The Rev’d Ivica Gregurec

Sunday, 30 August 2026. Year A, Ordinary 22 (2026).

Readings: Jeremiah 15:15-21; Psalm 26:1-8; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

This morning, our scriptures weave together a tapestry of human struggle and divine faithfulness. We hear the raw, aching voice of Jeremiah, the impassioned plea of Paul, and the challenging words of Jesus to his disciples. Each reading invites us into a deeper relationship with the Holy One who calls us not just to believe, but to live as agents of justice, compassion, and transformation.

In the broad, liberal, sacramental tradition of Anglicanism, where reason, scripture, and tradition meet, we are called to hold the tensions of faith with open hearts and open hands. Today, we are invited to embrace a discipleship that is as radical in its love as it is unyielding in its pursuit of justice.

Jeremiah’s words are a cry from the depths of the soul: ‘O Lord, you know; remember me and visit me, and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors!’ (Jer 15:15). Here is a prophet at the end of their rope, exhausted by the burden of speaking truth to power, of calling a wayward people back to covenant faithfulness. The Divine response is not one of rebuke, but of reassurance: ‘I am with you to save you and deliver you’ (Jer 15:20).
Jeremiah’s lament is the cry of everyone who has ever stood for justice in the face of indifference or hostility. It is the voice of the climate activist, the human rights defender, the community organiser, the whistle-blower. The Holy One does not promise to remove the struggle, but to be present within it, like a steady flame in the darkest night, a shelter in the storm, a wellspring of living water in the desert of despair. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus once wrote: ‘Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not so much what you give, as the love that goes with the gift.’
Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry was not about grand gestures, but about the persistent, often thankless work of love and truth.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is a manifesto for a community that refuses to be shaped by the world’s logic of retribution and division. ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them’ (Rom 12:14). ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’ (Rom 12:21). These are not pious platitudes, but the blueprint for a revolutionary way of life.
I remember vividly summer of 1998. As every summer for five years before, I would spend a week in Taizé, a small French village, in which Brother Roger started an ecumenical community of monks. With its focus on young people, it gathers young Christians of different denominational backgrounds for dialogue and deepening of their faith. That summer, my self-righteous peace was disturbed. In a very visible place, for the first time since the war of the early 90ies, there was a group of Serbian Orthodox youth – a proper Croatian Catholic would not consider, at that stage socialising with depersonalised enemy of previous years. Somehow I found some inner strength, brought some chips and soda and welcomed them as neighbours. It was the beginning not only of some long lasting friendships (I even got a godson from that group), but also of my own journey of healing, forgiveness and restoration of dignity to the individuals.

In our Anglican tradition, we understand that faith is not a private transaction between the individual and the Divine, but a public commitment to the common good. The sacraments are not just for our personal sanctification, but for the transformation of the world. When we gather at the altar, we are nourished to go out and be bread for others.
Paul’s vision is one where the church is a sign of the Kin-dom: a community where the hungry are fed, the stranger is welcomed, and the marginalised are centred. It is a vision that calls us to ask: Who are the ‘persecutors’ in our context? Not just those who oppose us personally, but the systems and structures that perpetuate injustice like poverty, racism, environmental degradation, ethno-nationalism. To bless them is not to excuse them, but to refuse to let their brokenness define our response.
The Divine, like a potter at the wheel, shapes us into vessels of mercy, justice, and peace. We are called to be the hands of the Creator, mending the broken places of the world.

This is the reason why my Taizé experience continues to shape my commitment to justice. At recent General Synod, I was proud seconder of the Motion that deals with care for the Palestinian Christians in Holy Land. The motion recognises two great evils that create existential threat to our sisters and brothers in the land of the Holy One: antisemitism (as described by 2021 Jerusalem Declaration) and Christian Zionism. Ideology should never be more important than human being.

Then comes the hardest word of all. Jesus tells his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, and die. Peter, ever impulsive, rebukes him. And Jesus’ response is sharp: ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me’ (Matt 16:23). The way of the Messiah is not the way of power, but of self-giving love. ‘If any want to become my followers,’ Jesus says, ‘let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ (Matt 16:24).
In a world that glorifies self-assertion and individualism, these words are a scandal. But in the sacramental life of the church, we find their truth. Every time we baptise, we die to sin and rise to new life. Every time we share the Eucharist, we participate in Christ’s self-offering. The cross is not just a symbol of suffering, but the sign of God’s love poured out for the world; a love as vast as the ocean, as enduring as the mountains, as tender as a mother’s embrace, if I may be a bit poetic.

For us, taking up the cross means standing with those who are crucified by the world’s injustices. It means, as the South African Anglican theologian John de Gruchy puts it, ‘a spirituality that is as concerned with the bread on the table as with the bread on the altar.’

How can we live today, with all this theological reflection?
Well, we can understand that our worship and our work are inseparable. The same hands that receive the bread of life must be the hands that break bread with the hungry. The same voices that sing the Divine’s praise must be the voices that speak out against oppression. The same feet that walk to the altar must be the feet that march for justice.

Anglicanism, despite part of its heritage being deeply connected with colonialism, is, in the same time, heir to a rich legacy of prophetic witness: from William Wilberforce’s fight against slavery, to Desmond Tutu’s struggle against apartheid, to the modern movement for climate justice or, in our Church’s commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as a sacred foundational covenant of our nation. We are a church that believes in the via media, the middle way, not as a compromise with injustice, but as a refusal to let any ideology, left or right, capture the radical, inclusive love of the Divine.

The Holy One is not a distant watchmaker, but a God who is deeply involved in the world, like a gardener tending to every plant, a shepherd caring for every sheep, a parent longing for every child to come home. The sequence of images can continue.

As we come to Christ’s altar today, let us remember that we are not just consumers of grace, but participants in the Divine’s mission. Let us pray for the courage of Jeremiah, the love of Paul, and the self-giving of Christ. And let us go out, as St. Augustine once prayed, ‘to serve you in our neighbour, and our neighbour in you.’
Amen.