As a parent I often worried about who our children were mixing with. As a child my parents worried about the company I kept. Friends and contacts can broaden our minds, lead us into crime or hold us back from being who we really are. Relationships can make us or break us.
That may sound dramatic. In the reading for today [Matthew 12:1-8] the Pharisees criticised the disciples for picking ears of corn on the Sabbath. Jesus retorted with a story of even greater desecration. (You can read the passage to find out more) to challenge the establishment on the point of the tail wagging the dog. (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+12%3A1-8%2CPsalm+33&version=NIVUK)
In the United Reformed Church, we have a rich heritage from the three denominations that have become the present Church. Methodism is comprised of skeins that were once so separate it would have been hard to see them ever being woven into the modern denomination. The complete picture is even bigger. Our heritage is expansive, and we gain enormously from drawing on it all to become who we are. But then, who we are is also vital.
The URC professes: We accept with thanksgiving to God the witness to the catholic faith in the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds. We acknowledge the declarations made in our own tradition by Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Churches of Christ in which they stated the faith and sought to make its implications clear. Faith alive and active: gift of an eternal source, renewed for every generation.
Have you ever thought about all that you have gained from those alongside whom you have lived, worked, and believed? When our praises rise to God the form an extraordinary picture of origins, expressions, and styles; we worship as one and we serve as one and yet we are all individuals with stories to tell.
The hymn for today is by Martin Leckebusch. Lord, we turn to you for mercy (StF 429) reflects on the need for change and sees God enabling that change – living, active, renewing faith.
A prayer
Lord, renew my faith every morning and may my every day be a new story of development and service. I thank you for all those who have enriched me, and may I be a source of enrichment too as I live my life for Jesus’s sake. Amen.