Otters on the Solway ..... thoughts for the 15th Day of Trinity

Last week was spent by the Solway.

Walking on the sands at low tide was prayerfully reflective.

There was poetry and pictures, there were memories, old memories of course but also new memories, the most vivid of which was the Otter that came running across the sands towards me. It was young and sounded lost and I wondered whether it might have been a rescue that had been returned to the wild, still hungry for human contact.

After meeting the Otter I wrote:

Damp paw prints in sand / An otter keeping pace with my stride / Animal human I spy, I claimed an Otter / the Otter claimed me.

One facebook post even merited a comment: thanks for your prayer-poems Geoff, they keep us going. For which I was very grateful.

These have been challenging times for all of us and they have affected not only family life, they have strained relationships, affected young people's results, threatened jobs, created social dislocation and now 'the rule of six', the various exceptions to which rule simply create more confusion. 

Unsurprisingly the Church has been caught up in the general dissatisfaction. Clearly not everything that has happened within our own community and congregation can be traced to the pandemic but we have been affected generally and our ability to handle some challenges has been compromised.

It has been interesting to reflect on how the lectionary for the past few weeks has enabled us to pray and speak into these troubled times with much emphasis on how to deal with misunderstandings in church communities and with forgiveness at the centre of our discipleship.

The Gospel for this Sunday offers some opportunity to reflect on the furlough scheme which is ending at the end of October. A landowner who employers day labourers and continues to hire staff throughout the day only to pay those who had laboured all day the same as those who had only worked a short time. Certainly the furlough scheme has supported those many people whose jobs have been put at risk by the pandemic and has been generally welcomed but now with the increase in the R number and both France and Germany extending the scheme questions are being asked about what we might need to do next if we are to continue to protect jobs. 

More commonly however the parable has been seen by preachers as an allegory, with Matthew comparing the older Jewish members of the church with more recent converts, gentiles, and describing how God will reward those who have accepted Christ fairly and generously.

But if the parable is about the Kingdom then it is not really about running a vineyard, nor is it a lesson about reimbursement or fair wages or even the furlough scheme, it is about what Jesus brings to the world and how God's gracious and undeserving gift of his Sons death on a cross transforms the world.

Jesus' ministry is a gracious transformation, a divine reclamation of the world. 

This understanding of Jesus ministry also informs Paul's letter to the Philippians. Writing as he is from a prison cell to a community which is itself under Roman domination. So Paul compares his suffering with the suffering being experienced by the Philippians, 'For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain'.

In verse 27 of the chapter we read today, Paul is encouraging the recipients of his letter to 'live your life'. This is a political term. It is an encouragement to live or conduct themselves as citizens in a political community the Greek word here is polis. Some commentators have observed that this is Paul telling the Philippians to get involved in politics. Politics is not a dirty word and for followers of Jesus that means being political in a way that is worthy of the gospel of Christ.

If I had prepared myself I might have rehearsed Psalm 145 when I took my prayerful walks on the Solway because the Psalm is shot through with so much experience in a poetry that reflects that experience.  

The psalm reads as a reflection on the experience of difficult life situations and dwells more keenly on the activity of God in the world.

It reads as poetry of the difficulties of living with the threat of death and witnesses to something greater than one's own life or experience.

So as with the day labourers who start the day hungering for work and end the day knowing that tomorrow will bring something of the same, or Paul writing to his congregation in Philippi reflecting on the possibility of death as opening the gate of glory into a life in and with Christ, the psalmist speaks to those well acquainted with the trials of living who know something that those without that experience cannot quite comprehend or understand.


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