Six new stories added to Market Rasen's award winning heritage tour and website, focusing on “Wolds Women of Influence”
'Luke 12 v49-56 - A passage we can physically relate too?
Much in the Bible may seem so far away and of another time. Maybe it feels no longer relevant to us given that it is written for the people of the age in styles to suit the audience demographic. Is it really able to speak to us today?
In the current heatwave with increasing hose-pipe bans, fires breaking out around the world, it seems a bit of a worry that Jesus said, ‘I have come to bring fire on the Earth.’ With wars raging on, sadness and destruction abounding, evil actions continuing to be reported; it seems a bit of a worry that Jesus implied ‘I have not come to bring peace on Earth.’ Remembering the division created over the emotive Brexit decision within communities, families and government. It seems a bit of a worry that Jesus said, ‘I have come to separate people.’
But reading this passage, sensing the rebuke in Jesus’ words against their apparent ‘selective’ understanding of God’s teaching; it certainly does hit home as totally relevant to today! – Not just because recently we have seen or felt echoes of His words in events around us. Reading the whole chapter may evoke a sense of lacking. Lacking of faith, of compliance, of desire to follow our Lord as we should in our everyday lives. Do we as a Christian body selectively hear the message? Do we stand before God pretending, we haven’t understood? Or we understand, maybe we just don’t want to do the sacrifice? We too place our trust in things that have become norm because of repetitive examples that confirm to us its truth. The Sun indeed rises in the East and sets in the West, we see it, we feel it. We believe it. We would proclaim it
Is Jesus asking us to be so sure of Him? To trust with the same certainty and conviction? Do we do that? Can we do that? Do we speak His name when doing so may bring scorn? Do we stand up for Him against the opinion of our peers? Do we voice our Lord’s view when society appears to be moving away from it? Do we look at our riches, our Godly gifts, our time, our plenty and share them eagerly with others? Many do, many try, and we give thanks for each and every one of them!
May we all aspire to do the same – Never in our own strength but rather with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, in the power of faith through Jesus Christ and in the everlasting Grace of God.
Our Prayer for the Week
Gracious Father,Amen
Janine
The Walesby Group, set into the north western edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, consists of 10 parishes, 10 worshipping communities and 11 church buildings. With a population of around 2100 we are a benefice of very small communities, living in the vast open spaces of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. As worshipping communities we aim to grow ourselves in our faith and discipleship, support and engage with our local communities and bring new people to Christ.
We are blessed with beautiful buildings and faithful commitment from our congregations. As the group continues to integrate together, we are being enabled to offer a variety of worship and outreach styles. Lay ministry and leadership is key to all we offer, and encouraged as we endeavour to open the Kingdom and its values to all.
The Christian faith is focused on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. We also believe his death achieved something very special: the opportunity to reconnect with the God that we might believe in but might sometimes feel remote from.
We believe that Jesus was not just a human being but, in some way that we cannot fully understand, God as well. We believe in God the Father, the creator of the entire universe, and the Holy Spirit, who is the way we can experience Jesus today. Not three gods but one, who together are described as the ‘Trinity’ – a description not so much of philosophy but of the relationship at the heart of God.
In the most famous Christian prayer we pray ‘Our Father…’ This creator God wants a relationship with us, for us to be his children and to give us, as Jesus says, ‘life in all its fulness’ (John 10.10).
