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“Do not sit down in the place of honour.”

About 25 years ago my Godfather, who is also a priest, got married. Neither he nor his bride were in the first flush of youth. In fact the bishop presiding at his marriage described John and Ann as ‘ripe fruits’ echoing the Prayer Book’s phrase ‘those of riper years’. Ann was a clergy widow with three children and John was single.

When William and I arrived at the church we sat near the back leaving the forward pews for family and other friends. John, however, was having none of it and he led us up to the front pew saying; “You’re my family”. It was a humbling and touching experience and a memory that I treasure. I also remember that even as it happened I could hear today’s Gospel reading in my head and I came to understand that reading more fully than I had done so previously.

I suspect that similar things may have happened to you. If it has, you will know what a privilege it is to be treated with such respect by your host.

In Jesus’ time and to be truthful well into the 20th century and even the 21st century, where one sits or is seated at a formal occasion can have great significance, as it can show your place in the social order. In the past those who were anyone sat above the salt and thus closer to the host. The hangers on, sat below the salt. Both sides always sat in ascending order, with the greatest at the top of the table and the meanest at the lowest point. So to be led up the table by the host was pretty significant and it could actually change your place in the social order and ultimately your lifestyle and your fortune. So for anyone who presumed to sit in a place of honour not given to them ran the risk of public humiliation and disgrace by being asked to move to a lower position. An act that could actually ruin their life.

What Jesus is telling us this morning, is that one should never seek recognition but that one

should wait be recognised for who one is and then to graciously and modestly accept the invitation of the host, who may choose to move you up the social scale. Being raised up is not a cause for pride or smugness - it should be quite the reverse.

Today’s readings tell us:

“Don’t believe your own legend. Don’t think too much of yourself or your position because others may not perceive you to be or deem you worthy of the respect that you think you deserve.”

I am not saying that we are not to have self- respect but that we should never be ‘big- headed’ about ourselves. We all know what we tend to think of those who are!

Why does God want us to be aware of this? The last verse of the piece from Hebrews, I think, gives us the answer:

“16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Hebrews 13:16

God does not want us to think we are too important as it might stop us reaching out to others around us, who we perceive as being less important than we are. God wants to care for our sisters and brothers regardless of their station life or ours. God wants us to be aware of the needs of others and to help all in need, sharing what we have with those who have not. God encourages us to share our resources and not to hoard them for our own use alone - remember the rich man and the full barns, who died when he thought his future was secure.

Being called to share things might mean that sometimes we may need to go without something but it is more than likely that we did not need it anyway. God likes a sacrificial giver, because when we give sacrificially we really notice what we are doing and we will really want to give our gift to enable the receiver to benefit from it. When you give

sacrificially, how often do you discover that you unexpectedly get much more back in return?

God always seems to bless us when we are generous. For we have a sacrificial and generous God. A God who knows how to give as he did of himself in his Son. God’s sacrifice needs our continual thanks and praise for in his giving we gained our salvation. In the death and resurrection of Jesus, God raised all of us above the salt and in doing so shows us all how important we are to him.

Today, we hear the term 24/7 quite a bit, a few years ago you would have looked at me blankly if I had used it in the pulpit. 24/7 simply means 24 hours a day 7 days a week and it is often used to describe the 21^st century culture we now live in. No longer can the week be divided into the five day working week and the two day weekend off. Life today tends to be more of a continuum of work, leisure and sleep. For many there is not a specific weekend or day off and the concept of Sunday as the Sabbath Day of rest is long gone. As Dame Maggie Smith said as her dowager duchess character in Downton Abbey; ‘What is a weekend?’ And it is a good question!

We live in a society that never sleeps. Did you know that a few years ago Edinburgh had the greatest number of call centres and call operators in the UK, if not in Europe? These call centres operate 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Which means that should you wish to check your bank account or pay bills at 0300 on a Wednesday morning you can?

The life we live today in 2022 is strikingly different to the way in which we lived life during my childhood in the late 60’s and early 70’s, as it will be very different to the way life was lived when you were children. Yet, it does not depress me. In order to live and survive in today’s world one has to be realistic and accepting of the changes in one’s pattern of life. Bemoaning that; ‘Things are not what they used to be’ gets you nowhere. It does not mean, however, that like a lemming you have to follow the crowd; you can challenge the status quo and strike out on your own, establishing your way of doing things but don’t expect too many others to copy you. Challenging the status quo is, however, a good thing to do at times, as it can be life-changing and energising.

I have a great respect for all those who seek to challenge the accepted norms, especially where those norms do don’t benefit others. Think of those who champion the underdog, the poor, and the forgotten. Those who fight to change attitudes towards those who society tries to marginalise such as: asylum seekers, the disabled, those from the LGBTI+ community. Progress may be slow but I believe they will succeed because right is on their side. I have no respect, though, for those who try to dictate to us what we are to believe, say or do; for example extreme political or religious groups. I also have little sympathy for those who moan about the changes to Sunday - why?

It is not because I do not believe that Sundays are special I do but I also recognise that for the majority of the population Sundays are not special days off, they can be working days and busy days ferrying family to one event after another. For many people Sundays are certainly not a Sabbath or a day of rest. I am a realist, we are never going to have shops closed on Sundays again but as a Christian I believe that we should encourage everyone to keep a ‘Sabbath’. To find new ways of applying the old concept because if a day of rest was good enough for God then it is good enough for God’s creation too. How can we 21^st century believers redefine the ‘Sabbath’ concept for today’s society?

Firstly, we need to encourage everyone to have at least a day off during the week, to keep a Sabbath but not necessarily on a Sunday. This also challenges the church to look to itself and the days on which it offers worship, if Sunday is not the best day for some people when do we need to have our churches open and to invite people to join us?

My personal ’Sabbath’ tends to be a Friday, if not some other day depending on my diary. I always try to have a day off, (even if now the SEC encourages us to have two days off!). It is a chance to slow down and to rest. For me Sundays are a day of work and tend to be quite full – it might be the same for you.

Choosing when to keep ‘a Sabbath’ is not a new concept. The early Christians chose Sunday as a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, in contrast to their Jewish neighbours who kept the Sabbath on Saturday. Followers of Islam keep Friday as special. The common thing here is that a day is kept as sacred time, a day to rest and pray, to relax and to give thanks to God. It is, I think, less important what day is kept as the Sabbath than the fact that a Sabbath Day is kept.

In today’s Gospel reading the leader of the synagogue chastises Jesus for healing on the Sabbath:

There are six days in which work ought to be done, come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath.”

Jesus responded in telling the official that he is wrong, for even the scriptures tell you that you may work on the Sabbath when you need to, where it states that you may lead your ass to water. What Jesus is actually saying is one should not be hidebound to the law, that it is not there to dictate to you but to help you organise your life and society around. He implies that the law has to be flexible to needs and the local environment or else the whole thing will collapse. If the ass did not drink on the Sabbath then it would die and allow no work to happen in the coming week. Jesus was always concerned with the welfare of others and was prepared to challenge the status quo, where it would be harmful. In seeing the crippled woman in pain, Jesus seeks to help her thereby putting the needs of God’s people above the letter of the law.

We are told to keep a Sabbath after six days of work but we are not told specifically which day to keep as the Sabbath. It depends on which day you start your six days of work. The theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote about 40 years ago that it is vitally important to keep the Sabbath, a whole 24 hours in which things can slow down and God can be given some quality time. It is good advice and advice we all in today’s society need to hear and respond to.

Keep your Sabbath special would I think a better campaign that one trying to keep Sundays alone as special. As you will gather by now, I do not mourn the passing of the old Sundays. As a youngster I hated them and found them depressing. Just when I had some time and energy to do things, places were shut. As the Church we need to continually discern how we can best serve God’s people in this 24/7 culture. We need to recognise that for many Sunday is not their Sabbath and that 10 am on Sunday might not be the best time to go to church either.

We are being challenged by society to bring Christ into the world as it is today. It is a challenge we cannot afford to ignore, for if we do we are doing God, Christ and God’s people a disservice. Whatever day you keep as your Sabbath, enjoy it. Encourage your family, friends and neighbours to do the same and nag the church to do something about it too.

Yesterday, the Edinburgh International Book Festival began. I feel sure that many of you will have happy memories of sitting in a very warm marquee in the middle of Charlotte Square and listening to distinguished speakers. Festivals of this and of all kinds should be peaceful and reflective events, open to a variety of perspectives. The vicious and life-threatening assault on Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institute on Friday has been rightly and unequivocally condemned by many people.

It seems likely, given what is known about the alleged attacker, that he was motivated by an extreme and distorted version of his religious beliefs. That has, predictably, led to widespread comment on social media that the world would be a better and safer place if there were no religious believers. Some of that comment is reasoned, some of it is a reminder that secularists can be surprisingly intolerant, uncharitable and prone to sweeping generalisations.

In the light of all this, today’s Gospel makes particularly difficult reading. It’s one of those moments in the New Testament when we seem to have direct access to Jesus’ emotions. He confronts us with some powerful and very challenging words:

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

And Matthew’s Gospel has an even starker version of this saying:

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

A few years ago, Susan and I went to a brilliant talk at the Book Festival by the historian Sir David Cannadine, and it came to mind when I looked at today’s challenging and uncompromising Gospel, because Sir David referred to it in his lecture.

Professor Cannadine also quoted that verse from Matthew but went on to suggest that it is essential to hold it in dialogue with other sayings of Jesus, including his teaching about loving your enemy and about turning the other cheek. And as we think about today’s Gospel, it is important to remember something that Jesus says a little earlier in Chapter 12 of Luke:

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

We value family life, delighting in its closeness if we are privileged to enjoy it and mourning deeply when family ties are broken by death, yet here is Jesus saying that his mission – the inauguration of the Kingdom of God - will divide families, setting close relatives against each other. On the face of it, this seems to add weight to the Humanist view of that religion is a bad thing precisely because it causes divisions and hatred, and that the world would be better off without it.

This hard saying of Jesus is an example of him deliberately challenging the values, the comfort zones of the culture in which he lived. Elsewhere in the Gospels, he challenges other values – the commerce that sustained Temple worship, material possessions, ritual purity, racial prejudice and militant nationalism. The challenges are never negative – Jesus is always saying, and showing in his own life, that God has something better to offer than the comfort zones – social, economic, cultural, ideological and, indeed, religious – that we humans create for ourselves.

In the case of family life, we need to remember that in those days there was no welfare state, and that the family was the social security system. Those excluded from family life found themselves isolated and impoverished. The better way that Jesus taught and lived was to engage lovingly with people outside the comfortable mutually-supportive unit of the family, loving them and sharing table fellowship with them.

And then there’s the dramatic beginning of today’s Gospel

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.”

Those words have often been understood as referring to God’s judgement, but Fire has other meanings in the Bible. It is sometimes an indicator of the presence of God – remember the burning bush that Moses saw, or the pillar of fire that led the Hebrew people through the wilderness by night, or the tongues of flame at Pentecost. And Fire is also seen in the Bible as a symbol of God’s intention to purify his people – think of those verses in the prophet Malachi:

“For he is like a refiner's fire…”

We should think of Jesus as God present among God’s people, seeking to purify and perfect, yet agonizingly aware that he will be despised and rejected.

Faith, these readings suggest, need not be a cause of tension and violence. One of the themes of David Cannadine’s lecture was that for much of history people of different faiths have managed to live peacefully alongside each other and to benefit from a mutual exchange of ideas and culture. It’s worth remembering the role that Muslim scholars played in the Middle Ages in preserving the best of Greek Philosophy, Science and Mathematics and making them accessible to the Christian West. St Thomas Aquinas was significantly influenced by the Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides and by the Muslim thinker known in the west as Averroes, whose real name was Ibn Rushd and who taught that if we don’t engage critically and thoughtfully with your religious beliefs, their true meaning may be lost and we may fall into dangerous misunderstanding of God’s purposes for us.

Ibn Rushd was surely right. If faith becomes rooted in comforting human certainties, if it ceases to be self-critical, then it ceases to be faith and becomes ideology. It loses the openness to God’s gifts and to God’s purposes and becomes aggressive or defensive, and it diminishes into the conviction that the world would be better place if everyone believed and behaved just like us. Religious believers often fall into that trap, but then so do Humanists. If, on the other hand, faith is based on a recognition of the challenging generosity of God to all God’s creation, then faith becomes a willingness to move beyond the safe, the familiar and the convenient and to seek the justice and righteousness of the Kingdom of God.

It is that sort of faith of which, in the words of today’s Epistle, Jesus is “the pioneer and perfecter”. Jesus had not come to validate the divisions which we human beings are so good at creating for ourselves. Rather he came to destroy those divisions by showing the generosity of God, to encourage us out of our brokenness, our fear of others, our love of power into a new creation.

Which prompts the thought that what the world needs is not the triumph of secular Humanism, nor the triumph of one of the political ideologies into which religions so easily deteriorate – whether its Conservative Evangelicals supporting Donald Trump in the USA, radical Islamist terrorists in the Middle East or those who believe that showing disrespect to their religious beliefs should carry a death sentence  – rather what the world needs is more real faith. Real faith is costly and difficult. To live it to the full, as Jesus did, means challenging the comforting certainties of the human structures and ideologies that divide people from each other, and discovering that our comfort zone can be far, far bigger than we realized.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1)

When did  you last put your faith in some one or something?  It may have been getting on an aeroplane trusting that we would land safely. It may have been going to see a hospital consultant and awaiting a longed for diagnosis. It may have been visiting a friend hoping for a particular outcome or response.  Think for a moment. How did we feel? How did we react?  Perhaps slightly uncertain, anxious, troubled and even vulnerable.

Our readings today are all about putting our trust in God without always knowing what the outcome will be.  Of having to trust despite what we are being told or what seems most likely to be a foregone conclusion. Abraham longed for Sarah, his wife, to bear a son and heir. It seemed impossible. Yet God brought him outside and said “Look toward heaven and count the stars.  So shall your descendants be”.

Did you notice the word most repeated in our readings?  “Faith”. It  is repeated at least seven times in Hebrews. The other repeated words are “Do not be afraid”.  Faith and anxiety seem to co-exist. They never quite disappear. There seems to be an ongoing tension and even struggle.

In the book entitled “Glimpses of the Divine” the German artist and catholic priest, Sieger Koder (1925-2015)  captured something of the hidden God in the everydayness of life through his paintings.   His  brushstrokes allow us to see the struggle at the core of every relationship. In separation and reconciliation;  in our wrestling with doubt, guilt, fear; in joyful recognition;  in the choices we make;  in the gifts that we receive; in moments of darkness or quiet fidelity.  Above all  in the face of a loved one, stranger or enemy we discover a glimpse of the God who hides and waits to be found - who understands our longings and our frustrations.

One commentator has written “Like Abraham, Christians are part of an ongoing story. They come in on a conversation that is already taking place; in which something of the character of the main speaker is already evident. And like Abraham, we are aware that our story too will have consequences for those who follow.  Hebrews narrates that the patriarchs do not see the completion of God’s plan, though they see enough to be able to guess and be excited. And they understand enough to be able to live their lives in such a way that they can help generations to come to play their part in their turn. They like Abraham live with this mixture of knowing God through what he has already done and longing to see what is still unknown. Part of what they bequeath to generations to come is that discontent, that restless certainty that what you already know about God and his ways is never enough. Desire and discontent are strange qualities to value but apparently, they are what makes God willing to be identified with us”.

As we struggle at times with being afraid and anxious; of longing for that heavenly city which has still to be fully revealed; and of having faith in those things “hoped  for but not yet seen” may we take confidence in the words of Richard Floyd:-

“In the end it is trust in God’s benevolence towards us that grounds our otherwise ungrounded existence. Grounded in that faith, grounded in the divine benevolence, we can live, not without anxiety, but with faithful courage in the midst of anxiety”.

Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me (Luke 12:13)

I was struck by the recent headline in one of our national newspapers entitled “Mother left son £300,000 home so he could look after her parrots”.  Some of you may have read it too.  The defender was the sole recipient of his parents’ estate after his mother changed her will in 2019 removing her three stepchildren.  Their father and mother had previously made wills in 2017 splitting all their wealth between their son and their three stepchildren. The defender who has been branded as “pretentious” is being sued by his step-siblings who are trying to force him to split the inheritance he received four ways.

We can, I expect, identify with the unnamed man in the crowd who cries out to Jesus “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me”. Although we are not told the exact details, his request does seem reasonable.

How many families have been torn apart by disputes over the terms of a will? I used to come across this as lawyer. Some never spoke to their siblings again. Others resorted to court action especially where there was a large inheritance, a fine country house or an impressive art collection. Often there were issues when a re-marriage had occurred  but the deceased had never got round to altering their original will or other children come along.

The theologian, Jane Williams comments that “The rich man has already decided upon what is important. He has lived his life by that decision. The “judgement” then is one that he has already made.  This is what Jesus wants his listeners to understand. We decide now, day by day, what to value, what to give our heart to. These brothers, fighting over their inheritance, have to come to the Judge of all the earth. They have a chance, now, to listen to Jesus and to choose between the kingdom or allowing the squabble about money to distract them”.

The success of the rich man could be applauded as the faithful application of his God-given capabilities. He has benefited from both the provision of God and his own skilful means. Surely he may be permitted to save up a bit for himself and to celebrate with a feast? Jesus though, is not telling this story to criticise prudent resource management or the celebration of the good things  of life. Instead Jesus, I think, presents the rich man as a type of person who chooses inordinate self-concern over and above the kingdom of God.

Richard Floyd, a pastor from Atlanta, Georgia comments that “As the rich man celebrates the abundance  of his land nowhere does he make mention of others: his family, his friends, his neighbours, his workers, aliens and strangers.  He is supremely isolated. He refuses to participate gratefully and graciously in what God has generously given. It is ironic that, by isolating himself from others in a bid for absolute control, he has in fact lost control and has no one to pass on his abundance”.

Earlier in Luke’s Gospel a lawyer stood up and asked Jesus “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”. He said “what is written in the law? How do you read? And he answered “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself”. And Jesus said to him, “You have answered right, do this and you shall live”.