Only Luke records this incident in his Gospel, and he places it carefully in his narrative. Luke 13 vv10-17, which should actually extend to verse 20, begins by describing what looks like one more regular healing. One of the Gospel readings set for Sundays in August presents us with two different interpretations of what it means to be a serious church. And as those who are church-goers also recognize, it is a place to explore in liturgy the great mysteries of human existence and indeed to discover (or have revealed) something more about what it means to be human. Almost despite himself he concludes in a famous quote that the church is “a serious house on serious earth.” That is a wonderfully concise way that we might recognize, of saying that church is not superficial or casual or an occasional accompaniment to life, but rather, even to objective view, a place to acknowledge the serious issues of life and death to celebrate its joys and peruse and articulate its sorrows. It is called “Church Going” (easily accessed on the internet) and it describes the author, an atheist and unfamiliar with church congregations, visiting a country church and wondering what it’s for and whether it has any value for society nowadays. My own favourite Larkin poem was not one that they chose to use. To mark the occasion the BBC have been offering daily readings of his poems for the last couple of weeks. The month of August has seen the centenary of the birth of English poet Philip Larkin.
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