Sunday 14th August 2022

Readings:
Jeremiah 23: 23-29
Luke 12: 49-56
Hebrews 11: 29-12:2
 
Our Guest Preacher this Sunday is Rev Dr Geoff King, with the theme “Running the Human Race”

Whilst there is no recording of the sermon this week, here are some points to ponder, and thoughts for the week:
 
Points to ponder:
How would you define faith in general and Christian faith in particular? 
 
How do ‘people of faith’ respond when faced with texts which seem to challenge some of the core beliefs of their tradition?
 
Today’s readings provide plenty of challenges, as well as a memorable metaphor from the imaginative mind of the apostle Paul.
 
Jeremiah 23: 23-29 is a warning to all ‘false prophets’ that the ‘word of God’ is like ‘fire’ and a ‘hammer’ – hardly comforting images.
 
Luke 12: 49-56 features Jesus, elsewhere worshipped as the ‘Prince of Peace’, telling his followers that he has come to bring ‘not peace, but rather division’  (Matthew’s version of this story is even more graphic:  ‘I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.’
 
Hebrews 11: 29-12:2 concludes Paul’s catalogue of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ with an appeal to his readers to ‘run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.’

• Have you ever experienced the ‘word of God’ as a ‘fire’ or a hammer?
  
• When has taking seriously something Jesus said or did caused a lack of peace or conflict for you?
  
• Who are the people who spring to mind when you think of a ‘great cloud of witnesses?
  
• What does it mean to ‘look to Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith?’

 
Thoughts for the week
Faith is a commitment to the world’s transformation through God to a kingdom of justice and peace.           (James W. Douglass, Lightning East to West, 1980, p. 5)
 
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
(Helen Keller (1880-1968))
 
The Christian life is as simple and as challenging as this:   to love God and to love that which God loves.  This is the central meaning of faith.  Given the premodern meaning of “believe,” to believe in God is to belove God.  Faith is about beloving God and all that God beloves.  The Christian life is about beloving God and all that God beloves.  Faith is our love for God.  Faith is the way of the heart. 
(Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a life of faith, HarperSanFrancisco 2003, p. 41)