The Start of Term - 14th Sunday after Trinity

My first day at the village school in Northumberland, aged 5.

I wrote my name – and was moved to the clever part of the classroom.

I must have had brains then. Such promotion didn’t repeat itself in later years.

And then I just had to put this in.

Laurie Lee’s first day at school. ‘Cider with Rosie’

“They never gave me the present!”

“Present? What present?”

“They said they’d give me a present.”

“Well, now, I’m sure they didn’t.”

“They did! They said: ‘You’re Laurie Lee, ain’t you? Well, just you sit there for the present.’

I sat there all day but I never got it. I ain’t going back there again!”

Because I taught in secondary schools for 32 years, Maths and RE, September is still very much the start of the year.

For churches also, after many have been away for holidays, September is when we gather ready to move on.

Jesus said (Matthew 18.20) “Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them”

This, along with the other phrases we know, encourages and inspires us.

Is there a theme here? Simply GATHERING. STARTING AGAIN.

An invitation to get your pencil case ready, crayons sharpened.

Socks and jumpers with your name tag sewn in. And behold . . .

I find in a drawer the box of cloth name tags with my name written on by Mam.

Cash’s Woven Names. 12 Dozen. J & J Cash Ltd. Coventry.

And still loads of them left. As I was saying . . .

Twos and threes gathered together and there in the midst and invisible – Jesus.

There’s a wonderful simplicity in this. Jesus present in small meetings and in grand celebrations in churches and cathedrals

The Start of Term

There are two groups of words to describe ‘the gathering’

The first from the Latin ‘ecclesia’. Called out from the world to gather together.

Hence : Iglesia, Chiesa, Église : meeting, assembly,

And, from the Greek ‘kyrios’ : kirche, kyrka, kerk and church.

Kyrios – the Lord.

And so, the New Term of the Church begins.

It’s interesting that, in some versions of the Eucharist, the first section is called The Gathering.

Indeed we do. Indeed we shall.

Philip