After the year of 2020 that we’ve all experienced, who would like some good news, divine favour, comfort and joy? These are some of the blessings promised in the reading from Isaiah 61. However bleak the situation is facing God’s people on their return from exile in Babylon, God promises great blessing and hope for the future.

Similar claims are made in Mary’s song the Magnificat (so-called because this is the opening word of the song in its Latin translation) … God has done great things for those who fear him (like Mary), the lowly have been lifted up, the hungry fed. Blessings abound!

There’s just one small problem. Nobody seems to have told the leaders and rulers of the nations about these new arrangements. They still rule through military might and oppression, they still hoard most of the wealth, and they’re not about to give up these privileges, whether we’re speaking of the Romans in the time of Mary, the Persians in the time of Isaiah, or the wealthy elite in many countries of the world today. The vision we are offered in Isaiah and in Mary’s song doesn’t seem to match our world’s lived reality. So are these just idle promises? Or is our call to seek justice to turn the world right side up? When Jesus preached on the Isaiah passage (as recounted in Luke 4), his audience were quite happy to accept God’s blessings but far less keen to share them with others. They were also angry that Jesus didn’t stress God’s judgment on their enemies. It seems that our sense of and commitment to justice may not match that of Jesus. Will we accept both God’s blessing and God’s call to seek justice?

This week we again have face-to-face worship at Croydon North this Sunday. For Croydon North people who want to attend, the service will start at 10 am in the worship space as per the old pattern. For Croydon people, the service will be broadcast via Zoom at 10 am in the worship space.  For everyone else, this worship service will be streamed via Zoom in the usual way (fingers crossed that the technology all works as planned). So please come along to either venue or login to Zoom from 9.45 am.

We will be basing our worship on the attached worship@home resource for this week, so it would be handy for those on Zoom to have a copy present.

Click here for worship@home resources Blessing and justice - 13 Dec 2020