This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

COMPASSION FATIGUE IN HAITI

clinic in Port-au- Prince

1 John 5:1-12

5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. 7There are three that testify: 8the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. 9If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. 10Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

this is the victory over the world

I tend to get dizzy reading this passage because the argument circles round upon itself so rapidly.

The still point is the life shared between God and believers through Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.

Trusting in Jesus means being given new birth by God the father and living in love with all his children. Trust in something which is not “of the world” enables the believers to overcome the world. The water of baptism, the sign of new birth in the Spirit, testifies to the life shared with God, but without the blood (possibly the Eucharist), sign of Jesus’ humanity and sacrifice, the water and the spirit are inadequate signs which might point away from God’s Son in whom alone the shared life is to be found: it is shared on the cross.

Again and again this writer emphasises that God’s love is not some heavenly emotion un-tethered to the world. Rather, it is the eternal event of sending the Son of God as the sacrifice by which the life of the godhead is shared with humanity. This shared life does not remove the believer from the world and its suffering. Only by sharing in the cross does it overcome the world. St Paul puts it another way: “The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me”.

 Luke 4:38-44

38 After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

40 As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. 41Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ 44So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

A house of compassion: Maggie Centre Dundee Scotland

There is a powerful emphasis on houses here. They are gospel symbols of the shared life of God.  The synagogue is the “house of learning” in which Jesus has interpreted the scripture as pointing to God’s presence in his own mission. Peter’s family home is a “house of discipleship” in which a widowed woman is liberated by God’s healing from weakness to the dignity of service. The same house becomes a “house of compassion” for the whole community as God’s goodness in Jesus draws people together in need as if by a magnet.

Then Luke reveals that the one who creates “houses of God” is himself without a permanent home because he must continue the journey on which he has been sent.

G.K. Chesterton wrote perceptively of the birth of Jesus, “In the place where God was homeless/ all people are at home.” This is true of Jesus’ entire life.