NO BREAD, NO BAG, NO BACKUP PLAN

Readings:  1 Chronicles, chapter 29.10-12

David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly; David said: ‘Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, for ever and ever.  

Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.  

Riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all.  In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.’

and

Mark 6.7–13 

Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.  He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.  If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’  So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Sermon

So – we’ve heard the story, again.  Jesus sends them out.  Two by two.  No bread, no bag, no money, no spare coat.  Which is either a beautiful picture of radical trust… or the worst packing list in human history.

When Clare and I go for a weekend break in our caravan, it takes three lists to make sure we’ve got all the food, bedding, clothes and toiletries we need, to say nothing of the tools, chemicals and spanners required to make the caravan function.  I keep a permanent checklist, which I have to tick off, item by item, before hitting the road.

So if I were organising this training exercise that Jesus initiated, there would be a spreadsheet.  There would be columns.  There would be a risk assessment.  There would be a contingency plan, a back‑up plan, and a plan in case the back‑up plan failed.

Jesus, on the other hand, says: go light.  Travel as if God might actually show up.

And that, I think, is the first thing that makes us nervous.  Reliance on God sounds lovely until it means giving up the comforting illusion that WE are in control.  Until it means admitting that our clever strategies, our persuasive arguments, even our lovely Mission Development Plans printed on thick paper with reassuring headings, might not be the thing that finally does the work.

Don’t misunderstand me.  Planning matters.  Thinking matters.  Being intentional about what we do matters.  But Mark 6 is very clear about what doesn’t get to be the engine in the motor car of mission.  Not charisma.  Not technique.  Not packing an extra cloak ‘just in case’.  The disciples are sent out slightly under-prepared on purpose.  Jesus made them do it.  So they have no choice but to lean on God.

Which is awkward, because most of us would rather lean on literally anything else.  A leaflet.  A course.  A slogan.  A vicar.  Possibly a PowerPoint.

And then there’s the second bit.  The bit we don’t put on the mission posters.  ‘If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’

In other words: sometimes you have to stop trying to haul people into the Kingdom.  Yes.  You have to stop.

That’s not the bit we like, especially if we’ve spent years being told that faithfulness equals persistence at all costs.  Try harder.  Explain it better.  Pray more intensely.  If they’re not listening, perhaps you just haven’t found the right words yet.

And that lands very close to home for some of us.  Parents.  Grandparents.  People who baptised their children with hope in their eyes and a candle in their hand, who now watch those same children roll their eyes at the very word ‘church’.  ‘It’s lovely that you enjoy church, Grandma.  But it’s not for me.’

Often, we are people who have prayed, nudged, hinted, invited, bribed, until we get to the point of exasperation: ‘Well, I just don’t understand it.  What am I doing wrong?!’

Jesus’ instruction here is not cruel, and it’s not dismissive.  It’s merciful.  It says: your job is to witness, not to coerce.  To offer, not to persuade.  To speak, but not to chase people down the street waving a clever theological argument and shouting, ‘Just one more thing!’

There is a point at which continuing to push stops being faithfulness and starts being anxiety.  A point at which our persistence is no longer about love, but about our need to feel that WE have done all that’s humanly possible to drag our loved ones to Jesus.

And this is where the first theme of the reading — leaning on God — answers the second — worrying about others.

If it all depends on us, then of course we never stop.  Of course we carry the weight.  Of course we lie awake rehearsing clever persuasive words we wish we’d said.  If salvation is basically down to our performance, then every refusal feels like a personal failure.

But if it depends on God, then space opens up.  Real space.  Space for God to be God.

Jesus says elsewhere — and this is the line worth hanging onto — ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’  That’s John, chapter 12 if you want to look it up.  Notice what Jesus doesn’t say.  Not ‘I will be assisted by your excellent communication skills.’  Not ‘I will draw those people you’ve successfully argued into submission.’  Just: I will draw all people to myself.

Which is either deeply comforting… or deeply annoying, depending on how much you enjoy feeling useful to God.

The disciples go out without any resources because THEY are not the point.  And they are allowed to walk away because God does not need them to force the outcome.  Their task is obedience, not success.  Faithfulness, not control.

And that might be the word some of us need to hear today.  Especially in a season of planning and vision and discernment.  Especially when we care deeply about the future of the church.  Especially when we care about those we love who are not here in church with us.  Especially when we are worrying about whether any of this will ‘work’.

What if reliance on God is not a last resort, but the whole point?  What if shaking the dust from our feet is not giving up, but trusting that God’s reach is longer than ours, and God’s patience far greater?

Which brings us, rather beautifully, to that canticle from Chronicles.  ‘Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty… You are exalted as head over all.’

God’s is the greatness.  Not ours.  Not the PCC’s.  Not even the Rector’s, which will come as a relief to everyone.

So go lightly.  Love honestly.  Speak when invited.  Be silent when it’s time.  And trust — really trust — that God is doing far more than we can see, often in places we can’t reach, with people we love dearly, even when we’re not in the room.

And that, oddly enough, is not a counsel of despair.  It’s freedom.

This too will pass. Singing Faithfully in an Anxious World

A sermon for Choral Evensong on Sunday 25th January 2026.

Readings: Psalm 33, Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 & 1 Peter 1.3-12

It would be hard to walk into church this evening – and into the lovely sound of our come and sing choir - without carrying at least some of the world’s noise with us.

Our media feeds are loud with noise, at the moment, aren’t they? One figure looms large over almost everything at the moment — Donald Trump, striding across the world stage, dominating the news cycle, filling hours of journalistic time with statements: statements that are often startling, contradictory, or deliberately provocative. Journalists, understandably, cannot resist him. Every word is analysed, replayed and dissected. They can’t get enough of him, can they?

And behind the theatre, there is a deeper unease. International tensions. Conflicts of various kinds in the Middle East, with the so-called peace in Gaza still claiming lives every day. The constant assertions of power. The casual language of threats. And the Doomsday Clock edging closer to midnight. That’s a small symbolic movement, perhaps, but it’s one that lands heavily on the nervous system. It rachets up our anxiety about the world. For many people, this is not abstract geopolitics; it is a low-level hum of anxiety that never quite switches off. More and more people seem to be switching off the News. Not because they are not interested, but because their nervous systems can only take so much!

Some Christians respond to this by reaching eagerly for the language of apocalypse. They scan the headlines for prophetic clues. They speak with alarming confidence about ‘end times’ and divine timetables — as if global instability were proof that God’s plans are finally coming into focus. I find myself deeply unconvinced by that approach.

Because tonight’s readings offer us something far more sober, far more humane — and, I think, far more faithful.

“To everything there is a season,” says Ecclesiastes. Not because everything is good. Not because everything is willed by God. But because history is not frozen at its most frightening moment. Empires rise. They posture. They threaten. And they pass. Ecclesiastes has seen it all before. The wise writer is not impressed by human bravado, nor seduced by our claims to permanence.

There is a time to break down, and a time to build up. A time for war, and a time for peace. These are not predictions; they are observations. And the quiet, unsettling wisdom of Ecclesiastes is this: no season gets to pretend it is the final one.

The psalm we sang takes that realism and places it squarely in God’s hands. Psalm 33 does not deny human folly. It does not pretend that nations always act wisely or morally. Instead, it draws a sharp contrast: human plans are fragile, reactive, short-lived. After all, the psalmist says, “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to naught – but the counsel of the Lord stands for ever.” In other sections, the psalmist seems to be speaking directly to demigod leaders like some in the world today. He warns them that “No king is saved by the might of his host; no warrior is delivered by his great strength”. It’s a warning that all your guns and bombs, all your economic power, is useless. It won’t save you.

That is not triumphalism. It is perspective. God’s faithfulness does not depend on humanity getting its act together. And thank God for that! God’s faithfulness does not rise and fall with polling data or press conferences. The psalmist places hope not in strength, not in weapons, not in the theatre of power — but in steadfast love.

And then, into all of this, comes tonight’s quiet, but remarkably subversive act: the thing we’ve all done together this evening: a “come and sing” Choral Evensong.

People from different choirs. Different traditions. Different churches. Some who pray easily with one another, some who do so with effort. Different theological instincts. Different ecclesial accents. And yet, tonight, we stand shoulder to shoulder and sing the same words.

That, I think, is no small thing. It’s the end of the week of prayer for Christian Unity tonight. So it’s good to remember that that unity is not forged by grand declarations or anxious certainty about the future. It is forged in shared practice. In turning up. In listening closely enough to breathe together. In choosing harmony over domination.

In a world that rewards loudness, certainty, and control, we have come together simply to sing — to sing texts that are older than our current crises, set to music that has survived empires and ideologies alike — is a gentle but profound act of defiance.

It says: we will not allow fear to set the tempo.

The reading from First Peter, which we heard again in Wesley’s anthem, speaks into that space with remarkable restraint. It does not promise escape from suffering. It does not offer a timetable for resolution. Instead, it speaks of hope tested, faith refined, and joy that exists even when clarity does not.

“Though you have not seen him, you love him”, says St Peter. That is not the language of end-times certainty. It is the language of trust, learned over time, for the God who stands outside of time.

So perhaps tonight is not about even attempting to understand the world’s chaos, but about placing it in context. God’s context. It’s about remembering that God’s purposes are not derailed by human recklessness, nor built on human cleverness. It’s a reminder that history is larger than this week’s headlines. That seasons change — even when they change slowly, painfully, and without our permission.

And perhaps, in this last service of Epiphany, on the final day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, our calling is simply this: to keep singing. Not as an escape from reality, but as a way of telling the truth about it. To sing our faith in a God whose light does not flicker with the news cycle, and whose faithfulness outlasts every would-be strongman.

This too will pass. God remains.

Amen.

When Faith refuses to surrender

A Sermon for the Feast of St Vincent of Saragossa

Texts:  Psalm 56.1-2, 8-end & Mark 3.7-12

Today we are invited to remember St Vincent of Saragossa — which already presents a small difficulty, because remembering martyrs can sound rather noble and abstract (especially when the martyr in question has been safely dead for over seventeen hundred years!). From that distance, martyrdom can begin to look neat and tidy, can’t it?  Polished by songs and icons.  Sanctified almost into myth.  In real life, of course, it’s rarely like that at all.

Vincent was a deacon in Spain during the reign of Diocletian, in the 4^th century. And the authorities wanted him to do just one, simple thing…bow to a statue of the Emperor.  You see, they weren’t after his blood. They wanted his compliance.  His obedience.  To them.

Diocletian — like several Roman emperors — did not merely rule. He expected to be revered. The emperor was increasingly treated as a divine figure, the guarantor of peace and order. His empiric proclamations were announced as ‘good news’! (Where have we heard that before?).  Citizens were required to demonstrate their loyalty by making a simple libation — a pinch of incense, a splash of wine — at the foot of the emperor’s statue, and by renouncing their old gods in favour of this new, imperial one.

It doesn’t sound like much, does it?.  A gesture. A civic duty. A way of saying, I understand how the world works. And maybe that’s precisely what made it so dangerous.

Vincent could have done it. He could have poured the wine, muttered the words, gone home, and carried on believing whatever he liked in private. Plenty of people did exactly that. But he didn’t. And I wonder if that’s because he sensed that this wasn’t really about religion at all. It was about who, or what, got to claim ultimate authority over a human life.

You see, here’s the problem:  systems that demand absolute loyalty don’t cope very well with people who won’t play along.  Sometimes, like that poor woman, Rene Nicole Good in Minneapolis, people who won’t play along with dominating power often get shot.  And that, I think, is where martyrdom often begins —with this collision between the will of the powerful, and the human spirit which refuses to be bossed about.   Something has to give. The system, or the individual.  And very often, it isn’t the system.

The psalm we heard just now sounds as though it was written by someone who knows that pressure from the inside. “Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me; all day long foes oppress me.” This is the voice of someone being worn down. Watched. Leaned on.

And yet the psalm does something quietly subversive. It imagines God not as the one who instantly fixes everything, but as the one who notices. “You have kept count of my tossings and turnings; please put my tears in your bottle.” God notes and holds the suffering.  And he refuses to let suffering be dismissed as inevitable, or necessary, or simply something we must pay for good order.  According to the psalmist, God holds our suffering, just as he holds our hand.  Or, if you prefer a more metaphorical image of God – as I usually do - He always offers us a mirror for our suffering – a way of examining it – of making it make sense.

In the gospel reading from Mark, Jesus was doing the suffering – but it looks different. Jesus is not imprisoned or tortured — not yet — but he is almost crushed by the crowd. Everyone wants something. Everyone presses in. Jesus has to keep a boat ready, just to create a little space to breathe.

And then something rather odd happens. The unclean spirits recognise him and shout out exactly the right words: “You are the Son of God.” And Jesus silences them. Even the truth, it seems, can become dangerous – especially when it gets recruited into the wrong kind of power structures.  Jesus refuses a form of recognition that would turn him into a tool of power — even a holy one.  That’s why Christian Nationalism is such a dangerous trend.  It’s all about power.

I wonder if that speaks rather directly to our own moment.

We live in an age that seems dominated by demi-gods — politicians who speak as though they alone can save, fix, or restore a nation; those who demand loyalty not just to a set of policies, but to themselves. We see it on the world stage, don’t we?  We watch strongmen who cultivate the image of invincibility, who rewrite history in their own favour, who expect obedience and gratitude in return.

But if we’re honest, it doesn’t stop there. Power like that has a habit of trickling down. Some people listening to this sermon will know what it is to live under the quiet but oppressive rule of a dominating presence — perhaps a partner, a parent, a boss.  Some of you will know how peace is maintained only by keeping someone else happy, by not saying the thing that mustn’t be said, by making small, daily libations to another person’s ego.

And some of us, if we’re brave enough to admit it, may occasionally find ourselves on the other side of that dynamic.  Sometimes, we are the ones enjoying being deferred to, enjoying being right, enjoying being the one whose mood sets the temperature of the room.

St Vincent exposes the fragility at the heart of all such power. He had no power in his moment of martyrdom.  All he could do was refuse the gesture that would have made everything easier.  “Just bow down to the damned statue, won’t you?”.  But by resisting, he revealed the limits of the authority ranged against him. The state could break his body. It could not make him worship.

St Vincent does not invite us to seek suffering. Rather, he invites us to notice where pressure is being applied in our own lives — where the quiet demand to comply, conform, or keep our heads down is strongest — and to ask, gently and honestly, what would be lost if we gave in.

The answer may not be dramatic. It may simply be our voice. Our integrity. Our freedom to walk, as the psalm puts it, “before God in the light of life.”  And maybe that is where faithfulness usually begins — not with grand gestures, but with the decision not to bow to the wrong thing, even when doing so would make life a great deal easier.  Amen.

Learning to Walk in the Light—Without Tripping Over One Another

 

A sermon for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - 1st Service of the Week

Readings: Isaiah 58:6-11, Ephesians 4:1-13, John 12.31-36

We are a curious gathering this evening.  Not curious as in odd—though that may apply in places—but curious in the older sense: people drawn together by interest, by desire, by choice.  Nobody here has wandered in by mistake, thinking this was a parish coffee morning or a rehearsal for Songs of Praise.  We are here because we believe, in some form or another, that Christian unity matters.

And that already tells us something important.  Unity, at least at the start, is not imposed.  It is chosen.  Or perhaps more accurately, it is responded to.  Because long before any of us decided that unity was a good idea, God had already decided it was necessary.

St Paul reminds us of that with his characteristically blunt insistence:  “There is one body and one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”  Not six bodies, divided by worship style.  Not twelve spirits, divided by churchmanship.  One.  Singular.  Undeniable.  Unity, Paul says, is not an aspiration on the Church’s to-do list.  It is the underlying reality we spend most of our time trying to avoid.

Which may sound harsh, but let’s be honest—British Christians have become quite good at avoiding one another.  We do it very politely, of course.  We smile.  We form committees.  We hold joint services once a year in January.  And then we retreat, slightly relieved, back to our familiar buildings, our familiar liturgies, our familiar ways of doing things “properly”.

We reassure ourselves that separation is simply a matter of preference.  Some like robes, some like guitars.  Some like silence, some like choruses with hand actions.  Some like bishops, some like strong coffee and a flipchart.  And all of that is true—up to a point.  Diversity is not the enemy of unity.  Paul is very clear about that.  The Body grows precisely because it has many parts.

The problem begins when difference stops being gift and starts being justification.  When it becomes the reason we don’t have to listen too carefully, or walk too closely, or bear too much with one another.

That’s why Paul’s advice is so disarmingly practical.  He doesn’t say, “Sort out your ecclesiology.”  He says, “Walk in a manner worthy of your calling, with humility and gentleness, with patience.”  In other words, unity does not begin with a theological breakthrough; it begins with the cultivation of character.  With learning how not to roll our eyes when another Christian prays in a way we find slightly embarrassing.  With resisting the urge to mutter “well, that’s very them” under our breath.

And into that very British, very human reality comes this extraordinary Armenian gift:  a service soaked in light.  Light from east to west.  Light kindled, shared, passed from hand to hand.  It is impossible to sit through this liturgy and remain entirely cerebral.  The theology arrives through the body.  Through flame.  Through warmth.  Through movement.

Which is exactly what the Gospel insists upon.  “Walk while you have the light,” Jesus says.  Not “admire it”.  Not “write a position paper about it”.  Walk.  Because light, in the Christian imagination, is not a spotlight exposing error.  It is a path that makes forward movement possible.

That matters in a country like ours, where the Church often feels tired, diminished, slightly unsure of itself.  We are tempted to think that unity is a luxury for better times—something we can return to once we’ve sorted out attendance figures, safeguarding policies, and the small matter of the roof.  But the Armenian Church tells a different story.  Unity there has been forged not in comfort, but in survival.  Not in cultural dominance, but in vulnerability.  And still the light has been shared.

Paul knows why this is hard.  Unity requires effort because love requires effort.  “Bearing with one another” is not romantic language.  It is workshop language.  It implies weight.  Strain.  The kind of love that does not always feel rewarding in the moment.  And yet this, Paul says, is how the unity of the Spirit is maintained—not created, but maintained.  Like a fire that must be tended, not assumed.

And here’s the gentle irony of our gathering tonight.  We are already more united than we often realise.  We have prayed the Lord’s Prayer together without footnotes.  We will confess the Nicene Creed without caveats.  We will receive light from the same flame.  The foundations are already there.  The question is not whether unity exists, but whether we are willing to trust it enough to live differently because of it.

In the UK, that might look gloriously ordinary.  Churches learning to share space rather than compete for it.  Christians speaking generously of one another in public rather than defensively.  Ecumenism not as an event, but as a habit.  Not dramatic gestures, but steady faithfulness.

Because “one hope of our calling” does not mean one strategy, one structure, or one way of being Church.  It means one destination.  That Christ is drawing all things—slowly, patiently, sometimes painfully—towards himself.

So as the candles are lit tonight, let us resist the temptation to see this as a symbol only.  It is also a rehearsal.  A practice run for a Church that chooses to walk in the light together, even when the path is unfamiliar, even when we would rather take a route we already know.

Light from Light, for light.  May we have the courage not only to admire that light, but—very Britishly, very imperfectly—to follow it, side by side.

A bonfire of cassocks?

Reading: John 1.29-42

There is a great deal of movement in this morning’s service, if you listen for it carefully enough.  Not just in the Gospel — though that is where it is most obvious — but in the hymns we sing, the prayers we pray, and even the notices we skim on our way to coffee.

“Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea.”

That hymn doesn’t begin with certainty.  It begins with turbulence.  With restlessness.  With noise.  And it insists — rather cheekily — that the call of Christ is still audible even there.  

Let’s ponder, for a moment, how the Gospel describes a process of transformation within the restlessness of its main characters.  First, John the Baptist, who is doing what he does best: pointing away from himself.  “Look,” he says.  “There he is.” — pointing to Jesus.  And two of his disciples do something quietly radical.  They move.  They don’t denounce John, or reject him.  They simply walk after Jesus.

They move past and beyond a framework that had done its job.  John’s preaching was full of dramatic imagery — valleys filled in, mountains laid low, axes poised at the foot of trees.  Powerful metaphors of judgement, upheaval, and political transformation.  Necessary words, for a time.  But Andrew and Simon sense that something new is happening.  They lay down a language that no longer quite fits, and walk instead after the reality of the Messiah, Jesus himself.

And notice this: Jesus does not give them a lecture.  He doesn’t say, “here is what you must understand before you proceed.”  He asks a question.  “What are you looking for?”  And then he offers an invitation that has echoed down the centuries ever since: “Come and see.”

Andrew accepts the invitation — and immediately becomes a bridge.  He goes and finds his brother Simon and draws him into the momentum of that moment of change as well.  And before Simon has said a word, Jesus renames him.  Not because Simon has earned it, but because Christ can already see who he is becoming.

That is Epiphany faith.  Not God revealed as a solved problem, but God revealed as a summons.  A light that moves us on.

And that brings us — very deliberately — to where we are today as a church.

This morning we are launching a process of discernment about our Mission Development Plan for the next five years.  You will hear more about the practicalities shortly, during the notices.  But before it becomes a set of meetings, working groups, and documents, it is first and foremost a spiritual question.  The same one Jesus asks in the Gospel: “What are you looking for?”

Not “What can we realistically afford?”

Not even “How do we maintain the growth of recent years?”

But this question: “Where is the life of God drawing us now?”

The material we’ve produced at the back of the service sheet speaks about welcome, inclusion, spiritual searching, community engagement, and financial integrity.  All very sensible.  All very necessary.  But underneath them all lies something deeper and more demanding: a willingness to move when Christ moves.

Because here is the uncomfortable truth the Gospel insists upon.  Faithfulness sometimes requires us to let go of ideas, habits, and assumptions that once served us well.  Simon does not stop being a disciple when he follows Jesus — but he does stop being only what he was.  He discovers that God is larger than the framework that first brought him to faith.

Churches struggle with that.  We are very good at mistaking familiarity for faithfulness.  Later we will sing, “Great is thy faithfulness… thou changest not.”  And God doesn’t.  But we are not God.   God’s unchanging faithfulness very often shows itself by calling us to change.

Let me offer you a small example that has been exercising my questioning brain in recent months.  I recently met someone who told me that they were very interested in the Christian faith, and that they liked our inclusive and liberal attitude to matters of doctrine and tradition.  “But why,” they asked, “do you have to wear those silly robes?  They make you look old‑fashioned, out of date, and frankly laughable to modern people.  Like something from a comedy show, a horror film, or a cultish rite.”

Now please be re-assured.  I’m not announcing a bonfire of cassocks.  But it is always illuminating to see ourselves through other people’s eyes.  And that question is one I shall be asking the Worship Group to wrestle with as part of our Mission Plan discussions.

Which is why it matters that today also marks the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The prayer at the preparation of the table puts it starkly.  We will ask God to “draw the scattered flock of Christ into a visible unity.”  Not an invisible, theoretical unity.  A visible one.  The kind that requires humility, generosity, and the courage to recognise Christ at work beyond our own theological comfort zones.

Christian unity is not achieved by pretending differences don’t exist.  Nor by insisting that one tradition has finally got everything right.  Unity begins when we accept that no single church, no single style of worship, no single set of dogmas can contain the fullness of Christ.  That, too, is movement.  And it can feel unsettling.

At the end of the service we will pray that through us “the light of God’s glory may shine in all the world.”  Not be hoarded.  Not be kept local.  But carried outward — into our community, into our partnerships with other churches, into the shared work of love and service.

Andrew didn’t persuade Simon with arguments.  He didn’t demand agreement.  He simply said, “Come and see.”  That remains our calling — in our mission planning, in our ecumenical life, and in our own discipleship.

So perhaps the question to carry with us today is this.

As we begin this shared journey of discernment, do we trust Christ enough to move forward with him? Amen.

When the Light won’t stay local…

Readings: 1 John 4.19 – 5.4 and Luke 4.14-30.

“We love because God first loved us.”  I’ll say it again: “We love because God first loved us.”  John offers that sentence, from our first reading, not as a comforting slogan but as a theological fact. Love, in Christian terms, is never something we initiate. It is always a response. God moves first. We follow — sometimes eagerly, sometimes cautiously, sometimes only once we are sure it will not cost us too much.

That, in many ways, is the logic of Epiphany itself. Epiphany is not about us discovering God by cleverness or effort. It is about God choosing to be seen. Light breaking in. Truth revealing itself, sometimes gently, sometimes uncomfortably.

Luke shows us one of those moments of revelation when Jesus returns to Nazareth. He reads Isaiah’s great vision — good news for the poor, freedom for captives, sight for the blind — and then dares to say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This is not just a sermon. It is an unveiling. Jesus is not offering commentary on Isaiah; he is identifying himself with it. This is who he is. This is what God looks like when God speaks in a human voice.  And at first, the revelation is warmly received. They speak well of him. They are proud. The local lad has done good. This, they think, is a Messiah they can recognise — hopeful, articulate, reassuring, and crucially, one of their own.

But Epiphany has a habit of deepening as it unfolds.  Jesus knows what they are expecting next. “Doctor,” they will say, “heal yourself. Do some of the miracles we’ve heard you did elsewhere.” Prove it. Perform. Start at home. Make this revelation work in our favour.  And it is precisely now that Jesus reveals something more.

He recalls a story about Elijah - sent not to an Israelite widow, but to a foreign woman in Sidon. He tells of Elisha healing not one of God’s chosen people, but Naaman the Syrian — an enemy general. These are not random illustrations. They are moments when Scripture itself reveals the true character of God: mercy that crosses borders, grace that refuses to be domesticated, love that will not be claimed as a local possession.

In that moment, the revelation sharpens — and the mood turns. Admiration curdles into rage. The people who welcomed him now try to destroy him. Not because they have misunderstood who he is, but because they have begun to understand all too clearly.  Epiphany, it turns out, is not always comfortable. Sometimes the light reveals truths we would rather keep in shadow.

And this is where John’s letter speaks directly into the moment. “Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” Not as an optional extra, but as the necessary consequence of encountering the God who has been revealed.

Because once God is revealed as love without borders, faith can no longer be used to protect our sense of superiority, identity, or entitlement. In every age — including our own — there are those who try to enlist Christianity in the service of nationalism or cultural dominance. But the Jesus revealed at Nazareth will not cooperate. His own Scriptures refuse to let him.

Which is why Epiphany is always a season of decision. Not just Who is Jesus? but What kind of world does he reveal? And who do we become if we take him seriously?

Here, at St Faith’s, we already know some of the answer.

Because the Christ revealed in Nazareth looks remarkably like the Christ quietly at work in this parish. In church doors opened daily without interrogating those who enter. In candles lit, prayers whispered, and space made for those who simply need to sit and breathe.

He is revealed in pastoral visits that offer presence rather than platitudes. In the Pallant Centre he is revealed in hosting lives that may never appear in pews but nonetheless matter deeply to God. In repair cafés, choirs, dementia groups, recovery meetings, youth theatre — places where dignity is restored one conversation at a time.

He is revealed in Little Lambs on a Friday morning, when toddlers are welcomed with mess and laughter, when exhausted parents are met with warmth rather than judgement.  He is revealed in the houses we provide, when local and refugee families are housed not as symbols but as neighbours.

None of this is accidental. It is Epiphany lived out. Light refracted through ordinary faithfulness. Isaiah’s vision taking flesh in Havant.  And yet — John will not let us stop at recognition alone.

Revelation always invites response. Love that is only observed is not yet complete. Love that is only received but never shared has stalled. And love that never stretches us beyond what is familiar risks shrinking into a faith that admires Jesus without following him.  Some among us give astonishingly of themselves. This is not a word of reproach to you — only gratitude.

But some of us are still standing at the doorway of Epiphany, content to watch the light without stepping fully into it. We come, we are nourished, we are comforted — and then we retreat to safer ground.  Luke’s Epiphany story will not let us stay there.

The love revealed in Christ leans forward. It looks for hands, time, courage, availability. It asks not, “How does this affirm who I already am?” but “Where is this light asking me to go next?”

And the grace is this: there is no single answer. There is room to hover. Room to grow. Room to step in gently. But there is no version of Epiphany that leaves us unchanged.

Nazareth wanted a Messiah they could claim. Epiphany revealed a Christ who could not be contained.

And the same Christ still walks through the crowd and goes on his way — drawing light, love and life wherever people are willing to follow.

“We love because God first loved us.”

And in this season of Epiphany, the question before us is not whether Christ has been revealed.  The question is whether we will live as though what we have seen is true.  Amen.

If You Want to Make God Laugh…

 

Text:  Matthew 2.1-12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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