There are two parts to the reading this week - the first part (vv1-5) deals with some real life questions of sin/debt and suffering. The second part (vv6-9) is a parable to do with the fruitfulness, or not, of a fig tree. These two run together, but here I’m going to deal mainly with the first part.

I often find myself referring to this passage, when I talk about the role that Herod Antipas plays as ‘chief villain’ in the gospels. This is the point where, with more than a hint of verisimilitude, the evangelist has Jesus refer to Antipas (the ambitious and vengeful ‘quarter King’) as ‘that fox’. I love that. I often find the gospel writers, including Luke, unreliable narrators - but here (perhaps because of my own biases) I sense a genuine saying coming through to the surface from 2000 years ago.

I’ll begin with a confession - it’s good for the soul after all. I have a ‘go-to’ interpretation of this passage (the story of Jesus’ temptations in the desert), which forms my immediate response to hearing it. If I had no time for thought or reading, I would regurgitate that same response immediately on being presented with this particular story. So let me start there, then, with my standard spiel…

Some people take a straightforward approach to the interpretation of Biblical passages. “If there was a video camera there,” they say, “would it have recorded events as they are narrated in the passage?”

Our reading this week is a continuation of Luke’s ‘Sermon on the Plain’, and it really highlights the way that, in Luke, Jesus is the supreme teacher of ‘love’.

This week’s gospel lectionary passage is the opening section, in Luke, of Jesus’ most famous sermon. Even taken as a whole, the sermon is not all that long, although substantially longer than the nine-word sermon Jesus gave in Nazareth.

Issued by the Church of England in the autumn of 1985, it was highly critical of the negative effects its authors believed the economic and social policies being pursued by Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government were having on the poorest members of British society. Robert Runcie (Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991) had instituted the Commission on Urban Priority Areas in 1983, to undertake the review that resulted in its publication. This was partly out of a concern he had had that the government’s free market (deregulatory) economic and social policies, may have contributed to bringing about the inner-city riots that had broken out in some of Britain’s poorest areas in 1981/82.

I first discovered his writing in the early 1990s when I was starting to explore my faith and beliefs. I was able to immediately relate to his theology of `non-realism` which answered the questions and doubts that I had been struggling with. At last, I had found someone who understood and had similar ideas to me although far better at articulating them.

Why on earth is there so much fish and fishing in the gospels? For a day labourer, a jobbing builder from the hill town of Nazareth Jesus spends a strange amount of time (the bulk of his ‘ministry’) mucking about with fishermen when he might otherwise have been on building sites. Why?

The reading this week follows directly on from last week’s narrative of Jesus’ first recorded sermon (a whole nine words!) and moves from the rapture of initial reception to a concerted attempt to put him to death.

I don’t know what the average length of time that people spend on writing sermons is, in fact I’m not sure how you’d even know. I start my prep at the start of a week, and finish it at the end of a week - which means that there’s a bit of thinking time in the middle.

This week’s passage is one of the big beasts - the story of the wedding at Cana where Jesus magically turns water into wine.

Happy new year friends - I’m back at my desk this morning and we begin 2025 with a small passage from Luke which has a big story to tell.

I am not a huge cricket fan but the metaphor of having served an innings of 45 years for the C of E, retiring from paid ministry but continuing to serve as priest – retired but not out – seems an apt description. But the question which I am now wrestling with is this: do I return my licence to my bishop since the leadership of the church I have loved to serve has finally lost my respect and support. Let me explore this further.

There’s a pivotal moment in Victor Hugo’s classic tale Les Miserables in which the main protagonist, Jean Valjean, is released from prison but finds it difficult to reintegrate into society due to his criminal record. A pretty accurate description of an every day phenomenon.

The second Advent gospel reading is this one from Luke’s story about the the birth of John the baptiser - the context is that like Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth also experience a ‘miracle birth’. Further, though, Zechariah is struck dumb for the nine months of the pregnancy and upon finding his voice again he sings the song often known as the Benedictus or ‘the canticle’ of Zechariah.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m Annette Kaye, a southern hemisphere girl who finds herself in the far north-east of the UK, mother to two adult daughters, and tow teenage step daughters, all of whom, along with my partner, keep me challenged, and happy to be alive! In addition, I am a ceramic and mixed media artist, an Ignatian-trained spiritual director, supervisor, and trainer, a transpersonal psychotherapist, and a facilitator of eco-spirituality, as well as psychedelic, retreats. Faith-wise, I have travelled through many rooms of Christianity - conservative Evangelical, charismatic, liturgical, contemplative, and would now, with my interest in, and concern for, the natural world, call myself something of a Christian Animist.

It’s the first Sunday of the church calendar, for anyone who cares about such things, so we enter ‘Year C’ in the revised common lectionary, the third of three years worth of set readings with this reading from Luke’s gospel. This time next year we’ll be back at the start of ‘Year A’ again - if, that is, the world doesn’t end first.

I’m drawing, somewhat, on a book by Laura Hunt for this week’s reflection. Hunt has written perhaps the only book which explains in detail how one can read John’s portrayal of Jesus as a picture of an ‘ideal type’ Roman emperor. She uses sophisticated methodologies to develop this idea and her book is worth a read if you have a taste for academic work and a library copy available to you (it’s somewhat expensive to purchase).

The gospels are full of parables. Parables of Jesus, and parables about Jesus. The kind of writing we find there, invented long before the enlightenment understanding of ‘fact’ is, to modern and post-modern readers confusing and elliptical.