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.
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