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.

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.’