14 February 2010

Welcome to  St Alban’s Anglican Church  

Today's Scripture: Exodus 34: 29-end       2 Corinthians 3:12 – 4:2            S. Luke 9: 28-43a

Today: 8.35 a.m. Matins; 9.00 a.m. Church School; 9.30 a.m. Holy Eucharist; 6.00 p.m. EP

This Week: ASH WEDNESDAY: 9.00 a.m. Matins; 9.30 a.m. Commination, Imposition of Ashes and Holy Communion; Tues, Thurs-Fri: 12.30pm Midday Prayers

Next Sunday 8.35 a.m. Matins; 9.00 a.m. Church School; 9.30 a.m. Holy Eucharist; 6.00 p.m. EP

Quinquagesima Sunday

O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.

 

FAITH IN FOCUS: KEEPING THE BALANCE

It’s a tightrope. It really is. We have to walk the rope without falling off one side or the other. Jesus tells us that we are happy, fortunate and blessed if we manage to get the balance right.

The beatitudes are the most phenomenal promises ever made. If you are poor then you will own the kingdom of God; if at present you are experiencing hunger you will achieve complete satisfaction; if you weep now you will laugh forever. And so on.

To believe in these promises means you are either deeply committed to the gospel message or you are mad. There can be no in-between. And that’s where it starts to get difficult in daily life.

What do we do? How do we live our daily life, earning and trying to prosper, when we also want to remain poor enough to have a share in the kingdom of God? How do we enjoy a really good meal when we are told that it is the hungry who will be satisfied? And how do we reconcile our belly laughs with the knowledge that those who mourn and weep are the ones who are praised by Jesus?

You can see why many people who listened to Jesus preaching about the beatitudes were singularly unimpressed. It’s counter-cultural: it goes against everything that our world and society stands for and it asks us to refocus and downsize the values that we are supposed to take for granted and aspire to. So they simply wrote him off.

What the beatitudes remind us is that there is more to life than this world. This does not mean that we should not try to eradicate poverty. Nor does it mean that we should ask starving people to embrace their hunger and oppressed nations to stop their mourning and weeping. And it doesn’t mean that our laughter, feasting and prosperity are wrong.

But what the beatitudes ask of us is that we view our lives under the microscope of eternity. All our actions here and now are to be weighed against what will become of us in perpetuity. If we come down too heavily on the laughing and feasting, we’ll be neglecting our deeper reasons for being on this earth. And if we keep our eyes glued on the clouds of heaven, then we’ll end up missing out on this wonderful life. It’s a tightrope!