Tag: flourishing

Counting on … 155

1st October 2025

What is the purpose of work? 

Yesterday’s Counting On highlighted some of the diversity around work – and principally that no all work is paid, and indeed nor is all paid work remunerated at the same rate.

According to Ecosia, work, as a noun, is activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result, and as a verb, is to be engaged in physical or mental activity in order to achieve a result. Work might be contrasted with play if play js seen as an activity that has no purpose or result. But play does have a purpose: it enables people (especially children) to learn; it helps people relax; it enables people to explore alternative worlds. Work might be contrasted with being lazy if lazy is seen as not being bothered, or not caring, or being selfish. This brings in a moral dimension and asks the question is not working always bad? Is all work inherently good? Which comes to the question, what is the purpose of work?

We work to stay alive – eg gathering, growing, and preparing food to eat; building, maintaining, cleaning a safe place of shelter – ie a home; looking after our mental and physical health which might include making medicines, or listening to people’s troubles, taking exercise – and making that exercise fun;  through education to ensure that what we learn that makes life better is shared and passed on; through exploring and researching and just being curious so as to understand better the intricate ways by which this world exists and flourishes; making clothes and tools, making things that keep our homes warm (or cool) and making things that make our homes homely; making shoes and bicycles and other means of transport (including roads and bridges etc) so that we can meet other people and exchange ideas and goods; protecting the ecosystems in which we live – keeping them safe and in good health, ensuring the safety and well being of each other and all other living beings with whom we share this planet; and finally praying for as St Benedict said, to,work is to pray and pray is to work.

All this is about ensuring a flourishing life for all and is morally good. But what if work is used to harm people, to harm other living beings? What is work is used to exploit the planet, to denude it of resources and to pollute it? What is work is used to benefit and small minority at the expense of everyone – and everything – else? 

How do we ensure that work is used to do good things and not bad things?

Counting on … Lent 13

21st  March 2025

“The sprit of the Lord is upon me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners ….They will be called oaks of righteousness , the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.” Isaiah 61: 1 3b

Again we are reminded of God’s calling that we should care for all those in need so as to create a world that in its flourishing reveals the glory of God. And in truth it is that same glory we see when we look at great oak trees, or ancient woodlands or when we see the first green shoots appearing on a local tree – just as it is when the sick are healed, the oppressed released, the broken hearted restored and the whole world sharing in the good news of God’s spirit.

Proper 20, 17th Sunday after Trinity

Reflection with readings below

In recent weeks we have been reminded again and again that there is wisdom that comes from ‘above’ – Godly wisdom – and wisdom that has a base origin – ‘worldly wisdom’. The latter is what drives stock markets and banker’s bonuses, that exploits workers and despoils the earth. The former seeks to honour God and love our neighbours – both human and creaturely. The former encourages us to care for, and be cared for, by each other; to be as children, trusting and open, understanding our dependence on God.

Jeremiah suggests the example of being like lambs, or like fruit trees. And drawing on Jesus’s own parable about fruit trees, the implication of the latter being that we should bear a rich harvest in response to God’s tending. 

This time of year when we celebrate creation-tide and – for those of us in the northern hemisphere – harvest, so the call to be fruitful is particularly apt. Being fruitful is about flourishing. In the second story of creation in Genesis, God sees an earth that is bare and void of life and desires to see it becoming a verdant garden teaming with life. To this end, God provides water, trees and plants, and beings to till and safeguard all that is growing. That I believe is still God’s desire. We – together with all the other creaturely beings that God created as helpers – have a calling to tend and care for the earth and its flourishing. We are called to tend the plants and trees, the soil and waters, and to care for each other – birds and animals, insects and waterlife as well as our fellow human beings where ever they live across the world.

To do that is to draw upon the wisdom from above – God’s wisdom. 

In the letter of James we read: “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.” And “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

And in Mark’s gospel we hear Jesus telling us: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” That is not the wisdom of the world. That is not about huge pay deals and share dividends; that is not about spending £1000s on new clothes; that is not about exploiting oilfields leading to extreme weather events that will cause devastation to those most vulnerable; that is not about seeking huge subsidies so that profits will not be diminished by costs. Nor is it about the 14,000 plus children killed in Gaza, nor the 4.3 million of children growing up in poverty in the UK.

Until we live by the wisdom that comes from above rather than by the wisdom of the world, such grief and suffering is going to continue. Until we can truly live out the command to love our neighbour as ourself, we are going to struggle to follow the example Jesus gave us. Until we become like children recognising our dependency on God, our need to learn from God’s wisdom, we are not going to be able to address these woes for we will constantly find ourselves coming up against the uncompromising negative impact of worldly wisdom – the wisdom that always puts self first. 

Let us once again affirm our desire and intention to be live our lives as followers of Jesus. 

Jeremiah 11:18-20

It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;
then you showed me their evil deeds.

But I was like a gentle lamb
led to the slaughter. 

And I did not know it was against me
that they devised schemes, saying,

“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!”

But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,

let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

Psalm 54

1 Save me, O God, by your Name; *
in your might, defend my cause.

2 Hear my prayer, O God; *
give ear to the words of my mouth.

3 For the arrogant have risen up against me,
and the ruthless have sought my life, *
those who have no regard for God.

4 Behold, God is my helper; *
it is the Lord who sustains my life.

5 Render evil to those who spy on me; *
in your faithfulness, destroy them.

6 I will offer you a freewill sacrifice *
and praise your Name, O Lord, for it is good.

7 For you have rescued me from every trouble, *
and my eye has seen the ruin of my foes.

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Mark 9:30-37

Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”