Judith Russenberger

Green Tau issue 116

Who gets to influence government policy?

8th October 2025

A frequent comment addressed to activists is, that rather than disrupting the public by walking down a road or blockading an oil refinery, they should use the ballot box to effect the change they want to see. But is that possible? Does our democracy pay attention to us as citizens?

I frequently write to my MP about issues such as the CAN Bill and the Rosebank oil field, asking her to support the former and oppose the latter. But mine is only a small voice amongst many, and even though in principal she does support the CAN Bill, that has not been enough to see the Bill pass into law – it was widely opposed by the Labour Party.

Many people voted for the Labour Party in 2024 and the party won a substantial majority. In their manifesto Labour’s biggest spending commitment was to be an additional £23.7bn for green measures (a figure already cut back from an earlier promise of £28bn a year). Once in government that sum has been cut back again and again. For example the £13.2bn to be spent on upgrading the nation’s homes will now include £5bn of loans nor grants. And of the £8bn pledged for GB Energy, £2.5bn is in now going into Great British Nuclear (conveniently renamed GB Energy – Nuclear). (1) Manifesto promises are not binding: they may suggest the sort of things the party will pursue when in power but that is all. As individual voters our only remedy is to write to our MP or the relevant minister and ask that they adhere to their promises – or to take protest action! Otherwise we just have to wait another five years and hope the then government will be better at delivering on its promises.

So who does influence government policy?

Think tanks

Think tanks “are open organisations, built around a permanent base of researchers or experts, whose mission, on the one hand, is to develop analyses, summaries and ideas on an objective basis with a view to inform the conduct of private or public strategies in the general interest; on the other hand, to actively debate issues within their field of competence.” (2) Think tanks may be funded by private or charitable donations or from government funds. Some are transparent about their funding, others less so. Some are aligned to particular political parties, others are apolitical.

Based on research for the period 2015-2021, Overton identified the following as possibly the top ten think tanks cited in government policy documents. (3)

However there are caveats. Does measuring which think tank is most cited in government documents a good indicator of their ability to influence government policy? Some areas of policy making generates a higher proportion of publicly available documents – eg public health and welfare, whilst others – such as defence – do not. And you can’t count the number of citations in a document you can’t access. There will also be think tanks that have considerable influence but don’t produce reports that are cited. Not present in Overton’s list are think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute yet thwir ideas featured large during Liz Truss’s short term as prime minister.(4) One of the questions around the more extreme right wing think tanks is the source of their funds and to what extent their research is influenced by wealthy individuals. (5)

Certainly think tanks do influence government policy but they are not accountable to the ballot box.

Economists

Economists and economic theories certainly influence government policy making, either because the respective political party has grown up with a particular economic tradition or because its current leader and/ chancellor has a favourite economic model. Most think tanks will include economic analysis too. NB If you have read Kate Raworth’s book on Doughnut Economics, you may well question the value of much other advice that comes from traditional and neo-liberal economists.

Scientists

Scientists do advise governments especially in the area of climate change and biodiversity loss – eg members of the Climate Change Committee – and areas of health such as we saw during Covid when the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, who was directly advising the government. However, as Whitty later reported, his advice was then adjusted by the political agenda: “… he had been personally sceptical about making covid vaccination a condition of employment for some healthcare staff in England. He said that the policy was “100% a political decision” that was essentially about balancing two risks and rights against one another: “the risk to the person who is being cared for versus the risk to the individual that their right to essentially not have a medical procedure, or lose their job, is protected.” As a doctor, he argued that there was “a big difference” between a “professional responsibility” to protect patients from giving them communicable diseases, including vaccinating staff, and “legally mandating it so that you lose your job if not.”” (6)

Scientists who contribute to the work of the Climate Change Committee face similar problems. Their role is to present the scientific facts and suggest policies that will meet the demands of net zero but they cannot require government to follow a particular course of action. Whilst the CCC has repeatedly cautioned against expanding airports in the UK, because of their significant adverse impact on carbon reduction targets, they have not been asked to assess the carbon emissions arising from building additional ways at Heathrow and Gatwick, despite government announcements that these expansions would take place. (7)

Political advisers and civil servants

“Civil servants are government employees responsible for implementing and executing public policies… [setting] guidelines and regulations to address societal concerns… Civil servants possess valuable knowledge and experience necessary for the formulation and implementation of policies…They bridge the gap between elected officials and the implementation of policies, providing continuity and expertise throughout political transitions. Furthermore, civil servants provide valuable insights into the practical implications of potential policy changes, considering the administrative capacity, budgetary constraints, and legal framework.” (8)

Political advisers (known as special advisers or ‘spads’) are political appointees. Special advisers are appointed to provide a particular skill or fill a particular role on a short term basis. The appointment may be short term and, since they are appointed by the relevant minister loose their appointment when that minister leaves office. They are not bound by the same rules of impartiality as civil servants – however various codes of practice now exist regulate the powers they can exert. (9) Special advisers can significantly influence government policy -for better or worse. This following commentary comes from the New Statesman:-

“Dominic Cummings made Boris Johnson. Against all odds, he won him the 2016 EU referendum. He finagled a 2019 general election for Johnson when parliamentary opposition to Brexit was making a second referendum look increasingly likely. He won him that election by “flipping” scores of traditional Labour seats. It was a Faustian bargain. To achieve all that Johnson – formerly a liberal-minded, immigrant-supporting, pro-business mayor of London – had to sell his soul by lying, fanning xenophobia, fomenting ugly nationalism, undermining democratic institutions and embracing a crude and shameless populism. Cummings had no scruples about how he won.” (10)

As with think tanks, special advisers also have no accountability to the electorate.

Lobbyists

“Lobbying is the process of trying to persuade the government, or a political party, to change their policies. The term originates from the lobby of the House of Commons where you could go to try and persuade your MP to adopt a certain position. Lobbying is an important part of the British political process and is sometimes very controversial.” (11)

Lobbying takes two forms – in-house lobbying where charities, corporations or other organisations employ full-time lobbyists, and outsourced where similar groups will employ an outside firm of lobbyists to act on their behalf.

Historically lobbying was unregulated – it was equated with free speech – but the Lobbying Act (2014) does imposes some restrictions. However (!) these only apply to individuals or firms acting on the behalf of a third party whilst in-house lobbyists are not included. Some £2bn a year is spent on lobbying and the feedback from big businesses and other organisations such as the NFU, is that it works. Governments do adapt their policies in response to successful lobbying. (12) (NB Do watch this illustrative video clip about lobbying – https://youtu.be/04BlQh4du5I?si=bItDobvoZ3N40JJC)

An investigation by Global Witness revealed an increasing number of meetings between fossil fuel representatives and government ministers. “UK government ministers met with representatives from the oil and gas sector at least 343 times in 2023, according to Global Witness analysis of data collected by Transparency International UK.That’s equivalent to 1.4 meetings per working day of the year and marks an increase from the 330 meetings held in 2022.” (13)

Over this period 2022 and 2023 the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels led to rising fuel prices, increasing fuel poverty and rising profits for oil companies, yet the government consistently back-tracked on its climate commitments ! (14)

For those with money, lobbying is an effective tool to change government policy. An yet again it has no accountability to the ballot box.

Unions

Unions were established to improve their members working conditions and pay through lobbying their employers – and through nonviolent direct action such as striking. With increasing amounts of legislation surrounding employment rights and the powers of unions, unions are another group who lobby government to influence policy. In the autumn of 2024 a new bill – The Employment Rights Bill – was introduced, repealing and replacing the Trade Union Act 2016 which had been the latest development in restricting union powers. This Bill should receive Royal Assent and become law this autumn.

The following commentary from the TUC shows how think tanks and reports from economists, can influence government policy. “The move comes in the wake of growing evidence that a strong union workplace presence is good for workers and for the economy. Voices that previously promoted deregulation, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, have noted the benefits of collective bargaining for productivity, industrial change, equality and employment. A recent Cambridge University study of labour laws over the last 50 years found that strong employee representation laws consistently led to higher employment. Laws that protected rights to take industrial action meanwhile appeared to contribute to higher unemployment, productivity and to workers getting a higher share of national income. Likewise a NIESR study found that a strong union presence boosted productivity.” (15)

Unions do have power to influence government policy, and whilst not being accountable to voters generally, are accountable to their own members. Maybe groups such as environmentalists and climate activists should form the equivalent of a union to increase the power of their voice.

Public Opinion and the Media

Public opinion, according to Wikipedia, is “the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people’s views on matters affecting them.”

Public opinion is assessed through surveys and opinion polls. Professor Kuha professor in LSE’s Department of Statistics and an expert in survey methodology describes opinion polls as “a survey of public opinion from a particular sample group, and as such can be useful in informing politicians about the views of specific groups of people. In practice, pollsters need to balance the cost of polling a large sample against the reduction in sampling error, and so a typical compromise for political pollsters is to use a sample size of 1,000-10,000 respondents” and that “polls act as a feedback mechanism which could affect parties’ policy choices, whereas nearer to an election, they are feedback mechanism on how the campaign is going”. (16)

This suggests that, depending on who carries out the opinion poll (are they impartial or do they represent a certain viewpoint or position), what questions are asked and which sample group is surveyed, a degree of bias may appear in the poll. This article from YouGov explores some of the issues around the phrasing of survey questions (17)

Furthermore that bias may then serve to feed what underlies the initial bias. This feedback loop is often triggered by selective reporting by media outlets. This article from the Conversation, notes that the “traditional media selects which polls to emphasise from a large pool of results. Sometimes outlets do this with an eye to make interesting news or pander to the expectations of the public. The latter means that journalists may decide not to publish a poll showing an unexpected result, for example, even if they believe it to be true, out of concern that readers might see them as less credible.” (18)

Immigration is currently seen as a key public concern. Prior to the EU referendum concern about migration peaked as a top issue for 56% of respondents. Following the referendum this dropped steadily from 48% of respondents to just 6% in April 2020. Since then that figure has again been rising reaching 38% in October 2024. The Migration Observatory however also noted that “During this period, immigration has been prominent in the news, with record net migration figures hitting the headlines as well as irregular immigration and the issue of housing asylum seekers featuring large in the political agenda.” (19)

In response to this shift in public opinion, the current government and a number of small rightwing parties have shifted their policies to ones less sympathetic towards migrants. It would that public opinion polls and media interest can influence government policy. The opposite is also true.

21st April of this year (Environment Day) a global journalism collaboration – Covering Climate Now – released the results of a world wide survey to assess people’s responses to the climate crisis, revealing that, surprisingly, 89% of respondents were concerned and want their governments to take stronger climate action. From this they have launched the 89 Percent Project which seeks to explore why there is such a silent majority. (20) The Project will be releasing more findings later this month – but, nevertheless, it is not a issue that has made much headway in the media and nor has it made any impact (so far) on government policy in the UK.

Conclusion

Who gets to influence government policy? Those with the biggest lobbying budgets! Those who can get the attention of the media! Individual citizens can only hope to influence government policy if they can band together as a large, strong, well advised and vocal lobbying group.

This is not to undervalue the importance of voting at elections because each party does have at least mind a set of ideas it will implement if they are in power.

(6) https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r161

(7) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jq43yjx35o

(8) https://professionsinuk.com/civil-servants-role-in-policy-making/

(9) https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/special-adviser-appointments-and-constitution

(10) https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2020/11/dominic-cummings-saga-has-exposed-boris-johnson-s-chronic-weaknesses

(11) https://politicsteaching.com/2023/08/19/what-is-lobbying-and-how-significant-is-it-in-the-uk-2/

(12) https://politicsteaching.com/2023/08/19/what-is-lobbying-and-how-significant-is-it-in-the-uk-2/

(13) https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/fossil-fuels/uk-government-met-oil-lobbyists-every-day-last-year/

(14) https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/fossil-fuels/uk-government-met-oil-lobbyists-every-day-last-year/

(15) https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/collective-voice-how-employment-rights-bill-could-boost-trade-union-presence-work

(16) https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/impact/the-politics-of-polling-why-are-polls-important-during-elections

(17) https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/45308-how-leading-questions-and-acquiescence-bias-can-im

(18) https://theconversation.com/do-biased-polls-skew-elections-experimental-evidence-says-yes-121651

(19) https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/

(20) https://coveringclimatenow.org/projects/the-89-percent-project/

Counting on … 161

9th October 2025

What does ‘woke’ mean and how does it impact free speech?

“Woke is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination, often in the construction stay woke. The term acquired political connotations by the 1970s and gained further popularity in the 2010s with the hashtag #staywoke. Over time, woke came to be used to refer to a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism and denial of LGBTQ rights.”(1)

‘Woke’ is also used as a synonym for political correctness. It is often used as a term of abuse by someone who rejects or doesn’t want to accept new ways of understanding or new ways of doing things. As it often comes with a refusal to engage in discussion, it can be used to curtail free speech.

The following extract from an article from the Conversation, urges us to challenge anti-woke ideas and the careless use of language where it perpetuates social inequalities and prejudice.

“Real effort is required to learn to see injustices that are embedded in our ordinary language and everyday practices. Social psychological work on implicit biases suggests that good intentions and heartfelt commitments are not enough. It takes integrity and courage to critically examine our own behaviour and engage in honest conversations with people who claim we have hurt them. However, once we recognise what’s at stake, to dismiss something as woke is a refusal to even consider the possibility that the targeted practice might be offensive, premised on false or inaccurate claims or discriminatory or harmful.” (2)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

(2) https://theconversation.com/heres-what-woke-means-and-how-to-respond-to-it-219588

Counting on … 160

8th October 2025

Freedom of speech and the right to protest are key parts of maintaining a democracy. The following is from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.

“A healthy society contains a diversity of views, lifestyles, and beliefs. Individuals need to be able to freely discuss political issues, criticise their government, and express dissenting views – including assembling to challenge the government of the day – without censorship or reprisal. Both of these rights are enshrined in the Human Rights Act, which gives statutory force to the European Convention on Human Rights.” (1)

Yet these important rights are being eroded. Whilst in terms of policing this erosion comes through increasing amounts of legislation, the political will that sees such legislation being introduced comes from changes in our society – and these are changes we as Christians should counter, bringing to the fore the Gospel message that there is a better way of living together.

Again from the JRRT:-

“In the UK, as in other democracies, freedom of expression is under threat in new and complex ways, caught up in the battleground between different conceptions of offence and harm, debates around cancel culture, no platforming, ‘safe space’, online harms and academic freedom. Suppressing free speech is a core part of the authoritarian playbook, while at the same time invoked by populists in order to tap into resentment against elites, ‘wokeness’, and vulnerable communities such as migrants.” (1)

https://www.jrrt.org.uk/what-we-do/our-priorities/freedom-of-expression-protest-rights/

And also this article article I rewrote earlier in the year about protest – https://www.jcfj.ie/article/the-importance-of-a-healthy-ecology-of-protest/

Counting on … 159

7th October 2025

Do we have a right to protest? Is protest an extension of the right to our freedom of expression?

The charity Liberty puts it thus:

“Everyone has the right to protest and to organise protests. This right is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR).

Your right to freedom of expression is protected under Article 10 of the ECHR. Your right to freedom of assembly is protected under Article 11.

These Articles have been brought into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. It

Requires public authorities, like the police, to act in a way that is compatible with your rights. The police also have the legal obligation to help protests take place. A legal obligation is something that the law requires you to do. It’s not optional.
Allows you to bring a claim in UK courts when your rights are not respected.” (1)

Liberty goes on to explain that the right to protest is not without some limitations, principally that the police can curtail or limit the right to protest if there are other legal laws to be considered (eg the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022) or to prevent crime and disorder, to protect public health or to protect the rights of others. Nevertheless these limits must be proportionate. What police may do – rather than banning a protest – is impose restrictions on that protest.

So for example when I am part of CCA’s regular vigil outside Parliament, the police many ask what are plans are, how many people we expect and how long we intend staying. Or for example a march such as the Palestinian Solidarity March, will be required to follow a specific route and start and finish at specified times. (Protests that involve moving as opposed to stationary protests typically need to be pre-arranged with the police).

Liberty’s webpage has more information about rights and legal restrictions around protest.

https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/right-to-protest/

Counting on … 158

6th October 2025

A phrase much used at the moment is ‘freedom of speech’. But what does it mean? And does it guarantee that what we here is the truth?

“Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and international human rights law.…” However this is not an absolute right and a clause includes that these rights carries “”special duties and responsibilities” and may “therefore be subject to certain restrictions” when necessary “[f]or respect of the rights or reputation of others” or “[f]or the protection of national security or public order or of public health or morals“….Common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, …” (1)

Freedom of speech certainly,y ensures we do hear what other people are thinking and what they believe to be true. However of itself, freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee that what is said is truthful (even if it is a genuinely held belief). I don’t think you can have truth without freedom of speech, but truth requires more – researching the facts and in particular researching the facts you don’t know. And that itself will depend upon knowing which questions to ask. It could be that listening to a variety of views will help clarify what questions should be asked – and hearing that diversity of views does bring us back to freedom of speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Proper 22 16th Sunday after Trinity

5th October 2025

Reflection with readings below

Habakkuk faces a world in which everything seems to be going awry. All he sees is violence and wrong doing, destruction and the failure of justice. He cries out to God and it seems as if God is not listening. How true does that feel today? Do we not feel like giving up? Giving up on the world where everything seems to be set against doing what is right? Giving up in a world where God seems absent? Can we nevertheless be like Habakkuk and stay in post, keeping up the watch, and wait on God’s word?

How did Habakkuk manage to stay strong? Because he had faith. He had a faith that came out of the close relationship he had with God – “the righteous live by their faith”.

Habakkuk and the Psalmist must have had great patience. They seem to be able accept that they must wait for justice to prevail without any idea of the timescale involved; that they must maintain this patient waiting without not get angry or frustrated! I don’t think we even know if Habakkuk saw the return of peace to the land. He wrote in the period between the conquest of Nineveh which presaged the end of the Assyrian Empire and before the final conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Certainly he couldn’t have lived to see the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

So how the do we respond to the words of Jesus in the Gospel: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”?

What is faith and where does it come from? Synonyms for faith include trust, confidence, credence, conviction, hope, belief, expectation, hopefulness, optimism and assurance. The word faith has a strong connection with religious or spiritual belief although it is also used to describe the relationship a servant and their master, between a knight and their Lord, between a partisan and their political leader – or political creed. Faith it would seem is about relationships. For Habakkuk it was the relationship between the righteous and God. For Christians, faith is, I think, our relationship with God that has developed through our relationship with Jesus.

Where does it come from? It’s certainly not something you can buy! Nor is it something you just stumble across. Rather I think it is something that we all have as a gift from God. We understand God to be the creator – the source point – of all that lives. And we understand that God blessed all that she created, and I would suggest that in both creating and blessing us, God has placed in each of us a seed of faith – one that can never die. On the other hand we each have in our own ways the capacity to enable that seed to flourish enabling our relationship with God to depend and expand – or we can suppress and hide it and try and ignore any relationship with God. (Last week I spoke about the close relationship that prophets have with God).

I’m not sure about faith that can uproot a tree and plant it in the sea but that maybe a hyperbole challenging us to be amazed at what faith can achieve.

Yesterday was the feast of St Francis. During one of the crusades, Francis through his deep faith and his belief that war was contri to God’s will, set out for Damietta where the Crusaders and the Muslims forces were battling with one another in an attempt to secure control of the Holy Land. With only one companion Francis set off on foot for the Sultan’a camp, crossing no-man’s land, with the hope of speaking with the Sultan and finding a basis for peace. His faith – a faith that says continue against the odds because God is with you – took him right to the Sultan’s tent. Whether because of his humility, or his determination or maybe because of his poor and bedraggle appearance, Sultan spoke with Francis. Whilst the outcome wasn’t peace, the Sultan acquired a new respect for this small Christian figure and granted him safe passage back home.

This week a flotilla of little sailing boats reached the waters off Gaza. These boats were crewed by volunteers from around the world who had faith that what ever one does, doing what is right is more important than doing what is safe or tactful, and who had determined to address the painfully acute shortages being faced by the people on Gaza by taking medicines and baby milk and other essentials supplies across the Mediterranean and into Gaza, regardless of the Israeli blockade and the attacks they received on the way (also likely from Israeli forces). They arrived off the coast of Gaza on Thursday morning to be blasted by water canon and surrounded by Israeli vessels who then boarded the boats and arrested all the crew.

As yet we don’t know what the long term impact of the flotilla will be but it has sparked many voices of protest and outrage across the world at what the Israeli government is continuing to do in terrorising the people of Gaza.

Over the last ten days 6 people have been on trial for climbing on motorway gantries in 2023 which they did to highlight the climate crisis and the lack of an adequate response by those in authority. They too have a faith that, what ever one does, doing what is right is more important than doing what is safe or what is popular. In the knowledge that the current trajectory of the world is for at least 2, and possibly more, degrees of warming – which will cause even more suffering with increased risks of floods, droughts, wild fires, crop failures and heat waves – they were not willing to sit back and do nothing while more and more people risk loss of homes and livelihoods and death. At the outset the judge ruled that there were no legal defences that they could use – not even the defence of necessity in the face of a greater threat. All six spoken eloquently and from the heart, remaining faithful to the cause of what is right. All six were found guilty.

As Mother Theresa said, we “aren’t called to be successful; we’re called to be faithful”.

Like Habakkuk we cannot not remain faithful even when things are going awry, when the future looks impossible, nor even when our chances of ‘success’ are pitiful. We can’t always see the bigger picture. We can’t always see what lies ahead of us. But we do know we can always faithfully do that which is asked of us: to love mercy, to seek justice and to walk humbly with God.

The Book of Habakkuk ends with these verses:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails

and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold

and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

and makes me tread upon the heights. Habakkuk 3:17-19

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?

Why do you make me see wrong-doing
and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.

So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous–
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

I will stand at my watchpost,
and station myself on the rampart;

I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.

For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.

If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.

Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faith.

Psalm 37:1-10

1 Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; *
do not be jealous of those who do wrong.

2 For they shall soon wither like the grass, *
and like the green grass fade away.

3 Put your trust in the Lord and do good; *
dwell in the land and feed on its riches.

4 Take delight in the Lord, *
and he shall give you your heart’s desire.

5 Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him, *
and he will bring it to pass.

6 He will make your righteousness as clear as the light *
and your just dealing as the noonday.

7 Be still before the Lord *
and wait patiently for him.

8 Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, *
the one who succeeds in evil schemes.

9 Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; *
do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.

10 For evildoers shall be cut off, *
but those who wait upon the Lord shall possess the land.

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

To Timothy, my beloved child:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am grateful to God– whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did– when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'”

For peace makers

4th October 2025 – feast of St Francis

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Matthew 5:9

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:

May we live together in peace.

A reading from Exodus 26: 19- 22, 26-31

Also Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” So he called the name of the well Esek (quarrel) because they quarrelled with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarrelled over that one also. So he called its name Sitnah (enmity). And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth (spaciousness), because he said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”

Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phichol the commander of his army. And Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?” But they said, “We have certainly seen that the Lord is with you. So we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, between you and us; and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.’ ”

So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. Then they arose early in the morning and swore an oath with one another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

Response:

To be a peacemaker is to strive, and strive and strive again.