Soak the Bloke: Baptism and Christening

David Herbert2 Comments

This sermon came at the end of the liturgical Season of Creation, St Francis of Assisi Day. The theme of the season has been Living Water.
Well, the waters were alive with the sound of music as we had an adult baptism in the village church of Napton.
I simply took the words of Paul from our reading for the day:
“I want to know Christ”.

Two words that both mark our beginning:
Baptism and Christening.

Words used interchangeably,
You say I was baptised,
I say I was Christened.

And occasionally someone will say,
I’ve been Christened
but I don’t think I’ve been baptised,
without realising
they are one and the same thing.

You’re christened when you’re baptised.

Baptism describes the physical process
of being soaked, drenched,
submerged in water.

And the places of baptism
include rivers, streams, the sea,

and the fonts in churches,

which take our minds back
to the waters God has brought us
out of and through:

the waters of chaos at the beginning of creation,
the flood of Noah
crowned with a rainbow,

the waters through which
people escaped slavery
and found freedom.

The River Jordan
where Jews went to be baptised by John,
Jesus among them,
where the voice of God was found and heard,

the broken waters
of our mothers
through which we are born,

and all the rivers, streams,
tributaries, canals
that make up the
physical and psychological features
of all our lives:

and the waters we see
stilled in the storm:

the waters
seen by the author of the book of Revelation (ch.22)
as the water of life,
bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
through the middle of the street of the city
with trees on either side
yielding their fruit
month after month,
and leaves for the healing of nations

But water does not always behave this way.

The living water that gives us life
can also engulf us.

We come through the waters of birth,
but there are waters that flood,
waters that destroy homes and coastlines,
and waters that drown.

The sea that brings us home
can take us under.

By these waters
we all live.
Waters alive with danger.

Over 70% of earth is covered with water.
We are mostly water,
drying and wrinkling with age.

And some of us live on water,
like Connor, in a narrow boat,
making a living doing repairs.

Baptism, then, is the physicality
of getting soaked.
When we baptise Connor
it will be Soak the Bloke.


And then there is our second word:

Christening.

If baptism is what happens to the body,
christening is about belonging.

Being in Christ.

And Connor is here today because he wants that.
He’s come here himself,
because of what has been happening in his life.

He doesn’t need godparents.
He needs brothers and sisters,
and friends as his sponsors –
all of us together,
a body soaked in good news:

People who will walk with him
now he stands with Paul
in wanting to know Christ.

That’s what Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians,
our reading today:
I want to know Christ.

And we’ll help him, won’t we?

We’ll remind him when he forgets
that he belongs.

We’ll remind him when he forgets
that he is a child of God,
beloved.

We’ll show him
that we want to know Christ too.

We’ll learn together.
We’ll pray together.

We’ll help him
into the hard work of prayer,
that prayer isn’t about finding the right words,
but finding the silence
in which we can listen
for the voice
that only speaks love,
that says good things about us.

All of us know how hard that is,
because there are so many other voices:
voices that tell us
we are not good enough,
that we have failed,
that we should be different from who we are.

Those voices make it hard to believe
we are beloved, children of God.

Connor, remember this day.
Sunday, October 4th, 2026,
the day we also celebrate
St Francis of Assisi.

Do you all remember your anniversary of baptism?
Do you know when it is?
I suggest you find out when it is if you don’t already know.

It’s only in later years
that I have started to remember
the anniversary of my baptism:
March 11th 1951,
brought into Christ
as a baby alongside my twin sister.

I now regard that anniversary
as more important than others,
the anniversaries of ordination.

how amazing the grace
of baptism,
reinforced later by Confirmation.

I dread to think
how I might have turned out,
how difficult I may have been,
how hurtful to myself
and others,
how I might have spent my days,
wasted my life,
without that anchor of trust
forged in the waters of my years.

Like all of us,
I’ve been distracted.

Distracted by voices
that have nothing to do
with the voice
that called me beloved.

Misled by bad news
when I needed good news.

Caught up in fears
of things that might happen
and things that never did.

Catastrophising
when I could have been listening.

I suggest we all dig out that day
we were baptised,
and remember the day.

Especially those of us
who were baptised as babies:

a day we may not remember,
but a day when the Church
gathered around us
because it wanted us,
like Paul,
to know Christ.

Even if, over the years,
we have forgotten.

So, Connor,
please be gentle with us.

We want you to walk with us
in getting to know Christ.

But there are times
when we forget our call.

Times when we get distracted,
misled by other voices,
forgetful of the voice
that has been calling us
beloved all our days,

the voice that,
as Henri Nouwen put it,
Spoke good things about us
“long before our parents,
teachers, spouses, children and friends
loved or wounded us.”

That is the voice
we are all here to listen for.

The voice that says:
You are beloved.

So, Connor,
we will walk with you.

And perhaps you will help us
to walk with Christ too,

And perhaps you will help us
listen again.

Because the work of the Church
is never finished.

We are all still learning
to hear the good news.

We are still wanting to know Christ

Creation in Christ

David HerbertLeave a comment

Today sees the debut of the Festival of Creation in Christ, on the first Sunday of September. A few words for a new festival: about words we have lost, the Word that was there in the beginning, and the grace of the world that sustains us. Scripture for the day is Colossians 1:15-20 and John 1:1-14.

Creation in Christ

Here’s a question.

When did the Word first become flesh?

Was it just at the birth of Jesus,
as John the Evangelist writes?

Was it in our very beginning,
with the creation of human life?

Or was it that great fifth day
when God created the great sea monsters
and every living creature that moves
of every kind,
with which the sea waters swarm,
and every winged bird of every kind?

Was it that day?

When God saw that it was good.
So good that he blessed them,
saying,

Be fruitful and multiply.

Was it that day,

that day,
with those four first days all leading up to it,

the creation of Day and Sky,
the gathering of the waters
to make the earth,
the earth producing vegetation,
and then those two great lights,

Sister Sun
and Brother Moon,

Was it that day
that the word of creation
became flesh?

And what was that word?
The Word in the very beginning.

And what did that word mean
when the Word was first spoken?

We do well to wonder
in the world of today,

with the earth as it is,
broken,
Stolen
abused
by greed and exploitation,

and repaired
protected
and cherished
by those who love it.

Today we celebrate
the Festival of Christ in Creation.

This is a new festival.
It is making its debut TODAY
of all days
and comes with the backing
of all the major denominations of the Church.

Think about that.
We are here for the very beginning
of a festival we are going to celebrate
the first Sunday of September every year.

So, here we are,
at the beginning of something new,
being invited to look again
at something very old,
as old as time itself.

Creation.
Christ.
The Word.
Flesh.

And perhaps we are going to need
some new words
to help us see it again
in these trying times of climate change,
when we’ve lost words,
the names of species who’ve disappeared
or we hardly see,
when so many of our youngsters despair
at the inactivity of governments,
and the carelessness of institutions,
with the rise of climate protest,
sometimes violent and desperate,
and the obstinacy of climate-change deniers.

How are we going to navigate this change?
How are we going to get through this valley
without voices to guide us?

Voices that live with
the problems and challenges.
Voices that won’t run away.
Voices that will help us find new words
and new ways of seeing.

We praise Christ in creation
in the hymn called The Servant King.
There is that wonderfully poetic line
about the hands of Christ:
Hands that flung stars into space.

I thought I’d mention a few of those stars,
stars flung into our space
by the hands of Christ,
the Word who was there
at the very beginning.

This is a constellation of poets, artists and theologians.
Stars to help us see.

I don’t have the whole constellation.
There are so many stars to discover.
You will have some stars of your own.
But here are a few stars
who have helped me to see differently.
I want to point them out to you.

Two old stars, both Davids.

First, there’s David Attenborough
who seems to have spent his life
dropping his voice
to let other species speak,
warning us of the dangers they face
as he witnesses the wonders of creation.

Then there’s David Hockney,
who spent his life helping us see
the joy and diversity of changing landscapes
in his paintings of Yorkshire, California and France.

There’s Robin Wall Kimmerer.

She is a scientist and a Native American,
a botanist exploring indigenous wisdom
and the teaching of plants.

She explores the ways in which
the earth loves us and cares for us.

She taught her daughters to garden,
so that they would always have a mother to love them,
long after she was gone.
She writes about ther native Potawatomi language
where the word for plants
can be translated as
“Those who take care of us.”

Think about that.
Plants.
Those who take care of us.

And then there’s Andy Goldsworthy,
the sculptor who takes us out walking
to see what can be made
of earth and dust,
tree and stone
and leaves us in wonder
with his standing figures
taking in the view
of far horizons.

And Robert MacFarlane
with his beautiful books
recovering lost words
and broadening our vocabulary
to describe the wonder and scope
of the natural world,
working with ancient, indigenous wisdom
to argue for the right to life
of all that has been brought to life,
including the earth and her rivers.

He is helping us recover a way of paying attention
and find some of the words we have lost for creation.

And there there is Michael, showing my grandaughter that not all tomatoes are red.
Photo by Dwight Sipler

And then there is Michael,
an 80 year old gardener
who has an allotment across the road from mine,

who went out of his way
who thrilled my 3 year old granddaughter
by showing her
that some tomatoes are yellow
and not just red.

And there are the poets,
so many of them.
I single out two.

Mary Oliver.
She had a difficult home life,
and was “saved by the beauty of the world”.
Her poetry comes from the margin of things,
focused on the quiet of nature,
reminding us of our place “in the family of things”,
as in her most famous poem Wild Geese
where she acknowledges loneliness and despair
and the belonging we find in nature:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

And Wendell Berry,
a farmer and poet from Kentucky
who died just this last week (monday).
He knew despair
and what to do when it grows.
He wrote in
The Peace of Wild Things:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in the beauty of the water, and the great
heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Something rather strange has happened
in this sermon
for the first Festival of Christ in Creation.

It’s as if we’ve started a theological experiment,
hearing voices we may never heard before
in our preaching and teaching –

the voices of poets, and artists,
scientists and botanists,

voices from ancient wisdom,
native, indigenous voices
so often drowned out by progress,

the sound of still waters,
the earth and rivers,

the cry of the geese,
the rest of the wood drake

the mountains, hills and trees

and the despair of our children.

And perhaps that is what a theological experiment does.
It makes us hear the familiar differently.

So we bring all those voices
back to the two voices
with which we began:
John and Colossians.

And suddenly,
“All things”
sounds different.

All things came into being through him.
All things were created through him
and for him.
All things hold together in him.

The Word was there
when the stars were flung into space.
The Word was there
when the earth was formed,
when the rivers ran,
when the trees took root,
when the geese first lifted their wings.

And then,
astonishingly,
the Word became flesh.

Not just flesh in the beginning,
but flesh now.
Flesh that walks among us,
flesh that knows our despair,
flesh that asks us to look again,
to listen again,
to wonder again,
to love again.

Because this is the good news
at the heart of Christ in Creation:

the world is not simply there for us.
It is through Christ,
and for Christ,
and held together in Christ.

And if Christ has not abandoned
anything he has made,
then neither can we.

Think about that.

Perhaps that is why
we have gathered here today,
at the very beginning
of this new festival:

to see the stars again,
to hear the voices again,
and to discover,
perhaps,
that the grace of the world
has been here all along.

Foolish Enough to Follow?

David HerbertLeave a comment

Are we foolish enough to get behind Jesus? That’s the question explored in this sermon inspired by reading Romans 12:9-end and Matthew 16:21-end, with some help from Cecil Collins. Some decisions are sensible. Following Jesus means learning a different kind of wisdom: the foolishness of love, hope and resurrection.

To go to Jerusalem these days sounds foolish, doesn’t it?
Because it seems dangerous.
Why go there when there’s a war on?

For Jesus to go to Jerusalem sounds foolish, doesn’t it?

To go to Jerusalem ”to suffer many things” sounds crazy.

To go to Jerusalem knowing there are people wanting to trap you –
the elders,
the chief priests
and the teachers of the law,

knowing it’s going to get you killed,

well that is the height of folly,
and Peter shouts STOP.

Stop being so crazy.
There must be another way.
The sensible way.

But this is the foolishness of Christ:
to go that way anyway.

Not because Jesus doesn’t know the danger.
He does.
This is no accident.
No wrong turning.
No unfortunate series of events.

Jesus sees the trap.
And walks towards it.

Peter sees the same danger –
and says, Don’t go.

Perhaps we understand Peter.

It is the sensible thing to say.
If you know there is trouble ahead, don’t walk into it.
If you know there is danger, keep away.
If you know someone is going to hurt you, find another way.

Those are the rules we live by.
And usually, they are sensible rules.

But Jesus seems to be living by another rule.

From that time on …

From the time after Peter had answered Jesus’s question:
“Who do you say that I am?”
From the time when Peter had recognised him as the Christ …
from that time on,
Jesus began to explain what being the Christ would mean.

And perhaps at the same time,
what following the Christ would mean.

Because this is where it gets even more foolish.

Jesus does not simply say:
This is the road I must take.

He says:
“Follow me”.

The foolishness of Christ
becomes the foolishness of discipleship.

Not just Jerusalem.
Not just the Cross.
Not just some great act of courage or sacrifice.

I have included on the readings sheet a drawing by Cecil Collins.
It is called The Resurrection.

Cecil Collins, Resurrection. 1952

Collins was fascinated by the figure of the fool,
the holy fool,
and by what he called the foolishness of Christ.

He wondered whether too much theologising about the Cross
had overshadowed the active joy of the Resurrection.

Because even,
perhaps especially,
in the face of darkness and despair,
there is something foolish about resurrection.

Peter could not yet see that.
When Jesus spoke about Jerusalem
Peter could only hear the cross.
and cannot yet hear the resurrection.

Suffering was all he could see ahead.

Because that is the grown up thing to see,
to see the risk, and then to avoid it.
Peter was being sensible.

And so were the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law.
They, like Peter, were all trying to avoid trouble,
and in their different ways,
trying to stop Jesus.

Cecil Collins calls these grown-ups,
these sensible ones,
“dull religious workers”.

Peter wants to save Jesus from trouble.
They want to stop Jesus causing trouble.

Peter was being the grown-up in the room.
The sensible one.

That’s why Peter said:
Never, Lord.
Don’t go.

And Jesus says to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan”

I’ve always thought of that as a rebuke.
Now, I’m not so sure.
Perhaps it is.
Peter is standing in the way,
in front of him,
trying to stop him.

But perhaps there is something else there too.
“Get behind me”
“Not in front of me,
telling me which way to go.
Get behind me.
Following.”

Because almost immediately Jesus says:
“If any want to become my followers …”

Besides inviting us to follow his foolishness,
Jesus also insists that we have to become like little children.

“Truly I tell you,
unless you change and become like children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
Even in the face of darkness and despair,
we have to become like children,
rather than those “dull religious workers”.

And now Paul helps us bring this home.

He helps us see what this foolish discipleship looks like
on a Tuesday afternoon.

And while Jesus says, Get behind me,
Paul says, in effect, And now follow him home.

And the first thing Paul says is:
love must be sincere.
Not performed.
Not polite on the outside while we are seething on the inside.
Sincere.

And then:
cling to what is good.
Because that is part of the sincerity of love.

When everything around us says,
“Look after yourself,”
cling to what is good.

When everything around us says,
“Give as good as you get,”
cling to what is good.

When everything around us says,
“You know what they deserve,”
cling to what is good.

And then Paul says:

Be joyful in hope,
patient in affliction,
faithful in prayer.

Even in the face of darkness and despair.
Which sounds foolish.
Because hope is easy when things are going well.

But joy in hope when things are going badly?
That is foolishness.

Patience when you are hurting?
Foolishness.

Prayer when you cannot see what prayer is changing?
Perhaps that is foolishness too.

And then:

Practise hospitality.

Open the door.
Make room.
Let somebody in.
Even somebody who isn’t quite like you.

And then Paul gets to something even harder.
Bless those who persecute you.

Really?
Bless them?
Not put them right?
Not get your own back?
Not tell everybody what they have done?
Not even curse them under your breath?

Bless them.
Because that goes completely against our natural inclination.
And that natural inclination is the very self Jesus asks us to deny.

The self that says:
Protect yourself.
Defend yourself.
Make sure you don’t look weak.
Don’t let them get away with it.
That is the self we are being asked to leave behind
as we get behind Jesus
and follow him.

And Paul knows how difficult that is.
So he goes on:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
There is the world’s rule.
And here is Jesus’ rule.

Don’t repay evil with evil.
And then Paul goes further:
If your enemy is hungry,
feed him.

If he is thirsty,
give him something to drink.

And perhaps that is where this really comes down to earth.
Because it is easy to say,
“I love my enemies.”

It is rather harder to feed one.
It is easy to pray for peace in the Middle East.
It is harder to make peace with the person who lives next door.
It is easy to believe in forgiveness.
It is harder when the person who needs forgiving is sitting across the room.

This is what foolishness looks like on a Tuesday afternoon.

Not doing something spectacular.
Doing something that makes no sense
according to the rules we normally live by.

Feeding someone who has hurt us.
Being kind to someone who has been unkind.
Making room for someone we would rather keep at a distance.
Refusing to take revenge.
Choosing love when anger would be so much easier.

And perhaps Paul is asking us:
What would happen
if we stopped asking,
“What do they deserve?”
and started asking,
“What does love require?”

Because that is the foolishness of Christ:
love that comes down from the mountain
and comes home,
love that doesn’t give what we deserve,
but love that gives us what we need,
and love that takes the road to Jerusalem
knowing exactly what waits there.

Scar City

David Herbert4 Comments

This sermon is about the crumbs that fall from the sandwich formed by the two feeding stories in Matthew’s gospel: the Feeding of the 5000 and the Feeding of the 4000. Between the two, there’s a woman who talks about the crumbs that drop from that sandwich. (It’s inspired by the readings appointed for today, Trinity 11A, Isaiah 56:1-8 and Matthew 15:21-28)

I’m calling the place where this happens Scar City.
OK. I’ve made that up.
The gospel tells us that Jesus was in the region of Tyre and Sidon.
But I’m telling you,
it’s Scar City.
And it’s where we all live.

Scar City,

where we’re all scared to death
there’s not enough,
not enough resources,
not enough time,
not enough money,
not enough room,
not enough bread.

Scar City.
The locals, who,
– for the most part,
rush around, face down –
pronounce it Scarcity.

Today, in this place where we live,
we are introduced to an array of characters:

There’s the exiled
the foreigners,
the eunuchs,
the Canaanite woman,
her daughter,
– and the dogs!

And they all have one thing in common.
They are all outsiders.

This is no new WOKE nonsense.
This is ancient biblical business.

This is always what the people of God have been engaged with.

Isaiah’s writing goes back over 2500 years.
He is the one who introduces us to the plight of the exiles,
the foreigner and the eunuch,
to those particular people who have been told
by those taking control of their borders:
“You do not belong”
“There is no room for you here”

That’s the trouble in ScarCity.
The fear of ScarCity is one of the forces that produces exclusion.
And it’s here that the scriptures,
treasured and curated by those excluded,
land in our lap to challenge us,

like the eunuchs,
Who we might be tempted to pass over very quickly,
not quite knowing what to do with them.

But Isaiah won’t let us.

The eunuchs are people whose bodies
have been used to tell them
that they have no future among God’s people.
No children.
No descendants.
No name that will carry on.

And God says:
I will give them a name,
a name better than sons and daughters;
an everlasting name
that will endure for ever.

In other words,
God isn’t simply making an exception
for people who don’t fit the rules.
God is changing the rules,
changing the rule of the world,
the rule of scarcity,
for the rule of the kingdom.

In that kingdom rule
it is God who decides who belongs,
and it’s God’s way to keep gathering,
more and more, more and more.
And where do they all come from?
They come from outside, outsiders.

Here’s God’s rule:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”

Isaiah sees God building a house.
It’s the same house talked about by Jesus in John’s gospel,
the house with many rooms,
with so much room.

Isaiah gives the house a name:
it’s a “house of prayer for all nations”
(or “for all people”).

But every house needs a table.
A house without a table is empty.
A table is a sign that the house is a home,
a place of belonging and a place of invitation.
There are rules about who sits where,
and who doesn’t sit anywhere.

Matthew sets the table in today’s gospel.
He sets it between two other tables:
the fields in which Jesus feeds 5000
(plus women and children)
and in which Jesus feeds 4000.

Between those two stories comes this:
a foreign woman coming to Jesus
to ask for help,
because her daughter is demon-possessed
and suffering terribly.

The disciples wanted to send her away.
Jesus also was dismissive.
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”, he said.
“It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

“Yes it is, Lord” persisted the woman.
Yes it is.

Matthew doesn’t call her a foreigner or a Gentile woman.
He calls her a Canaanite.
She comes from the people Israel displaced
when it claimed this land as its own.

And here she is,
not demanding the land back,
not demanding the children’s bread,
but asking for crumbs.

She takes Jesus to the table
and she shows him that even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from their master’s table.

She doesn’t suggest that Jesus take bread from one mouth
and put it into hers.
She simply points out
that there is something about bread
that makes crumbs.

There is enough to fall.
There is enough for those who are not sitting at the table yet.

This woman,
who has been called a dog,
who the disciples wanted to shoo away,
is the one who understands
the abundance of the table.

She is the neighbour
who comes from the other side
of an ancient boundary
and teaches God’s people
that there is room at the table.

She is one of the “still others” Isaiah talks about.
They all have names, histories and memories –
and sometimes they arrive at our table
carrying a history that we would rather not remember.

She refuses to accept that the table
is as small as Jesus and his disciples made it
and reveals the only table that fits
the house God is building,
where all are welcome,
all are fed:
the foreigner,
the eunuch,
the exile.

It’s the table we see prepared for us in Psalm 23,
the table God prepares for us
in the presence of those who trouble us,
who say there isn’t enough
in this Scar City.

And it is this table,
where we gather,
where there is so much to feed on,
where still others, outsiders,
will be gathered beside us,
to teach us the ways of the table
in the kingdom,
in the house of prayer for all people,
in the house prepared for us
with room enough for all those excluded
by the rule of Scar City.

Those who live in Scar City
insist there’s not enough room.
But those who live for the kingdom of God
persist: Yes, there is. Yes, there is.

When we come to  Communion
we walk right into this gospel.
God makes the room
around the table where we gather.
We taste the proof.
Is there enough for sinners like us?
Yes, there is. Yes, there is.
And more besides.

The Arithmetic of the Kingdom: Where Compassion Comes Before Counting

David HerbertLeave a comment

Our world counts scarcity. God’s Kingdom discovers abundance. This reflection explores how Isaiah’s invitation, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and the Eucharist widen our imagination and teach us the arithmetic of grace.

It has been such a privilege to come alongside you over these three years,
to take my place with you among those whom Isaiah invites:
the thirsty,
those with no money,
those who come to listen that they may live;
and to take my place with you among the crowds gathered around Jesus;
learning with you and discovering with you
ever more of the Kingdom of God.

It has been a joy, a privilege and a responsibility
to preside at your Communion,
your Eucharist of celebration and thanksgiving,
the Mass that sends us out into God’s mission;
to proclaim that the Lord is here and his Spirit is with us;
to hear again the Scriptures appointed for the day;
to witness your love for one another;
and with you to learn the way of God’s Kingdom.

Because the Kingdom has its own way of doing things.
It has its own economy, where everything is gift.

In Isaiah’s vision, those with no money are told to come and eat.

Come all you who are thirsty,
and you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat
without money, without cost.

This is not how the world does business:
it is not how the world’s economy works.

But this is God’s economy in which everything is gift and grace.

When we turn to the gospel, we hear about the Feeding of the 5000.
We know this so well.
But we might never have put two and two together
(that’s the way Noah did arithmetic!)
and realised that this is the crowd Isaiah was inviting,
or one very like it,
the thirsty, and those with no money,
giving ear to Jesus,
listening that they may live.

They had listened long into the day,
the disciples wanted to send them away,
so they could buy food for themselves from the villages.

Jesus insisted: “They don’t need to go away.”
“They can stay here. You give them something to eat.”

The disciples pointed out that all they had were five loaves and two fish.
In their hands, in their minds, in their hearts, they knew
that was never enough.

But Jesus took what they had.

Jesus only ever takes what we have,
never what we don’t have,
not even wishing we had more.

Jesus took what they had,
sat everybody down.
Taking what the disciples had,
he looked to heaven,
gave thanks and broke the loaves,
gave them to the disciples
for the disciples to give to the people.

The disciples must have been amazed.
They thought they had nowhere near enough,
but Jesus had made it more than enough.

And that is the arithmetic of the kingdom,
where compassion comes before counting
and leaves enough for everyone.

The arithmetic of the world adds things up
and persuades us that there is never enough,
that resources are scarce.
The arithmetic of the world is always looking for more.

The arithmetic of the kingdom
takes the little we have, and carries on adding
until the little we have becomes abundance:
enough for friends and for strangers,
enough for neighbours and those who hate us.

Matthew adds it all up for us.
There were 5000.
Then there were the women and children.
And then there were twelve baskets left over,
twelve baskets for all the tribes of Israel,
twelve baskets for all the people of God.

This arithmetic of the kingdom,
(call it multiplication if you like)
makes disciples confident
that they can repeat the call of Isaiah.

Come all you who are thirsty,
and you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat
without money, without cost.

The Feeding of the 5000 by Eularia Clarke – part of the Methodist Art Collection

The Feeding of the Five Thousand was never meant to be remembered as a one-off miracle.
It was a sign of the Kingdom:
a sign that whenever Jesus gathers people,
there is room for everyone,
enough for everyone,
and grace enough to spare.

The first Christians recognised that.

They saw in the breaking of bread on the hillside
the same Lord who took bread in the upper room,
the same Lord who was recognised in the breaking of bread at Emmaus,
the same Lord who still gathers his people around his table.

So every Eucharist becomes another glimpse of the Kingdom.

Here too,
what little we bring
is received with thanksgiving.

Here too,
the hungry are fed.

Here too,
strangers become brothers and sisters.

Here too,
God’s arithmetic overcomes ours.

In a few moments we shall pray:

Holy Father,
 who gathered us here around the table of your Son
 to share this meal with the whole household of God…

Notice where that prayer ends.

Not here.

It ends with God’s future.

Gather people of every race and language
 to share in the eternal banquet
 of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Every Eucharist is a rehearsal for the future.

Every time we gather around this table,
we practise the Kingdom.

For a moment,
we become the world
as God always intended it to be.

Amen.

Love Takes Root in the Little We Are Left With

David HerbertLeave a comment

This week’s readings (Romans 8:26-end and Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52) ask one of the most searching questions in the New Testament: Can anything separate us from the love of God? Paul answers with a resounding “No.” Jesus then invites us to discover why—not in the spectacular or the powerful, but in the smallest, most easily overlooked signs of God’s kingdom. Perhaps the first step in following Jesus is simply learning to see what he sees.

Can anything separate us from the love of God?

There could hardly be a greater contrast than the contrast between ourselves and the people Paul was addressing in his letter to the church in Rome.

Just imagine what they were going through.

Paul gives us a glimpse:

hardship,
distress,
persecution,
famine,
nakedness,
peril
and sword.

This is no rhetorical exaggeration.
Paul is writing to communities living under the shadow of the Roman Empire,
where persecution, imprisonment, poverty and execution were genuine possibilities.
These are the lived realities of many of the Christians to whom he writes.

Over the years I have become increasingly aware that much of Scripture comes to us through the experience of people who were oppressed, enslaved, exiled or hated.

We read Scripture, as it were, over their shoulders.

Not that we do not know suffering ourselves.
We face other hardships.
Other powers can seem overwhelming.
Other fears can drain the life from us.

And so we, too, may hear this letter as though it were addressed to us.

We hear Paul insist that nothing in all creation—
not hardship or distress,
persecution or famine,
nakedness, peril or sword
—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Neither death nor life.
Neither angels nor rulers.
Neither things present nor things to come.
Nor powers.
Neither height nor depth.
Nor anything else in all creation.

It is one of the boldest claims in the New Testament.
Paul doesn’t merely hope this is true.
He is utterly convinced of it.

And if Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God,
Jesus tells us why.

The answer comes in what Jesus sees, and who he sees.

Who he sees first are the least, the last and the lost in the ways of the world.
And he sees the little they are left with,
and the little we have.

He sees in the little people have all the signs of the kingdom,
the love of God, the presence of God, the rule of God.
And he wants us to see what he sees in the things he points out.

There’s the tiny seed – the tiniest of seeds.
There’s the yeast in the bread.

There’s all the things overlooked by the powers that be
with their attention preoccupied with what is bigger and better in their own eyes.

Jesus looks at the ordinary world and sees the kingdom of God.

A seed.
Some yeast.
A field.

Where others see almost nothing, Jesus sees everything.

He sees the tiny mustard seed growing to the huge shelter for the birds of the field.
He sees the yeast folded into the dough for the daily bread that keeps us going.
He sees a field and sees the treasure hidden within it that is never going to be found by those looking for bigger and better things.

He is always asking “What have you got – let me see?”
“What have you got?” Jesus asked
“Five loaves and two fish – what’s the good in that?”, the disciples replied.

“Just wait and see” Jesus said

The disciples see five loaves and Jesus sees a feast.

That’s the miracle.

Jesus sees the ways of God in the little people have,
and he points them out for the world to see:
the love of God,
the presence of God,
the kingdom of God,
hidden in the little things of their lives,

not in the big things.

The kingdom of God is revealed in such little things
and we are captivated by what Jesus sees.

To follow Jesus is to follow his finger –
to look where he is looking,
To notice who he notices,
to treasure what he treasures,

until, little by little,
we begin to see the world through his eyes.

And that is why Paul can say,
with such astonishing confidence,

that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

It is true: the powers can destroy bodies,
they can imprison us,
they can persecute us and hate us for all sorts of reasons,
they can starve us, they can threaten us
but none of that can separate us from the love of God
because God’s love is always finding somewhere to take root

in a seed
in some yeast
in a field
in five loaves and two fish
in a child
in the poor in spirit
in the meek
in those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
in those who mourn
in those who are persecuted
in a cross
in an empty tomb

Nothing can separate us from the love of God
because God’s love is always finding somewhere to take root
in the little we are left with.

After hardship,
after grief,
after disappointment
after persecution,
after loss.
what are we left with?

We don’t always come to Christ with abundance.
Sometimes we come with the little we are left with.

And Jesus says, “let me see”.

“Let me see what you have,
not what you haven’t,
nor what you wish you had.”

His love takes root in the little we have.

In the little faith.
In the little hope.
In this little church.
In this little time

he plants a tiny seed

pointing us to the way of the kingdom,
showing us that this is what the kingdom of God is like.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God

because God’s love is always finding somewhere to take root
in the little we are left with.

A Field of Grace

David HerbertLeave a comment

What do we do when we find fault? That question has stayed with me all week as I’ve reflected on the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43), while the Warwickshire wheat fields have been turning wonderfully white for harvest.

Have you noticed how we’re all expected to be experts these days?

We review restaurants.
We rate hotels.
We comment on politicians.
We analyse football managers.
We critique television programmes.
We even write reviews of the products we buy.

Blimey. We even have to review our recent experience at the dentist and how we were treated in our call to TalkTalk – all of which is recorded for training purposes!

When did we suddenly become experts in all of these things?
When did I become an expert on education, politics, liturgy, the church, other people’s motives.
It seems we have become opinionated about everything.
We’ve been trained to be critical and even unhappy about this, that and the other.

We’ve become Fault Finders,

When did that happen?

We all know the answer to that.

It began in the beginning.

It was then we found fault
and someone to blame.
Long before Jesus,
there’s always been fault in our stars,
even in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus tells a story for people like us.
The Parable of the Weeds is for Fault Finders.

it’s the farmer’s servants who are the Fault Finders.
They find fault in the field.
The fault in the field
is the weeds that had come up
just when the wheat sprouted
and started to grow ears.
“Do you want us to dig them out?”
the farmhands asked the farmer.

The farmer,
who had been sowing and harvesting for years,
since Adam was a lad, says,
“No.
Because when you dig the weeds up
you’ll also uproot what I planted.”

It’s as simple as that.

He told it as a parable of the Kingdom.
He even begins it with the words,
“The kingdom of heaven is like …..”
so that those with ears may hear and understand
that this is the way of the kingdom of God
trusting the Farmer while wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest.

For those with ears to hear,
Jesus is offering a new understanding,
a new way of being in a world at fault,
with others in whom we find fault.

It is the seed of an idea
God scatters in the field
of our imagination.
It is a seed of an idea
that has to grow in the crowded field of our imagination,
alongside fear, disappointment, bitterness, anxiety,

The farmer is teaching his servants to see things differently,
and Jesus, in telling this story,
is teaching his disciples to see things differently.

It isn’t wrong to notice faults.

The servants were right.
There were weeds in the field.

Jesus isn’t asking us to pretend that evil isn’t real,
or that wrong doesn’t matter.

The question is not whether we see faults.
The question is how we see them.

The servants saw the weeds
and could see little else.

The farmer saw the weeds too.
But he also saw the wheat.
He saw the harvest.
He saw the damage that impatient judgement would do.

The servants wanted to solve the immediate problem.
The farmer wanted to protect what he loved.

Perhaps that’s what Jesus means when he says,
“Let anyone with ears listen.”

Learn to see the field as the Farmer sees it.

Learn to see faults with the eyes of love.

Not denying them.
Not excusing them.
But keeping them in the larger field of grace.

The Church has been learning that lesson for two thousand years, and it shows in the genius of our liturgy.

Every Sunday we acknowledge the faults we’ve found in ourselves.

We don’t ignore them.
We don’t excuse them.
We confess them.

Not privately, but together.

In the hearing of our brothers and sisters.

I have always loved the Roman Catholic confession:

I confess to almighty God
 and to you, my brothers and sisters…

It is wonderfully honest.

It tells the truth.

It doesn’t minimise our fault.

But neither does it linger there.

The confession is brief.
Grace is long.

We hear words of forgiveness.
We exchange the peace.
We’re even entrusted with the gospel.
We gather around one table.
We eat and drink together—
the same Jesus who was criticised for eating with tax collectors and sinners still feeds sinners today.

The Church has learnt something from the Farmer.

The question is not whether we see faults.
The question is how we see them.
Do they become the whole story?

Or do we see them in the larger field of grace?
Because the Farmer sees the weeds.
But he also sees the wheat.
He sees the harvest.

And he teaches us to look with his eyes.

To look at those we find fault with…
and to refuse to let their faults become the whole story.

To remember that they too are standing in the same field,
under the care of the same Farmer,
nourished by the same rain,
waiting for the same harvest.

Every one of us will leave church today and find fault with someone.
That isn’t difficult.

The question is what we see next.
Do we stop at the fault?
Or do we ask the Farmer to lend us his eyes?

Eyes that see the larger field of grace.
Eyes that see what he has planted.
Eyes that trust the harvest.

Finding the Way to Be Ourselves

David HerbertLeave a comment

We all know the feeling of becoming someone we never intended to be. This sermon, based in Romans 7:15-25 and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-end, explores how Paul and Jesus invite us not simply to try harder, but to discover another way of being human.

This is what I don’t understand.
The things I want to do, I don’t do.
I keep making plans
but something always seems to get in the way.
I don’t do the good I want to do

I keep becoming someone I never intended to be.

I wanted to be patient, but then I got tired.
I should have spent more time with my children when they were growing up,
but, you know, the pressures to always be working,
to make a good impression, to get on.
I didn’t want to worry so much, but those credit card bills kept coming.
I wanted to be generous, but never had anything left.
I wanted to be kinder, but ….

That’s what I don’t understand.

I’ve never quite become the person I wanted to be.

Do you get that?
Do you feel that?
Or am I on my own?

I know I’m not on my own because Paul felt it as well
and wrote about it in his letter to the Romans.
I don’t understand what I do.
What I want to do I do not do.
I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

He knew what all of us know
that there is this sad fact of life
that we are never quite as free to be ourselves as we imagine.

We imagine we’re free to be ourselves,
we imagine we’re self-made
but all the time we are being formed by the powers that be:


by advertising – (why would that be a multi-billion industry if it had no effect on persuading us to be and do differently?)
by social media
by our work place – and its politics and expectations
by our families
by our friends
by the news we consume
even by our churches
and the company we keep

All these things form us.
They have power over us.

Some of it works for our benefit, but
some of it teaches us to live by fear,
scarcity, competition and status.

Some of it wields a power over us
so that we don’t do the good we want to do
and finish up doing the things we hate doing.
Paul put it all down to sin.
I don’t understand what I do.
Why do I do what I hate doing?
We hear his conclusion:
“It’s not me. It’s sin living in me that does it.”

Paul speaks of sin as an occupying power
and he has been “taken prisoner”.
Paul isn’t describing a weak will
so much as humanity living under an oppressive regime.
It’s a regime larger than individual acts of wrongdoing.
It’s everything that enslaves us:
Systems of domination,
fear, violence, exploitation,
and the internalised habits they create.

Paul calls this Sin.
We might recognise it today in what we call
“the powers that be”
those forces, systems and habits
that shape us
until we no longer
know whose voice we’re listening to.

It’s the powers that be that diminish us
and steal our freedom to be
the people we would love to be.

The powers that be aren’t just them.
They’re more pervasive than that.
The powers that be are also inside us.

Their voices have become our inner voice.
We’ve learned their language,
They’re our self-talk
persuading us to measure ourselves by their standards
till we finish up cooperating with the very powers that diminish us.

This is what we don’t understand
because we are confused by the powers that be.

And so we turn to Christ.

He does understand.

He doesn’t begin by blaming us.
He begins by understanding us.

His understanding comes from experience.
The wise and learned have scoffed at him.
The powers that be have laughed him to scorn.

He praises his Father for hiding “these things” from the wise and learned
and revealing them only to “little children”

That’s always been the way with God.
Pharoah cannot see
Herod cannot see
Pilate cannot see
The chief priests cannot see.

The so-called “wise and learned”,
the so-called grown ups,
the so-called leaders
are looking in the wrong places,
with the wrong expectations
using the wrong measures.

They cannot see.
That’s why Jesus insisted
that we have to become as little children
to enter the kingdom of heaven.

But why children?

It’s not because children are innocent.
They’re not.
They can be devious and manipulative.
It’s not because children know less,

but because children are still teachable.

The “wise and learned” have already graduated.
They’ve stopped learning.
They think they know how the world works.
They know what success looks like,
who matters, who wins, who loses.
They think they know it all.
They think they’re experts.

Children are still learning.
“Learn from me.”

That may be the most important sentence in today’s gospel reading.
Jesus says,
Come to me.
Take my yoke.
Learn from me.

He’s inviting people into another school,
another imagination, another kingdom,
another way for being human
for those who become as little children,
vulnerable to all sorts of abuse
in the ways of the world and the powers that be,
and teachable …..

and for the weary.
The invitation is for those who become as little children
and the weary and burdened by modern life
which teaches us to desire things we don’t actually want:

to work more, to work harder,
to consume more, compete more, fear more,
leaving us less able to do the good we want to do.

The ones Jesus was inviting
were wearied and burdened
by the religious establishment
the social hierarchy,
the endless demands of honour and shame,
the burden of purity laws
as well as the crushing demands of empire.

Jesus understands
how we are bound to do what we don’t want to do,

and with mercy and compassion
he invites us
to come to him,
to join him
as our teacher.

Every kingdom forms people in its own image.
Every kingdom has its own idea of what a successful human being looks like.

The powers that be produce anxious people,
competitive people,
frightened people,
striving people,
people who never quite believe
there is enough, or
they are enough.

Jesus doesn’t simply forgive those people.
Those people who come to him,
who turn to him
he patiently teaches,
forms
and reshapes 
into the people
God intended them to be
from the very beginning:

gentle,
humble in heart,
and finally able
to rest.

Jesus Breaks the Uneasy Truce

David Herbert1 Comment

A sermon on Matthew 10:24-39 exploring what Jesus meant when he said he came not to bring peace but a sword, and why the peace of God’s kingdom is deeper, costlier, and more transformative than any uneasy truce.

What is whispered in your ear?
What is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftop.

You know the image John paints for us of the beloved disciple,
the one Jesus loved,
reclining with him at table.

John chose not to name that “beloved disciple”.
I prefer to name the beloved disciple as “anyone”,
anyone who chooses to stay so close to Jesus
that they can hear his heart beating,
can feel his breath
and catch the whisper of his words in the ear.

What is whispered in your ear?

What is whispered in your ear
proclaim from the rooftop,
in this wounded world.

For the world is wounded

Our Collect today recognises that reality.
It does not pretend otherwise.

God our saviour,
look on this wounded world
in pity and in power;
hold us fast to your promises of peace
won for us by your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.

And so we pray that God our Saviour
will look upon this wounded world
in pity and in power,
and hold fast to his promises of peace.

Deep peace.
A peace beyond all human understanding,
A peace won at enormous cost.

Not the shallow peace
that merely papers over the cracks.

Not the fragile peace
declared with cynical calculation,
while old wounds fester beneath the surface.

Not the peace that can be shattered
by the next angry word,
the next act of violence,
the next grasp for power.

That is a peace that has no love for its enemy,
that’s always ready to flare with hatred,
a peace that is defended at great cost,
with arsenals of weapons of destruction,
even tongues at the ready for lashing out.

That is a momentary peace,
a temporary ceasefire of hostility,
but the peace of God’s kingdom
is different.

In the peace of God’s kingdom,
justice and mercy embrace
and all things are made new.

Jesus breaks the uneasy peace
thank God.

Because the peace we so often settle for
is not peace at all.

It is avoidance.
It is silence.
It is looking away.
It is learning to live comfortably
with somebody else’s suffering.

And that is why Jesus speaks of a sword.
Which is difficult to hear.

Especially on a day when many of us are giving thanks for fathers,
when we are celebrating the love and care that family can give.

Yet Jesus says:
“I have come to set a man against his father.”

Not because fathers do not matter.
Not because families do not matter.

But because the kingdom of God reaches deeper
than every other loyalty we possess.

Not because he delights in conflict.
Not because he blesses violence.

But because truth has a way of disturbing lies,
justice has a way of disturbing privilege,
and love has a way of disturbing anything
that treats God’s children as less than human.

When Jesus stands with the excluded,
the rejected,
the last and the least,
those who benefit from their exclusion
rarely applaud.

The sword is the division that comes
when God’s kingdom collides
with the kingdoms we have built for ourselves.

It is the cost of proclaiming from the rooftops
what has been whispered in the ear.

For when you stay close enough to Jesus
to hear his heartbeat,
You begin to hear what he hears.

The cry of the hungry.
The grief of the forgotten.
The anger of the humiliated.

The longing of those denied dignity,
bread,
or hope.

And once you have heard those voices
beating in the heart of Christ,
it becomes impossible to pretend
that everything is fine.

The old peace begins to crack.

And through those cracks,
the kingdom begins to appear.

Which sounds wonderful.

Until we realise what it asks of us.

Because Jesus is not inviting us
merely to admire the kingdom.

He is inviting us to live for it.
To spend our lives for it.

And that may be a better way to hear
what Jesus says next:
“Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

Perhaps better:
“Whoever spends their life for my sake,
for the sake of the kingdom,
will find it.”

Every one of us spends our life somehow.

Sometimes it can be trivial.
Spending our lives accumulating things.
Spending our lives to make a name for ourselves
(a name that will be so soon forgotten when we’re gone).

Or, we can spend our lives
on the pearl of great price,
spending ourselves on truth
spending ourselves on mercy,
spending ourselves on reconciliation,
spending ourselves on the hard work of God’s peace.

And if we spend our lives this way
we shouldn’t expect everyone to approve.

After all, they called Jesus Beelzebul,
a name which means the lord of filth,
lord of the dung heap,
and the sort of name we might be branded with
if we follow Jesus.

Those who expose what is rotten
are rarely thanked by those who benefit from the smell.
Those who expose wounds
are rarely thanked by those who profit from them.
Those who challenge exclusion
are often accused of causing division.
Those who stand with the last and least
are frequently labelled troublemakers.
Those who dare to believe in a peace
that goes deeper, beyond human imagining,
will be misunderstood,
criticised,
caricatured,
and even crucified.

This is what we are getting into when we become followers of Jesus,
when we become his beloved disciples,
close to the breath of God
whispering the words
that save us from the shallow peace
with its consequences of entrenched privilege,
deepening division and forgotten neighbours.

Jesus tells his beloved disciples:

Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid of those who misunderstand you.
Do not be afraid of those who mock you.
Do not be afraid of those who call good evil
and evil good.
Do not be afraid of losing your reputation.
Do not be afraid of spending your life this way.

For the kingdom of God
is worth a life.

The kingdom where justice and mercy embrace.
The kingdom where the last are welcomed first.
The kingdom where wounds are healed.
The kingdom where all things are made new.

So, perhaps the question for us this morning is:
What is whispered in your ear?

What is Christ saying to you
when you stay close enough
to hear his heart beat,

close enough to hear in his heart
the cry of the earth,
the forgotten,
the humiliated,
the excluded?

And what is whispered in your ear,

proclaim from the rooftops,
whatever the cost.

When we no longer like ourselves

David HerbertLeave a comment

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus repeatedly seeks out people who feel bad rather than good about themselves, and calls them by name. Drawing on Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26, this sermon explores some of those moments in our lives when we have felt far from good.

I’ve not been well this week.
Don’t worry, it’s just been a mouth abscess – and it’s been treated with antibiotics.
The pain level – I’d give it 4/10.
Nothing much.

I’ve felt annoyed more than anything.
I’ve not felt good.
In fact, I’ve felt bad.

But not as bad as at other times,
such as when we’re tired at the end of the day
looking after grandchildren
and have to organise their tea time and the feeding of three dogs.

I don’t just feel bad,
I hate myself and the way that I am,
stressed and ratty (my apologies to rats).

And as for those times when there’s so much to do and so little time ….

Does illness, tiredness and stress make you feel like that?
Or, am I on my own?

It’s strange, isn’t it, how feeling physically unwell can spill over into everything else?

We don’t just hurt,
we become shorter-tempered,
less patient, less generous versions of ourselves,
and dangerous to those around us.

I remember the prayer of a woman leading intercessions.
Leaning on her walking frame, she said something along the lines of,
“Lord, you know that when we are in pain, or are ill, we no longer like ourselves”
Perhaps we can all join that prayer.

When we feel bad,
when we don’t feel well,
when we don’t feel good,

In today’s gospel (Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26) Jesus turns from one person to another,
to Matthew,
tax collectors and sinners,
the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years,
Jairus and his household

all, who, for one reason or another,
felt bad,
unwell, far from good.

Jesus meets Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth,
just the place we all try to evade –
even more so when the tax is going to a foreign power.

Matthew was working for Rome.
The money he collected was not for the benefit of his neighbours.
It helped keep the empire running, reinforcing its power.
To many of his fellow Jews, he was a collaborator,
a traitor, a bad man in a place of shame.

Jesus sees him,
calls him,
“follow me”
and he even has dinner with him.

The gospel tells us that this was the pattern for Jesus and those who followed him:
they ate with tax collectors,
the morally compromised,
and sinners who transgressed the rules of society,
made to feel bad: shamed and ashamed.

Maybe it was their reputation,
the reputation that Jesus and his followers kept bad company,
that attracted the woman who had been bleeding all those years,
a woman beyond the pale, physically unwell
and socially isolated because of her incessant bleeding.

That she even dared to touch his cloak was scandalous.
In the eyes of many, she was not merely sick.
She had become a problem,
a source of contamination,
someone to be avoided.

And then we come to Jairus – the synagogue ruler,
desperate for Jesus to touch his dead daughter,
so she might live.
Another scandal – reaching beyond where good people go,
touching the dead, failing to keep the proper distance.

These are incidents to remember when we count ourselves among the unwell,
when we don’t feel good,
when we feel bad.

It is little wonder that people scoffed and laughed at Jesus
and that those who felt good about themselves
criticised them.
They thought they were keeping the law, following regulations,
maintaining their religion ….
and what is more,
they were doing it in spite of the difficulties they faced in their lives.
They made sacrifices to be proud of.

And Jesus turned on them.
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill.”
“Go and learn what this means:
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

Jesus was picking up on Hosea’s prophesy,
which we have also heard this morning.
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

One old translation uses the phrase “loving-kindness”.

I rather like that expression.
Is it kindness that is loving?
Or is it loving that is kind?

And the answer, of course, is yes
to both.

In Hosea’s prophecy God is revealed
as having a preference for loving-kindness.

It comes as a surprise to the religious leaders,
whose religion had become organised around sacrifice,
performance and proving oneself worthy.

But God says:
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

Our ears catch some of the meaning when we hear the French word merci,
a response to kindness received.

The Hebrew word is hesed.

It means mercy, steadfast love, covenant loyalty, loving-kindness.
No single English word can quite contain this wealth of meaning.

It is God’s determination to remain kind towards us,
faithful to us.

And perhaps we need to hear that.

For it is not only illness that makes us feel bad.
Sometimes it is the diagnosis.
Sometimes it is the operation.
Sometimes it is discovering that life has changed us in ways we never wanted.

A diagnosis can give us a new name.
Cancer patient.
Stroke survivor.
Widow.
Carer.
Disabled.
Dependent.
Bereaved.

The surgery may have been successful.
The treatment may have worked..

But we are still left to learn who we are now.
And sometimes we do not much like this new version of ourselves.
Sometimes we grieve for the person we used to be.
Sometimes we wonder whether anyone else can still see us beneath the diagnosis,
beneath the loss, beneath the changes that have been forced on us.

That prayer comes back to me:
“Lord, you know that when we are in pain, or are ill, we no longer like ourselves.

And the gospel answers:
Yes.

And still Christ comes towards us.
Matthew had become “the tax collector”.
The woman had become “the one who bleeds”.
Jairus had become “the father of a dead daughter”.

But Jesus refuses to let the worst thing in their lives become their name.
He sees the person.
He calls Matthew.
He welcomes the woman.
He enters Jairus’s house.
He reaches out his hand.

Because God’s loving-kindness is greater than all the labels that life places upon us.

God’s mercy is deeper than our shame.
God’s faithfulness survives all the unwanted changes of our lives.

So if there are days when you do not feel good about yourself,
when you do not recognise yourself,
when you wonder whether you really belong among God’s people,
remember this and give thanks:

God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

Jesus did not come for those who felt good about themselves.
He came for those who knew their need.

God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

Not the sacrifices we make to prove ourselves,
but the mercy God delights to give.

And that mercy is reaching out to you now.

Just as you are.