As I read our Biblical texts for this morning, I saw in them both a challenge and a promise – a challenge to get our focus right; to understand who we are; whose we are; and why we do what we do; and a promise that God already knows the answers to all of those questions and will, if we are willing, shape us into the people we need to be.

Jesus is speaking directly to us – at a dinner party, about dinner parties.

Read the Gospel here. I invite you to imagine the scene of today’s Gospel story. Jesus is in a synagogue, filled with people.  Let’s say it’s mid-morning and it’s hot but not unpleasantly so and everyone seems comfortable and glad to be there. Jesus is teaching and has everyone’s attention; some have followed Jesus there and are looking forward to hearing him again;…

Well – this is quite the Gospel reading for my first Sunday at St. Helen’s – a stressed out Jesus talking about fire and division and destruction.  Nothing quite like diving in at the deep end, I guess.  And this is very much a deep end sort of Gospel reading, challenging any notions we might cherish about Jesus as some sort of always gentle, always nice hero and the Gospel as an uncomplicated good news story.