Identity seems to be a theme in this Sunday’s readings.
The Jeremiah reading, about a people in exile in a foreign land (who have lost most of what makes them them), suggests that while there’s life, there’s hope.
In the Luke reading, the story of the people who were healed from a skin disease, it’s the Samaritan, the outsider, who has thanked Jesus for what he has done for him: the others didn’t. Jesus is offering people a new home, a new identity, the Kingdom of God.
The writer of 2 Timothy is holding up Christ as the centre of the Christian’s identity.
FWIW it feels to me as if my identity as one of a people is breaking up, dissolving. The UK has always sat uncomfortably between the US and Europe in many ways. ISTR that things like economic equality and life expectancy here aren’t quite as good as most of the rest of Europe, and not quite as bad as the US. Now we have chosen which way to go, it doesn’t cheer me a great deal. But I have another focus for my identity: in Christ.
Great visit to Coventry earlier this week, in which we met up with a friend. Yesterday there was this Tree Of The Day…
…today is gloomy, though. I just thought you’d like to know.