binding timetable to reach this target.
However, without far-reaching changes in how aid is delivered, it won’t achieve maximum benefits. Two key areas of reform are needed.
* First, aid needs to focus better on poor people’s needs. This means more aid being spent on areas such as basic healthcare and education. Aid should no longer be tied to goods and services from the donor, so ensuring that more money is spent in the poorest countries. And the World Bank and the IMF must become fully democratic in order for poor people’s concerns to be heard.

* Second, aid should support poor countries and communities’ own plans and paths out of poverty. Aid should therefore no longer be conditional on recipients promising economic change like privatising or deregulating their services, cutting health and education spending, or opening up their markets: these are unfair practices that have never been proven to reduce poverty. And aid needs to be made predictable, so that poor countries can plan effectively and take control of their own budgets in the fight against poverty.

Make Poverty History and the fight against Aids

Around 38 million people are living with HIV (the virus that leads to AIDS). 95% of these people live in developing countries.

Scientists have developed anti-AIDS treatments that can people keep alive and healthy for up to twenty years, but most of the people living with HIV are too poor to afford them. If patients receive drugs and other care, HIV is a manageable illness. Unfortunately, unfair trade rules, crippling debt and insufficient and ineffective aid are stopping poor people from getting the AIDS care they need - and the consequences are fatal.

The virus has already claimed the lives of 20 million people, and left 15 million children orphaned. As people die, communities lose their mothers, fathers, producers, public servants and future leaders. In some countries teachers are dying of AIDS faster than replacements can be trained.

Complacency and inaction from G8 members (the group of the 8 most powerful political leaders) has taken a treatable, preventable disease and turned it in to a global emergency. Stephen Lewis, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, has called the situation 'mass murder by complacency'.
When the UK hosts the G8 summit in July 2005 it has the opportunity to change the course of the epidemic, and make AIDS history. The Stop AIDS Campaign is demanding that Tony Blair and other G8 leaders commit to a binding timetable for providing access to HIV and AIDS care and treatment for all who need it.Access to care and treatment can never be a reality without action on trade, debt and aid.
Unfair trade rules mean drug prices are set too high for poor communities to afford them. Debt repayments mean poor countries can't build up their health systems Insufficient and ineffective aid means countries don't have the money they need to buy drugs and other treatments for their people
Make AIDS and Poverty History.

Prayer for make poverty history

Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. We pray for the children, women and men across the world who struggle each day to survive, pitted against economic conditions beyond their control. Give them strength to meet each day and hope for a different future.

Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ We pray for the people and organisations campaigning for change as part of the Make Poverty History coalition. May the call for trade justice, for an end to debt and for more and better aid echo loud and clear across the world.

Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.’ We pray for the leaders and politicians with the power to change things. Help them to take the side of the poor, to resist the voices of self-interest and complacency and to make bold choices for the good of all people.
We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, friend of the poor. Amen.

Litany for Make Poverty History

On those bowed down by poverty Lord have mercy

On those who struggle to survive Lord have mercy

On parents who have lost children to disease Lord have mercy

On children who miss school because of unpayable debt  Lord have mercy

On young people growing up with no hope for the future Lord have mercy

On adults who work and cannot make a living Lord have mercy

On farmers who cannot sell what they produce Lord have mercy

On people working to rebuild their lives after the tsunami Lord have mercy

For campaigners fighting for justice Make their voices heard

For citizens standing up for their rights Make their voices heard

For postcard-signers, email-senders and white-band-wearers Make their voices heard

For politicians and decision-makers Give them wisdom, Lord

For the G8 leaders as they prepare to meet Give them wisdom, Lord

For the leaders of Africa Give them wisdom, Lord

For ourselves, as we struggle with these issues Make us the means of change

For your world Help us make poverty history
 

A Hymn of concern

When I needed a neighbour were you there, were you there?
When I needed a neighbour were you there?

And the creed and the colour and the name won't matter, Were you there?

I was hungry and thirsty, were you there, were you there?
I was hungry and thirsty, were you there? Chorus

I was cold, I was naked, were you there, were you there?
I was cold, I was naked, were you there? Chorus

When I needed a shelter were you there, were you there?
When I needed a shelter were you there? Chorus

When I needed a healer were you there, were you there?
When I needed a healer were you there? Chorus

Wherever you travel I'll be there, I'll be there,
Wherever you travel I'll be there.
And the creed and the colour and the name won't matter, I'll be there.

Prayers

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