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| Street art by Muralist Escif |
A Thought for the Day given during a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Wednesday 19th March 2025 at 1.00pm based on readings from Jeremiah 18.18–20 and Matthew 20.17–28.
The people of Judah had grown weary of Jeremiah’s voice of doom. His persistent prophecy that their leaders would fall, Jerusalem would be destroyed and its people exiled - all because they had turned away from God in favour of worshipping idols and obeying false teachings.
Jeremiah’s message was challenging, unpleasant and unwelcome. Nobody wanted to hear about suffering and hardship before the dawn of a brighter future.
It was time to hit the kill switch. To silence Jeremiah’s voice - forever - allowing the words of the false prophets, scribes and wise men to go unchallenged. Their message - of God’s continual blessing and promise of plenty whatever the people got up to - was what they wanted to hear. Let the good times roll.
The people plot to bring charges against Jeremiah. Charges that would lead to his death.
Tradition tells us they got their wish.
The parallel with the beginning of our gospel reading doesn’t need much explaining.
Jesus takes the disciples to one side and foretells his destiny - this time in more detail than before. He will be rejected by his own people, who didn’t like the Good News he was broadcasting either. They will plot against him and hand him over to the Gentiles who will flog him and put him to death on the cross - but on the third day, he will rise again.
Like the people in Jeremiah’s time there were those - even among his closet followers - who seemed deaf to the prophecy of pain and suffering that Jesus would endure. They only hear the glory in the story. In this gospel, they are represented by the mother of James and John. Kneeling before Jesus with her two sons alongside, she asks for them to reign with Jesus - sitting either side of him in his Kingdom. She hasn’t listened to Jesus’s teaching about what it means to follow him. Wisdom Jesus imparts again to the ten remaining disciples, who are furious at what James, John and their mother have asked.
That whoever wishes to be great must be the servant of others - and whoever wishes to be first must be the slave of all. Just as Jesus came not to be served but to give his life as ransom for many.
This second week in Lent, the scriptures remind us how challenging it is to listen to the whole truth of God’s word and act upon it. And how easy it is to hear only the glory in the story - especially when the message gets difficult, challenging and unwelcome.
May we all find the strength to hit the Kill Switch on the powerful forces in our lives that draw us away from the Good News of Jesus Christ; so that we too might learn to give our all to Him. To serve him as he served us. To be his disciples.
Image : Street art by Muralist Escif
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