Wednesday 13 October 2021

Today is Wednesday the 13th of October, in the 28th week of Ordinary Time.  
 
Leslie Jordan with the Porter’s Gate sings, ‘Teach Us Your Ways’.  
 
Today’s reading is from St Paul’s letter to the Romans.    
Romans 2:1-11  
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, ‘We know that God’s judgement on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgement of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgement will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honour and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.    
 
The riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience.  Could that kindness and forbearance and patience extend to me? I sit with that thought… of God looking at me with kindness, forbearance, and patience. How does that make me feel?  
What about the concept of God’s righteous judgment?  God, the fair judge.  How do I react to that?  Where do I see deep injustices in the world around me?  How might God be seeing them?  
I notice what God draws to my attention as I listen to the passage again…  
In the quietness of these closing moments, I listen to God, the forbearing One, the fair judge, the One who sees my efforts, my inconsistencies, and my struggles.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.