If You Want to Make God Laugh…

 

Text:  Matthew 2.1-12

The trouble with the first Sunday of a new year is that everyone arrives carrying invisible luggage. Not suitcases — far worse. Resolutions!  Expectations. Grand plans already wobbling slightly at the knees. January is full of brave intentions and new beginnings. “I’m going join that gym”.  “I’m going to cut down on the wine”.  “I’m definitely doing that diet”. But, if your resolutions are anything like mine, they are always subject to the golden rule of resolutions:  “I’ll start again tomorrow!”.

The Church, as ever, responds by doing something rather different to what the world would have us do.   Instead of “new beginnings”, we get Epiphany. Instead of resolutions, we get revelation. Instead of asking what we are going to do this year, the Church asks a more unsettling question: what might God choose to show us? What might the light to lighten the gentiles reveal?

The Epiphany story begins, not with insiders, but with travellers. The wise men are not Jewish. They are not local. They are astrologers — which already puts them in the category of ‘a bit odd’. And yet they are the ones who notice that something new is happening.

They see a star at its rising. Not a static beacon, not a fixed theological statement, but something that is in motion…something that suggests direction rather than certainty. And so they set off…to find out what’s going on.

And here’s the first revelation of Epiphany: despite not knowing everything, wise men go anyway.  They commit to the journey, even though they don’t know how it will end. 

When they arrive in Jerusalem, the wise men do what sensible people do when looking for a king. They go to the palace. They assume powerful Herod will welcome the new power of the Messiah.  Which turns out to be wildly optimistic.  Herod is deeply alarmed. Not curious. Not reflective. Revelation, for him, is not good news but competition. He is the kind of ruler who likes the world exactly as it is — with himself firmly at the centre. Any new light feels like an accusation.

That’s the second revelation of Epiphany: light reveals what we cling to.  Herod consults Scripture, summons experts, deploys religious language — and remains completely unchanged. It is possible, Epiphany reminds us, to know all the right answers, theologically-speaking, and still miss the point entirely.

The Magi, meanwhile, leave the palace and follow the star again. And this time it does not lead them to somewhere impressive. It stops over a house. Not a court. Not a temple. A home. A child.

Matthew says they are “overwhelmed with joy”. Not because everything suddenly makes sense, but because it finally makes contact. God is no longer abstract; no longer a theory in dusty manuscripts. God is not safely distant. No…he is close enough to kneel before.  He is here.  In a child.

That’s the third revelation of Epiphany: God chooses smallness.

And then come the gifts. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh — which sounds very romantic until you imagine the reaction you’d get by turning up to a baby shower with embalming fluid. These are not polite, practical presents. They are symbolic. They acknowledge kingship, divinity, and mortality. In other words, they recognise that this child is going to change everything — including suffering.  The fourth revelation is that Epiphany is not sentimental. The light that shines also casts shadows.  God arrives in fragility, with the reality of death and suffering baked in. 

And then, finally, comes the most easily overlooked line in the story: having been warned in a dream, the Wise Men return home by another road. No speeches. No fanfare. Just a quiet decision not to go back the way they came.

That is the final revelation of Epiphany: that encounter leads to change.  Not necessarily dramatic. Not instantly visible. But real. 

And that brings us, rather neatly, to the beginning of our new year.  Epiphany does not ask us to reinvent ourselves. It does not demand heroic resolutions or flawless spiritual performance. It simply invites attentiveness. To notice where light appears. To recognise when our assumptions — about God, about power, about success, about ourselves — might need adjusting.

The star does not show the Magi the whole route in advance. It gives them enough light for the next step. Which is probably just as well. If God showed us the entire year in January, most of us would politely decline and run away! 

Very soon, our PCC is going to ask us to think and pray about what the next five years of our journey together might look like.  And that’s good, its healthy.  We need to follow a star.  But, rather than a definite, final route-map, the Epiphany story offers us trust; trust that God is already on the move; that revelation is not something we manufacture, but something we receive. Epiphany reminds us that we are not required to have everything worked out before setting off.  As a good example, our last five year plan, drawn up in 2019, contained no inkling of the covid pandemic, which ended up reshaping many of the ideas and desires we had written down in our naivety.  How does the old saying go?  ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!’ 

The liturgical prayers in our service today keep circling the same theme: God is a light that guides rather than blinds. His light draws rather than drives. His light meets us in ordinary places — houses, streets, tables, bread and wine — and sometimes quietly changes direction.

So as this year unfolds — with its hopes and its fears, its routines and its interruptions, and yes with its new mission plan — perhaps the Epiphany invitation is simply this: stay curious. Stay open. Pay attention to what unsettles you and what gives you joy.  And be prepared, when the time comes, and if God asks, to take another road. Not because we’ve failed. But because we’ve encountered something true.  The star’s light has revealed a new direction.

And that, for the first Sunday of a new year, is more than enough to be going on with.  Amen.

Walking in the darkness...looking for the light

 

In the stillness of this hour, when the day has finally loosened its grip on us, the Church insists on a strange claim. Not at noon, not at rush hour, not when we are at our most efficient or impressive — but now, in the small hours, when we are tired enough to stop pretending — now, says the Church, this is when God chooses to speak most clearly.

Isaiah puts it with disarming confidence: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Not the people who solved the darkness. Not the people who explained it away. But the people who walked in it. Christmas does not begin with answers. It begins with honesty.

Most of us here tonight know the story well. We know where the shepherds will appear, when the angels will sing, and exactly how many verses of O Come All Ye Faithful we can manage before our voices give out. And yet, if we are honest — and midnight invites honesty — we also know that the world this story addresses does not feel especially sorted. War has not obligingly taken a Christmas break. Anxiety has not politely waited until January. Many of us carry private griefs that no carol quite manages to touch.  The sheer number of loved ones’ names hung on our Christmas trees tell us that much.  Even joy, at Christmas, often arrives laced with exhaustion.

And into that world — not a tidy one, not a victorious one — God does not send an argument, or a system, or a set of instructions. God sends a child. Vulnerable. Wordless. Dependent. A child who cannot yet explain himself, but who already reveals something essential about the heart of God.

Luke is careful to anchor this birth in the machinery of empire. Decrees are issued. People are counted. Power is exercised from a distance. And somewhere on the edges of all that control, a young woman gives birth in borrowed space, because there is no room. That detail should never become sentimental. It is a theological statement. God arrives without privilege, without protection, without leverage. The Prince of Peace is born into a world that does not rearrange itself for him.

Which means — and this matters — that if you have come here tonight feeling slightly out of place, uncertain, unconvinced, or just quietly longing for something you can’t quite name, then you are not late to the story. You are right on time.

The angels say, “Do not be afraid.” Which is always a clue that fear is present. Fear of loss. Fear of change. Fear that the world is slipping beyond our control. Christmas does not mock those fears. It meets them. But it refuses to let them have the final word. Peace, in the biblical sense, is not the absence of trouble; it is the presence of God in the midst of it.

And that is why this service does not rush. We light candles. We sing old songs slowly. We wait in small moments of silence. We break bread. We allow ourselves to be gathered, rather than driven. Midnight Mass is the Church’s quiet rebellion against a world that tells us our worth lies in productivity, certainty, and noise.

For those of us who are here often, Christmas is a gentle but firm reminder that faith is not something we manage. It is something we receive. And for those who are here rarely, or cautiously, or simply because this night still pulls at you for reasons you can’t fully explain, the Church dares to say this: you are not required to have everything worked out in order to belong here. The shepherds didn’t. Mary didn’t. Even the wise men, still on their journey, were not sure what they would find, or precisely where to go.

In a few moments, we will come to the table. Some of us confidently. Some of us hesitantly. Some of us choosing a blessing instead of bread. And all of that is held. Because this is not a reward for the certain. It is food for the hungry.

The God we meet tonight does not stand at a distance. He lies in a manger. He places himself into human hands. He entrusts himself to a fragile world. And in doing so, he tells us something astonishing: that the darkness has not won; that love has taken flesh; that peace has a pulse.

So take this night gently. Let the light linger. Carry it with you into whatever tomorrow brings. And whether you return here next week, next year, or simply carry this moment quietly in your heart, know this: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Amen.

 

What are you doing here?

 

In the name of the God who meets us in candlelight, questions, and quiet longing. Amen.

Tonight, the place is full. That matters. It tells me something important about you. Because nobody drags themselves out on a cold December evening out of habit. Not in 2025. Not when there’s a warm sofa, a glowing screen, and plenty of Christmas viewing already queued up on iPlayer. Something has drawn you here. Something quieter than nostalgia, deeper than tradition, and—if I may suggest—more stubborn than logic.

For if we’re honest, the story we tell tonight is a strange one. Virgins. Angels. Stars that behave suspiciously like GPS systems. Shepherds receiving divine messages while minding their own business. If this were submitted as a Netflix pitch, it would be sent back with a polite note saying, “Interesting, but totally implausible.”

I imagine that many of you are sitting here thinking, I love the carols. I love the atmosphere. But I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with all the supernatural bits. And if that’s you—let me say this clearly—you are very welcome here. You are not a second-class Christian. You are not a failure of faith. You are, in fact, standing in a very long and honourable tradition.

Because the Bible itself is stuffed full of people who respond to God not with instant belief, but with raised eyebrows. Mary herself asks, “How can this be?” Joseph assumes something has gone badly wrong. The shepherds are terrified. Even the wise men, by setting off on an epic journey across deserts, seem to be saying, We’ll believe it when we see it. Doubt, it turns out, is not the opposite of faith. It is often the doorway into it.

So what if—just for tonight—we loosen our grip on the question of whether Jesus’ birth really happened like that? And instead ask a deeper one: why does this story refuse to let us go?

I think it’s because, at its heart, the Christmas story is not really about unlikely human reproductive methods, or astronomy. It’s about where God chooses to be found. Not in palaces, but in borrowed rooms. Not in strength, but in vulnerability. Not in the centre of power, but on its margins—perhaps in a space no larger than this chapel.

This is a story that quietly but relentlessly challenges our assumptions about power. God does not arrive as a general, or a billionaire, or a social media influencer with perfect lighting. God arrives as a child—dependent, fragile, carried by ordinary people doing their best under difficult circumstances. If that sounds unconvincing, that may be precisely the point.

Christmas suggests that the sacred is not hidden in the spectacular, but woven into the ordinary. That holiness does not shout—it whispers. That love does not conquer by force, but by persistence. And that God’s way of changing the world begins not with fear, but with invitation.

You might not believe in angels with wings. But I suspect you believe in moments that break in unexpectedly. A word spoken at just the right time. A kindness that changes the course of a life. A sudden clarity that arrives when you weren’t looking for it. Call them coincidences if you like. The Bible calls them messengers.

You might have trouble believing in virgin births. But perhaps you can believe that new beginnings still happen. That something genuinely fresh can be born in places that seem exhausted or closed down. That history does not have to repeat itself forever, but can still be interrupted by hope.

You might not be sure what you believe about God at all. But something has drawn you here—to the light, to the music, to this ancient, stubborn hope that refuses to die. And maybe faith, tonight, is not about signing up to a set of supernatural claims. Maybe it’s simply about allowing yourself to be addressed. To be nudged. To be invited into a different way of seeing the world.

Because if Christmas is true—at any level—then it says this: that love is stronger than fear, that light still shines in dark places, and that the ordinary stuff of human life is precisely where God chooses to dwell.

And whether you call it belief or not, that is good news worth coming back for.

The Politics of Christmas

(Preached at the annual Community Carol Service, with members of Havant Rotary, the local Member of Parliament, the Deputy Mayor and other local politicians and charity leaders present.)

Just in case you were wondering: no partridges were harmed in the singing of that carol. 

‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is one of those songs that begins with confidence and ends with mild panic.  Everyone starts well.  By day six, half the congregation is bluffing, a third has given up entirely, and one person is still confidently singing “five gold… something!”  It’s chaos.  Festive chaos.

And yet — it’s also rather perfect.  Because Christmas itself is a bit like that.  We spend weeks preparing for it.  We rehearse it (or at least our choirs do!).  We plan it.  We wrap it.  We over-cater for it.  And then, when it actually arrives, it doesn’t behave quite as wonderfully as we had hoped.  Children get over-excited.  Adults get over-tired.  Families are wonderful and difficult in roughly equal measure.  Christmas, when it finally turns up, is not neat.  It’s noisy.  It’s crowded.  It’s gloriously imperfect.

Which is, of course, exactly how the first Christmas was.  No carol service.  No rehearsal schedule.  No reserved seating.  Just a young couple, far from home, caught up in a census they didn’t ask for; a birth in borrowed space; surrounded by straw, animals, and rather a lot of smelly brown stuff — and visitors who turn up unannounced.

First, the shepherds.  Not the sort you’d normally put on a guest list.  Shepherds were outcasts in their society.  Their work meant they couldn’t keep ritually clean, and they even worked on the Sabbath.  Outsiders.  Not quite respectable.

Then the wise men — how many, we don’t know.  What we do know is that they were from the East.  Foreigners.  Not Jews.  Carriers of strange ideas and mystical notions about astrology — something Jewish law rejected.  And yet, somehow, they too find a welcome.

And into all of that chaos — the mud, the animals, the shepherds, the foreigners — God chooses to arrive.  Not in power.  Not in control.  But in vulnerability.  In dependency.  In the middle of real, messy, human life as it actually is.

Which is why Christmas still matters — even, perhaps especially, to those who wouldn’t describe themselves as religious.  Whether you believe the events of Christmas happened literally, or whether you see them as a myth with a message, the message at the heart of this season isn’t “be impressive”.  It isn’t “have it all sorted”.  It isn’t “get everything right”.  The message is this: ‘you matter — even here, even now, just as you are.

That’s why the angels don’t appear to emperors, but to outcast shepherds and weird foreigners.  Why the birth happens not in a palace, but in a stable.  Why the story keeps nudging our attention away from status, success and power — and back towards kindness, service, generosity, and care for the vulnerable.

Which is also why it feels so natural that this service is shared with Havant Rotary.  “Service above self” is not just a neat slogan with good alliteration.  It’s a Christmas principle.  It’s written into the story itself.  It’s the God who appears not to be served, but to serve.  It’s the story of quiet, persistent people who don’t seek the spotlight, but simply notice where help is needed — and step forward.  Just as Rotary does: with every penny raised, every shoebox filled, every food parcel delivered, every local family supported this Christmas.

Rotary — and charities like the Rowans, for whom we will raise funds tonight — remind us that Christmas charity is never about obligation, or ticking a seasonal box.  It’s about recognising that the world doesn’t magically pause its pain just because we’ve put tinsel on it.  Loneliness doesn’t take a holiday.  Illness doesn’t reschedule itself.  Poverty doesn’t suddenly find money for turkeys and presents.  Grief doesn’t politely wait until January.

The Christmas story shows us what it looks like for love to enter in — not just into our homes and hearts, but into the wider world: into our communities, and yes (let me say this gently, with professional politicians sitting in front of me) into our politics too.

Politics, at its best, is about the life of the people — the polis — it’s the shared work of shaping how we live together.  So what might that look like when it is infused with the Christmas message of love and service?

Love-filled politics doesn’t mean everyone suddenly agrees — that would be a Christmas miracle of quite a different order.  It doesn’t mean difficult decisions disappear, or budgets magically balance themselves.  Real love isn’t soft-headed or naïve.  But it does invite us to change the tone of the debate.

¾   It means refusing to treat opponents as enemies, but rather as people like us, living by the light they have received so far.

¾   It means speaking truth — always truth — without spin or convenient half-truths.

¾   It means remembering that behind every statistic is a human being, with a name, a story, a family, and fears very similar to our own.

¾   It means asking not only “is this popular?” or “is this efficient?” — both good questions in a democracy — but also “who might this hurt?” and “who might this help?”

¾   It means choosing listening over shouting, restraint over outrage, service over self-interest.

In other words, it looks rather a lot like the values we celebrate at Christmas.  So tonight, whether you came for the carols, the candles, the singing of our fabulous choirs, or simply because it’s what Havant does on this night of the year — I hope you take this with you:  Christmas is not about escaping the mess of the world.  It’s about discovering that love chooses to enter it.

And if that is true, then peace on earth doesn’t end with angel voices in the sky.  It continues — and must continue — with us.  Here in Havant.  Today, and every day.  Amen.

Soft robes and patient faith

Text:  James 5.7-10 and Matthew 11.2-11

In the name of the God who is patient with prophets and doubters alike.  Amen.

In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist is in prison.  That matters.  We tend to picture him as permanently wild and indestructible — hair uncut, voice booming, locusts crunching obligingly between his teeth.  But here he is, locked away and silenced, hemmed in by bars and chains.  And from that place comes a question that feels almost shocking in its honesty:  “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

This is not the question of a cynic.  It is the question of a faithful person whose expectations have collided with reality.  John had proclaimed judgement.  He had spoken of axes at roots and fire in hands.  And now the one he pointed to is healing the sick, eating with sinners, and leaving Herod and the Romans very much alive and very much in charge.  The kingdom does not look how John expected.

Jesus’ reply is not a lecture.  It is a list.  The blind see.  The lame walk.  The lepers are cleansed.  The poor hear good news.  In other words:  look carefully.  The kingdom is not arriving with the drama you imagined, but it is arriving all the same.  And then Jesus turns to the crowd and offers that curious reflection about John himself.  First, he says, ‘John is not a reed shaken by the wind’ — he’s someone who sticks solidly to his beliefs.  And John is not someone dressed in soft robes.

Soft robes.  It’s an arresting phrase.  John, after all, is raw.  Uncomfortable.  Scruffy.  He lives on the margins, speaks inconvenient truths, and pays for it with his freedom, first, and then ultimately his life.  Soft robes belong elsewhere — in royal palaces, among those insulated from consequence, buffered from hunger, fear, and uncertainty.  In Jesus’ world, they belong to those who benefit from the system as it is.

It is not hard to draw a line from there to here.  We live in a world where a very small number of people wear metaphorical soft robes indeed — hoovering up wealth, land, influence, and resources, while others are told to tighten their belts, be patient, and wait their turn.  Did you hear President Trump, last week, advising people feeling the pinch of his tariffs to stop buying boxes of pencils, and more than a couple of dolls for their children? 

The gospel has never been particularly impressed by soft robes, or by those who wear them.  Not because comfort is evil in itself, but because insulation from reality so easily dulls compassion.  When you are wrapped in enough layers… of wealth… of security guards… of bullet‑proof windscreens… you can so easily forget how sharp the wind is for everyone else.

There’s something else we should not miss — something that I spoke about in more detail on Thursday, should you want to go deeper.  It’s this:  John is great, Jesus says — the greatest, even — and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.  That is not a dismissal of John, but a redefinition of greatness.  John stands on the threshold, pointing forward.  Those who step into the kingdom — however haltingly, however imperfectly — participate in something John could only glimpse.

Which brings us to James.  “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.”  James is writing to people who genuinely believed that Christ’s return was imminent.  Soon.  Any moment now.  History, as we know, had other ideas.  And that raises an awkward question we are sometimes tempted to dodge:  what do we do with the fact that Jesus did not return on the timetable the early Christians expected?

One option is embarrassment — quietly downplaying the urgency of those early hopes.  (“Let’s not draw too much attention to the naiveté of those early Christians… isn’t it sweet that they thought Jesus was coming back imminently!”).  Another reaction is denial — constantly resetting the clock and insisting the end is just around the corner.  How many times in the last 200 years have prophets claimed to know when Jesus will return?

James offers neither option.  Instead, he offers patience — not passive waiting, but active endurance.  James offers the patience of farmers:  farmers are those who know that growth cannot be forced, only tended.  James offers the patience of people who refuse to grumble against one another while the world remains unresolved.

So, the early Christians were wrong about the timing, but not about the posture.  They were wrong to think the story would be wrapped up quickly.  They were right to live as though it mattered now.  Faithful living was never meant to be a temporary holding pattern until escape.  Rather, it was always meant to be the shape of life itself.

John’s question from prison and James’ call to patience meet us exactly where we are.  We know more than they did — we know that history has continued, that injustice persists, that the kingdom has not arrived in fullness.  And yet we are asked the same question in reverse:  will we live as though God is still at work, even when outcomes disappoint us?

Jesus does not invite us into soft robes.  He invites us into attentiveness — to healing (wherever it happens), to good news (wherever it is spoken), to justice wherever it stirs.  He blesses those who are not scandalised by a kingdom that arrives quietly, stubbornly, and without regard for our preferred schedules.

So we wait — not with folded arms, but with open eyes.  We wait by refusing to grumble, by standing alongside the hurting and the marginal rather than retreating into comfort, by trusting that patient faithfulness is not wasted time.  John waited in prison.  Farmers wait for rain.  We wait in a world that is unfinished.  And blessed are those, says Jesus, who do not take offence at that.  Amen.

Are you greater than John the Baptist?

 

Text:  Matthew 11.11-15

It’s a scene somewhat reminiscent of President Trump being given the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize! Jesus says, “Among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist”. High praise indeed. If Jesus were handing out awards, John would get “Prophet of the Year,” if not lifetime achievement.

And yet—Jesus immediately adds— “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” And you can almost picture poor John—wild hair, camel-hair coat, organic locust in hand—turning round as someone reads that aloud and saying “Well, thanks a lot Jesus!”

John is the greatest—and simultaneously outranked by everyone. What a marvellous Advent paradox.

John is, in many ways, the official Advent mascot. Not the soft one—there are no cuddly John the Baptist toys with removable camel-hair tunics. He’s not the beautiful one—no one puts him on a Christmas card and says “Season’s Greetings from the Judean wilderness, you brood of vipers.” He’s not particularly marketable. No child has ever put “bag of locusts” on their stocking list.

Instead, John stands like the hinge of a great door. All the weight of prophecy and history leans on him; yet he swings open for someone else. That’s the essential thing about John: he isn’t the door—he’s the movement of the door. His entire identity is transition. And that’s Advent.

Advent is movement. It’s also about waiting, yes—but not the waiting of a bored traffic queue on the A27 with Radio 2 on low. Advent is waiting like the pause before the overture begins. It’s the kind of waiting that happens on a cliffhanger at the end of Eastenders.  It’s waiting like smelling the mince pies before they reach the table. It’s that kind of waiting.

But Jesus adds something today which could ruin the mince pies. “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” That’s not very cosy, is it?. Not very ‘Little Donkey.’ Not mulled wine and fairy lights. Because the truth is: when light breaks into darkness, darkness does not applaud. We see it across the world. Conflict grinding on like a rusty millwheel. Truth handled like wet soap—slipping through fingers just when you think you’ve caught it. People harassed, displaced, forgotten. Violence done not just with guns, but with lies, with systems that crush the smallest shoulders.

And into that landscape comes… not a warrior. Not a conqueror. But a child. God’s strategy is so utterly absurd, so completely nuts to human systems, that it simply has to be divine. John looked like a revolutionary. Jesus looked like a baby. Yet Jesus says even the least who belong to him are part of something greater than John ever glimpsed.

But why?  Because John knew that God was coming. But Christians know that God has come.  And is coming still.  Both are true, because the kingdom is stubborn.

It keeps arriving—like a persistent delivery man who knocks again, even though you were in the shower the first time and missed him.  The kingdom never leaves a “sorry we missed you” card—it waits at the door and knocks again.  

That’s why Jesus ends today’s reading with the line: “Let anyone with ears listen.” Anyone with ears. Advent is the annual reminder to check whether our ears have batteries in.  Because we are good at listening to other things, aren’t we?

We listen to the news, loudly.

We listen to our own anxieties, loudly.

We listen to the loud, easy promises of politicians.

We listen to the rumour that Christmas must look perfect to count.

But Advent offers a different frequency.

John cries out, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

Jesus whispers, “Be not afraid.”

Angels sing, “Peace on earth.”

Mary hums lullabies into straw.

And if you listen closely—in the hush before a service starts, in the quiet when the kettle finishes boiling, in the gentle sigh of someone lighting advent candles—you can hear the sound of something Divine arriving. Something greater than John. Something greater than fear. Something greater than the violent forces that claw at the edges of the world.

Now, I confess: most of us don’t feel like we are “greater” than John the Baptist. We feel more like the understudies who were called up because the star of the show had flu. We look at our worn out faces in the mirror and think… really? This? Me? 

But greatness in the kingdom is not measured like greatness in the wilderness. Out there, greatness was camel hair and wild proclamations of mountains being laid low.  In here, greatness is small things: generosity without applause, forgiveness without conditions, courage in fragile places.

The least in the kingdom is greater than John because the least belong not just to the promise, but to the fulfilment. John prepared the way. We walk in it. And we walk through car parks full of Christmas shoppers. Through hospitals with quiet wards and uncertain futures. Through homes where people long for someone no longer here. Through the noise and glitter and worry and excitement.  And still, the door is swinging open. Still, the kingdom insists on arriving. Still the child waits to be received. Let anyone with ears listen.

And may we, this Advent, learn not merely to wait— but to welcome.

Not merely to wonder— but to receive.

Not merely to admire John— but to walk past him, through the doorway that he opened. And find Christ, waiting on the other side. Amen.

We live among blossoms. (Advent 2)

Readings:  Isaiah 11.1-10, Romans 15.4-13 and Matthew 3.1-12

In the name of the God who coaxes green shoots out of stumps, and makes prophets shout in the wilderness. Amen.

A few years ago, I met a man who was restoring an old orchard.  His walled garden was really just a rectangle of mossy brick—and, to be honest, it looked a bit forlorn. Huge, old apple trees, twisted by time; stumps where others had once stood; patches of earth that seemed exhausted. But the man had vision. He could see what would grow.

He showed me one of the stumps—one so dead that it really needed digging out. “Look at this,” he said. And there, right on the tip of the stump, was a single green shoot—absurdly fragile, but alive. “Give that a season,” he said, “and we’ll have apples again.”

I thought of him this week as Isaiah spoke:  “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.”.  That stump is human history. And that stump is our habits, our stuck thinking. That stump is the part of us we’ve long since written off—“nothing good will grow here.” And Isaiah says, “Watch.”

Now, picture a wilderness—hot, dry, unpromising. People trudging down to the river, not for a picnic, not for sightseeing, but because someone is shouting a message that will not let them stay asleep.  John the Baptiser.  John—the spiritual equivalent of a cold shower.  John, who appears without backstory, without pleasantries, wearing camel hair and smelling faintly of barbecued locusts.  “Repent!” he cries.

But he doesn’t mean “feel guilty.”  He uses a specific Greek word - ‘metanoia’; change direction; adjust the compass; turn around.  Adjust your thinking away from ego, away from prejudice, away from self-service, and turn your thinking towards the mind and the heart of God.  It’s the moment in the orchard when you stop assuming nothing will grow and you start tending the tiny shoot.  Repentance is when the gardener decides:  “I’ll water this patch again. I’ll prune. I’ll try.”   That’s metanoia.  

People mistakenly assume that repentance is the dramatic moment, the lightning bolt, the conviction of sin.  You walk down to the Jordan, get dipped, shake off the water – and the sin - like a confused Labrador, and go back home...job done.  But John says no. He says, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance; worthy of metanoia.”  Fruit takes time.  Fruit takes tending.  Fruit is patience in edible form.  Nobody eats fruit from a stump. Fruit comes only when the shoot grows.

And now Paul enters the discussion, writing to the Romans; city-dwelling Christians who probably didn’t have an orchard between them. They understood concrete better than compost. And to them, Paul says, “Everything written in Scripture was given for hope.” 

Hope is not optimism.  Hope is not “things might be better by Friday.”  Hope is the refusal to believe that the stump is the final word.  Perhaps Paul would have planted that tiny shoot from Isaiah right in the middle of the Roman Forum—between the Senate and the sausage stall. And watched it confound everyone.

Now let’s bring this closer to home.  Years ago—before anyone referred to St Francis as the Cathedral of Leigh Park—this was a field of possibility. A congregation gathered together, reached out, and planted something. Perhaps some of you were part of that first congregation. And it grew—not perfectly, not always vigorously, but unmistakably alive.  And yes, over time, some branches have been pruned. Some ideas have dried. Some initiatives have produced bruised fruit. But when I walk into this place, I do not see the stump. I see shoots.  A community that still gathers, even when the heating is broken;  Lives touched by pastoral care and school ministry;  community bursting into life at pantomime time; The kindness exchanged in quiet, ordinary ways; prayers unceasing, Christmas joy.  All of that is hope – the green shoots.

And repentance today might look like deciding: “This corner of the orchard still deserves tending.  That neighbour deserves a fresh conversation.  That ministry deserves pruning instead of abandonment.”

Let me tell you another orchard moment.  A year after seeing that abandoned stump, I went back—and the gardener had staked it upright. He had shielded it from wind and frost. And now it had leaves—small, waxy, defiant leaves. I asked him why he bothered.  He answered with something Isaiah would have loved: “Because someone before me planted this. And someone after me will taste the fruit.”  That is metanoia.  A change of direction not just for ourselves, but for the next generation.

Ultimately, that’s Advent thinking.  And now, John’s preaching suddenly sounds less harsh, less condemning, doesn’t it?  “Repent, because someone after you will taste the fruit.  Prepare the way, because someone after you needs that road.  Make straight paths, because the Messiah walks behind you as well as toward you.”

Then Matthew offers the final contrast:  John baptises with water for cleansing—symbolic, temporary, refreshing.  But Jesus baptises with Spirit and fire—not destructive fire, but refining fire, orchard fire: the fire that clears brush, stimulates seeds, prepares soil. 

John clears the weeds; Jesus plants the Kingdom. John wakes us up; Jesus carries hope into the bloodstream of the world. John points; Jesus arrives.

So what do we do with this?  We look for stumps.  Inside ourselves. Inside our community.

Inside our church.  And we listen for Isaiah saying: “Watch.” We turn—metanoia—and tend what grows. We water with kindness.  We stake with prayer.  We protect with courage.  And we wait—not passively, but actively.  Because someone after us will taste the fruit.

Let me tell you what I saw the third year. Blossom.  Ridiculously pink, all fluff and fragrance. And that’s when orchard keepers know the future. Blossom is fruit foretold.  No apples yet—but absolutely inevitable.  Isaiah saw a shoot.  John cleared space.  Jesus planted the orchard.   Welcome to Advent:  we live among blossoms.  Amen.