The Stone in our Hand - A sermon for the beginning of Lent

Readings: Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, Psalm 51, and John 8.1-11

There is something very bracing about this liturgy.  We have sung, “Have mercy on us, Lord, for we have sinned.” We have prayed, “We have wounded your love and marred your image in us.” Shortly, we shall hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ash Wednesday – or in our case, Ash Thursday – does not flatter us. It strips us down. It takes away our pretensions. It reminds us that without God we are dust and ashes.  And yet, if we are not careful, we can hear all of this in a very narrow way. As though sin were simply a matter of my private moral failures. My impatience. My sharp tongue. My envy. My laziness.

Those things matter. Of course they do. Psalm 51 is deeply personal: “Against you only have I sinned.” The woman in the Gospel is told, “Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” There is no escaping personal responsibility. But the Gospel reading refuses to let us stop there.

Because when the scribes and Pharisees drag that woman into the Temple courts, what we are seeing is not simply one woman’s moral lapse. We are seeing a system.

For a start…where is the man? Adultery is not a solo activity. The Law of Moses, which they quote so confidently, required both parties to be held accountable. And yet only she is paraded in public, humiliated, weaponised as a theological test case.

This is not just personal sin. It is institutional sin. It is a structure of power in which a group of religious men can imagine that stoning a woman in the street is an act of righteousness.  Jesus does not excuse the woman. He does not say, “Oh well, it doesn’t matter.” But his anger – his challenge – is directed first at the crowd. “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

He exposes not only their hypocrisy, but the machinery of accusation itself.

And that is where Joel speaks with such urgency. “Blow the trumpet in Zion… sanctify a fast… gather the people.” This is not a call to a few individuals to tidy up their private spiritual lives. It is a summons to a nation. “Rend your hearts and not your clothing.” Even the priests are to weep between the vestibule and the altar.

Ashes, then, are not only about my temper or my prayerlessness. They are about the ways in which we participate – knowingly or unknowingly – in systems that diminish others.  If we are honest, that feels uncomfortably close to home.

We live in a nation where foodbanks are no longer an emergency measure but an embedded feature of community life. Where the language used about refugees can make them sound less than human. Where economic decisions made far away ripple down into real anxiety for families here in Havant.

On an international scale, we inhabit a world in which war is once again spoken of casually, almost as background noise. Where whole populations are displaced. Where the climate crisis – which affects the poorest first and worst – is discussed endlessly and addressed hesitantly.

None of us, individually, may have intended any of that. But we are part of it. We vote. We consume. We benefit from structures that advantage some and disadvantage others.

Ash Wednesday asks not only, “What have I done wrong?” It asks, “What are we part of?”  And that can feel overwhelming. Because if sin is structural as well as personal, what can we possibly do?

The answer is not despair. Nor is it self-righteousness. The crowd in the Gospel had plenty of that already.  The answer is repentance – but repentance understood properly. Not grovelling. Not vague guilt. But a turning.  “Return to me with all your heart,” says the Lord in Joel. “Rend your hearts and not your clothing.”

To rend your heart is to allow it to be broken open. To allow the suffering of others to disturb you. To refuse the easy stone.

On a national level, that might mean refusing dehumanising language. It might mean paying attention to policies and priorities. It might mean asking hard questions about where our money goes, what our pensions invest in, how our habits affect the earth.

On a parish level, it certainly means creating a community in which nobody is paraded in shame. Where those who fail are not turned into cautionary tales. Where safeguarding is real, not performative. Where power is handled gently.

And on a deeply personal level, it means looking at the stone in our own hand. The sharp comment. The silent complicity. The convenient blindness.

When Jesus bends down and writes in the dust, we are not told what he writes. Perhaps that is deliberate. Because the dust is where we all begin. “Remember that you are dust.”  But dust, in the Scriptures, is also where God kneels to create. Into dust he breathes his Spirit. From dust he raises new life.

So when we come forward to receive these ashes, we are not simply confessing that we are sinners. We are acknowledging that we are part of something broken – and that we long to be part of something healed.

The crowd walked away, one by one, beginning with the elders. The machinery of accusation fell silent.

And there, in the dust, stood a woman who had encountered mercy.

May our repentance this Lent be large enough to match that mercy. Personal, yes. But also communal. Not only about our private failings, but about the kind of world we are helping to build.

And may the mark of ash upon our foreheads not be a badge of private piety, but a sign that we have laid down our stones.  Amen

It Is Good… But We May Not Remain

Readings: Exodus 24.12-end and Matthew 17.1-9

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There is something deeply reassuring about Peter.  Because whenever something extraordinary happens, Peter says the wrong thing.  Just like me.  I do that. 

Jesus is transfigured before him. His face shines like the sun. Moses and Elijah appear. The cloud of divine glory overshadows them. The voice of God speaks.  And Peter says, essentially: “Shall I put up some tents?”  It is the spiritual equivalent of standing gazing in awe at the Northern Lights and then someone asking if anyone’s brought sandwiches.

But before we laugh at Peter too quickly, we should admit something uncomfortable: Peter is doing exactly what we would do.  When something is beautiful, we, also try to freeze it.  When something feels holy, we try to contain it.  When something gives us goosebumps, we want it to last.  It’s why certain TV shows last for season after season.  Most of them are pretty run of the mill stuff.  They are Strictly-speaking, a bunch of people dancing round a floor.  Skillfully, beautifully.  But we’ve seen it all before.  But just occasionally, there will be a transcendent moment – when a personal history of struggle is conquered.  A blind dancer who triumphs.  A young woman with Downs Syndrome who shows she’s at least as good as everyone ‘normal’  Or someone who thought they were out gets a 10 from the most critical judge.  That’s what we want to experience.  That’s what keeps us coming back for more.  That’s where we would like to build our tents.

‘Lord, it is good for us to be here.’  Yes, it is.  It is good to be on the mountain. When worship lifts us, when the music carries us. It is good when prayer feels alive, when faith seems dazzling and uncomplicated.  It is good when faces shine.  But here is the problem:  Mountains are not permanent addresses.

The Exodus reading tells us Moses went up into the cloud, into the fire, into the terrifying presence of God. Forty days and forty nights. The glory looked like a devouring fire.   It wasn’t cosy. It wasn’t something you could share on instagram. It was awesome, surreal, magnificent.  But that mountain moment was not the end of the story. Moses had to come down again — to grumbling people, administrative disputes, and the complicated business of living faithfully in the real world.

So Moses discovered that transfiguration is not a holiday brochure for heaven. Rather, it is a kind of strengthening before suffering.   That’s what today’s Collect quietly reminds us: Christ was revealed in majesty before he suffered death upon the cross. The glory is not instead of the cross. It is before the cross.  Which means this Sunday — shining, singing, radiant with transfiguration — sits right on the edge of Lent.  It is good for us to be here.  But we may not remain.

That thought is captured in the second communion hymn we will sing: “‘Tis good, Lord, to be here… Yet we may not remain.”

And why is this.  Why can’t we stay in ecstasy, our hands lifted to heaven, our faces shining.  Listening to one of the Rector’s sermons for eternity!  Because faith is not about building tents around our favourite moments.  It is about following Jesus down the mountain.  And notice this: when the disciples are terrified, when they fall to the ground, when glory overwhelms them — Jesus does not lecture them.  He touches them.  He says, “Get up. Do not be afraid.”

And when they look up, they see no one except Jesus himself alone.  The cloud lifts. Moses and Elijah are gone. The dazzle has faded.  The light show is over.  And what remains? Jesus.  Not the experience. Not the spectacle. Not the spiritual high. Jesus.  That is the point of the mountain.  Not the brightness — but the Beloved.

And perhaps that is what we most need to hear as Lent approaches.  Because Lent will not feel like shining garments.  It will feel like self-examination.  Like ashes.  Like “remember that you are dust.”  Like the slow, unglamorous work of repentance.

But the same voice speaks in both places – to those disciples, and to us:  “This is my Son, the Beloved… listen to him.”  Listen to him when he shines, AND when he suffers.  Listen to him when he says “Follow me,” AND when he says “Take up your cross.” Listen to him when he says “Do not be afraid.”

Peter wanted to build three dwellings.  But God wants to build something far more daring.  Not tents on a mountain.  But transformed people in the valley.  People whose faces, over time, begin — just begin — to reflect what they have seen.  The Offertory hymn – one of Graham Kendrick’s greatest - puts it so well: “As we gaze on your kingly brightness, so our faces display your likeness, ever-changing from glory to glory.” 

That is the real miracle.  Not that Jesus shone.  But that ordinary, muddled, sometimes clueless disciples might slowly begin to shine too.  Not with spectacle. But with love. With courage. With patience. With forgiveness. With hope. With prayer. With that quiet radiance that comes from having been touched by Christ and told not to be afraid.  It is good for us to be here. But we may not remain. 

So when the final hymn ends; when we step back into Havant High Street and the week ahead. We go down the mountain.

Not to escape the glory.  But to carry it…in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

When Wisdom goes Wobbly

 Watch this sermon being delivered here:  https://youtu.be/2SErwNJz9E0 

Readings:  1 Kings 11.4-13 (Solomon worships foreign gods) and Mark 7.24-30 (Jesus calls a Gentile woman a 'dog'!)

Sermon

Today, we are offered two readings that sit together rather awkwardly.  They are a bit like distant relatives at a wedding placed on the same table, who discover that the only thing they have in common is a surname and a mild sense of irritation.

On the one hand, we have Solomon in his later years.  Wise, wealthy, experienced, and, it seems increasingly muddled.  He marries widely, worships promiscuously, and gradually allows the religious life of Israel to become a sort of spiritual pick-and-mix.  The writer of Kings is having none of it.  This is not celebrated as openness or curiosity; it is portrayed as drift.  The slow erosion of covenant faithfulness.  Solomon’s heart, we are told, is no longer wholly given to the Lord.  Solomon was known for his wisdom.  But wisdom, it turns out, does not make one immune to foolishness.

On the other hand, we have Jesus in Mark’s Gospel doing something that makes preachers instinctively clear their throats.  He goes away to rest.  He tries to hide.  He is tired.  And when a desperate woman interrupts him anyway, he says something that sounds, frankly, dreadful.  Children first.  Dogs later.  One imagines the disciples suddenly finding the floor tiles fascinating.

At first glance, the only obvious link between these two readings is the question of foreign influence, which is always a hot potato in British culture, so I’ll tread carefully!  It is enough, I think, to notice something very simple: cultures have always shaped one another.  There has never been a moment in history when a society remained pure, sealed, and untouched by elsewhere. 

Even our plates give the game away.  We argue about national identity while eating pizza, curry, pasta, noodles, and drinking coffee that has travelled further than most of us ever will.  Our writing systems, our numbers, much of our music and architecture all arrive from somewhere else.  If Britain were a person, it would be the sort who insists it is entirely self-made while quietly borrowing everyone else’s ideas.

Cultural exchange, then, is not the problem.  It is simply what happens when humans live next to other humans.  The question is not whether it happens, but what it does to us.

Solomon shows us one possibility.  He encounters difference and slowly loses his centre.  Not through rebellion or drama, but through complacency.  Nobody wakes up one morning and announces that they are abandoning their deepest values.  It happens by inches, while we are busy being clever.  Solomon collects alliances, practices, and gods like souvenirs, and eventually forgets which one actually matters. 

This doesn’t have to be the result of rubbing shoulders with other cultures, though.  We have much to learn from all other perspectives, even if all they do is hold up a mirror to the things we take for granted.

Jesus shows us how this works, in practice.  He also encounters difference and is changed by it, but changed for the better.  This is not a moment of serene teaching.  It is a moment of exhaustion.  He is not at his best.  His response to the woman is curt, defensive, and shaped by the assumptions of his day.  And then she answers back.  Calmly.  Witty.  Persistent.  She refuses to go away, and she refuses to be humiliated.

And Jesus listens.  He does not explain what he really meant.  He does not accuse her of mishearing his tone.  He allows himself to be corrected.  The tired resistance collapses into compassion, and the healing happens.

That single movement should give us all hope.  Jesus changes his mind.  Not because he has lost his sense of purpose, but because his purpose is love, and love listens.  This is not Jesus failing to be divine; it is Jesus fully inhabiting humanity.  Tired enough to snap.  Human enough to put his foot in his mouth.  Gracious enough to recognise it.

Solomon shows us how encounter without humility can hollow a person out.  We can lose our centre of compassionate engagement, and become fighters for particular ideas.  Jesus shows us how humility allows encounter to deepen compassion.  The danger is not difference.  The danger is defensiveness.

Which is, perhaps, quietly encouraging for the rest of us.  Especially those of us who occasionally say the wrong thing, usually when we are tired.  This story reassures us that growth is not betrayal.  Changing your mind is not failure.  Being corrected is not humiliation.  Sometimes it is grace.

So perhaps these readings invite us, this week, not into argument but into attentiveness.  Watching what shapes us.  Noticing when weariness makes us brittle.  Listening for voices that might enlarge us rather than diminish us.

Because if the kingdom of God can advance through a weary conversation in a foreign kitchen, and if even Jesus is willing to reshape his thinking in response to common sense and cultural revelation, then there is hope for all of us yet.  Amen.

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.