Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 26 January 2025

Christ entrhoned - Book of Kells
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday of the Word of God
Few of us will not have seen or read the gentle persuasive call for mercy that Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde preached before the President of the United States, and I hope that all of us recognise in her words the call for mercy, and the task of any Christian, let alone pastor of Christ's flock which is enjoined upon us in those words of Jesus taken from Isaiah and quoted by Luk :
" He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom* into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read
and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,*
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." (Lk 4: 16-19).
There has been an outcry against Bishop Mariann especially from certain Christians who have condemned her words as political. President Trump in a typically unpleasant manner, called her a 'so called bishop' a 'radical Trump hater' and 'nasty' amongst other things. To say that he and other critics have a skewed version of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus is an underestimation. The very opening words of Jesus' ministry is an unequivocal call to mission and witness to the dignity and value of life on this planet.
The denigration of any category of person is just antithetical to the quality of mercy we are supposed to show. How many times do we have to be reminded that Christ came for all, but that it is in the little ones, those poor, captive, outcast, injured ones, that we will find the opportunity to discern the Incarnation at the heart of our existence. Paul hammers home this connectivity in our second reading, teaching us that we belong to each other, migrant, prisoner, sinner, LGBTI person, rich and poor alike : "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Now the body is not a single part, but many". (I Cor 12:13,14) This is what the bishop was reminding us about, and of the heart of our Jubilee Year of Mercy, the of debt, the freeing of captives, the graciousness of a grace filled Christian caring for others.
I have another point to make, we are ending the annual Week of Christian Unity, a time when we strive to find common ground in our baptismal vocation, but also this Sunday has been designated as Word of God Sunday.
The words of Pope Francis who instituted this Sunday in 2019 make clear its meaning: "Devoting a specific Sunday of the liturgical year to the word of God can enable the Church to experience anew how the risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of his word .and enables us to proclaim its unfathomable riches before the world".(Pope Francis, Aperuit illis)
Here is the core of our commitment to the living word, to make Scripture part of our life and use it to enrich our ministry and mission. The scriptures are not a secret hidden set of words known only by believers, they are the living vibrant active word of Christ in our lives ,hearts and souls. There are to be proclaimed and lived. They may calm us in stormy times, and ease our bereavement and sorrows, but they are also there to awaken our consciences, compel us to experience anew Christ's call to loving service, to take as our mission those words from Isaiah and go out into this world and share him. Here is true ecumenism, a recognition that whatever family of Christianity we might belong to, in the heart and mystery of God we are being reconciled by Christ and will be one.
We as active believing Christians need to get out of our niches, this strange type of denominational box, where points are scored by telling others we are different but better, that we are the true Church or have right doctrine. There is still a bit too much of this invidious, un-theological, divisive and ungenerous language about us.
I am a Catholic, now working with Eastern Catholics, but my English family are Anglican, several generations back there were also Quakers and Baptists, in my experience and mind they are godly, caring loving people and some have taught me much. I would not now dream of being so appallingly ungracious or rude as to call other churches pastors, priests and bishops, 'so called priests etc'. Instead I remind myself ,as I do you, that some of the greatest minsters of the Gospel in the 20th century have come from many different traditions, think of Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, and dare I say it, the witness of our own late Queen Elizabeth II whose words of faith have entered into our national life and inspired so many.
True ecumenism is recognising that my Christian home is where I belong, and it has treasures which can be shared, that I should live in its embrace fully, but accept that other Christian denominations have people who love their church as home as much as myself, that they have treasures to give and a witness that adds to our own. The Unity Christ calls us to is about mercy, love, reconciliation, and living in Him by his Word. The Word of God-in -Christ calls us to be renewed, a grace-filled people whose quality is that of generous and gracious love.
As Bishop Budde preached at that inaugural sermon on January 21st: "Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honour the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. The good of all people in this nation and the world." Amen!
Lectio Divina
I Corinthians 12: 12-14, 17.
Brothers and sisters:
As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Now the body is not a single part, but many.
You are Christ's body, and individually parts of it.
Homily of Pope Francis on the Year of Mercy
'We are united with so many Christians, who, in every part of the world, have accepted the invitation to live this moment as a sign of the goodness of the Lord. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, in fact, allows us with confidence to draw near to the Father, in order to be certain of his pardon. He really is "rich in mercy" and extends his mercy with abundance over those who turn to him with a sincere heart.
To be here in order to experience His love, however, is first of all the fruit of his grace. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, God never ceases to show the richness of His mercy throughout the ages. The transformation of the heart that leads us to confess our sins is "God's gift", it is "His work" (cf. Eph 2:8-10 The Gospel of Luke (7:36-50) opens for us a path of hope and comfort. It is good that we should feel that same compassionate gaze of Jesus upon us, as when he perceived the sinful woman in the house of the Pharisee.'