‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11: 9,10

These words were part of our gospel reading a couple of weeks ago and as I first read them I had the usual feeling of comfort, security and hope. But this was not a casual reading, so I asked myself the spiritual director’s question, “What do you really want deep down; what do you want to ask for?”  If asked what are you really searching for what would be your response?  What door are you knocking at?  Who is to open it?

At first glance these three questions can be taken as saying much the same thing but all ask subtly different questions. If we take the last one, for example, believing that God is a loving father who made us for relationship with Him, then the question arises, “Why is the door not open?  Is it me who is actually keeping the door closed against God?”  There are visual memories here of Holman Hunt’s painting, “The light of the world,” in which Jesus is shown as being on the outside of a door (supposedly of the human heart and soul) on which there is no handle (so he cannot force an entry) and knocking on the door to be let in.

The other two statements of invitations of Jesus feed into this last question of the door. Suppose what I ask for, is to have a heart full of love and gratitude for God and my neighbour?  Suppose I am seeking simply for God – although I know that I have found Him or He me, there is still so much hunger and desire for a closer relationship.  If these two desires are explored I come up against my own habitual response of selfishness and meanness of heart, my own lukewarm commitment to my discipleship, my own lack of care for others.  So I realise that it my door that remains closed to God and the qualities of compassion, gratitude and the desire for justice that at one level I so dearly want.

C.S. Lewis was once asked why he prayed because he could change God’s mind. His response was that he didn’t pray to change God but to change himself.

So the invitation is to keep on knocking, like the woman claiming justice from the unjust judge or the friend at midnight asking for the loan of bread from his neighbour; but to realise I am the unjust judge and the woman who wants justice.  I am the friend who wakes his neighbour because he needs bread and the neighbour who wants to ignore him.  When I realise this I know that what Jesus is inviting me to do is to go on knocking against my own hardness of heart.  I ask, seek, knock – in other words I pray, not to change God’s mind but to change mine; to be more in line with what God wants for me.  God is already there for me one hundred percent.  He doesn’t have to change.

Two of the readings today (the eighth Sunday after Trinity) are about hospitality. The Old Testament reading is the story of Abraham welcoming the three strangers who come to him when he is encamped at the oaks of Mamre, and who tell him that Sarah, his wife, will bear a son.  The New Testament lesson is the famous one of Jesus being welcomed into the home of Mary and Martha and then Martha getting very cross because she is doing all the work whilst her younger sister sits at Jesus’ feet.

Hospitality was very important in the world of the Middle East, not just for Jews and later, in the Christian tradition, but for all cultures. It might have had something to do with the distances people had to travel or, if you were someone like a Bedouin, how seldom you actually saw people other than your family.

In the story of Abraham and the three visitors, the feeling we receive from Abraham is almost one of entreaty. As soon as Abraham sees the men he runs to them (it was not dignified for an old man to run – and Abraham is old at this stage.)  Abraham bows to the ground, which I presume means he gets on his knees and bends his forehead to touch the earth in front of them.  He offers food and water modestly and humbly but the actual meal, which is produced with as much speed and care as possible, is as good and as generous a feast as could be created in the circumstances.  And then Abraham stands by waiting on his guests whilst they eat.  In all this Abraham is only doing what would have been expected in the culture of the time.

Fast forward to Mary and Martha and Martha’s frustration with Mary for not helping prepare the meal for Jesus. When the men came to Abraham it took Abraham, Sarah and a servant to produce the repast.  Martha is not then being unfair when she wants one other person, her own sister, to help her and complains to Jesus.  But very gently and compassionately (this is the meaning of Martha’s name being repeated twice by Jesus) Jesus tells Martha that “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”  Jesus is not telling Martha off.  He is not trying to make her feel small.  He is trying to open her eyes to a new way of looking that is a break with her cultural norms.  In this case, Jesus is saying, in this one unique and particular case, Mary has chosen to do the right thing and that is to sit at the feet of Jesus, like a disciple, and lap up the food of everlasting life, the Word of God, the presence of the Christ.

This story reminds us that our actions need to flow from our interior relationship with God. It is extraordinarily important that we should practice hospitality but if we want to grow truly hospitable hearts they will need to be nourished beforehand by the hospitality God first showed us, in his gift of Jesus Christ.  We need to feed on and be refreshed by his presence deep in our hearts.  Then we will learn to look on all people, of all faiths and none, as precious, honoured and loved by God, and we will be able to welcome them in our hearts.

The gospel reading for today, 10^th July, 2016, is perhaps the most famous of all Jesus’s parables, “The Good Samaritan.”  We have heard the story so many times that the surprise ending is no surprise to us anymore.  We know that the supposed enemy (The Samaritan) turns out to be the true neighbour: the real friend to the (presumably) Jewish man, left near death at the side of the dangerous road.  It is easy to sit back and say, I know this one so I don’t really have to listen.  But as always, Jesus’ parables has something more to say to us.

In the story we read that a passing priest and then a Levite seeing the beaten up man, scurry by on the other side of the road. But according to your translation, the Samaritan “turns aside” or “comes near” and he really sees the wounded man.  In some versions he “looks with compassion” on the man.  Whatever version of the Bible you use it is all boils down to the Samaritan’s willingness to see.  This seeing goes beyond viewing the situation.  It is a seeing with the heart and the mind and the will.  Just like the priest and the Levite, we imagine the Samaritan is afraid – afraid that the robbers may be close by, afraid of getting involved.  Unlike to other two the Samaritan “feels the fear but does it anyway.”  By looking deeply at the dire predicament of the other, the Samaritan’s heart is moved beyond his own fears and anxieties to the needs of the other.

What pre-empts the story of the Samaritan, is a question from a lawyer asking what he must do to win eternal life. Jesus’ initial response is to quote the two great commandments – to love God with all your heart, mind and strength and to love your neighbour as yourself.  “Who is my neighbour?” the lawyer responds trying to be clever.  And thus we get the fuller illumination of what it means to be a disciple and to be in relationship with Jesus (which is to gain eternal life).  The disciple must be prepared to look and to see.  Unlike the quick glance at what is unpleasant and the hasty turning away in self-protection, we must look with the eyes of the heart and mind.  Out of the seeing will come response.

Today (July 1^st, 2016) is the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme.  As I write this various services and acts of remembrance are going on in many different places and attended by people from many different cultures.  At Morning Prayer today we remembered those who died at the Somme and those who have died or been wounded by the latest bombings by so called “Islamic State” in Istanbul.  We have also remembered in our prayers this week the present state of our nation after the Brexit vote.  This has shown up the deep divisions in our society: the deep fear and anxiety about “the foreigner” – an anxiety that is as old as the hills.  At its worse it has given rise to a sharp increase in crimes of hate.  We don’t know for sure but it appears we have been lied to in the EU referendum campaign about certain things by those who were voted in to be our representatives.  Who do we trust?  Where do we turn to when we are cynically manipulated by our leaders and certain parts of our media?

We have to keep turning to Christ who shows us the way. We are reminded that the hated Samaritan turns out to be our neighbour, that in Christ there is no slave or freeman, no male or female, no black or white, no Jew or Gentile – perhaps no Christian or Muslim?  And as we look at the pictures of the Somme, perhaps we should also grieve more seriously for the people of Turkey who have been bombed more times in the last three years than either Brussels or Paris by the same enemy as bombed them.  Perhaps we need to think more clearly and truthfully.  We may not be guilty of hate crimes but we may be lazy in our thinking and mean in our compassion.  This is why I reproduce here a piece by an Irish American professor that came out this week after the bombing on Istanbul,

Once again, they strike. Against a Muslim country. And not just a Muslim country, but the most popular and beloved country by Muslims. And they strike in our holiest month, Ramadan. And not just the holiest month, but its last 10 holiest days.

What more proof does anyone need that ISIS/terrorism hate Muslims and Islam.

And YET we are consistently asked does ISIS/terrorism represent Islam and are asked to apologize for it, even as Muslims are consistently its biggest victims.

This is political, not religious. Political violence, not religious violence. That is, it is violence to serve narrow political interests, not violence ordered by religion – as the official story line is supposed to go. In fact, it hates Islam and Muslims, even as it cloaks itself in that name with the intent to fool only jumpy clueless observers in the West – because they know Muslims know better. And chumps like Trump who hate us too will soon be aiding and abetting their narrative against ours, because he is on their hate wavelength – not ours.

Dr Craig Constantine