vocation – Just because

As I was reading the passage Luke chapter 12, verses 32 – 40, some words from The Lion King popped into my head:

“Even you can’t be caught unawares, so, prepare for a chance of a lifetime, be prepared for sensational news. A shining new era is tiptoeing nearer. And where do we feature? Just listen to teacher. Be prepared!”

There are many distractions in our world, many temptations and many things clamouring for our attention.

Where your treasure is there also will your heart be.

Jesus is calling us to prioritise and to focus on the things and activities that give eternal life. He is reminding us that we should be centering our lives on God. The world will not make this easy. There will be distractions in the world around us which may make this seem difficult. But (there’s always a but!) it is essential for our lives as Christians and if we don’t we will be caught unprepared!

This passage from Luke is about vocation! It is not simply ‘be prepared and you will be saved’.

It is actually about being ready and alert, being aware and listening so that when God calls us to action we can seize the opportunity and spring into action, spreading the good news full of the energy of the gospel – healing, justice, love, grace, peace, mercy …

Those who are ready for the return of the Lord will be served by God. Remember the words of the hymn:

“This is my God, the Servant King.”

This gives the impression of being a contradiction but it does not mean that we stop serving God. Instead it is a promise of what will happen when you re-centre your life around God. The good news of Christ will serve you in your life so that you are not afraid.

Jesus promises that God has given everything so that we do not need to be afraid. He then goes on to talk about how God will serve us reminding us about the gift of life and creation, the gift of eternal life, the gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and the gift of Christ’s body and blood in Communion. This highlights how abundantly God showers gifts upon us, how abundantly He loves us and desires good for us. It echoes His covenant with Abraham.

So, how ready are we?

Are we ready to help others in need? Have we considered the issues of peace and justice going on in the world? Are we ready to be part of God’s solution?

Jesus is encouraging us to live with an expectation that God is always and already with us … and watching as God has always been. Jesus being incarnated as man was a reminder and embodiment of that reality and an example for us to follow.

This passage of priorities is a call to keep God’s priorities ahead of our own every day in all the choices we make. God’s list of priorities may seem long or challenging at times. It means accepting God’s forgiveness for our own sins and forgiving those who sin against us.

It means loving one another and loving our enemies. It means standing up to injustice when we see it, praying for and voting for and working for peace in the world.

It means living and shopping and consuming in ways that care for creation; eating and drinking and exercising in ways that care for the temples our bodies are meant to be.

Going back to just before Jesus gave us this list of priorities He says to us:

“Do not be afraid little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.

God wants us to be with Him in His kingdom. God’s kingdom is already here among us thanks to Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection.

Being typical human beings we don’t see and experience it clearly because we’re looking the wrong way or wandering off on our own instead of following our God Guide.

But, like the pleasure we get giving someone a gift, God has immense pleasure in gifting us His kingdom, right here, right now as a foretaste of things to come, because of His grace. And God’s list of priorities is the key that opens the gate.

By being generous we can glimpse God’s kingdom. By sacrificing something, giving something freely and willingly to someone who needs it, enables us to experience and share in a measure of His kingdom.

By seeking out the least among us and giving them a hand we can feel the kingdom among us. By forgiving all who cross us we experience the peace of the kingdom – the peace that passes all understanding.

Converse with those with different opinions to yourself, send a note to someone who’d be surprised you thought of them, keep them in your prayers and God’s kingdom will be in your midst and theirs.

Be Ready

Be Alert

Be Prepared

Listen for God’s call and spring into action.

Talk from 19th March 2023

I’ll start by admitting that, whilst I was thinking about what I might say today, I was tempted to include a vote on who wants a talk about Mothering Sunday versus who wants a talk on today’s readings (Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:33-35, John 19:25b-27). Instead, in a good news bad news kind of result, you’ve got a bit of both.

The other week my husband asked me if I would be taking the Mothers’ Day break in the Lenten fast. Being me I asked why and got told it’s because it’s Respite Sunday. Well, those of us with the job title of Mother might agree that respite is a myth! So I looked it up.

In medieval times this Sunday, called Mid-Lent or Refreshment Sunday, was indeed used as a day of respite from the Lenten fast.

So why, I thought, would you break the fast, or resolution if you like, for one day when (assuming you’ve been able to keep it so far) you are half way through and it’s beginning to get easier. After all, it takes 6 weeks to make a new routine stick and only 1 to break it. Breaking the fast surely just makes it harder to keep for the final half of Lent.

Penny drops!

That’s why, I thought, because it had got easier, it’s not a temptation in the same way anymore, it’s easier to resist, that habit of having whatever it is we’ve given up is becoming a habit of not having it. We are not having to make as much effort and so the motive of Lent, the preparation, the trials, the testing need refreshing so that we are putting the same amount or even more effort into the second half of Lent as we did in the first half. It is not supposed to be easy.

So how did this become associated with Mothering Sunday? Simply because of the texts read at Mass during those medieval times which were full of many metaphors for and references to mothers; which are often linked to the personification of the church as the Bride of Christ and with the Virgin Mary.

Time passed. (It didn’t know the answer to the question). After the English Reformation (when coincidently the same readings were still being assigned to this Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer) Christians would ‘Go a Mothering’. This means they would return to their “Mother Church” for a service on this Sunday. By “Mother Church” we normally mean either the church in which we were baptised, the local parish church or the nearest cathedral (the cathedral being the “Mother Church” of all the churches in the diocese).

In more recent history, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their Mother Church, usually with their own mothers and family members.

Nowadays, we use Mothering Sunday to give thanks to all those who mother us. A day when we celebrate all who have and do give us motherly care.

Providing this love and care is, in itself, a vocation. It is a vocation of nurturing, care, love and joy. Equally, it is a vocation of tiredness and worry, pain and sacrifice.

There can be no doubt that Mary experienced all these elements of motherhood. She accepted the vocation and all the pain that was to come with it.

Jesus was born to be our Saviour and this involved Him being the Ultimate Sacrifice. In this short passage from Luke, Simeon receives Jesus like a priest receiving a sacrifice. He warns Mary that “a sword will pierce” her soul also.

We are told that Mary treasured and pondered on all these things she was told about Jesus. We can only imagine how much she may have dwelt on and worried or dreaded that time coming. Did it give her a chance to be prepared? A chance to be ready when that moment came?

Mary understood the joy of motherhood. But, she also had to understand the pain as she saw Jesus humiliated, tortured and die an extremely painful death. The sword piercing her soul.

Mary was there at important moments in Jesus’s life. Likewise, she was at the cross at His time of death. Yet, even at the moment of death Jesus’s heart is open. He sees the pain and grief of the mother who sacrificed for Him, whom He loves and respects. He sees the grief of a trusted disciple and friend and He gives them to each other to support and care for each other. He ensures that they will be okay by this act. An act of compassion at His darkest hour.

So as we move towards communion and towards our time of prayer let us bring to the Lord all our joys and sorrows. Let us bring to Him our thanks for all those who have provided us with a mothering care and all those who have been like mothers to us.

As we remember Jesus’s sacrifice for us upon the cross, His act of love, may we try and understand the pain of those who suffer out of love and may we strive to follow His example and walk in His footsteps striving to act with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and love.