This week’s Church Times covers the launch of Call to Change – both the new website and the four-week CTC course has launched (for Lent but also for other times of year) on Scripture and community organising. The course was produced by the Centre’s partner churches in Citizens UK, the course has been trialled in its Anglican Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Pentecostal and Salvation Army congregations.  It equips participants to engage in ‘listening campaigns’ in their area, and work with other local congregations and organisations on issues of common concern.

As part of the Call to Change initiative, the Jellicoe blog now includes a weekly post on the lectionary readings, and how they relate to the Gospel call to social transformation.


For the two Sundays leading up to Lent, the Church of England lectionary chooses special readings to prepare us for the season.


Last Sunday’s readings reminded us that God’s glory is found in engagement with, not evasion of, the material world.  In Christ, the divine life has ‘moved into the neighbourhood’, and so all aspects of life can reveal the glory of God.

That message is reinforced this week with the Gospel of the Transfiguration (Mark 9.2-9).  We are given a glimpse of our destination as Christians – as the glory of God shines out through Jesus Christ (something echoed in the Epistle, 2 Corinthians 4.3-6)

It is a particularly appropriate reading as we stand just days from Lent. The Transfiguration is like a ‘fast-forwarding’ of salvation: a moment, before Jesus begins his journey to crucifixion, where we glimpse the purpose of the cross.  The purpose is the salvation of all things – spiritual and material – so that the whole created order can shine forth with God’s mercy, love and glory.

We need these kinds of ‘mountain-top’ experiences as Christians – moments which lift the heart, and raise our vision beyond the daily grind to glimpse our destination.

Lent is a good time to take stock and re-balance our spiritual lives.  Do we spend too much time on the ‘mountain top’?  If so, we need to hear Jesus’ call to return down to the level ground – so that the glory we glimpse in worship and prayer becomes more of a reality in our relationships and our communities?  Or are we so ground down by our daily labours that we have lost our sense of perspective and direction?  If so, we may need to make more time in our lives to allow God to lift our hearts and raise our vision, as Jesus did on the mountain.

As part of the Call to Change initiative, the Jellicoe blog now includes a weekly post on the lectionary readings, and how they relate to the Gospel call to social transformation.


For Roman Catholic churches, and others following the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel for next Sunday (19th February) is Mark 1.2-12.  

Seeing [the] faith [of his friends], Now some scribes were sitting there and they thought to themselves, “How can this man talk like that?  He is blaspheming.  Who can forgive sins but God?'”
Jesus…said to them, “Why do you have these thoughts in your heads?  Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk?’

The crowds have heard of wonder-workers before, and they have listened to teachers – but never have they known anyone to declare the forgiveness of sins.  That is in God’s power.

Jesus isn’t saying that physical illness is a sign that our relationship with God is wrong.  He explicitly denies that in other healings.  What he’s doing is moving from the physical issue this man faces to the spiritual issue we all face – the health of our relationship with God and neighbour.  And because he is God, he has the power to heal that relationship too, if we are willing to open our lives to his grace.

“My god is that which rivets my attention, centres my activities, preoccupies my mind and motivates my action.” (Luke Johnson)  Is it true in my life that “God is love” – or do I value things above people?  Is my prayer life with God focused on getting things from God – or deepening our relationship?  What ‘gods’ stand at the centre of our current economic system – and what would our economic and social order change if we placed relationships at their heart?

If you go into most bookshops today, the ‘Mind, Body, Spirit’ section is larger any the section marked ‘Theology’ or ‘Religion’. People are attracted to a form of ‘spirituality’ which treats them like consumers. ‘Spirituality’ becomes another off-the-shelf product. The season of Lent show us a very different vision of the spiritual life – where we need to look outwards as well as inwards. We need Lent now more than ever, so that mind, body and spirit can be released from the self-indulgence of a consumerist, individualistic society. The ‘Good News’ of Lent is how much more we believe there is to life than this.

The Church of England offers special readings for the two Sundays before Lent begins. We can all use these to help us prepare for the season.

The readings for next Sunday (13th February) are John 1.1-14, Colossians 1.15-20, Psalm 104.26-37 and Proverbs 8.1,22-31

The Roman Catholic lectionary is different for the next two Sundays, and we have blogged on this in the previous post.

John 1.1-14 tells us that Jesus has humbled himself to enter our flesh, so that in our flesh we might be united to God. John writes that the disciples “have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father”. This glory is a foretaste of that which God wants us all to share.

It is tempting to think that we find the ‘glory of God’ by running away from ‘the world,’ as if Christian spirituality were about ‘other-worldliness’. But John 1 reminds us that it is into this world that God has entered. He has (in Eugene Peterson’s translation) ‘moved into the neighbourhood’.

This world is capable of showing forth the divine life, and the divine glory. Our calling as Christians is to work with God to make that vision a reality. As today’s Epistle (Colossians 1.15-20) puts it:

In [Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and things on earth, visible and invisible… all things have been created through him and for him….

God was pleased … through him to reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven , by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

John’s Gospel uses the term ‘the world’ in two very different ways. Sometimes it means ‘everything God has created’. As we read in Genesis 1, God looked at the world and saw it was ‘very good’. And s John 3.16 reminds us that ‘the world’ is something God still loves, even after its fall. Indeed, God loves the world so much that he gave his only Son for its salvation.

Sometimes John’s Gospel uses the term ‘the world’ rather differently. ‘The world’ sometimes means, not creation in general, but creation in rebellion against God. In this sense, the disciples are not of ‘the world’ – and Jesus says he ‘overcome the world’ (John 16.33).

So we are called to be ‘in the world’ – called to be in the creation God has made and sent his Son to save, called to be ‘good news for the poor’, challenging injustice and calling for a right use of wealth and power. But we are not called to be ‘of the world.’  The values we are loyal to as Christians are often in conflict with those which dominate the wider culture.

Jesus’ glory is revealed from a manger and cross, not a palace or an earthly throne.  This reminds us that Christian discipleship involves a challenge to the values of our broken world. In Lent, we are called to remove the idols of money and power from the thrones they have in our hearts and in our society. In Lent, we remember that money and power are to be placed at the service of Christ, and of his Kingdom of justice and of peace.

Each week, the Jellicoe Blog will be publishing a reflection on the forthcoming Sunday’s lectionary readings.  On Sunday 12 February, the Church of England and Roman Catholic churches have different readings set.  Here we blog on the Gospel for the Roman Catholic lectionary – a blog on the C of E readings follows:

A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: “If you want to” he said “you can cure me.” Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. “Of course I want to!” he said. “Be cured!” And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, “Say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing” (Mark 1.40-45)

In the Greek in which Mark wrote, there is an undercurrent of anger in Jesus. This is something most of our English translations miss. Jesus is not simply sorry about the man’s condition, and eager to put it right. He is angered – maybe even outraged – by it.
Why is this? Lepers are treated as the ultimate outcasts in Jesus’ society. If a “clean” person touched them, that person became unclean. By that law, when Jesus reaches touches the man, Jesus should become unclean rather than the leper becoming clean.
In casting out demons and curing lepers, Jesus proclaims God’s Kingdom as one of liberation – liberation from prejudice and injustice; liberation from the spiritual and physical forces which stop us flourishing. It is not an easy task. Jesus is crossing a boundary, challenging a taboo. He is placing himself next to those his society holds to be worthless.