19th October 2025
Reflection with readings below.
The prophet Jeremiah is passing on to the people God’s reassurance that there will come for them a time of peace and the rebuilding of their community – salvation – but that it will also be a time of judgement. Part of the process of the rebuilding will be understanding where they themselves have got it wrong. Then they will be ready to start over: God will give them a new heart.
Despite all the trauma God’s people have been going through, including the realisation that Babylonian domination will be their burden for the long haul, and the realisation that their own folly has brought them to this place of desolation, Jeremiah is assuring them that God still loves them.
But Jeremiah’s words – as well as offering us hope – are also a reminder that sometimes -often – our wrong doings and errors will impact not just us but generations to come. That is certainly true of our excessive consumption of the Earth’s resources and our increasing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Without a doubt what we are handing onto the next generation is a severely depleted, damaged world.
Like Jeremiah’s contemporaries, we need new hearts so that we can reshape our lives to live simply and sustainably, to live in harmony with – rather than in the destruction of -the Earth’s precious environment. And not just us as individuals but our communities and governments, businesses and global institutions, that all need new hearts. New hearts that will transform the way we live with each other, the way we share, restore and conserve resources. We need social and economic policies focused not on maximising profits but on maximising benefits for the common good.
Why do we spend money on AI and other profit maximising actions, that take peoples jobs away, and leave us living in a world where unemployment and poverty are increasing? Why do we not focus on creating meaningful jobs that give people a sense of value, that give the opportunity to be self supporting, and even give the ability to pay taxes?
We do we create trade deals that leave poorer nations struggling to provide their people with schools, medicines and education? That leave them even poorer and unable to invest in infrastructure to adapt to the onslaught of the climate crisis? And why then, having failed to address the global inequalities that trap such nations in the grasp of poverty, are we surprised that those of their citizens who can afford the cost, should seek to make new lives in the west?
Surely we have failed to learn from God that wisdom and knowledge which would shows us how to live in comfort and harmony with all our neighbours – human and nonhuman? The Psalmist and the writer of the letter to Timothy are clear that it is in the teachings of scripture and in knowledge of God’s words that we will learn how to live such lives. It is also clear that we can all benefit from good teachers – from prophets even – that can open up and unpack God’s wisdom, who can make God’s word alive for each generation, who are willing to be both persistent and patient in expounding this gospel. Teachers, preachers and prophets who can inspire and inform us, sharing God’s vision for a better, blessed world.
In today’s gospel the key word is persistence. Here the virtue of persistence is linked to prayer – persistent prayer is a good thing. I am not sure that the words ascribed to Jesus really means that God is more likely to listen to our prayers if they are persistent – as in repeated endlessly. I don’t think God ignores prayers that aren’t endlessly repeated – that sounds too much as if we need to persuade God to listen. Rather I think it is that we have to be persistent in prayer because human frailty and/or stupidity means that the same need for prayer is going to reoccur time and again, and that having to raise issue as a topic of prayer should not dissuade us from raising that issue with God. Day in day out we will find ourselves needing to pray for peace, needing to pray for wisdom for our leaders, needing to pray for forgiveness for our own failures, needing to pray for a change of course in the way we make use of/ abuse the Earth’s resources etc etc. Prayer is not just about words, it is about making those words into actions, into a changed heart. Persistent prayer is more then just persistent words but also persistent actions. It is about always walking the talk, regularly and repeatedly, until the change God desires happens.
Here persistence in prayer is about not giving up on hope for a better future. It is about being faithful rather than necessarily being successful. Faithful in the belief that God desires a better future for everyone, faithful in the belief that God believes that we humans can change and that we can be part of the process of salvation. So even if we find ourselves in a similar situation to Jeremiah, a situation where the future doesn’t look bright, we must be constant in believing that in God’s timescale there is a better future, and be persistent in praying for what ever needs to change to get there.
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say:
“The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt– a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Psalm 119:97-104
97 Oh, how I love your law! *
all the day long it is in my mind.
98 Your commandment has made me wiser than my enemies, *
and it is always with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, *
for your decrees are my study.
100 I am wiser than the elders, *
because I observe your commandments.
101 I restrain my feet from every evil way, *
that I may keep your word.
102 I do not shrink from your judgments, *
because you yourself have taught me.
103 How sweet are your words to my taste! *
they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.
104 Through your commandments I gain understanding; *
therefore I hate every lying way.
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
As for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
The Green Tau 