An Introduction - What is class and how did we get here | Matthew Sleeman | School of Theology 2026

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,

Acts 20:35

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

Acts 20 · chapter mention

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

Acts 20:35

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.