Looking for Jesus in All the Wrong Places (Advent 1)

A sermon for the first Sunday of Advent.

Readings:  Isaiah 2.1-5 and Matthew 24.36-44

It’s Advent again.  The first day of the new liturgical year, and yet, unlike conventional new years, it’s the season of waiting.  The season of expectation.  The season in which clergy across the land dust off their annual sermon about being “awake and alert,” while secretly praying the congregation won’t notice they preached exactly the same thing last year.  

But Advent does matter.  Today Isaiah lifts our eyes to the mountain of the Lord, where all nations stream together in peace, hammering swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.  A beautiful picture — perhaps modern nations might hammer their nuclear submarines into garden sheds and their attack drones into slightly disappointing air-fryers.  The point is the same: God imagines a world in which humanity finally grows up.  A world beyond fear and competition.  

And then, on to Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus gives us a thunderous reminder that no one knows the hour or the day — not the angels, not even the Son.  Only the Father knows when the great unveiling of God’s purposes will take place.  Which of course is rather at odds with those people on the internet who think they’ve cracked the Bible’s numerological codes about the second coming.  Sitting there with a biro, a calculator and a YouTube prophecy channel — they are, let’s put it kindly… enthusiastic, but incorrect.  

And then there’s the elephant in the room: the Rapture.  Those passages about “one taken, one left”.  Entire theologies have been constructed from these few verses, usually involving helicopters, flaming swords, and unfortunate sinners left behind to work in what remains of the civil service.  I’m afraid it’s nonsense.  Jesus is using a classic prophetic image: suddenness.  Unpredictability.  He’s not suggesting that God is planning some kind of cosmic vacuum-cleaner to hoover up the good and leave the rest on the factory floor.  If anything gets raptured, let it be our bad theologies.  

Let’s put it simply: Jesus is not trying to frighten us.  He is trying to wake us.  “Keep awake,” he says.  Not “keep terrified.”  Not “keep speculating.”  Not “keep checking the Book of Revelation against the Daily Mail” (or the ‘Daily Fail’ as we call it in my house).  Keep awake.  Because God’s future isn’t something that crashes through the clouds like a divine meteor.  God’s future is something that breaks in, again and again, every time something true and beautiful and just is done.  

That is Isaiah’s vision.  Not a heavenly evacuation plan, but a future so compelling that all peoples will actually want to walk in its light.  And here’s the outrageous claim of Advent: that future has already started.  The light has already dawned.  The mountain of the Lord is already visible to us – even if still through a veil, darkly.  Which means the “coming of the Son of Man” is not restricted to some far-off cosmic firework display — it is something that happens whenever God’s way becomes real in the world.  

You want to know when Jesus returns?  I’ll tell you exactly when.  

He returns every time a homeless person gets housed, because that is where Jesus said he would be found.  He returns every time a wrong is righted, because Jesus is the one who binds up the broken and sets prisoners free.  He returns every time someone gives their life — their time, their money, their energy — for the sake of another.  You can’t miss him.  He keeps turning up.  He’s practically under our noses.  

So here are three Advent take-aways — three little spiritual sandwiches to put in your pocket for the week ahead.  

First, don’t look up — look around.  Searching the skies for signs of Jesus is like scanning the horizon for the Isle of Wight when you’re already standing in Ryde.  Jesus is not hiding in the atmosphere, sitting on a cloud.  He is hiding in your neighbour.  

Second, don’t wait — participate.  Isaiah’s great vision of peace is not a screensaver.  It requires hammering and welding and building.  It requires showing up for the kingdom, peering through the veil, not day-dreaming about it.  Advent is not an intermission.  It’s a call-up.  The Kingdom is a ‘not yet’ idea – it hasn’t arrived in all its fullness.  But it is also a ‘now’ idea.  It’s already here.  Fragile, under constant threat from the World, from apathy, from faithlessness.  It is a ‘now and not yet’ phenomenon.  

And third, don’t fear the future — create it.  Jesus warns us that the future comes suddenly, yes — but he also shows us that the future can be shaped.  The Kingdom is not a spectator sport – in which we sit back and clap while God does all the work.  Oh, it’s so easy to think ‘everything will be sorted out when Jesus comes to reign’.  But actually, every act of mercy and charity – by you and by me - is a brick in the new Jerusalem.  

So on this first Sunday of Advent, keep awake — not anxiously, but expectantly.  Wake up to the fact that Christ comes to us every day – quite often disguised as the people who need us.  Wake up to the fact that the world God dreams of is not far away but already breaking through the mist around the mountain.  And wake up to the glorious truth that the return of Jesus is not an event we wait for, but a reality we can join in with — here, now, this very day.  

And if by some chance Jesus does decide to return in the clouds this afternoon, then at least we’ll be busy doing something useful when he arrives.  Not staring at the sky with a calculator and a biro.  But hammering swords into ploughshares.  Hammering our fears into compassion.  Hammering our lives into something resembling the love of God — until even we, too, learn war no more.  

So — keep awake.  And keep building.  For the Lord is already on the way.

A sermon for the Feast of Christ the King

Readings: Jeremiah 23.1-6,  Psalm 46, Colossians 1.11-20 & Luke 23.33-43

There’s something ever so slightly awkward about the title “Christ the King.”  It arrives at the end of the liturgical year like a royal trumpeter in full regalia, blowing a fanfare across a church full of people who’ve lived through another year of political pantomime.  Kingship is not an uncomplicated idea for us.  We know too much about human rulers—how their crowns tilt, how their tempers flare, how quickly the pomp becomes pomposity.  By the time we’ve read the headlines, the idea of Christ the King sounds almost like a category error.  Why would Jesus want to be associated with all that?

And yet here it is, this feast that dares to reclaim the language of monarchy and plant it firmly on the head of the one who was crucified between criminals.  Jeremiah gives us the hint of what sort of king we’re dealing with.  He rails against shepherds who scatter instead of gathering, who fatten themselves while the flock starves.  “Woe to them,” he thunders.  It’s one of those passages in which the prophet looks suspiciously like he’s been reading this morning’s news.  Corrupt leaders?  Misused authority?  A sense that the ones in charge are not, in fact, looking after the people they’re meant to serve?  Remarkable how these ancient texts keep accidentally being contemporary.

But Jeremiah doesn’t stop at “Woe.”  He looks forward to a shepherd-king to come… one who will “execute justice and righteousness.”  Not execute dissenters.  Not execute a five-year plan.  Execute justice.  Righteousness.  Compassion.  That’s the picture Jeremiah sketches of God’s king: a leader who puts things right because he is right.

Psalm 46 picks up the same thread with its own kind of thunder.  “God is our refuge and strength.”  Not the markets.  Not the courts.  Not the increasingly optimistic promises of political manifestos.  The psalmist imagines a world where mountains wobble, nations roar, and the waters rage—yet God remains in the middle of it all, an unshakeable presence.  It’s not a hymn to stability for its own sake.  It’s a hymn to God’s stability, which is not the same thing at all.  Human stability usually means “don’t rock the boat.”  Divine stability says, “When the boat does rock—and it will—I’ll be with you.”

And then, on this day of kingship, we reach the Gospel… and find Jesus nailed to a cross, labelled “King of the Jews” by someone who wanted to weaponise irony.  Luke’s account is almost painfully gentle in places.  The leaders scoff.  The soldiers mock.  One criminal jeers.  And yet it’s the other criminal—the man with absolutely no theological training, no baptism certificate, no well-thumbed Bible—who sees what’s really going on.  “Jesus, remember me,” he says.  Not “If you are the Christ.”  Not “Prove yourself.”  Just “Remember me.”  And Jesus, with the kind of authority that no human crown can bestow, simply replies, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  No caveats.  No conditions.  No doctrinal exam.  Just grace.

If this is kingship, it is nothing like the kingship we are used to.  It is vulnerable.  It is self-giving.  It is powerful, yes, but only in the way love is powerful—soft enough to be ignored, strong enough to change the world.

Paul’s hymn in Colossians takes that crucified king and places him at the centre of the cosmos.  It’s a dizzying vision.  “He is the image of the invisible God… the firstborn of all creation… in him all things hold together.”  All things.  Not just the religious bits.  Not just the Sunday-morning emotions.  All things: politics, economies, broken families, depleted foodbanks, climate anxieties, those late-night moments when we wonder whether the world has gone completely mad.  Colossians dares to say that Christ is not merely a comforting presence near these things; he is the one in whom they cohere.  The glue of reality, hiding behind the curtain of everything.

Which makes Christ the King a deeply subversive feast.  It overturns all our usual assumptions about power.  When worldly rulers falter or fail—when leadership becomes self-preservation, when truth bends under the weight of expediency, when compassion is dismissed as weakness—this feast whispers, “This is not the final story.  This is not the true template.”  The true template is a crucified man speaking forgiveness; a righteous shepherd gathering the scattered; a cosmic Christ holding all things together even as nails hold him to the wood.

But if we dare to honour Christ as king, it isn’t merely a theological statement.  It’s also a personal challenge—sometimes an uncomfortable one.  Because the moment we say “Christ is King,” we’ve made a claim about every other king, ruler, influencer, political project, and personal ambition.  The claim is: none of them—not a single one—is ultimate.  Not even the ones we like.  Not even the ones we vote for.  Their power is on loan.  Their authority is at best provisional.  Their wisdom is always partial.  Christ the King relativises all other rulers, which is perhaps why rulers have so often hated the Gospel.

And if his kingship is the measure of all leadership, then it is also the measure of ours.  We are, after all, citizens of that kingdom.  Called to the same work.  Called to feed the flock, not scatter it.  Called to be places of refuge like the river in Psalm 46.  Called to ordinary, everyday acts of justice in a culture that’s rather fond of “woe to them” but not always so keen on doing better.

Christ the King is not an invitation to worship power.  It’s an invitation to follow a king who redefines power by giving it away.  A king who reigns from a cross, rules through forgiveness, remembers the forgotten, and gathers the lost.  A king who dismantles fear, resists cruelty, and builds a kingdom marked by justice and righteousness.

And that—thanks be to God—is the king we follow.  Amen.

Safeguarding Sunday

Texts: Malachi 4.1-2a and Luke 21.5-19

There’s a moment in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus’ disciples stand gawping at the Temple.  “Look, Teacher—what big stones!  What lovely gifts!”  You can hear the pride.  You can see the wide eyes.  But Jesus, with that maddening ability to say the one thing no-one expects, replies: “Not one stone will be left upon another.”  In other words, “Don’t be dazzled by the façade.  Don’t trust the building.  Look at what’s going on beneath the surface.”

On Safeguarding Sunday, that’s a word we need to hear.  The Church—our buildings, our liturgies, our vestments—has often looked very beautiful from the outside.  But behind those big stones, there have been stories.  Stories we once whispered, or ignored, or minimised.  Stories of people harmed by those who should have protected them.  Stories of power misused.  Stories of wounds carried in silence for decades.  

And just as Malachi warns of a day that burns “like an oven”, we, too, have felt the scorching heat of truth when it finally comes to light.  The truth does burn—but Malachi also says that for those who seek healing, “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”  And that is where we must position ourselves: not hiding from the truth, but letting the light in, trusting that God’s justice and mercy can heal what we have not yet known how to heal.

One of the great gifts of recent years—painful though it has been—is that the survivors of abuse have begun to be heard.  Their courage has brought long-hidden hurts into the light.  Not because they want revenge, but because they want truth, healing, recognition… and the assurance that what happened to them will not be allowed to happen again.  

And that takes us right into the heart of the hymn we’re about to sing at the Offertory (see below).  “From our negligence and failures you have called us to repent.”  There is no fudging there.  No excuses.  The line does not read, “From the negligence and failures of other people.”  It says our.  Because safeguarding isn’t about scapegoating institutions or individuals in the past.  It’s about acknowledging that whole systems sometimes fail.  And that every one of us has a part to play in changing them.

But—and this matters greatly—most abuse does not happen in churches.  Statistically, it happens in homes.  Behind closed doors.  Within families.  Among people known intimately to the victim.  Schools, sports clubs, youth groups—these can also be places where people are harmed.  So when the Church talks about safeguarding, we are not clutching pearls about our own reputation.  We are responding to a much bigger, more painful truth about human vulnerability.

Which means the Church now has a sacred responsibility: not simply to avoid becoming a place of harm, but to be a place of refuge.  A place where stories can be told safely.  A place where tears are not brushed aside.  A place where the broken-hearted really are held until they “learn to live again”, as the hymn says.  A place where every child, every adult, every person is valued.  A place where the strong empower the weak—not the other way around.

For that to happen, we can’t retreat into the comfortable idea that “we’re a nice parish, none of that happens here.”  Safeguarding isn’t an optional bolt-on for suspicious churches or badly behaved vicars.  It is holy work.  It is the ministry of Christ himself—the one who listened to the voiceless, who gave dignity to those ignored, who lifted up the ones everyone else preferred not to see.

So when the Diocese asks us to do safeguarding training, it is not a bureaucratic hoop to jump through.  It is discipleship.  It is part of what it means to “build your kingdom full of truth and light and grace.”  It equips us to notice when something is wrong.  To recognise the signs of distress or coercion.  To know what to do when a child seems withdrawn… or an adult is afraid to speak… or someone quietly hints that home is not a safe place.

This is not glamorous work.  It is not the sort of ministry that gets your name on a plaque.  But it will make this community a place of “life in all its fullness”—not because we say so, but because we live so.

Jesus told his disciples that when everything felt shaky—when the stones were falling, when the world was in uproar, when conflict threatened to tear them apart—they were not to be afraid.  “By your endurance,” he said, “you will gain your souls.”

Safeguarding requires endurance.  It asks us to stay vigilant.  To stay compassionate.  To keep learning, keep listening, keep improving.  It asks us to look beyond the surface—beyond the pretty building—into the real lives of the people God has placed among us.  

And so, as we prepare to sing the safeguarding hymn, in a few minutes time, we lift to God “all the people you are calling to this ministry of care”—which is every one of us.  We ask for wisdom, grace and courage.  And we pray that, in this place, the unheard will find a voice… the wounded will find healing… and Christ will be seen in how we love and protect one another.  

Amen.

The Safeguarding hymn,,,

Offertory Hymn 

Words: Ally Barrett (b.1975)

Music: CORVEDALE, Maurice Bevan (1921-2006)

1 May this place be one of nurture

where we all may come to know

how your endless love sustains us

as we live and move and grow.

May we work to build your kingdom

full of truth and light and grace,

living life in all its fullness

held in one divine embrace.

2 From our negligence and failures

you have called us to repent,

drawing energy for action

from the voices of lament.

As the secret hurts long hidden

may at last be brought to light,

may the truth unlock the freedom

that is every person’s right.

3 For you hold the broken-hearted

till they learn to live again,

and your justice stands like mountains,

while your mercy falls like rain

when the smallest child is valued,

and the strong empower the weak,

when each human life is hallowed

and the unheard voices speak:

4 So with humble thanks we praise you

and we lift to you in prayer

all the people you are calling

to this ministry of care.

Give us wisdom, grace and courage,

holding fast to all that’s good,

seeing Christ in one another

we will love and serve our Lord.

Where is the Kingdom?

TEXTS
Philemon 7–20 

I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.  For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.  I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.  

Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.  I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.  I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.  

Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.  So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.  

If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.  I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it.  I say nothing about your owing me even your own self.  Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord!  Refresh my heart in Christ.

Luke 17.20–25 

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’  

Then he said to the disciples, ‘The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.  They will say to you, “Look there!” or “Look here!” Do not go, do not set off in pursuit.  For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.  But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation.’

SERMON

Paul’s letter to Philemon is one of those curious little treasures that hides in plain sight.  It’s only one chapter long, tucked away like a note slipped between the pages of a much bigger book.  And that’s what it is — a personal note, handwritten by Paul to his friend Philemon.  It isn’t a theological treatise, or a call to arms, or a grand defence of the faith.  It’s a plea.  A plea on behalf of one man — Onesimus — a runaway slave.

We’re not told the details, but it seems that Onesimus has wronged Philemon in some way — perhaps by stealing from him, or simply by running away.  In the normal order of the Roman world, a runaway slave could expect a beating, branding, or even crucifixion.  But Paul, ever the meddler in social conventions, writes to his wealthy friend with a gentle but devastating subversion: “Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever — no longer as a slave, but more than a slave — a beloved brother.”

And there it is — the Gospel in miniature.  A relationship of power and ownership is transfigured into one of brotherhood and love.  Paul never shouts, “Abolish slavery!” — that would have sounded ridiculous to a first-century ear.  Instead, he plants a time-bomb of grace under the whole structure of oppression.  He quietly suggests that Philemon should see Onesimus not as property but as family.  He even adds, with a wink, “If he’s wronged you in any way, charge it to my account.”  It’s the most elegant guilt-trip in Christian history — and it worked.  Because once you’ve looked your slave in the eye and called him “brother,” the old world cannot go on.

Fast-forward to Luke’s Gospel, and we find Jesus facing his own crowd of Philemons — religious people desperate to know when God’s Kingdom will finally arrive.  “When will it come, Lord?  When will the great day dawn?  When will the Romans be sent packing and righteousness restored?”  Jesus sighs.  “The Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed.  You won’t say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’  For the Kingdom of God is among you.”

Among you.  Not in the sky, not over the horizon, not in some golden age of church attendance — but here, now, in the messy business of how we treat one another.  The Kingdom begins the moment Philemon decides to welcome Onesimus not with punishment but with a hug.  It begins when someone with power lays that power down.  It begins in a thousand small acts of release.

And that’s a problem for us, of course.  We would prefer a Kingdom we can see — a proper revolution, with banners and a clear plan.  We’d like God to ride in on a cloud and sort out the mess — preferably before the next election.  But Jesus says no.  The Son of Man, he warns, will be rejected by his own generation.  The Kingdom will not come with fanfare.  It will come like lightning — sudden, illuminating, but only for a moment.  You’ll see flashes of it: in kindness, in courage, in forgiveness.  But blink, and it’s gone.

I think of the long, tragic history of the church and slavery.  How centuries passed before anyone noticed the small spark Paul lit in Philemon’s heart.  For most of Christian history, bishops blessed slave ships, theologians argued about whether Africans had souls, and Christians quoted Paul’s own words — “slaves, obey your masters” — to defend the indefensible.  The Kingdom was among them, but they couldn’t see it.  Their eyes were fixed on the world as it was, not the world as it might be.

And yet — slowly, painfully — the spark grew.  Quakers began to speak out.  Wilberforce thundered in Parliament.  Abolitionists preached that no man can own another because all are one in Christ.  The old world cracked.  It took two thousand years for the Church to catch up with Paul’s little letter — but that’s how the Kingdom works.  It’s less a revolution than an infection — a holy contagion that spreads through hearts until it changes everything.

So, what does that mean for us — sitting comfortably in Havant, or Leigh Park, or wherever our pew happens to be?  Well, perhaps Paul is still writing letters — still whispering from the past: “If there’s anyone you hold in bondage — through resentment, or prejudice, or fear — receive them as you would receive me.”  Who is your Onesimus?  Who have you written off as useless, or unworthy, or just too awkward to love?  The Kingdom begins there — in the decision to see another person as brother or sister rather than threat or burden.

And when will this Kingdom come?  When will it finally arrive in all its glory?  Well — says Jesus — you won’t spot it by reading the headlines or the church statistics.  You’ll find it breaking out in ordinary places: at the foodbank, in a hospice, in a refugee hostel, in the quiet grace of reconciliation between two people who thought they’d never speak again.  The lightning flashes, and for an instant, you see the world as God intends it to be.

So, let’s keep watching for those flashes.  Let’s keep planting those time-bombs of grace.  And when someone asks us, “Where is the Kingdom of God?” — let’s smile, and answer, “It’s among us.  It’s here.  If only we dare to see it.”

Bible Sunday: Finding Jesus between the Lines

(See the readings on which this sermon was based at the end of the sermon text below...)

There’s a lot at stake on this Bible Sunday.  Any of you who read social media, or keep abreast of the religious pages in the Times, will be aware that the Anglican Communion is tearing itself apart at the moment.  The issues are many – including the headship of women (following the nomination of the new Archbishop).  Another hot topic is the way that we should treat gay couples and other LGBTQ+ minorities.  There are other arguments to (such as the appropriateness of Synodical Government) but they all have their roots in the WAY that Christians read their Bibles.  Is the Bible the inerrant, infallible collection of writings that many claim.  Or is it something else?

The author Anne Lamott once said: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.”  If Anne Lamott ever needed a sermon illustration to prove that point, she’d only have to look at how the Bible has been used through history.  Scripture — this extraordinary library of poetry, prophecy and parable — has been waved like a sword in the air more times than a medieval knight with ADHD.

Psalm 119, which we heard just now, is a love song to Scripture.  “Your decrees are wonderful,” the psalmist sings.  “Truly, I direct my footsteps by your word.”  The psalmist weeps — literally weeps — because people ignore God’s teaching.  And I get that.  I really do.  For Scripture contains the distilled wisdom of generations: their struggles to understand justice, holiness, and love.  When we ignore Scripture, we cut ourselves off from that wisdom.  We become like spiritual teenagers — insisting we know everything already while driving the family car into the hedge.

But if we truly love Scripture — as the psalmist does — we must recognise something essential.  Scripture is a signpost.  A pointer.  A witness.  But it is not God.  The Bible itself tells us that the Word of God — with a capital W — is not parchment or ink.  The Word of God is a person.  The Logos.  Jesus Christ.

We see this in our Gospel reading.  Jesus goes into the synagogue in Nazareth.  He takes a scroll — a Scripture text!  — and finds the passage from Isaiah.  And he reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to bring good news to the poor… to proclaim release to captives… recovery of sight to the blind.”  Then he rolls it up and sits down — congregations can only dream of such short sermons!  And he says: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  In other words: “This — this hope, this liberation, this love — this is what the Word of God looks like.  And you’re looking at him.”

Scripture is not God — it points to God.  The Bible is not the destination — it’s the sat-nav.  And if you’ve ever used a sat-nav, you’ll know they sometimes shout confidently while leading you straight into somebody’s duck pond.  The Bible needs interpretation.  It needs wisdom.  It needs the Spirit.  It needs Jesus.

This is where St Paul helps us.  In Romans 15, he urges the church to be patient with those whose faith differs from ours.  “We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak,” he writes.  Isn’t that refreshing?  Instead of shouting “Repent, you heretics!” Paul says “Be patient.  Build each other up.”  And let’s be honest: every one of us has been weak at some point.  We’ve all misunderstood Scripture.  We’ve all clutched our favourite verses like a teddy we refuse to let go — even when it’s getting a bit threadbare and smells like old cheese.

Paul reminds us that Scripture was given “for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”.  Hope — not fear.  Encouragement — not condemnation.  Scripture is meant to help us grow — not shrink.  It’s a lamp to our feet — not a weapon to bash our neighbour on the head. 

In Greek, Paul calls Scripture ‘theopneustos’ – a unique word in the Bible, which gets translated as either ‘God-breathed’ or ‘inspired by God’.  I love the first translation – ‘God-breathed’ - the idea, that the breath of God breathes through Scripture.  And much as our own breath cannot be caught and held onto…Scripture too is a living, literally breathing thing.  But the translation of ‘inspired by God’ is lovely too.  Scripture, in my mind, is inspired in much the same way as a landscape inspires a painter.  The painter’s image will never BE the landscape – but it will encourage others to visit it, walk in it, smell it and touch it.

But I know — and some of you know — that there are some Christians who cling to the Bible as if it dropped from heaven fully bound in leather, signed by God personally with a divine fountain pen.  There are even some who cling to the King James Translation, as ‘the original’ – even though modern scholars have uncovered all sorts of translation errors in it.  I wonder whether such people worry that if one verse turns out to be poetry and not physics, the whole thing will collapse like a soufflé in a thunderstorm.  We must be patient with such beloved siblings in the faith.  They’re holding tight to the Bible because they sincerely want to hold tight to God.  And the only way we will ever help them see Scripture as Jesus used Scripture is through compassion and gentleness.  We need to help them see Scripture as a springboard to love, not a cudgel with which to beat those with whom we disagree.

Our task, as a progressive community, is not to discard the Bible or treat it as optional.  Far from it!  We must read it more.  Delight in it more.  Argue with it more!  But always with our eyes fixed on Jesus — who is the fulfilment and focus of all Scripture.  If our interpretation makes us more loving, more liberating, more Christ-like — we’re probably on the right track.  If it makes us mean, small, frightened or angry at people who are not like us — then we’ve probably taken a wrong turn by the duck pond in the landscape painting.

The psalmist wept because people ignored God’s teaching.  Perhaps today the Spirit weeps because we sometimes weaponise that teaching.  I pray constantly that God’s Word — the written kind and the incarnate kind — may soften our hearts, sharpen our minds, and open our lives to love.

So today, on Bible Sunday, let us give thanks.  For scrolls and parchments.  For prophets and poets.  For the hope and encouragement Scripture still brings.  But above all, let us give thanks for the One to whom Scripture points.  The Word made flesh.  The scroll unrolled.  The love of God with hands and a heartbeat.  Jesus — our rabbi, our redeemer, our reason for reading.  Amen.

The Readings on which this sermon was based are:

Readings

Psalm 119.129–136

Your decrees are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them.

The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.

With open mouth I pant, because I long for your commandments.

Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your custom towards those who love your name.

Keep my steps steady according to your promise, and never let iniquity have dominion over me.

Redeem me from human oppression, that I may keep your precepts.

Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes.

My eyes shed streams of tears because your law is not kept.

Romans 15.1–6

We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Each of us must please our neighbour for the good purpose of building up the neighbour.

For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Luke 4.16–24

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom.

He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.

He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.

They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’

He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!”

And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.”’

And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town.’

Not peace, but fire

Readings:

Romans 6.19–23

I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed?  The end of those things is death.

But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification.  The end is eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Luke 12.49–53

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

I have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I am under until it is completed!

Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!

From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;

they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’

Sermon

There are moments in life when Jesus says things that make you wince.  “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!”  It’s not exactly the line you’d expect on a Christmas card, is it?  “Merry Christmas from all of us — may your family be divided against itself, one against the other!”  You can almost imagine the shepherds blinking and saying, “Er, come again, Lord?”

And yet, there it is.  Jesus did not come to pat us all on the head and tell us we’re lovely just as we are.  He came to light a fire.  “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.”  He came, in other words, to purify — to burn away pretence, hypocrisy, and cruelty — even when that process makes things rather uncomfortable for the rest of us.

Now, here we are again, in one of those uncomfortable seasons.  The world seems to have become addicted to shouting.  From the far right, we hear the word “woke” spat out like it’s an obscenity.  From the far left, we sometimes hear contempt for anyone who struggles to keep up with the vocabulary of inclusion.  And in the Church, alas, we’ve reached that familiar moment when bishops, in their wisdom, have decided that the best way to move forward… is not to move at all.

It feels, at times, like the liberal, progressive project — that brave attempt to make Christianity about love rather than control — is being buried under an avalanche of angry blogs and carefully worded episcopal statements.  The GAFCON press releases thunder against “heresy” as though the Spanish Inquisition had just been given a new set of robes and a Twitter account.  It’s all very dramatic.

But none of this should really surprise us.  History moves like a pendulum.  Every few decades, society takes a deep breath of freedom — then someone coughs and says, “Too much of that!”  The Reformation was followed by puritan crackdowns.  The Enlightenment was followed by empire.  Civil rights were followed by culture wars.  And so it goes on.  There’s always a backlash when compassion starts to look like it might actually change something.

That’s what Paul is getting at in his letter to the Romans.  “You were slaves to sin,” he says, “but now you’ve been set free — slaves instead to righteousness.”  In other words, freedom isn’t the absence of control; it’s choosing whose control we live under.  The freedom Christ offers isn’t a licence to be smug or cruel or careless.  It’s freedom for something — freedom to love, to serve, to seek justice, to bear with one another’s differences.

But that kind of freedom is threatening to anyone who profits from division.  The moment you start insisting that every person, regardless of gender, orientation, colour or creed, bears the image of God, someone will call you naïve.  The moment you suggest that refugees might actually be neighbours rather than problems, someone will call you woke.  And if you dare to say that God’s love might even include people the church has historically excluded — well, then you’ve gone too far, apparently.

It’s tempting, at such times, to pull the duvet over one’s head and wait for the storm to pass.  But Jesus never offered that option.  He called his disciples to stand in the heat of the fire — to let it purify us, even as we hope it purifies the world.  Bonhoeffer once said that “the church is only the church when it exists for others.”  He paid for that conviction with his life, hanged by those who preferred nationalism to grace.  And yet his faith in the costly freedom of the Gospel remains one of the bright lights of the twentieth century.

So what do we do now, when the air is thick with division?  I think the answer might be simpler than we imagine.  We keep being kind.  We keep showing up.  We keep blessing those who curse us on social media.  We keep offering cups of tea to those who think differently.  We keep telling the truth, gently but firmly, about a God whose love cannot be contained by any faction or frozen by any synod.

And maybe we even keep our sense of humour.  Because nothing deflates the self-righteous quite like laughter.  Jesus himself must have had a mischievous smile when he spoke of fire and division — not because he relished conflict, but because he knew that love, once set alight, can’t be controlled.  It burns through every wall we build, every label we cling to, every hierarchy we invent.

So perhaps the liberal project isn’t dying after all.  Perhaps it’s simply passing through its refining fire.  Perhaps what’s being burned away is our need to win, to persuade, to be right.  And what will remain, when the smoke clears, will be the stubborn, unkillable heart of the Gospel — the wild, tender, inconvenient love of God.

And when that love has done its work — when all our divisions have been named and faced and forgiven — then, and only then, will the world finally know peace.  Not the peace of avoidance or apathy, but the peace that comes when the fire has done its work.

Until then, we keep tending the flame.  With kindness.  With courage.  And yes — with a wink and a grin. Amen.

The Breath of God

Readings: 2 Timothy 3.14-4.5 and Luke 18.1-8.

In our reading from 2 Timothy 3, we heard that oft-quoted line: “All Scripture is inspired by God.”  Other translations render it “God-breathed”—a literal version of the Greek word theopneustos. 

I’ve always liked that phrase “God-breathed.”  It sounds wonderfully alive, doesn’t it?  It evokes something wild and holy—like the first breath that stirred Adam into life, or the gale that filled the upper room, or even that awkward moment when Jesus, after the Resurrection, breathed on his disciples.  (You can almost hear them thinking, “Steady on, Lord—what have you been eating?”)

Paul says that all Scripture is theopneustos—but how?  Does that mean every comma and clause was dictated by the Almighty?  Or is it more like a musician taking up a flute: the breath passes through a very human instrument, producing notes that may be sharp or flat, yet still carry the melody of the divine?

The word theopneustos appears nowhere else in the Bible.  It’s as if Paul coined it on the spot, to capture that mysterious intersection between heaven and human words.  It doesn’t say the text is God, but that it’s breathed through by God—animated, shaped, inspired.  And breath, as we know, is a slippery thing.  You can’t hold it.  You can only feel it move through you.

That’s why I sometimes compare the Bible not to a photograph of God, but to a painting inspired by God’s landscape.  A painting doesn’t contain the mountain or the sea; it points towards them.  It invites us to see what the artist saw—and perhaps even to walk in that same landscape ourselves.  The trouble comes when we start worshipping the painting instead of exploring the view.

Now, I say this knowing that some of you approach Scripture differently—and that’s fine.  Some of you hold to it, word for word, as the unerring revelation of God’s truth.  I respect that deeply.  You are people who love the Bible—who read it, study it, and pray over it.  In a world more likely to scroll through TikTok than Timothy, that’s no small gift to the Church.  You remind us that faith is built on story and conviction, not just sentiment.

But perhaps the breath of God moves in more than one way.  Sometimes it gusts and blows things over; sometimes it whispers.  Sometimes it moves through a prophet or a psalmist; sometimes through a scientist or an artist; sometimes even, heaven help us, through a sermon.

Which brings me to the Gospel reading—the persistent widow and the unjust judge.  The widow bangs on the judge’s door until he gives her justice.  And Jesus says, “If even an unjust judge will listen, how much more will God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry out day and night.”  It’s a rousing picture of perseverance in prayer.  Don’t give up!  Keep knocking!  Keep pounding on the gates of heaven! 

But notice how Jesus ends: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  Not results, but faith.  Not outcomes, but trust.  For me, that’s what prayer is about—not twisting God’s arm, but tuning our hearts.  It’s less like lobbying Parliament and more like sitting by a stream.  You listen to its flow.  You bring to mind the faces and stories of others, and you ask—not “Lord, fix them,” but “Lord, show me what part I might play in their healing.”

C. S. Lewis once said, “Prayer doesn’t change God; it changes me.”  When I pray for someone, I find myself more tender towards them.  When I pray for peace, I notice my own unpeacefulness.  When I pray for the hungry, I remember the tin of beans at the back of my cupboard.  Prayer re-aligns the compass of the soul.

Still, I admire those who storm heaven’s gates.  Their persistence is a holy thing.  Perhaps we need both kinds of prayer—the loud and the quiet, the pounding and the pondering, the petition and the patience.  Even Elijah, who once called down fire from heaven, later discovered that the Lord was not in the wind or the fire, but in the still small voice.

Prayer, then, is a kind of breathing.  Breathing in God’s Spirit, breathing out our worries.  Breathing in compassion, breathing out anger.  Prayer is the exchange of breath—the breath of the human with the breath of God.  No wonder both Paul and Luke speak of Scripture and prayer in terms of breath.  God’s word is breathed through us; our words are breathed back to God.

If we forget that, we risk becoming—well—tribal.  (You may like to check out Thursday’s sermon, The Trouble with Tribes.)  Tribes are marvellous when they give us belonging, but dangerous when they start building fences around God’s breath.  The Spirit, after all, blows where it wills.  It doesn’t carry a membership card for any particular wing of the Church.  Sometimes it lands on conservatives, sometimes on liberals, and sometimes—miracle of miracles—it unites them, usually over a plate of cake.

So perhaps that’s our task: to stay open to the breath.  To let Scripture breathe through us afresh—not as a dead letter, but as a living word.  To let prayer breathe through us too—not as a transaction, but as a transformation.  To hold fast to the faith that shaped us, yet keep the windows open for whatever fresh wind God might send.

For whether we are pounding on the door or listening at the keyhole, we are still, thank God, in the same house.  The same breath fills our lungs.  The same Spirit gives us life.  And that, dear friends, is inspiration indeed.  Amen.