Weekly
Reflections
The great feast
Last
Sunday we heard of tenants who murdered their landlord’s slaves, and
then his son, in order to avoid paying rents and steal the son’s
inheritance. In this week’s parable from Matthew, the violence is even
more extreme and baffling. People invited to a royal feast in honour of
a King’s son refuse to come, and murder the slaves sent to invite them.
The insulted host destroys the invitees and their city, then asks
people from the streets to his feast instead.
Luke’s
version of this parable, and the similar story in the non-canonical
Gospel of Thomas, do not have the murdered slaves or violent
retaliation that we hear today (Luke 14:15-24, Thomas 64). A great
feast is a common image of God’s kingdom in both Old and New
Testaments, and this parable is often read as a reproach of people who
reject the invitation to God’s kingdom. But Luke’s version also has a
positive message: the poor and the crippled are unexpected invitees to
God’s feast.
Matthew,
though, may see this parable as an allegory of the early church. The
original guests represent the Jewish community and its leaders, who
rejected the Christian message, sometimes violently. The ruined city is
Jerusalem and its temple, destroyed in 70CE. For
Matthew, the parable may explain the fall of Jerusalem and vindicate
his own, persecuted, community. But the parables in Luke and Thomas are
probably closer to Jesus’ original message.
Nicky Cusworth
LENT STUDY 2017
Our book will be Dethroning Mammon: Making Money Serve Grace by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Sign
up sheet in foyer, you can buy a hard copy for $13, or get a
kindle/electronic version for about $7 (the US Amazon site is often
cheapest.)The study group will meet on Tuesday evenings at 7pm in the Holland Room, starting on 7th March.
ADVENT STUDY 2016 with Meditation
Short discussion on weekly readings followed by meditation each Wednesday at 7pm in the Holland Room.
LENT STUDY 2016
Our weekly LENT study will begin in the Holland Room at 7pm, Wednesday 17th February. We will be reading Reflections for Lent 2016
by Paula Gooder, Andrew Davison, Martyn Percy and Steven Croft. Copies
of the book will be available from the office for $16.50, or you can
buy the Kindle edition from Amazon for about $5. Please sign up in the
foyer if you would like a copy of the book and/or would like to attend
the study group.
ADVENT STUDY 2015
This year we will read Richard Rohr’s Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent.
We will meet on Wednesday evenings in the Holland Room at 7pm, starting on
Wednesday 2nd December.
Please
sign up on the sheet in the foyer if you would like a book, and would
like to attend the study meetings. A hard copy of the book costs
$12, or you can download it from Amazon for kindle if you prefer for
about $6.
PAST STUDY GROUPS:
LENT STUDY 2015
Lent study this year will be on Wednesdays at 7pm in the Holland Room, beginning 25th February 2015 (the Wednesday after Ash Wednesday). We will be reading Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter by various authors, the companion book to Watch for the Light, which we read during Advent.
ADVENT STUDY 2014
Our Advent study will use Watch for the Light,
a collecting of daily readings by authors including Henri Nouwen, T. S.
Eliot, Thomas Merton, John Donne, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Day, Meister
Eckhart, Sylvia Plath and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Please sign up in the foyer to order the book ($20), and indicate if
you will attend the study group, which will meet at 7pm on Tuesdays
during Advent (starting 2nd December.)
SEPTEMBER BOOKCLUB 2013
We will be reading Richard Rohr’s
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for
the two halves of life.
Weekly notes
are available to reflect on your reading using the
study journal. Contact the office and we can email
these to you.
We will
discuss the book at a bring and share dinner on
Thursday September 19th at 7pm.
AUGUST BOOKCLUB 2014
We will be discussing Marcus J Borg's novel Putting Away Childish Things on Thursday 7pm 14th August at a bring and share supper in the hall
