Worship - 17 August 2025

Summary of this week's theme

Winston Churchill’s warning about ‘blood, toil, tears, and sweat,’ delivered in 1940, might well have been drawn from Jesus’ words to his followers on the road to Jerusalem.  He warned of division and difficulty, with the intent to disturb his listeners into paying attention.  But did Jesus intentionally bring division and conflict? 

Our understanding is limited, but the division was a reality for the early followers of Christ – and many today.  Alongside blood, toil, tears, and sweat, the only peace we may find is the inner peace of doing God’s will.  There is a sad irony behind the words of Jesus.  Those who have followed in the footsteps of the first disciples have too often taken his words to justify crusades of violence against those on the ‘wrong side.’  This is sad, because Jesus did not intend his words to be prescriptive – rather, descriptive of a grim reality of human nature. 

Jesus brings God nearer to humanity, but we can’t presume to know Christ absolutely – our lives are meant to be like the race described by the writer of Hebrews, spent in pursuing a broader and deeper understanding of Jesus, the Christ, and through him, God.  Too often we fail to do this, instead superimposing our own images onto the Jesus of scripture.  But our imagination and vision is too limited for this to be effective.  We might start by recognising that all we are and all we have comes from God; we are leaseholders on this earth, stewards of its resources, entrusted to us for good stewardship.  An individualistic culture that likes to celebrate and possess what has been earned by the ‘sweat of the brow’ does not easily accept this.  Nevertheless, God has hammered away through the ages, through prophets and through Jesus, to counter the behaviour through which we build up ourselves at the cost of others and our relationship with God. 

Jesus criticised his own people for failing to read the signs of their times.  What about us?  When we read the ‘signs of the times’ (i.e. what’s happening now, in the church, in our own local community, in the nation, in the world), we are confronted with a question: what sort of Christians, what sort of church, is required? Who do we need to be in response?  What does it look like when we (individually, communally) fulfil our fiery baptismal vocation to be Christ’s presence in the world?