This Sunday’s Gospel reading is Mark 6.30-34 (or 30-34 and 53-56)

Because so many people were coming and going that the disciples did not even have a chance to eat, Jesus said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

This passage shows the two sides of Jesus ministry to people – the feeding the crowds, and the disciples, require is spiritual (rest, quiet, teaching) as well as physical.

That’s the way God has made us – flesh and spirit. Jesus’ teaching and his actions show the importance of both. He has no time for religious leaders who use ‘spiritual’ language to justify material inequity. But he warns us that material food alone isn’t enough. This is a balance we need in our own lives – and in the kind of world for which we are striving to build for others.

Christian teaching on the ‘Sabbath’ is a case in point. Jesus’ example makes clear that we are not to make an idol of particular regulations – The Sabbath is made for human beings, not humans for the sabbath – but having times of ‘Sabbath’ is essential in the Christian life. Without such times, we lose perspective, and more and more rely on our own resources rather than God’s grace. As Pope John Paul II reminded his clergy, without a time of Sabbath, we become ensnared in the ‘idolatry of work’, forgetting that it takes its places in a wider life of wonder, love and praise.

Prayer Intentions

Pray for all involved in Christian ministry in demanding contexts, such as Britain’s inner-cities – among them the staff of the Church Urban Fund and the Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) – that they may balance their work with times of rest and refreshment. Pray for Sr Josephine Canny, Chaplain to CTC’s Jellicoe Community as she helps the Centre’s interns find this balance in a context that is new to many of them.

This Sunday’s Gospel is Mark 6.1-6 (Roman Catholic) or Mark 6.1-12 (Church of England)

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offence at him.

It’s sometimes hard to adjust when someone in the family moves from being a child to being a ‘grown-up’. We may trap others in stereotypes of how we’ve known them in the past – or how we thought we knew them. And most of us will have been on the other side of this, when we moved from childhood to adult life, and struggled at first to be taken seriously by those who knew us as a baby.
The people of Nazareth won’t let Jesus be himself – they trap him in their stereotype, not seeing his full humanity, let alone his divinity. We can make the same mistake in our churches today, confining those around us in our stereotypes, failing to see the full humanity of every member – judging some age groups, or classes, or races, before we get to know them.

One of the key practices of community organising is the ‘one-to-one’ relational meeting – encouraging people to get to know those they might otherwise just nod at in the next pew, so stories could be shared and gifts discovered. The face-to-face relationship, based on the reality of the other person, not our stereotype of them, is absolutely central to the life of a flourishing church – a church which can have a transformative impact on individuals and communities.

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Pray for the team of summer Jellicoe interns at the Contextual Theology Centre – who will continue that process of building relationships and discovering unacknowledged potential. And pray for the Nehemiah Interns working for the Near Neighbours programme (in which the Church Urban Fund and the Centre are both key partners) as these much longer-term interns, drawn from and rooted in inner-city neighbourhoods, seek to deepen face-to-face relationships across the faiths.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday is Mark 4.35-41


A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?

Prayer intentions

This week sees the Feast of Corpus Christi – which the Church of England marks on Thursday 7th, whilst the Roman Catholic Church marks it on Sunday 10th.  The Gospel reading set for this Sunday in the Church of England is Mark 3.20-35.  This blog includes a brief reflection on both themes.


Corpus Christi
The Feast of Corpus Christi enables the Church to give thanks for the institution of Holy Communion.  Every
Communion service, whatever its name, reminds us of the central fact of Christian life – that our lives flow from, and find their meaning in, the life of another.

We can only feed because we have been fed; we are sent out in the power of the Spirit because have first been called together as Christ’s Body.  For Christians, spiritual renewal and social action must go hand in hand.   It was amidst the cholera epidemic of the 1840s that the Sisters of Mercy in Plymouth asked their parish priest for daily Communion, to strengthen them for their work amongst the poorest in the city.  This was the first time since the Reformation that an Anglican church had a daily Eucharist.   Worship and action each inspired a deeper engagement with the other.

As we give thanks for Jesus’ passion and resurrection – and for the gift of Holy Communion as a memorial of that self-offering and a sacrament of that new creation which has dawned in him – let us pray for grace to hold worship and action more closely together.  May the new creation we celebrate in the Eucharist (a feast in which all can share, and all are fed) give us the grace and strength to work for transformation here and now.

Binding the Strong Man: Mark 3.20-35
This Sunday – after the special cycle of readings for Lent and Easter, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday – we return to Ordinary Time, in which we read through the Gospel of Mark.  One of St Mark’s favourite words is ‘immediately’.  The opening chapters of his Gospel are incredibly fast-paced.  Jesus’ ministry is shown to have a focus on those the world ignores or condemns (1.21-8, 40-5; 2.1-12, 15-17).  He reminds the religious leaders of  the purpose of the Law: not to be another burden on the vulnerable, but a means of protecting them from injustice (2.23-3.6).

These chapters have an insurgent feel – today’s Gospel most of all.  For here, Jesus compares himself to a thief, whose purpose is to ‘bind the strong man’ and ‘burgle his property’.

However, Jesus’ insurgency is utterly unique: his purpose is not to turn the world upside down, or to steal someone’s rightful goods. Rather, Jesus turns an upside-down world the right way up, restoring just stewardship to a creation which is being pillaged and misused.

Today’s reading reminds us that such transformation is not a comfortable thing.  It necessarily involves tension and conflict.  This is where today’s Gospel brings us back to Holy Communion, and the feast of Corpus Christi.  It is only by feeding on, and abiding in, Jesus Christ that we gain the needful courage and grace for this work.  Only then can ensure that it is inspired by him, and not reliant on our own energies and driven by our own agendas.

Prayer Intentions
Pray for the staff and supporters of the Church Urban Fund as they prepare for a service of rededication with Archbishop Rowan Williams – to be held at St Paul’s Cathedral on June 18th.  And pray for the growing co-operation between CUF and the Contextual Theology Centre, in helping the wider church both to see the urgency of social action, and to ensure it is rooted and grounded in Christ.

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday.  We start the month focusing on the mysterious claim that God is ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’.  This isn’t just a puzzle for theologians.  This doctrine tells us love and relationship are at the heart of the divine.  We share God’s life together.

From John 3:

We are baptised ‘In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’.  Baptism is the sign that we have joined the church.  Our fellowship in the visible church is part of our fellowship with the invisible God.  And because we believe in God the Trinity, we believe that relationship is at the heart of God. 

Prayer requests