Hello and welcome to Friday’s Foundations podcast. It has been great to be sharing some reflections on Luke this week. Next week, the Rev Dr. Alan Ward takes on the podcast.

Let me remind us of some context of what is going on in the bigger story of Luke’s gospel… We are just going to pan out for a moment – like a drone hovering high in the sky – so we can see the big picture again – then we will zoom in on today’s reading. Way back in chapter 9 Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” (Luke 9:51). That was 9 chapters and 3 weeks ago. Since then we have heard some amazing reflections from Casey, Liam and Helen as we discussed the things Jesus said and did – all of it has been reshaping our vision of God and what it means to live a God honouring life. Jesus will arriving in Jerusalem next week… and the story goes on…

REFLECTION:

In our Bible reading today – as the journey to Jerusalem comes to an end – Jesus tells three stories.

One about a persistent widow. One about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector and one about little children. All three stories are brilliant in their own right. They may be really familiar to people listening today. However, I’m going to pull out one simple thing for us to consider today… citizenship.

It is a hot topic in the news at the moment and has been for the past two years… through the Brexit conversation and the desperate scramble to see if we have any Irish heritage to sneakily apply for duel citizenship before they change the rules. Or even more recently with the once east London school girl who travelled to Syria to join ISIS… we’ve been reading in the news that she had her citizenship revoked. As complicated and varied as the conversation is about some of these things happening in our time, it does call into question about identity and common values. The Bible has so much to add to these very modern situations. Very simply we will be reminded today of 3 simple truths around the one ideas of citizenship.

Firstly, we are children of God. As it says in the book of Romans “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God.” You may remember the words from your own baptism or from a friend’s; we often declare our faith by saying “we are children of the same heavenly father.” This is our heavenly identity… because of this identity we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Jesus says this about children and the Kingdom in today’s Bible passage… v15 & 16: People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” There is something about embracing our identity as children of the Father that gives access to the ways of God and the things of heaven.

Secondly, we are sinners saved by grace. Again from the book of Romans “[This is how God demonstrated his] love for us…: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In the second parable today, of the Tax Collector and Pharisee, one person stands before God in prayer and begins to give thanks… while the other stands at a distance… The pious man prays… ’God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.” “ I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’”  Amen. Confident in his righteousness, he leaves the place of prayer.

The other man – unable to look up to heaven – says… (v13) ’God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ It goes on to explain that in the upside-down and inside-out Kingdom of God, it is those who humble themselves that are exalted…

I read online a quote by Timothy Keller this week that makes this point clearer than I ever could…

To assume that being “saved by faith” m...