What We Thought Was Sealed

David Herbert2 Comments

The first Easter began with people who weren’t sure of anything. They were running, confused, and grieving… until they noticed that what they thought was sealed had been opened.
This sermon explores how resurrection begins not with certainty, but with the slow, surprising discovery that God is already at work — breaking open the boundaries we thought were final.

There’s a quiet pressure around Easter …
that this is the day you’re meant to be sure.
Sure about what happened.
Sure about what it means.
Sure what you believe.

But the strange thing is –
in the very first Easter story …
nobody is sure of anything.

John paints a picture of that first Easter morning.
Everyone seems to be rushing around.
They’re all running.

First there is Mary Magdalen,
then the so-called “beloved disciple”,
then slow-coach Peter.

All running around like headless chickens,
not quite knowing what they’re looking for,
or what they’re going to find.

That’s the risk for the preacher
and for all of us,
running around Easter Day
pretending we’re sure,
pretending we know what we’re talking about  …

when the truth is,
the first Easter began
with people who didn’t.

The first thing they didn’t understand
wasn’t an idea, or a belief, or a theory.

It was something much more concrete than that.

It was a stone.

The stone was supposed to settle things.

To close the story down,
To seal it.
To make it final.

This is how the world works:

when something is over,
it is over.

We know about stones like that.
Moments that feel sealed.
Doors that don’t reopen.
Relationships that don’t come back.
Hopes that have run their course.

And Mary arrives …
not expecting a miracle,
not looking for resurrection …
just coming to a place that would have been closed.

And the first thing she sees is this:
the stone has been moved.

The very first sign of Easter
is not that Jesus appears,
nor that anyone understands

but that what they thought was sealed
isn’t sealed anymore.

And they don’t know what it means.
They don’t suddenly become certain.
They just know this:
something they thought was final …
has been opened.

And that is how resurrection begins.
Not with explanations,
but with boundaries giving way.

The boundary between life and death.
The boundary between what we think is possible
and what God is doing.
The boundary between who we think belongs to God
and who God is already calling.

It will take Peter a long time to understand that.
Years in fact.

Before this moment, he had been confronted with strange visions.
Voices telling him to let go
of what he had always been sure about.
An invitation to enter the house of people
he never imagined God could use.

Step by another stone step, another stone was being moved.
Not at a tomb this time …
but in Peter’s own heart.

And finally he says:
“Now I understand …
God shows no favourites.”

And what he realises is this:

that Gd has been moving stones
that he, Peter, didn’t even know were there.

Stones he had lived with all his life.

Stones that had quietly built walls –
about who belongs
and who doesn’t.

Because Peter had grown up in a world
where there were very clear boundaries.

Between Jew and Gentile.
Clean and unclean.
Inside and Outside.

Lines you didn’t cross.

People you didn’t eat with.
People you didn’t enter the house of.

People you certainly didn’t imagine
were part of what God was doing.

And it’s as if, step by step,
another stone is being moved …
not at the tomb this time,
But in Peter’s own heart.

Peter’s world is not so very different from ours.

We have our own ways of sorting people.

Our own quiet lines
about who fits …
and who doesn’t.

Our own assumptions about
where God is likely to be at work …
and where God couldn’t possibly be.

Isn’t it funny that Jesus called Peter the rock?
The solid one, the dependable one,
the one we might think would always have it together.
And yet here he is, confused, unsure and learning
that God’s work doesn’t obey the walls he’s built.

The rock … is still learning to listen.
And in that, he becomes truly solid –
not because he knows everything,
but because he has learned where God is really at work.

Just as Mary had to learn
that resurrection wasn’t where she expected it …
Peter had to learn
that God wasn’t limited
to where he expected.

This morning, Gary and Brittany were confirmed in Coventry Cathedral.
Not because they’ve worked it all out,
not because they are completely certain,
but because, like Mary, like Peter
they are learning to listen for a voice that calls them by name.

And that’s what Easter invites us to do:
to pay attention, to listen,
to notice where God is already at work
in ways we didn’t expect.

The stone at the tomb
was only the beginning.
Because once that stone moves
all the other stones
we’ve built around us –
and within us –
begin to shift as well.

Just as they had to for Peter.

The stones we place between ourselves and others.
The quiet assumptions about
who belongs,
who counts,
who could possibly be part of God’s life.

Easter begins not with certainty,
but with a stone that refuses to stay in place,

with confusion,
with running,
with not quite understanding what we’re looking at.

And then – slowly –
with learning to listen.

Because in that garden,
everything changes
not when Mary works it out
but when she hears her name.

“Mary.”

And that is perhaps where Easter begins for us.

Not when we are finally sure.
Not when we have all the answers.

But when, somehow,
in the middle of everything that feels closed

we hear God calling our name.

And we begin – slowly,
sometimes hesitantly,
to realise
that what we thought was sealed …
including our fate …

is already being opened.

It turns out –
God has always been in the business
of moving stones.

You might even say
God put the Rolling Stones on the map.

Who do we turn to in the thick of things?

David HerbertLeave a comment

All of us live in the thick of things—there is no other place to be.
The question is not whether we are under pressure, but who we turn to within it.
On Palm Sunday, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, that question becomes unavoidable.

Think about this.

All of us are in the thick of things.
In one way or another,
all of us are in the thick of things.

There is no other place to be.
We live in the thick of things.
There is no retreat,

Even the life of a hermit
is lived in the thick of things
in the thick of the human heart.

In the wilderness, as Jesus found,
fear does not disappear – it gets louder.
Temptation doesn’t vanish – it becomes clearer.
The need for control, recognition, security –
it all surfaces.

We all live in the thick of things.

Even hermits don’t go into the wilderness
to escape the thick of things.
They don’t go to hide.

Out there, in the silence,
everything is closer to the surface –
As we see in the writings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

A hermit is still in the thick of things,
right in the thick of the human heart.

Our gospel readings take us into the thick of things.

Everyone is going to Jerusalem.
They’re either there, or on their way.
The noise, the smell, the excitement –
all of it meets Jesus as he arrives.

The streets are crowded.
He is well and truly in the thick of things.


There’s a question that hangs over
every one of our lives
from our baptism onwards.

Brittany and Gary will be asked that same question
when they are confirmed next Sunday.

The question is:

Do you turn to Christ?

In the thick of things,
do you turn to Christ,

or do you turn to those
who claim power in the thick of things?

In Jerusalem, that meant Caesar
and Caiaphas.

Political power.
Religious authority.

Both expected people to turn to them.
And anyone who didn’t
undermined them.

In the thick of things,
who do we turn to?

Olivia Butler puts it starkly:

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought …”

To be led by a coward
is to be controlled by fear.
To be led by a fool
is to be ruled by opportunists.
To be led by a thief
is to watch your treasures disappear.
To be led by a liar
is to learn to live by lies.
To be led by a tyrant
Is to surrender your freedom.

So in the thick of things –
who do we turn to?

Do we follow the loudest voice?
The strongest mood?
The easiest path?
The latest thing?

Or do we turn to Christ –

who in the thick of things,
refused to be led by fear,
refused to cling to power,
refused to return violence for violence –

and so made a way through the thick of things.

Not a way out.
A way through.

A way that does not depend on strength,
or status,
or having the upper hand.

A way that even the last,
and the least,
and the lost
can walk.

A way that leads, even through opposition and threat,
towards Jerusalem –
towards the purposes of God.

This is the strange thing.

In the thick of things,
when we turn to Christ
and follow his way –

we become free.

Free from being driven by fear.
Free from having to grasp at control.
Free from being pulled along by the loudest voice
or the strongest mood.

Free to walk –
Even when it is costly

In the thick of things,
do we turn to Christ –
and follow him there?

Because when we do,
we are not just being led.

We are being shown a way –
a way we can walk,
and a way others can find
even in the thick of their enemies.

Passion That Stays

David HerbertLeave a comment

Ezekiel stands in a valley of dry bones. Jesus stands at a tomb that smells of death. Neither turns away. This sermon explores a quieter, deeper meaning of passion—not as feeling, but as staying. And what might happen when we remain present in the places where hope seems lost.

Perhaps I should not ask what comes to mind when we hear the word passion.

We often hear the word passion and think of strong feelings.
Intensity. Emotion.

But the scriptures speak of something deeper.
Our scriptures give meaning to the word.

Passion is engagement.
Passion makes you stay with something,
with someone,
refusing to walk away.

It is remaining present
even where everything feels lost.

Our scriptures are not lifeless words on a page.
They are not dry bones,
or dead leaves,
pages in a book.

They have a life of their own.

It is passion that brings them to life,
and it is their life that inspires passion.

These scriptures have been carried through the generations:
people who have known defeat, exile, grief, and despair.

They belong to such people.

They cling passionately
to our experiences of devastation and annihilation.

They will not let us go.

Such is the character of our scripture,
such is the passion of scripture
for those who feel abandoned, lost.

They cling to them,
and they belong
to the people
in those places
at those times
when hope seems lost.

They’re not nice reading.
They’re not polite texts.

They are full of grit,
full of determination,
full of passion,

because they come from the valley—
the metaphorical valley
that stands in the shadow of death.

They belong to those who have stood in the valley
and wondered if anything could live again.

The vision Ezekiel shares with us this morning
comes straight from that valley,

a bleak valley
of bleached bone,
dried and scattered,

in a scene so devastating
that we’ve hardly been able to contemplate it
without making light of it—
turning it to comedy:
dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.

From the devastation
comes the question:

Can these bones live?

It’s a question Ezekiel hears from heaven.

How else could he have heard it?

It’s a question none of us would ever think to ask,
because the evidence of an ending
is so overwhelming.

We can almost feel him hesitate.

“What a question…”

“I don’t know.”

“Can these bones live?”

“I don’t know.”

And yet—he stays with it.

He does not turn away.

He remains.

“O Lord God, you know.”

And the wind begins to stir.

From all directions,
through all times,

the breath moves—

clinging to dry bones,
wrapping them in a love that will not let go,
stirring hope
where everything seemed lost.

We stay in the valley in the gospel reading.

The valley in the shadow of death.

As John tells us about Lazarus,
and the passion of Jesus for his friend,
and the passionate mourning of his sisters.

Lazarus has been dead four days.

John does not soften it.

The grief is real.
The loss is final.

This is a passage that stinks.

“Lord, already there is a stench.”

And again, there is no hurry to escape.

Jesus stands there—
overwhelmed in all his senses by loss,
in the midst of wailing,
with the stench of death.

And he weeps.

That is passion.

Before anything is changed,
before anything is restored,

passion is remaining—
particularly at the point
when all seems lost.

And it is there—
in that place—

that something happens.

Not an explanation.
Not an answer.

A call.

“Lazarus, come out.”

No one expects this.

No one is ready for this.

Because nothing in that place
suggests that life is possible.

And yet—

life does not wait
for another time,
or another place.

It comes here.

Into the tomb.
Into what has already been given up for lost.

And then—almost quietly—

“Unbind him, and let him go.”

The life is given.

But the unbinding—
the restoring, the freeing—
is given to others.

To those who stayed.

That call of Jesus—
“Lazarus, come out”…
and, “Unbind him, let him go”—

has echoed far beyond that tomb,
into every place
where people feel bound:

by grief,
by fear,
by the weight
of what others have said about them.

That voice still calls.

Jesus calls—
but leaves the unbinding
to others.

And perhaps we recognise this.

On a Radio 5 phone in,
I heard a cancer survivor—
speaking about what brought her through.

She spoke about treatment.

But more than that, she spoke about people.

The doctors who cared for her.
The nurses who stayed with her.
Those who sat alongside her.
Those who did the small, unnoticed things—
even making tea.

And she spoke about someone
whose vision and determination
had built that place of care over time.

They weren’t speaking about religion.

They simply spoke about people
who did not walk away.

People who remained
in a place most of us would rather avoid.

People through whom, slowly, patiently,
life was given back.

And perhaps this is what begins to happen
when we stay.

When we do not turn away.

When we remain present
in the places that feel like the end.

Something of that same passion
begins to take hold of us.

Not a loud passion.
Not a dramatic one.

But a steady, quiet refusal
to let go of life.

It becomes a passion for people—
for their dignity, their healing, their wellbeing.

A passion for the fragile life of this world—
for all that can so easily be lost.

A passion for justice—
that what is broken might be made right.

A passion to take our place
in the work of restoring life.

And perhaps we do not need
to name it too quickly.

Perhaps it is enough
to recognise it—

in the valley,
at the tomb,
in those who stay,
in those who serve,
in those who help unbind
what has been bound.

Because this is where the scriptures live.

Not far from us.
Not above us.

But here.

In the places where hope feels thin,
where loss is real,
where the ending seems certain.

And here—
not somewhere else, not later, but here—

breath begins to stir.

A voice is heard.

And where people will not walk away,
where they stay, and serve, and love,

even now,

the dead begin to live.

A Conspiracy of Women

David Herbert1 Comment

This sermon was preached on Mothering Sunday 2026, the week of the 75th anniversary of my baptism.
The story of the baby Moses begins with fear of immigrants and a ruler determined to control the future. But the future does not belong to him. Instead it is carried forward by midwives, mothers, and a princess who quietly resist injustice. This Mothering Sunday sermon reflects on that ancient story from the Book of Exodus and what it means for the church to be a place where every life drawn from the water is treasured.

The Discovery of Moses by Edward Long, 1885, City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol

Rulers — often men — do funny things.
And sometimes they become very worried about people who are different from them.

There was a new king in Egypt.
And he was very hot on immigration.

He began his rule by cracking down on the immigrant community —
particularly the Israelite families who had settled in Egypt.
They were fruitful and prolific.
Their numbers were growing.
And the king could see a time when they might outnumber them.

So he began by oppressing them with forced labour.
The book of Exodus says the Egyptians were ruthless in the tasks they imposed on them.

But still their numbers grew.

Next the king ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all the boys they delivered.
Spare the girls — kill the boys.
That was the order.

But the midwives found a way round it.
They simply disobeyed.

When the king complained that Hebrew boys were still being born,
the midwives replied that Hebrew women were vigorous —
they gave birth before the midwives could arrive.

It is one of the most elegant acts of resistance in the whole of scripture.

That’s the background to today’s reading.

There is the murderous king.
And there are the heroic midwives — Shiphrah and Puah.

Names that should be remembered for ever,
Shiphrah. Puah.

Names that stand alongside all the women who saved the boy in the basket —
and, I suspect, many other babies besides.

We don’t know what the boy’s mother called him,
but we do know that she hid him as long as she could.
And when she could hide him no longer,
she prepared a basket,
placed him inside it,
and set it among the reeds on the riverbank.

His sister stood at a distance,
watching to see what would happen.

And then the king’s daughter came down to bathe in the river.
She found the basket.
She opened it.
And there was the baby — crying.

She knew at once that he was one of the Hebrew children.

The watching girl stepped forward
and offered to fetch a Hebrew woman to nurse the child.

And the woman she fetched was the baby’s own mother.
So the mother nursed her own child —
until the day came when she brought him back to the king’s daughter.

And it was the princess who named him Moses.

She called him Moses, because — she said — “I drew him out of the water.”

And when you step back and look at the story, you begin to see something remarkable.

The future of God’s people is being carried not by armies or kings,
but by a small network of women.

First there are the midwives –
Shiprah
and Puah.

Then there is the child’s mother –
Jochebed – who hides him and makes the little basket.

Then there is the watchful sister –
Miriam – keeping her eye on the riverbank.

And finally there is the most unlikely rescuer of all –
Pharoah’s daughter – the king’s own daughter.

When you look at them together, there is really only one word for it:
a conspiracy,
An international conspiracy of women.
Which, come to think of it,
would be quite an exciting rebrand for the Mothers’ Union …
… and perhaps the Women’s Institute as well.

In this story it is the powerful men who issue commands.
But they never control the future.

It is the powerful men who make the decrees.
But it is the conspiracy of women who prevent the consequences.

Scripture is telling us something very important here.

The liberation of Israel does not begin with plagues or prophets.
It does not begin with a hero.
It begins with compassion.

It begins with midwives, mothers, sisters,
and an Egyptian princess —
who refuse to cooperate with cruelty.

Long before Moses ever spoke to Pharaoh,
mothers had already defeated him.

And the princess gave the child a name.

Moses, she called him, because she said, “I drew him out of the water”.

Drawn out of the water.
That’s a phrase Christians have always recognised, because that is what happens in baptism.
In baptism we are drawn out of the water and given a new life, a new belonging, a new name as children of God.

Last Wednesday was the 75th anniversary of my baptism.
75 years since someone held me over water like this and spoke the name of God into my life.
I didn’t understand any of it then of course.
But the church understood.
The church understood that every life is precious,
every child is held in the love of God,
and every one of us needs a community that helps us grow into that love.

And that takes us back to the story we have just heard.
When ther baby’s mother made that basket,
she didn’t just weave some reeds together and hope for the best.
The Bible says she sealed it with pitch to make it waterproof.

In other words,
she did everything a loving parent would do –
she made that tiny boat as safe as she possibly could.
That little basket was probably the safest place the child had ever been.

When we hear of people being pulled from the sea today,
refugees rescued from dangerous waters,
perhaps the old story echoes again –
every life drawn from the water is a life that matters to God.

Which is why the church must always be something like that basket in the reeds –
a place where fragile life is protected
until it grows strong enough to change the world.

So today we remember a story about a baby in a basket on the river.
A fragile life, protected by a network of courageous women –
midwives, a mother, a sister, and a princess – who refused to cooperate with cruelty.

We remember that the child they saved, Moses,
was given a name that means
drawn from the water.

And we remember that in baptism something similar happens to each one of us.
We too are drawn from the waters that could engulf us,
and we are given a new belonging in the love of God.

And perhaps Mothering Sunday is a good day to give thanks
for all those people who have helped carry us along the river of life –
mothers, fathers, friends, teachers, neighbours and saints –
those who have held us safe until we were strong enough
to set out on the river of life for ourselves.

Seventy-Five and Still Counting

David HerbertLeave a comment

Abram was seventy-five when God told him to go.
Nicodemus was long established when Jesus told him he must be born again.
New birth is not punishment for failure — it is rescue from stagnation. It is never too late for God to be the making of us.
A sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (Year A)

One goes, another comes.

It is Abram who goes.
It’s Nicodemus who comes,
Carefully, at night, to see Jesus.

For both, it’s about being born again.

Abram, we are told, was 75.
75.
By that age you’d expect him to be set.
If you’re not settled by 75, when will you be?
He’s established, formed and known.

Then he hears God say:
GO.

Leave your country.
Leave your people –
the people who made you who you are.
Leave your father’s house.
Leave everything you’ve ever known.

Even, in a way, leave your whole identity.

This man is Abram. That is who he is.
Abram is the “exalted father” –
“high father” – that’s what his name means.

And yet he has no child.

He sets out as Abram.
He sets out before anything has changed.
Before the promise is visible.
Before the future is secure.

And only later does God give him a new name:
Abraham – father of a multitude, father of nations –
the one through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed,
and from whom, to this day,
Jewish, Christian and Muslim families
trace their story
and count their blessings.

It is Abram who goes.

Then there is the one who comes,
out of the dead of night he comes,
emerging from the shadows of
darkness and despair comes Nicodemus.

We don’t know his age, but he is no youngster.
He is old enough to have made his mark.
He is a Pharisee – a serious student of the Torah.
He is a member of the Jewish ruling council.
He is a teacher of Israel.
In fact, he is a person of substance,
and has spent a lifetime becoming someone.

And yet, he comes to Jesus and says:
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”

Jesus tells him,
“No one can see the kingdom of God,
unless they are born again.”
“You must be born again.”

There we have it.
Abram is seventy-five.
And Nicodemus is no spring chicken.
Both are too old, humanly speaking,
for new beginnings.

Their story matters to us.
The two of them, they are both settled.
Abram is settled geographically, socially, economically.
Nicodemus is settled intellectually, religiously, institutionally.
Neither of them is wicked.
They’ve just grown old.
And we can become rather settled in our ways when we get old, can’t we?
Sometimes we are just tired.
Sometimes we get fixed in our opinions.
Sometimes we know our lines too well.
Sometimes we have become experts in being ourselves.
Some of us have had a lifetime of building ourselves,
making something of our lives,
with a lifetime of defending ourselves,
and the castles of our achievements,
Probably just like Abram and Nicodemus.

Perhaps we are too settled.
Settled in habits.
Settled in grudges.
Settled in roles.
Settled in the versions of ourselves we defend.

Perhaps, we too, need to stop that.

These scriptures spell out the good news
that we can stop that
and that we can be born again,
that we can stop all of that
so God can be the making of us.

New birth is not punishment for failure.
It is rescue from stagnation.
Nicodemus is right to ask the question,
“How can someone be born when they are old?
Surely they can’t enter a second time
into their mother’s womb to be born!”

We cannot make the new start ourselves.
We cannot birth ourselves.
It is God who makes the new start.
It’s God’s creation story.

In our own creation story
the firstborn stands secure.
The firstborn inherits.
The firstborn has position.
The younger is “spare”.

But in God’s story
it’s the younger who carries the promise,
the one born last – as we see in Abraham’s own family.
It’s younger Isaac, not older brother Ishmael.
It’s grandson Jacob, not Esau.
It’s Ephraim, not Manasseh.

The line of blessing doesn’t follow seniority,
it follows grace.

The last born is the new born.
The first born is always the older one,
relatively speaking.
The first born is the settled one,
just like Abram, just like Nicodemus,
just like all of us.
And the first born is never the new born,
unless willing to be born again.

The Gospel of John tells it different to the other gospel singers:

“No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
The other gospel writers say it like this:
“Noone can enter the kingdom of God
unless they become like a little child”.
The newborn are the last and the least.
They come with nothing.
They’re not dressed up with status or with achievements.

The newborns are never first.
Nicodemus is first.
He is first in power – he’s on the ruling council.
He is first in knowledge – he’s the teacher.
He’s the first in religious competence

But if he is to see the kingdom of God,
if he is to understand the way of God,
he must become new,
he must become small enough to receive
He must become, in a sense, last.

And the same with Abram.
He was established, named, known,
but becomes the stranger,
and the beginner again.

Abram was seventy-five.
Seventy-five.
That’s the age to qualify for lifetime achievement awards.
We spend our lives making ourselves,
our opinions,
our reputation,
our security,
our case before others.

Seventy-five.
It’s never too late
for God to be the making of us.

If Abram can begin at seventy-five,
and if Nicodemus can learn again
after a lifetime of teaching,
then none of us are stuck.
No one here is “too formed”.
No one is past beginning.

No one is past beginning.

And if we need one more witness —

there is Saul.

Certain.
Certain he was right.
Certain he knew God.
Certain he was defending the truth.

Established in his learning.
Established in his zeal.
Established in who he was.

And then —
stopped.

On the road.
Thrown down.
Blinded.

Led by the hand like a child.

He who saw so clearly
cannot see at all.

He who led
must now be led.

He who was first
must become last.

God does not improve him.
God remakes him.

He too must be born again.


Seventy-five.
It’s never too late

Abram was my age when he left it all.
I am still at that age when I don’t know,
when I don’t always like how I am,
when I need to hear “stop that”,
so that I can begin as the new-born,
as the last.
Heaven forbid I ever get settled in the way I am
and the way we are.

The amazing thing about God’s grace
is that we can always start again.
God so loved the world,
loves the world too much to leave it settled,
too much to leave us stuck,
so much as to come to us in the night,
to call us out of what we have made of ourselves.

Let us pray.

Lord God,
Father of Abraham,
giver of new birth,

We pray for the first borns among us —
for those who have grown established,
respected, secure.

For those who know their lines too well.
For those who have built lives
and learned how to defend them.

For those of us
who have become experts in being ourselves.

Make us willing to become small again.
Make us teachable.
Make us new.

And we pray for the new borns —
for the fragile beginnings,
for tender faith,
for hesitant steps into the unknown.

For those setting out not knowing where they go.
For those coming in the night with questions.

Breathe your Spirit upon them.
Guard what you are bringing to birth.
Carry to fullness what you have begun.

For you so loved the world
that you did not leave us settled,
but came among us
that we might be born from above.

Make us new, Lord.
Amen.

It is never too late for God to be the making of us.

There is a Hum in Humanity

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There is a hum in humanity — a low note that runs through our lives. From the garden of Genesis to the wilderness of Gospel of Matthew, that hum carries the strain of mistrust, hunger and longing. But in the desert, Jesus holds a truer note — and the music of the world begins to change. A reflection for the first Sunday of Lent (Year A).

There is a hum in humanity.
A low note that runs through our lives.

It is there in the very beginning of the word itself,
the hum as we grow up as humans,
part of humanity,
challenged to be humane,
struggling to keep our feet on the ground – the humus,
finding humility so difficult.

There is a hum in humanity.
A low note that rumbles through our lives.

It is not just the hum of dust and breath –
but the hum of strain.

It is the hum of a myth
that resounds through all our lives,
a myth that can’t be dismissed
because it rings so true,
so true that it becomes the earworm
that casts our psyche
and scripts our story.

This is the story from Genesis.

It is not a fairy tale about a perfect world once upon a time,
but the beginning of difficulty.

The first mistrust.
The first fracture.
The first hiding.
The first blaming.

And the rest, as they say, is history,
herstory and ourstory.

Ever since, life has carried that note.

Work that exhausts.
Relationships that bruise.
Bodies that fail.
Power that corrupts.
Fear that whispers.

There is a hum in our ears and hearts
that tells us life should be easier than this –
easier than it has ever been.

A hum that suggests it was never meant to be this hard.

And yet –
it has been this hard from the beginning.

And then we hear the Gospel from Matthew.

The same hum.
The same strain.
The same voice that once whispered in a garden now speaks in a wilderness.

“Turn these stones to bread.”
Make it easier.
Fix the hunger.
Work a little magic.

“Throw yourself down.”
Let God catch you.
Prove yourself.
Court admiration.

“All this can be yours.”
Take control.
Overrule the chaos.
Dominate rather than trust.

These are not exotic temptations.
They are ours.

The temptation to solve difficulty by spectacle.
To escape vulnerability by popularity.
To end uncertainty by control.

Jesus stands where we stand.
He feels the same pull.
He hears the same hum.

But he stays.

He stays with the hunger.
He stays with the trust.
He stays with the limits of being human.

And he answers —
not with magic,
not with drama,
not with force —

but with Scripture,
with remembered truth,
with the steady note of dependence.

And that steady note
sees the back of the devil.

After the discord of the devil,
a new note sounds,
a different music,
harmonies and the ring of truth.
This is the sound of angels,
the sound of heaven attending earth.

This is the sound that swells our hearts
as we walk our 40 days of Lent,
through our temptation,
through difficulty,
through wilderness.

It’s not the sound of despair and desolation,
nor the sound of punishment and shame,
it is the note Jesus brings to the garden,
the hopeful note of humankind.

This is the joy Paul conveys to us in his letter to the Romans.
By the obedience of one
the music of our lives has changed.
Not by the brilliance of one.
Not by the power of one.
By the obedience of one –
in the wilderness,
in the difficulties, pressures and temptations of life,
humanity is re-tuned.

The hum of strain is not denied.
Jesus is still hungry.
Jesus is always hungry.
As long as anyone is hungry,
Jesus is hungry.

But discord becomes fidelity.

That’s the good news.

The gospel is not that life suddenly becomes easy.
The good news is that within the difficulty –
the wars, the privations, the despair –
a new sound has entered the world.

The hum is still there.
The world is still hard.

But now –
it is not the only sound.

These forty days are a gift to us –
time to learn again how to listen
for the music of accompaniment.

The Glory that Straightens Us

David Herbert1 Comment

A reflection for the Sunday just before Lent, when the Church’s readings gently remind us that Lent is not about self-improvement, but about staying with the glory of God.

There is a great noise in the world just now.
Nations in tumult. Rulers devising their plots. Power protecting itself.
The psalmist’s question hardly feels ancient: “
Why are the nations in tumult, and why do the peoples devise a vain plot?”
It is the sound of anger, of rivalry, of ambition —
the sound of a world bent in on itself.

And beneath the public noise there is another noise:
the private ache,
the anxiety we carry,
the way we can find ourselves almost doubled up with it —
bent backs and bowed heads under the weight of it all.

This is how we’ve come to worship today,
with our minds dripping with the headlines
from the Sunday papers, the TV news
and fed by the crooked algorithms of social media.
This is how we began our worship,
with those lines from the psalm appointed for today,
Psalm 2: Why are the nations in tumult,
and why do people plot so cruelly against one another?

This is the noise that we take into Lent,
the noise of anger and anxiety.

And then, in today’s gospel,
Jesus leads his friends away from the tumult.
Up a high mountain.
Not to escape the world, but to see it truly.
The air is thinner there.
The noise falls away.
The cloud settles.
The voice speaks.

And as we stand on the edge of Lent —
forty days that echo Moses in the cloud —
we are invited to climb with him.
Not to try harder.
Not to straighten ourselves by effort.
But to behold a glory that does not crush us,
does not dazzle us into denial,
but straightens us.
“This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”

The mountain is not where we live.
We live mostly in the valleys —
in the ordinary press of work and worry,
in the shadowed places Psalm 23 calls “the valley of the shadow of death,”
in the deadly ways that bend our backs and narrow our vision.

But in Exodus, Moses is called up into the cloud,
into fire and mystery,
for forty days and forty nights —
not to escape the people below,
but to receive something that will sustain them in the wilderness.

And as Lent opens before us,
those forty days are not an ordeal to be survived,
nor a spiritual boot camp in self-improvement.
They are a grace-filled ascent.
An invitation to step, however falteringly, into the cloud with Christ —
to let the noise fall away,
to let our sight be cleared,
to let our crooked wills be gently bent back toward God’s goodness and glory —
to have our hearts set straight and our wills aligned with his love –
so that when we walk again through the valleys,
we do not walk weakened,
but strengthened by the glory we have glimpsed.

So we will walk down the mountain again.
We always do.
The noise will still be there.
The nations will still rage.
The valleys will still wind their way through shadowed places.
Lent will not remove us from the world’s tumult,
nor from the private aches that sometimes leave us doubled over.
But we will not walk alone, and we will not walk unstrengthened.

For we have heard the voice: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”

And if we listen —
not perfectly, not heroically, but honestly —
something in us begins to straighten.
Not by effort, but by grace.

The glory of Christ does not crush us;
it steadies us.
It does not blind us;
it clears our sight.

It does not demand that we prove ourselves;
it bends our wills gently back toward the goodness and glory of God.

This is what these forty days are for.
Not self-improvement, but reorientation.
Not spiritual ambition, but deeper attention.
So that when we walk through the valleys —
even through the valley of the shadow of death —
we are not bent by fear or twisted by the world’s rage,
but strengthened by the glory we have seen,
and guided by the voice we have learned to trust.

The Glory that straightens us is not found in noise or power or spectacle.
It is found in the Beloved Son — and it is enough.

The Genesis of Gentleness and the Gentleness of Genesis

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Read gently my friend.

Facebook friend, Josh Askwith, has just heard the book of Genesis read straight through. What struck him was not the violence, nor the intrigue, nor the strangeness. It was something else. He posted this:

“I was struck by how gently it ends.”

And that’s got me thinking. Gently. That is not the adjective most people reach for when describing the Old Testament.

His comment landed on top of a conversation I had recently with someone who confessed that she “struggles” with the Old Testament. She is not alone. Many Christians speak of it as though it were a necessary preface to the real story — darker, harsher, spiritually inferior. The implication is often unspoken but clear: the Old Testament is something Jesus saves us from.

I wonder how much of that instinct has been formed not simply by careful reading, but by centuries of misreading — by a habit of exaggerating the discontinuity between Old and New, of distancing Jesus from his Jewish roots, of quietly rendering Israel’s scriptures obsolete. When we treat the Old Testament as primitive or problematic, are we inheriting interpretative habits shaped, at least in part, by anti-Jewish assumptions?

And then Genesis ends — not with thunder, but with tenderness.

Joseph forgives his brothers. Revenge is refused. Fear is met with reassurance. “You meant it for harm,” he says, “but God meant it for good.” The story closes not in triumph but in trust — a coffin in Egypt, waiting for promise. It is strangely, stubbornly gentle.

But the gentleness is not softness. It is shaped by a deeper pattern running all the way through the book.

Near the end, in Genesis 48, we are given an image that feels almost like a summary of everything that has gone before. Jacob — old now, frail, nearing death — is brought Joseph’s two sons to bless. Manasseh, the firstborn, is positioned at Jacob’s right hand. Ephraim, the younger, at his left. Everything is arranged according to custom, according to entitlement, according to the straight lines of inheritance – so that Manasseh will be blessed first and Ephraim last. That is the way of the world.

But then Jacob crosses his hands.

The right hand rests on the younger boy. The left on the elder.

Joseph tries to correct him. It must be a mistake. But Jacob refuses. The crossing is deliberate.

Jacob Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, miniature on vellum from the Golden Haggadah, Catalonia, early 14th century, at the British Library, London

It is hard not to smile at the irony. The name Jacob is bound up with grasping and twisting — the heel-grabber, the supplanter. The one who once twisted his way into stealing a blessing from his brother Esau, now twists his own arms to give one. The old twister twists again — but this time not to steal, not to secure advantage for himself, but to bend the future toward the overlooked.

Genesis has been rehearsing this pattern from the beginning. Abel over Cain. Isaac over Ishmael. Jacob over Esau. Joseph over his brothers. And now Ephraim over Manasseh.

This is not randomness. It is theology.

God’s blessing does not run along the straight lines of primacy, status, or expectation. It bends. It crosses. It interrupts the obvious.

For those who are first, secure, established, this is unsettling. For those who are second, small, despised, or displaced, it is life.

Read this way, Genesis is not primitive folklore. It is dangerous scripture.

It belongs to the Torah — to a people who would know slavery, exile, homelessness; who would know what it is to be second best. It is instruction for living under empire. It is a memory bank for those whose lives do not follow the straight lines of power. Again and again it whispers: the story is not over when you are overlooked. The blessing may yet cross in your direction.

No wonder such texts can be domesticated. If the Old Testament can be caricatured as angry, obsolete, or morally inferior, its critique of hierarchy is neutralised. If it is reduced to a foil for a gentler New Testament, its radical edge is blunted.

But Jesus does not stand over against this story. He stands within it.

When he speaks of the last being first and the first last, he is not inventing a new moral universe. He is speaking Torah-deep truth. When Mary sings of the proud scattered and the lowly lifted, she is echoing the long music of Israel. When the kingdom is announced as good news to the poor, it is not a departure from Genesis but its flowering.

The rule of the kingdom of God crosses old hierarchies. It must – if the second best, the left out and despised are to find favour.

That does not mean the first are hated or the strong despised. The point is not revenge. The crossing of hands is not retaliation; it is freedom. God is not bound by our ranking systems. Blessing is not the private property of the powerful.

Perhaps that is why Genesis ends gently. Because beneath its betrayals and famines and rivalries runs a deeper current of mercy — a God who keeps bending history toward life.

A God who crosses his hands.

And for those who have lived too long on the left side of the room – left behind, left out – that is not merely interesting theology. It is hope. It is radical gentleness.

The Cost of a Strong Church

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“The exclusion of the weak and insignificant,
the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community
may actually mean the exclusion of Christ.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Bonhoeffer wrote these words during the Nazi era, at a time when entire groups of people were being labelled unworthy of life — useless, burdensome, disposable. Against that deadly logic, he insisted on something profoundly unsettling: that God is revealed not in strength or success, but in lowliness and weakness.

For Bonhoeffer, Christ is found not among the powerful, but among those who suffer — those pushed aside, silenced, or made invisible. Again and again, he warned that when a Christian community excludes the weak, it is not simply failing morally or socially. It is committing a theological act. It is removing the presence of Christ from its own life.

Christian fellowship begins with the last coming first. The church does not bear witness to Christ by appearing strong, efficient, or successful. It bears witness by putting the last first — by elevating the weak, the overlooked, and the forgotten — because that is where Christ has chosen to dwell, and where the kingdom of God is already breaking in.

I wish I’d stumbled across these words in time for last Sunday’s sermon. They say, more simply and more truthfully, what I was reaching for.

Train the Eye, Follow the Finger, See the Lamb

David Herbert1 Comment

In a world shaped by global empires, Isaiah and John the Baptist train our eyes to see differently – to notice where God’s light truly shines for all nations. This sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Year A) reflects on Isaiah 49:1-7 and John 1:29-42.

John doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t explain.
He points.

“Look,” he says.
“There.”

We follow his eye.
We follow his finger.

This is the beginning of John’s gospel — the first chapter.
This is what John the Evangelist wants us to see first.
He wants us to follow John the Baptist’s trained finger, his trained eye.

“Look, the Lamb of God.”

He wants the people around him to see what he sees,
the person he’s pointing to.

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

His finger is not trained on a figure of strength or certainty,
but on a lamb.

Many of you know what lambs are like:
how easily they are lost,
how dependent they are,
how little control they have over their lives.
Their vulnerability is well known.

The proverb “like lambs to the slaughter” captures not just their vulnerability,
but the vulnerability of the powerless —
those whose lives are shaped by decisions made elsewhere.

And slaughtered this lamb would have been,
had Joseph not been warned in a dream
to flee Bethlehem
and escape Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.

Our eldest son gave us vouchers for the RSC in Stratford.
We used them to see the Shakespeare Theatre production of The BFG.

The giants loomed over us as enormous puppets,
their movements controlled by visible operators pulling the strings.
They were noisy, careless — care-less — devouring powers.
They eat children for breakfast.

You could name the giants of scripture,
the ones who devour children.
There is Herod slaughtering the innocents,
and Pharaoh ordering the death of Hebrew babies.

It is the giants who make our news,
who make our wars,
who force people to flee for their lives,
who devour the lives of children
in Gaza, in Ukraine,
in gas chambers and killing fields,
who threaten to gobble up nations.

All except the BFG — the Big Friendly Giant —
despised by the other giants
because he would rather eat snodcumber
than eat children.

His eye is trained on Sophie,
a small, overlooked orphan girl,
without the protection of parents,
trying to survive inside a giant institution.

Isaiah has the same trained eye.

He looks at the world honestly —
at kings and rulers and empires.
He knows who makes the news.
He knows who decides who lives safely
and who must flee.

And then he looks again.

And what he hears
is not God addressing the giants,
but God speaking to the one
they have already decided does not matter:

“Thus says the Lord…
to one deeply despised,
abhorred by the nations,
the servant of rulers.”

In the train of their eyes
and the direction of their fingers,
both Isaiah and John the Baptist
are training our eyes.

They train us to look again —
to see as God sees,
to behold the Lamb,
to honour the despised,
refusing to let ridicule decide
where we look.

Because most of us have been trained —
almost without noticing —
to look first at the giants.
to follow the headlines.
to measure importance
by size, certainty, and control.

The giants have trained our eyes.

They ridicule the way John looks,
and Isaiah looks,
and the way we look
when we dare to notice the damage they cause.
They want us to look another way.
They want us to look their way.

Giants don’t just dominate by force.
They dominate by shaping
what is respectable to notice.
That is why they battle for control of attention
and of the media.

They hate it when people see
what they would rather keep hidden.
They accuse those who honour the despised
of being over-sensitive, unrealistic,
ideological, divisive — woke.
They want us to look stupid.

Classic giant behaviour
is to make compassion look naïve,
attentiveness look hysterical,
listening look weak,
and those who point to the crushed
look ridiculous.

The giants are not afraid of anger
as much as they are afraid of people who are awake —
awake enough to notice who is being crushed,
and awake enough not to look away.

They despise and abhor them.

This is how the giants train our eyes,
but the church is the place
where eyes are trained differently.

Not because we are braver,
or purer,
or better informed —
but because we have learned
where to look.

Week by week,
we are gathered and retrained.

We are taught to say,
not “Look how big the giants are,”
but “Look, the Lamb of God.”

And when we do,
our eyes change.

We begin to see differently —
to see the ones the giants have already dismissed,
the ones they ridicule,
the ones they despise and abhor.

And we discover that these are the ones
who are the apple of God’s eye.

This is how the church becomes light for the nations —
not by speaking louder than the world,
not by competing with the giants,
not by being big, or even successful
(that is the giants’ way),
but by honouring the very ones the giants ignore:
the lambs,
the small voices,
the ones whose lives are shaped by decisions made elsewhere.

By seeing them.
By standing with them.
By refusing to look away.

The trained eye looks away from giants
to the overlooked.

Look, the Lamb of God —
the one they despised, abhorred, and crucified,
and in him,
all the lambs
upon whom the world piles its sin.