Lent 2023 – Day Twenty-One – Luke 14 v 1-24

Welcome to our Daily reflections for Lent.

We have provided a number of ways of using these reflections.

• You can listen to it in podcast style by clicking on the first audio file. (approx 17 minutes);
• You can listen to the reflection and the prayers with a shortened length for personal prayer (approx 6 minutes);
• You can read your own version of the Bible and then listen to the reflection, play the hymn in the embedded YouTube clip and then listen to the prayer section;
• You can choose to just read through it and ignore the audio files; or
• any combination of the above.

However you choose to use them we hope you will find them helpful and thought provoking.

Full Audio of today’s reflection including Bible reading (Approx 17 minutes).

Audio of Reflection and shortened prayers (approx 6 mins).

Read Luke Chapter 14 verses 1-24. In your own preferred version. The audio uses the NIV.

“They all alike began to make excuses.”

There is both great need and great wealth in the world. Those with the most covet more and those with the least are often disregarded. Generally treated as if they “deserve” to be poor as they have not worked hard enough to pull themselves from that state. The current world is no different from Jesus’s time in the disparity of the haves and the have nots. There is, in a lot of quarters, an indifference to poverty. This Lent we perhaps are each called to review what each of us might do to change that in our own spheres of influence.

As I prepared today’s reflection I called to mind a Quiet Service I prepared many years ago on decisions. Although we may not have bought fields or oxen recently we do have things in our life which prevent us from coming to the banquet. Of course we need a balance and sometimes the right answer to a request to do, yet another job at church is no. However, we should always say yes to the invitation to join in with the feast.

We sometimes talk of discernment when we “test” whether it is God who is calling us. To help with that discernment I often think of using a coin as a visual aid.

Take a coin and look at it select one side and think of the decisions you have in front of you at the moment. Looking at one side think of the reasons for saying yes. Turn the coin over and looking at the other side think of the reasons why you should say no. Remembering today’s lesson make sure they are valid reasons and not just excuses! The idea is not to toss the coin and make a random decision but rather to use a time of quiet to pray and evaluate the choices you have. Seeking God’s guidance as you do so.

Place the coin either side up in a prominent place perhaps at the foot of a cross, if you have one at home. This acts as both the first step of making a decision and as a symbol of placing the decision firmly before God.

Hymn: Singing the Faith –  663 “I the Lord of sea and sky”

 

Contemplation Words

“ They all alike began to make excuses.”

Let us pray together.

Contemplative Prayer

Think of the words in order to understand context and meaning, Feel the meaning of the words with and in your heart, Pray, using the words, for yourself or others. With only a name and without explaining the reasons or pre-defining any answers. Listen for God’s voice in the quiet of your prayers. Pray using your own prayers or one of those which have been prepared below.

Twitter Prayer

Lord, help me to put you first in everything I do today.  Amen

Full Prayer

Lord, help my decision making today, in everything I do may I seek your will for me. Let my decisions be based on my commitment to you and not on excuses so that I can do something that I want to do more. Help me to see what are the fields and oxen in my life, those things which prevent me from coming to your feast.