Day 4 – Saturday March 12th 2011

Following through the Easter run-up with reflections and thoughts for you from the Inner Manchester Mission Network resources:

Read from your bible - The new testament book called Luke chapter 5: verses 27 to 32


Theme: Calling the unlikely


He’s the loan shark! I was new to Openshaw and to ministry and I wasn’t used to people actually answering a rhetorical question during a sermon. I had been exploring the story of the calling of Levi, the tax collector and trying to explain why a tax collector was so disliked.


Today, 10 years on, the loan shark is still a well known figure, but there is another candidate for the modern day tax collector. How about the city banker who receives the massive bonus while the public sector and less well off in particular are suffering under the weight of the latest government cuts caused in part by the banking crisis and resulting depression?


So what does it mean for Jesus to invite the city banker or the loan shark to the feast? It is about the bringing of people, the banker and the redundant public sector worker, the loan shark and the family in debt, together. Because in meeting and eating together, life stories are shared. Those with power and wealth see first hand the consequences of the unjust systems from which they benefit on others.


Jesus’ call to the tax collector or the city banker or loan shark, is an invitation to see and live life from a different perspective, a call to the outsider to live life from inside God’s community, a community where all are invited to feast at God’s table.

This Lent, we may be reflecting on what we have, or what we may give up. Are we willing to reflect on the kind of community we are and who we associate with and invite the banker or the loan shark to meet and eat with us, to change and be changed by experiencing God’s shalom?


Clare McBeath


Openshaw Baptist Tabernacle