Morning to everyone in the room, on Zoom. Lovely
to be here with you. Today I'm going to introduce
us to the idea of class, or as some of you prefer
me to say it, class. And that is precisely the
point, and in a sense the ironic pointlessness
of a day like this. It's one thing to see the
word written down. Written up on a lecture room
screen behind me here. But it's quite another
thing when we start to pronounce on it or even
to pronounce the word itself. Suddenly, each
and every one of us in some ways, known or unknown
to us, are unravelled. We're enrolled. We're
entangled in this strange, strange thing called
class. By how we say it, how we wear it, how
we style ourselves, whether that's our hair.
or our titles, our codes of humour and honour,
the jobs we take, the jobs that are taken from
us, the answers we give, the appraisals others
give to us. At the very outset, this notion is
sticky, even before we open our mouths. Class
is wet paint. We brush against it, it comes off
us. Something of it marks us, whether we like
it or not, whether we understand it or not. It
can be frustrating, whether because it's elusive,
but nevertheless, you know, when you see it,
when you hear it, when you taste it, when you
smell it, or because if you ignore it, it simply
goes away. Glass is both social and antisocial.
It's visible in places, people and lives. But
at the same time, it's invisible, but still powerful
in the walls inside our heads. our hearts, our
comfort zones. Class is felt. It's emotional
in a range of ways. And it's also embodied, affecting
our health and life chances and life outcomes.
Indeed, increasingly so at this present time
of cost of living crises, with despair and stagnation
in what are sometimes called left behind places.
increasing numbers of young people and not so
young people feeling failed and failing and weakened
civic and political allegiances. We're holding
this day on class for these reasons and for others.
Class also affects our churches, again, whether
we're aware of it or not. Yes, a key conviction
is that we believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ
makes calls on our lives to repent and to believe,
to belong and to behave differently towards one
another. But so often that call seems to struggle
to reach across the class spectrum. Our churches,
indeed our colleges, our courses for evangelism,
training and discipleship, too often... they
are more class -bound than is good for the gospel.
While there might be short -term game and comfort
in focusing on people like us, the Great Commission
is not so limited, reaching very much to people
not like us. And that call to be not so limited
comes to each of us. Thus, class becomes implicated
as a gospel issue, as much as the gospel involves
deeds in keeping with repentance that are enacted
together. This is especially so whenever class
has been neglected in our thinking, our acting,
our believing, and the kinds of gospel cultures
we seek to shape in our lives and in our churches.
If culture is defined by the best things we celebrate
and the worst things we tolerate, then class
and classism, that is discrimination, devaluation,
marginalisation on the basis of class, is a matter
of gospel culture and of gospel life. Today is
an opportunity for us to begin addressing these
things. To start this, my presentation has three
steps in it. The first and longest will be to
introduce and seek to define this slippery concept,
class. I'll do so by tracing its journey through
British history to the present and noting some
ways in which class is entangled in our churches.
Second, I'm going to make a reverse step, looking
into the New Testament world to see how its society
was structured. and how Paul navigated class,
such as we can see it there. In my closing section,
I'll take us into the book of Acts to finish
with some direction forward for our day ahead
and what might flow from it. So first then, the
history of class in the United Kingdom. The word
class first entered the English language in the
late 16th century as a term imported at that
time from ancient Roman history. From the outset,
then, it's been a term related to rank and hierarchy,
coming as it did from classical society, its
rank and rankings. Also, it entered into English
language and society with its own pre -existing
ranks and rankings, stretching back into history,
into feudal, medieval times and earlier. But
among its first uses in English, this new term
class had an educational function. A usage still
seen today in our classification of university
degrees as first class, upper and lower second
class and so on. Now meanings of terms rarely
stand still and class is one of those words which
has had a shifting impact on our culture and
society in the centuries since then. A big change
for class came in the 1700s with three revolutions
and indeed the absence of a fourth one. The first
of these revolutions is what became known as
the Industrial Revolution, in a century of transformation
stretching from the 1700s into the 1800s. Britain
was the first country in the world to undergo
large -scale industrialisation. Massive urbanisation
came with it, causing a large -scale disruption
of rural orderings of society. New industrial
towns and cities altered the lives of many. created
vast riches for some, and caused society -wide
searches for what this new order meant. During
the same time, there was a second and third revolution.
First, an American one, breaking free of British
colonial rule. And second, quickly in its wake,
the French one, breaking free of aristocratic
rule. On both fronts, this was a period of immense
debate, struggle. over political, social and
economic rights, which played out differently
in different countries for the varying classes
within them. But curiously, there was not a fourth
revolution at this time. There was no British
revolution, not in the political sense, such
as happened in America and France. Despite the
massive impact of industrial change, no royal
heads rolled in Britain in the period. No republican
fervour bought regime change. How come? In part,
the answer lies with how class as a category
morphed and accommodated changes within Britain
at the time. Initially, class in a British context
was applied to people's social position. typically
indicating if they were nobility or not. Upper
and lower became its two subcategories. But as
revolutionary fervour burned over the Channel
and across the ocean, class in Britain underwent
an evolution, not a revolution. The innovation
was the insertion of middle into this dual ranking,
in recognition of an intervening middle class.
Now what created this break, preventing similar
revolt in Britain? Historians debate the point,
some seeing its roots in earlier times, during
the Tudor period perhaps, and then being nourished
by the spread of British imperial power. Overseas
there was a growing need for administrators in
newly acquired colonies, an increased scope for
a trading merchant class to take root in Britain.
helping quell political revolutionary potential
back home. Perhaps now, likewise then, people
were slightly confused by class. That said, any
assertion, insertion of middle into the ranking
order of class is always by definition indeterminate.
And here lie some of the seeds for our definitional
difficulties today. Another impact at this time
was happening at the top of the class structure
of that period. During industrialisation, wealth
grew in newly industrialising towns and cities,
whereas the old upper class were located predominantly
elsewhere. It wasn't the case that the upper
class dropped out of sight completely, but that
term became increasingly assigned to a different
and somewhat distant part of society, distant
from the industrial towns, that is. Less visible
there, upper class became something of a residual,
respected, but essentially displaced aristocracy.
Meanwhile, things weren't staying still down
at the lower end of this societal ranking league.
Another contrast marker was emerging. This was
the term working, used to indicate those who
were useful or productive in this new industrial
world, unlike the landed aristocracy, who by
contrast were simply... privileged, the ISIL
class. Initially, this working label was a wide
one, applied to both middle and lower rankings.
Its considerable overlap is seen in a 1797 reference
to the middle and industrial classes bound together.
But this overlap was not to remain. Instead,
as industrialization became more established,
a further separation of terms emerged. in this
category of class with a still very general identification
of the poor and working classes. By the 1840s,
middle class and working class were becoming
common terms, separating out from one another.
And as the 19th century lengthened and more and
more aspects of life and nature became classified,
so people began to differentiate between lower
and upper middle classes. And in working class,
skilled, semi -skilled labourer. Now, at this
point, let us pause and consider the logics.
Logics, plural, what is in play here. Side by
side, class has evolved in this British context
with two different processes, two different ways
of thinking in mind. On the one hand, the term
middle retains the old sense of rank. ranking
and hierarchy, whereas the term working indicates
a different sense of production and usefulness.
Neither term is the exact mirroring of the other.
And here, in how the word is unfold and become
used, we see something of the opposing tensions,
the pride and disdain, the kind of emotional
potential for superiority. and inferiority which
stalk class classifications to this day. Labels
make a difference to people's identities. And
it's in this complex and dynamic already existing
landscape of class that we encounter Karl Marx.
Not as the inventor of the term but as one who
worked with it. At this time together with Friedrich
Engels he developed a revolutionary philosophy.
with a distinctive economic and political agenda,
looking at desperate living conditions within
Victorian industrial cities such as Manchester,
one area of which Engles described as hell on
earth. Marx saw potential for a salvation of
sorts, a class consciousness arising from individual
workers forming a class formation. underpinned
by a shared understanding of their working conditions
and their place within what he called capitalist
economic relations. Such consciousness could
lead to action, revolutionary action, to overturn
the economic structures holding workers in its
thrall. And in the early 20th century, in the
immediate aftermath of the First World War, such
class revolution did happen, but in Russia, not
Britain. Instead, helped by a series of stepped
changes through the interwar period and beyond,
Britain preserved and to some extent embedded
its three -part class system. That is a somewhat
remote upper class. a reasonably robust middle
class and a large, if not quite revolutionary,
working class. In their interactions, these three
groups managed to keep together a shared sense
of British pride in a capitalist system, albeit
one supported and subsidised by a vast overseas
empire and increasingly underpinned by government
-led welfare provision. The rise of the Labour
Party and trade unionism brought a measure of
progress for the working class, and the ruling
classes managed to bribe enough through government
provision to keep that spectre of communism at
bay. After the Second World War, following a
few years of austerity and rationing, from about
the 1950s onward, Britain saw a period of sustained
economic growth and an unprecedented sharing
of rising wealth. A promise of cradle -to -grave
support for all classes ran through the National
Health Service, provision of council housing
and state pensions, and state -owned industries
such as coal and steel. Indeed, if we jump back
to 60 years ago, to the year 1966, not only did
the England men's team win the Football World
Cup, one highlight of sorts, but also the country's
manufacturing employment reached its all -time
high. If you want a snapshot of a certain take
on the three classes at what was, with retrospect,
this high point of 1966, you can't do much better
than searching online for a black -and -white
television comedy sketch from the same year,
involving John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie
Corbett. Googling class sketch, not now, later,
will lead you to it. Class, however, does not
stand still. Even if this somewhat neat tripartite
understanding of class endures to this day in
some casual assumptions of what class is somehow
meant to mean, fed by memories from black and
white television comedies from a now far off
era. Rather... The four pillars underpilling
the British class system were slowly decaying
and disappearing. And it's this process that
brings us towards today. First, empire. Post
-war decolonisation saw its ending as a mass
supply line and market for British wealth production.
Second, industry. 1966 was an irrecoverable peak
for the UK economy, as well as for the English
football team. By the end of the 1970s, economic
decline was all too evident. In 1979, when Margaret
Thatcher became Prime Minister, promising change,
the traditional manufacturing industries, the
heavy industries which had made Britain in the
19th century the workshop of the world, were
inefficient and in rapid decline. The new government,
unwilling to prop them up, allowed market forces
to do their work. One -fifth of all manufacturing
jobs were lost within a three -year period. One
-fifth of all manufacturing jobs were lost between
1979 and 1982. Coal mining too was well past
its peak. Whereas in 1984 there were a quarter
of a million striking coal miners, in Britain
today there are fewer than 3 ,000 coal workers
in the entire industry. Traditional industrial
heartland suffered greatly. economically and
socially, and in many contexts have never recovered.
The power of trade unions and organised labour
and what went there in terms of social cohesion
was much diminished. New jobs were too often
in other places or didn't need the same manual
skills or simply were lower paid and less secure.
Another change from the 1980s onwards was the
sale of council houses without a corresponding
rebuilding programme to replace them. Over time,
inequalities in income and wealth, marked in
their own way by house prices and house availabilities,
were increasing and new divisions were coming
into being. Overlaid on this, the collapse of
the USSR and the communist project at the end
of the 1980s seemed only to confirm the failure
of alternatives to market forces. As the old
century closed, it seemed that capitalism in
its new globalising format had won and that class
was somewhat... But it was not an end. It is
not an end to the underlining difficulties and
tensions that were traditionally seen as class
related. Labour's return to government in the
1990s with the promise that things could only
get better would not be a lasting optimism. Instead,
a financial crash, a global financial crash in
2007 to 2008 exposed and extended national debt
and led to years of austerity. briefly interrupted
by vast government spending during the COVID
-19 pandemic. Today, welfare provision such as
the NHS is under increasing stress and strain.
In secular terms, this history of past then is
not a happy one. Where, we might then ask, were
the evangelical churches during these long changes
and developments? In broad terms, the story is
mixed. Historian David Bevington, looking back
at the 17th century, sees evangelicalism then
as appealing to artisans, but it is, quote, then,
rarely the religion of the poorest and the outcast.
This was not an inherent limitation of reach,
however, as the impact of the 18th century evangelical
revival and the birth of Methodism show. That
said, by the late Victorian period, the high
period of industrialisation, a rising middle
class was becoming a dominant cultural force
in evangelical churches. And the previous century's
gospel work amongst the poor was less, but not
lost. We might as well look at the Salvation
Army, the Church Army, and the Welsh Revival
in the early years of the last century to point
to actual, not just potential, reach of the gospel.
But even such brief historical mentions are not
enough. to show that the gospel always plays
its theological resources for reach across the
entire class spectrum. If we fast forward to
today, we certainly benefit from diaspora brothers
and sisters in our midst bringing fresh vibrancy
to a seemingly post -Christian Britain. That
said, some of us are rightly reflecting on the
negative impact of some influential Christian
ministries from recent decades where abuse has
come to light, some of which seems infused and
fed by class biases and distortions. Gathering
such as this then, we're looking humbly for existing
good practices and pointers forwards for how
to nurture Christian ministries across class
divides today. How then, in light of these changes,
and our circumstances are we best able to understand
the present outlook thrown up by this shape shifter
of a category called class not i suggest by returning
to neat three -part formations such as we see
in comedy sketches nor by returning or relying
on a former marxist analysis at essence class
in contemporary britain haunts us but in new
and challenging ways that challenge us in how
we respond in our day and age with the perennial
gospel. I think class remains inescapably about
haves and have -nots. But this differential is
also increasingly experienced and felt in social
relations, how people interact or don't interact,
their connections. their networks, their friendships
and associations. And additionally, class plays
through culturally, involving matters of taste
and evaluation, the interests and activities
that people access and enjoy. And these two things,
the social and the cultural, inform the doors
that are thought to open a future for us, such
as, for instance, the prestige or otherwise that
is put on having a university degree. The French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu provides a framework
which can help us here. In a move beyond and
out of Marxist analysis, Bourdieu identifies
multiple capitals. What we have or do not have
is more than merely economics. For Bourdieu,
other areas of life come into play, giving us
a sense of someone's social capital, their cultural
capital, as well as their economic capital. Someone
might be, we could say, rich in one area, poor
in another. And together, these different areas
of our life, Bourdieu suggests, create what he
calls a habitus. That is a combination of our
habitat. the places and spaces we are comfortable
in, and our habits and how they shape us. In
this regard, some forms of these capitals will
be useful in some contexts and useless or positively
unhelpful in another. For instance, a university
degree might help us in an academic debate, but
it's not so helpful in a street fight. At least
most university degrees are not. Enough of streetlights.
Let's return instead to the lived experience
of coming to our churches, my church, your church.
We can turn Bordeaux's categories back on ourselves.
What capitals, economic, cultural, social, are
needed to feel comfortable, valued, at home,
in my church, in your church? The question's
well worth asking. Doing so will invite us to
quiz our own assumptions, our taken -for -grantednesses,
and to invite others in our church or beyond
our churches to tell us what they see as our
habitus, the practices that we assume or expect
other people to adopt. Some of these will be
our blind spots, which by definition we cannot
see ourselves. We need others. We need one another
to tell them to us. We need to be in close and
trusting enough relationship for them to tell
us and to hear it from them in undefended ways.
Here I hope we begin to see the need to take
class seriously for the health of our churches
and ourselves, as well as the spread of the gospel.
Otherwise, we effectively turn people away as
they sense that church. is not a place for someone
like them. You see, class is emotional. As I've
said, it involves hopes and fears, anger and
contentment, risk and outcome. People carry that
with them as they come to their churches in those
seen and unseen ways. And it's linked with how
we are formed as people in relationship with
one another. And I think it's a small and necessary
set to say that class is therefore theological.
Infusing our lives, our ministries, our identity
within the body of Christ in our communities,
our churches, as well as our world. To close
this section, let's look briefly at how class
might be mapped today. This might help us in
terms of thinking through who is in our churches
and who is not. First, for government purposes,
the Office of National Statistics uses a socioeconomic
classification established in the 1970s. If we
want to understand socio -economic profile in
the area we live in, this is likely to be the
framework the data we get will come in. It's
based around questions about someone's occupation,
the nature of their employment contract, are
they wage, salaried, self -employed or whatever,
and the size of the organisation they work in.
This kind of data is available through time.
If we've got an idea of how our area used to
be, but isn't now. This is the kind of data that
we can draw on for it. To assess socio -economic
background and mobility, one further question
is asked. This is the question. What was the
occupation of your main household earner when
you were aged about 14? And I guess all of us
have quietly got an answer to that question.
For identifying class, this question is foundational
when, for instance, the Church of England is
measuring the class distribution of its clergy
as it tries to appraise how middle class it is
and how it can change in that regard. And it
might well be one key question to take from this
framework. What was the occupation when you were
age 14 of the main household earner in your household?
They didn't have an occupation. That tells you
something. as well. An alternative approach to
defining class in contemporary Britain is a more
recent model of seven class formations, identified
by a group of sociologists working with data
from over 161 ,000 people gathered by the BBC's
Great British Class Survey of 2011. And this
model has been used to produce an interactive
class calculator. We're answering a few online
questions we'll assign you to one of the model
seven classes. It's easier looking, isn't it,
than those government questions. It includes,
in a simplified way, Bourdieu's sense of multiple
capitals. By all means, try it out. Please note,
it is subject to a lot of critique, both practically
and theoretically. Practically, it tells us nothing
about how to relate with others, either in or
beyond our assigned classification. But looking
at this kind of framing might give us some more
textured ways of thinking about class within
our midst than that standard government data.
And let me say, there's nothing against coming
up with your own local class definitions together
as a church, the kind of people in your area
and your kind of space. Sometimes naming the
people who are in our churches and not in our
churches without stereotyping them can help us
in our reach. But to conclude this, the main
part of my paper, I want to ask for your patience
if you're seeking precision. Class, I hope you
got a sense, cannot be definitively defined.
It's one of those terms a bit like war and peace.
Is there peace or war in the Middle East at the
moment? It's hard to define, but something, something
is going on. But please do not dismiss it on
these grounds of lack of definition that is fixed
and stable. Instead, along with your patience,
I ask for your discernment. For the sake of the
gospel, for the wisdom and reach of that gospel,
for your discernment and your compassion towards
others and yourself, for understanding them and
understanding yourself. There is something here
in this strange thing called class that we need
to discern. together in the face of the other.
It plays through in our churches and in their
reach and our individual discipleship. It's important
we keep in mind its contingent, multidimensional
qualities. It's not one static, easily identified
thing. It is this web of issues, economic, social,
cultural, psychological, issues of the heart
as well as the body, the hands as well as the
mind. feeding in and through one another and
affecting us all. So for the sake of our ministry
today and beyond, it would be well to learn class
afresh. This is a time and a place and a season
for that. So when we come to look at it in scripture,
we won't expect to see something identically
macking on to the confused picture we have in
our day. Dimensions will take different shapes
in different places. Turning to the Bible, I
want to argue there are threads and pointers
for us there today, for class and ministry in
the UK today. With our own history in mind, let's
have a brief look at the New Testament. And it's
not surprising that even within the few decades
of the New Testament, there were different expressions
of social structure and relations at shape and
at work in different places, urban and rural.
Within, say, Judea and Galilee, and then in the
wider Roman Empire beyond. And the glimpses as
we get them are inevitably hypotheses, reconstructions.
But I think they're suggestive for us with regarding
to clasp. I want to show us briefly two models
for illustrative purposes. They're both drawn
from the work of a New Testament scholar, Bruce
Longenecker, who's drawing on others who work
in this area. The first one presents a reconstruction
of the distribution of power in a predominantly
rural economy such as Galilee. It's helpful for
getting us past either not thinking about power
and privilege, that's the vertical axis with
that little lone ruler at the top, or not considering
the relative numbers of people located at any
point in that vertical axis. The horizontal width
of the overall profile showing the estimated
numbers of people at any point on the scale.
At very least, such a profile representation
gets us past simple and abstracted ideas of rich
and poor in the Bible. And it also reminds us
that people's occupations and roles and statuses
were not necessarily the same as ours. We don't
tend to have retainers and priests, peasants,
artisans, unclean and degraded and expendables
with those labels in our day and age. But it
begins to see how society, such as where Jesus
told his parables and called people to follow
him, was flesh and blood, emotional and relating
with one another. This was where he ministered.
The second profile seeks to ascertain a view
across the first century Greco -Roman world,
the wider Roman Empire. It's presented more in
the form of a ranking ladder with seven categories
ranging from the top, economic scale, ES1, imperial
elites, to the bottom, ES7, those living below
subsistence level. Where, we might ask, would
the Apostle Paul be located within a structure
such as this? Longinecker suggests an E. S4 economic
existence for Paul's pre -apostolic life, a moderate
surplus economically speaking, on the basis of
his rhetorical skill and his listing of work
as a hardship. But, and I think this is well
worth our attention, Longenecker posits that
Paul's economic profile as an apostle for Jesus
Christ drops a level or two. That is from ES4
to the manual labour of ES5, perhaps even ES6
at times, and I would add, as a prisoner, even
ES7. Longenecker concludes, as far as we can
reconstruct, this plunge in his economic profile
was his preferred modus operandi, the result
of his own choice. The intentional taking of
a road less travelled. Longinecker characterises
this as a canonic move on Paul's part, meaning
an economic emptying of himself, though Paul
chooses not to talk about it as such, other than
perhaps occasional brief and indirect allusion
to his letters. What we begin to see is a measure
of economic discipleship on the part of Paul.
This is purely individualistic, perhaps due to
him being an apostle of Jesus Christ. In my final
section, I want to suggest that this is not unique
to Paul, nor isolated individualism. I'll press
into the book of Acts to do so. Specifically,
I want to focus on one verse, Acts chapter 20,
verse 35. It's an introductory horizon for our
day. In its brevity, I see it as embryonic, as
highly suggestive and generative for a reworking
of class relations within Christian discipleship.
It is a climactic verse concluding Paul's address
to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. And
this address itself is emblematic, being Paul's
final recorded speech in Acts to those in the
churches his ministry had fed and planted. It
provides hearers then and readers now with a
retrospective on all Paul's ministry. And it
does so as an exemplary model to follow. In an
address such as this, endings are vitally important.
Note then, as with Peter's final words in his
climactic speech to the believers in Jerusalem
in Acts 11, Paul here in Acts 20 verse 35. concludes
with what is called an agraphon. That is a word
from Jesus which is not written, not recorded
in the four canonical Gospels. It is more blessed
to give than to receive. The life and action
just commended to these elders and to believers
more widely is grounded in Jesus' teaching, not
just in Paul. And in its build -up to it, the
verse makes much of this word from Jesus. Verse
35 refers to Jesus' words, plural, and as something
we should remember. Second, it links his words
to actions, and such actions as a necessity for
his followers to adopt in appropriate ways. The
inseparability of word and actions is indeed
implied by the very opening verse of Acts, describing
Luke's gospel as recounting all that Jesus began
to do and teach. Here in Acts 20, 35, his teaching
continues. Embracing in a comparative assessment
of flourishing, that's the meaning of blessedness,
how we as his followers are to relate with those
who are weak. In context, referring to those
who are materially lacking, who are poor. Now
watch my language here. Note the step I made.
I deliberately made it, but I want to step back
from it. My expression of we suggests that we,
I, am not weak. Here is my middle class assumption
and desire showing itself dangerously. Even simply,
I often want to be un -weak, un -poor, un -lacking.
To step back for a moment into our own culture,
not being weak is in many ways the dream of all
classes. And the fear of becoming weak, vulnerable
and insecure drives us in so many ways. This
is not, however, a staple. uncomfortable assertion
of a right that accrues to us naturally by cause
of birth or our own efforts rather in the gospel
things are different we are those who receive
Paul, after all, would not own it for himself.
When I am weak, then I am strong, he self -describes
himself. Locating himself among the weak, seeing
God's grace as something which reworks his self
-identity in relation to some non -specified
form which he carries. Or expressed differently
elsewhere to the Corinthian believers, you are
not your own. You were brought at a price. Let
me ask myself aloud as one of the middle class
within the Church of Jesus Christ, how does this
alter, how should it alter profoundly my sense
of I -ness? As a receiver of grace, to return
to Acts 20 .35, I need to remember those other
ordering words of Jesus, that it is more blessed
to give than to receive. Contrary to our culture,
consumption is not king. Acquisition is not ultimate
concern. The needs of others come first. In closing,
imagine our class systems like a gyroscope, needing
a stable centre to keep spinning. Acts 20 .35
suggests a different spinning centre, a gospel
-supplied spinning centre of gravity for our
rankings, our relationships. our exchanges. This
is how perhaps in small only local ways our churches
can be contrast societies in the midst of our
communities. But this assessment by Jesus of
what is human flourishing erupts in a different
personhood, a new landscape for us all, a different
marketplace, different circulations of capitals
of whatever kind. Indeed, a widened sense of
giving and gift, with altered patterns of relationship
and exchange, transformed self -appraisal and
a baptised appraisal of others. But how this
plays through in life we're instructed to remember.
That is to look back through the previous chapters
of the narrative of Acts and Luke's Gospel in
order to appraise what we must do. After all,
isn't that the very first question? What must
we do? The very first question when we hear the
gospel that remains a path of discipleship. In
light of this reworking of weak and strong, of
rich and poor, what impact can and should this
gospel and how it's lived out have in our lives
together in a class -ridden society? To that
end, the gift of this day still lies open to
us.