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.

Famous Last Words and a To Do List

David HerbertLeave a comment

A sermon for Trinity Sunday reflecting on the last words of Paul to the church in Corinth and the last words of Matthew’s gospel: 2 Corinthians 13.11-end & Matthew 28.16-end

Final words matter.
We know this.

When someone knows these may be the last things they say, they do not usually waste words.
Final words are often concentrated words.
Distilled words. Words carrying weight.

And this morning we have two sets of final words.
The closing words of Paul to the Corinthians.
And the closing words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel.

Famous last words.

And what strikes me is how full of verbs they are.
So much doing.

Paul concludes his difficult letter with a flurry of verbs:
Rejoice.
 Strive for full restoration.
 Encourage one another.
 Be of one mind.
 Live in peace.

And then perhaps most awkwardly for many English Christians:
Greet one another with a holy kiss.

That is quite a list. It’s a lot to be doing.

Paul is not writing these words into a peaceful, tidy church.
Something has gone wrong in Corinth.
There has been conflict, bruised relationships, suspicion, division, hurt.

This letter has carried frustration and pain.
So these verbs are not decorative.
They are medicine and prescription,
born of blood, sweat and tears.

This is what you must do, says Paul,
if you are to become again the community God calls you to be.
Not merely what you should believe.
But what you should be doing.

And then we come to Matthew.

Matthew ends his gospel in much the same way.
Again—final words.
Again—a mountain.

That should sound familiar.
Matthew has brought us up mountains before.
The mountain of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus taught his disciples how life in God’s kingdom works.

And now, at the end, the disciples are doing what Jesus told them to do.
They go to the mountain.

Already, before Jesus speaks, they are obeying.

And there Matthew gives us an honest little detail:

When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.
Isn’t that wonderfully human?
Not certainty and triumph.
Not spiritual superheroes.
Just disciples –
worship and doubt standing side by side.

And to that mixed-up group—to worshippers and doubters alike—Jesus gives his final command.
And again the verbs come tumbling out:
Go.
 Make disciples.
 Baptise.
 Teach.
Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.

Again—so much doing.
And perhaps we hear these as tasks. Instructions.
A church to-do list.
A very different list to how we normally list all we do in church!

Why all these verbs?
Why this insistence on action?

And the answer, I think, is because the God revealed in Jesus is not static.
The God we meet in scripture is alive in relationship.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Trinity, not solitary.
Not self-enclosed.
But eternally giving,
receiving, loving, sending.

The doctrine of the Trinity was never meant to be a mathematical puzzle to solve.
It is an attempt—our stumbling human attempt—to say something true about the God we have encountered.

God is relationship.
God is communion.
God is love shared and given.

And if we are made in the imago Dei—the image of God—then we discover who we are not in isolation but in relationship too.

Which means these verbs are not arbitrary religious duties.
They are invitations into God’s own life.

Rejoice. Because joy belongs to God.

Encourage one another. Because God is giver and sustainer.

Live in peace. Because peace is the atmosphere of God’s kingdom.

Go. Because God is always sending love outward.

Make disciples. Not recruits or customers or winners of arguments—but people learning the way of Jesus.

Baptise.
And notice here, this is Trinity Sunday after all, –
Jesus says:
Baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Not names.

Name.

One name.

One life.

One communion of love into which people are welcomed.

Baptism is not simply joining an institution.
It is immersion into the life of the triune God.
Into belonging.
Into relationship.
Into grace.

And then:

Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

That word obey can sound severe to modern ears.
But Jesus is not asking for cold compliance.

What has Matthew shown us Jesus commanding?
Love your enemies.
Bless the poor.
Forgive.
Show mercy.
Seek first the kingdom.

Obedience here is learning the practices of love.
Learning how to live God’s life.

And perhaps that matters especially for us gathered here today,
the 5th Sunday of the month,
a gathering from six churches,

not a huge number,
not hugely impressive by the world’s arithmetic,

but enough for now.

Paul wrote to small churches.
Jesus entrusted his mission to a small uncertain group on that mountain.

Small is beautiful.
Small numbers count in the kingdom of God.
Where two or three gather, there I am among them.
The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to search out the one lost.
God seems remarkably unembarrassed by small beginnings.

And then Matthew ends with what may be the greatest verb of all.
Or perhaps not a verb, but a name.
A promise.
After all the commands:
Go.
Make.
Baptise.
Teach.
There comes this:
And remember…

Or more literally:
Behold.
See this.
Never lose sight of this.

And then the great divine declaration:

I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Not I was.
Not I will be, if you get things right.

I AM.

The eternal verb.
The name God has always spoken to those he loves.
The name spoken to Moses from the burning bush.
The deep grammar of God.

I AM.

And perhaps this is the truth holding all the other verbs together.
We do not rejoice, restore, encourage, go, baptise or teach in order to make God present.
We do these things because God already is present.

Because the great I AM is with us,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit –
not distant,
not abstract,
but the living God drawing near,
inviting us into the holy work of relationship,
the joyful labour of love,
and the shared life of God.

Always.
To the end of the age.

Thy Kingdom Come

David HerbertLeave a comment

Today is the 7th Sunday of Easter, the 7th Sunday of the 50 day season of joy.

I just mention that because we always have to watch out for the number 7.
It is, if you like, our lucky number.
It is the number of completion and fulfilment.
It’s the days of the week,
the measure of our time,
the time of creation,
the span from start to finish.
It’s the number written into our rhythm of life –
the six day week, the day of rest, the gift of God.

So, we’ve had 7 Sundays inhabiting the Easter message,
letting the hope of resurrection work in our hearts and minds.

But the season isn’t quite over.
We are left with a question.
It is a question asked of the apostles, and by the apostles.
And it’s been left hanging for all who have followed them.

They gathered round Jesus and asked him:
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

As far as we can see, they don’t get an answer.
They were asking him – are you the Messiah we were expecting?
Are you the one to restore the fortunes of Israel?

There is no answer because it’s the wrong question they’re asking.

The question is a reflection of one of the great temptations of human nature –
the tendency towards nostalgia and restoration.

The temptation is still with us.

We long for restoration.
We dream of returning to some imagined greatness,
some remembered certainty,
some lost golden age.

Nations do it.
Churches do it.
We do it ourselves.

There are men in white suits in today’s readings.
They catch the apostles watching Jesus disappear from sight.
They see their grief and their pining for the past,

and then they tell them to stop looking that way,
and they redirect the gaze of their longing

They redirect the gaze of their longing –
away from nostalgia,
away from heaven as escape,
back toward Jerusalem,
back into the world,
back into prayer,
back towards one another.

They stop staring into heaven.

They turn around.

And they walk back to Jerusalem.

A sabbath walk.
Day seven.

And Day Seven becomes Day One:
not completion as an ending,
but completion opening into a beginning.

Easter gives its people a new body clock,
a new sense of time,
a life no longer ordered by nostalgia for the past
but by longing for what God is yet to do.

The time of our lives.

And what do they do,
these people learning resurrection time?

They pray.

They return to Jerusalem,
and gather in an upstairs room.

Men and women together.
Mary.
The brothers of Jesus.
The Church before it knows what the Church will become.

And they pray.

They do not launch a strategy.
They do not reclaim power.
They do not “make Israel great again”.

They pray:
waiting not for the restoration of the past,
but for the coming of the kingdom of God.

This is Day One of the prayer of the Church,
not longing for the past glory,
but longing for a glory like no other glory we have known,
not longing for the past
but longing for the future.

Thy kingdom come,
that’s the way to pray.

When we introduce the Lord’s prayer,
we casually say
“as our Saviour has taught us,
so we pray”.

But let’s be definite.
This is the way Jesus taught his followers to pray. To pray for the kingdom to come,
on earth as it is in heaven.

So we could say in introducing our prayer:

this is the way we pray
because this is the way Jesus prayed,

looking to our Father in heaven,
giving him the power and glory
instead of seeing power and glory
in wealth, or celebrity, or control.

This is looking the other way.

Looking away from power as domination,
and discovering power as compassion.

Looking away from glory as status,
and discovering glory as love poured out.

Because when Jesus speaks about glory,
he does not mean celebrity,
spectacle,
or triumph.

In John’s Gospel,
Glory means the cross.

Glory is love poured out.
Glory is love that gives itself away
for the life of the world.

Glory is love that gives itself away for the life of the world.

And that is why our Collect today dares to hold together two words usually kept apart:

power
and compassion.

Heaven’s power is compassionate power.
Worldly power is anything but.

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion …….

that’s the way to pray,
for the sake of the future,
for those who suffer
under the world as it is,
and under the ways we have learned to look at one another,
for those “estranged by sin”,
by the wrongs of the world,
for those estranged,
disconnected, alienated, turned inward, turned backward.

For their sake,
that they may find forgiveness,
that they may know peace

that’s why we pray,
It’s for their sake,
for the sake of the lost, the last and the least,
that the glory of heaven
may be seen on earth,
in the troughs of human experience,
in the valleys overshadowed by death.

And so this week,
in churches,
halls,
homes,
and quiet corners,
Christians will gather again,
just as they did in that upstairs room.

Not looking backward,
not staring into the sky,
but praying toward the future:

Thy kingdom come.

When we pray the Jesus way,
Jesus prays alongside us still:

for the world,
for the estranged, the wronged,
for peace,
for glory shaped like love.

Rooms in the Ruins: Stephen, Coventry, and the room God makes in the midst of violence

David HerbertLeave a comment

In the ruins a fire is lit.
In the midst of violence, a man sees heaven open.
This sermon traces a thread from Saint Stephen to Coventry cathedral, and from the “many rooms” of John’s Gospel to the fractures places of our own lives – suggesting that the rooms God prepares are not elsewhere, but here, wherever love makes space in the face of conflict.

Easter 5 (A)
This morning we meet Stephen at the very end of his story,
Standing before an angry crowd,
accused, opposed,
and about to be killed.

And we hear that extraordinary line:
”Filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven …”

But if we start there, we miss what makes that moment so powerful.
Because Stephen didn’t begin here.


He first appears a chapter earlier, in Acts of the Apostles,
when the early church is already under strain.

There is a complaint –
that some widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.

It’s about fairness.
Culture.
Whose voice matters.

A real fault line has opened up.

And Stephen is one of those chosen to step into that situation –
because he is known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.

Not removed from the tensions,
but right in the middle of them.

He learns to follow the Spirit there,
at the tables,
among those who are last, and least, and easily forgotten.


From there, things escalate.

Stephen begins to speak – boldly – about what God is doing.

He challenges the assumption that God can be contained in the temple,
or managed by those in power.

He reminds his hearers of the words of Isaiah:
“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool …
What kind of house will you build for me?”

God is not contained.
Not controlled.
Not organised around our comfort.

And that is what turns disagreement into fury.

So that by the time we reach today’s reading,
Stephen is no longer serving at tables –
he is standing before those who want him silenced.


And there –
in that moment of pressure, accusation and danger –
we are told:
“Filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven …”

Now, we might imagine that this means Stephen is being lifted out of reality –
given a glimpse of somewhere else,
somewhere safer,
somewhere beyond the reach of what is about to happen.

But that cannot be what it means.

Because when he looks into heaven,
he does not see buildings.
He does not see rooms.

He sees the glory of God –
and Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God.

Standing.
Alive.
Present.


Hold that alongside the words of Jesus in John’s gospel:
“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places …
I go to prepare a place for you.”

We have often heard those words as a promise about where we go when we die.

A heavenly building.
Rooms prepared somewhere else.

And there is comfort in that.

But Stephen – standing under accusation,
with stones already in the air –
suggests something different.


Because in John’s Gospel, “dwelling” is not about property.
It is about life shared.

“Abide in me, as I abide in you.”
“We will come and make our home with them.”

So when Jesus says,
“I go to prepare a place for you,”
the question is:

How, and in what way?

It’s not about a heavenly mansion with (how) many rooms.
It’s not a building
a building somewhere else.

No.

It’s about what love is building
here and now
    in the middle of the world as it is.

It’s about love making room,
one room on top of another,
room for strangers,
room for sinners,
room even for enemies
and those who attack us,
room for those left out in the cold,
those homeless and neglected
like those widows previously unheard.

The Father’s house isn’t something set in concrete,
built somewhere else.

It is God’s work,
building love,
making room for forgiveness.

And it is here that Stephen stands,
in the place prepared for him.
And he sees it,
and his face so shines,
even as the stones are hurled in anger.

Because to see into heaven
is not to gain information about the afterlife.

It is to see reality as it truly is:

that God is not absent,
not contained,
not defeated –

But present,
active,
and drawing all things into the life of his kingdom.


And once Stephen sees that,

he begins to reflect it.

His face shines, and
his words echo Jesus:
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

This is not weakness.

This is the life of the Father’s house
breaking out
in the middle of the world’s violence.

In the middle of the world’s violence,
there are those who have found room for God –
the room that God has prepared for them.

The room we have for God in our lives
is the room that God has prepared for us –
one of so many rooms.

And it is this life –
this room opened to God
In the middle of the world’s violence –
that cannot be tolerated,
And Stephen will pay for it with his life.

Because if God’s dwelling is not contained,
and not somewhere else,
then neither is God’s authority.

If heaven is breaking out here –
then the systems built on power and control are exposed.

And so they cover their ears.

And they rush at him.


But this way of seeing did not end with Stephen.

It has appeared again and again,
where people have been formed by the Spirit
in the middle of real world fault lines.

In this diocese, we cannot hear this story
without thinking of Coventry Cathedral.

In the ruins of Coventry Cathedral at first light on Easter Day 2026

In 1940, the cathedral was destroyed by bombing.

Stones – not thrown by hand this time,
but falling all the same.

And in the ruins,
Provost Dick Howard did something extraordinary.

He did not call for revenge.

He did not divide the world into “us” and “them”.

Instead, he had these words inscribed:

Father forgive.

Not “forgive them.”
Just: Father forgive.

That is not sentiment.
That is not denial of suffering.

That is someone seeing into heaven.

Someone recognising that the Father’s house
is not destroyed by violence –
because it was never contained in stone.

And that the life of that house
with its many rooms
is forgiveness,
even here.

Even now.

And this is not just something that happened then.

It is something we are caught up in here.

Because in this diocese, when people are ordained,
they are ordained in that cathedral –
in that space opened up in the midst of destruction.

A place where violence did not have the final word.

A place where, in the ruins,
room was found for forgiveness.

Stephen was a deacon –
formed at tables,
among the overlooked,
in the fault lines of his community.

And from there, he learned to see into heaven.

And those ordained in that cathedral
are ordained in that same pattern:

not away from the world’s conflict,
but into it –

trusting that even there,
God has made room.

The room we have for God in our lives
is the room that God has prepared for us –
one of so many rooms.

And we have seen that recently.

Gary and Brittany were confirmed there on Easter Day
at the crack of dawn,
when the Easter fire was lit
in the ruins of the cathedral.

Fire again in that place –
but not the fire that destroys.

Not the fire that reduces everything to ash.

But the fire of resurrection.

The fire of the Spirit.

In the very place where flames once consumed,
a different fire now burns –

not to destroy,
but to give light,
to gather,
to kindle new life.

And there, in that same place,
a life opening to God,
a place being made,
a dwelling beginning.


Not somewhere else.

But here.


So the question is not whether there is room in the Father’s house.

The question is whether we will enter the room
that God has already prepared for us –

in the places where the world is most fractured,

where the fire is still being lit in the ruins,

and where, even there,
heaven is already open.

The Feeding of the Three Thousand and the Small Flock

David HerbertLeave a comment

In a world that prizes numbers, growth, and standing out, the early church points us somewhere different. In Christ, even a small flock—known, gathered, and fed together—is already enough. This reflection for two small churches takes its cue from the scriptures for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A): Acts of the Apostles 2:42–end, Gospel of John 10:1–10, and Psalm 23.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42).

That’s how Luke describes the life of the disciples after God has become present to them in a new way.
Those are the first words of our reading this morning from Acts of the Apostles.

But the verse just before – heard in our churches last Sunday – tells us something else.
It tells us that about 3000 people accepted Peter’s message and were added to their number.

Three thousand.

We’ve heard many times, the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand.
It’s in all the gospels.

And there’s another feeding – the 4000 – told by Matthew and Mark, but not by Luke.

But Luke does give us another feeding.

Not the feeding of the 4000.
But the feeding of the 3000.

In those gospel stories, crowds gather around Jesus.
They are hungry.
And with very little – just a few loaves and fish – Jesus feeds them.

A sign of the kingdom of God:
that what is little becomes enough …
that what is least becomes abundance.

And here, in Acts, there is another crowd.

Three thousand, drawn from a larger crowd in Jerusalem at Pentecost.

And Luke says of them:

They devoted themselves …
They were together …
They had everything in common …

He is speaking about those three thousand.

So again we might say:

Luke doesn’t tell us about the feeding of the 4000.
But he does tell us about the feeding of the 3000.

Because they too were hungry.

You can almost see it on their faces.

But not for bread and fish.

They were hungry for something deeper –
for a new way of life.

And what they are given is this:

Teaching.
Fellowship.
Shared life.
Bread broken together.
Meals shared with glad and generous hearts.

This is the feeding of a deeper hunger.

The hunger for meaning.
The hunger for belonging.
The hunger for righteousness – for things to be as they should be.

And what they are given …
is a whole new life.

Not just food for the day,
but life together in Christ.

The life of the risen Christ,
lived out in humanity.

And that life –
the life of the risen Christ lived out in humanity –
it didn’t end with those three thousand.

It is the life of the church.

It is our life.

And that’s where this meets us.

Because when we hear about the three thousand,
it’s easy to think: that’s not us.

We are not a crowd.
We are small in number.
A handful here … a handful there

More like a small flock than a great multitude.

A shepherd with sheep and lambs by Cornelis van Leemputten
This is a small flock. They too need a good shepherd.

But listen again to what Luke describes in Acts of the Apostles.

He doesn’t describe something that only works for large numbers.

He describes something close …
shared …
personal …

They devoted themselves …
They were together …
They broke bread …
They prayed …

That’s not a stadium.
That’s something much more like this.

And then we hear Jesus in John’s Gospel:

“I am the good shepherd …
My sheep hear my voice …
I know them …
and they follow me.”

Not a crowd.

A flock.

So perhaps the question for us is not:
how do we become like the three thousand?

But how do we recognise what we already are?

A small flock.
Known.
Gathered.
Fed.
Held together by the voice of the shepherd.

And the gift of a small flock is this:

You cannot disappear here.

You are not one face in a crowd.

You are known.
You are noticed.
You belong.

And yet … there is a danger for churches like ours,
in times like ours,
when it’s all about numbers, growth and influence.

Because when we hear about the three thousand,
it is very easy to start thinking:

if only we were more …
if only things were different …

And slowly, almost without noticing,
our attention shifts.

Away from who is here …
to who is not.

Away from what we have been given
to what we think we lack.

And when that happens, something else can creep in.

A quiet dissatisfaction.
Even resentment.

A feeling that we are being held back –
by numbers,
by circumstance,
even, perhaps, by one another.

But that is to go after the wrong prize.

Because the prize was never the three thousand.

The gift –
the miracle –
was what they became.

A people who shared life.
A people who belonged to one another.
A people who were fed with the life of Christ.

And that is not something we have to chase.

It is something we have already been given.

Here.

Among us.

So the question is not: how do we become more?

But:
how do we become more deeply what we already are?

More attentive to one another …
More ready to share life …
More open to the voice of the shepherd …

Because when that happens –

this small flock,
this ordinary gathering of people –

becomes something extraordinary.

Not because we stand out from the crowd.

But because we belong to one another,
and are led by the one who knows us by name.

In the end, the gift is not becoming something else,
or someone else,
bigger, better, or whatever it may be –

but recognising that, in Christ,
what we have …
is already enough.

The good shepherd
leads the small flock –

even the two or three –

through the valley overshadowed by death.

He leads us.
He sets a table before us.
He feeds us
as we break bread together.

He satisfies our deepest longings –

as he has satisfied thousands before us.

The Lord is here.
In this small flock.
In this shared life.

The Lord is here.
His spirit is with us.

The Withdom of God

David HerbertLeave a comment

Sometimes a new word is needed — not to replace what we know, but to help us see it more clearly.

Withdom is one such word.

In this Easter reflection, I explore how the risen Jesus is made known not in power or distance, but in presence — walking with, staying with, and being with us wherever we are.

A few weeks ago, some of us met for conversation around the subject of finding our voice in worship.
There were so many of us that we had to break into small groups to get the best out of each other.
As we fed back into the larger group a phrase was coined which seemed to sum up the meaning of our conversation.
We were talking about how we enable the worship of the people of our churches and villages.
A voice of one of our shepherds came over loud and clear.

She had found that the most important thing in her work
was winning the trust of the sheep.
And she talked about how she did that.
By staying with them.
Not driving them. Not fixing them.
Staying with them until they found their own voice.

That opened our eyes to what we were exploring.
How do we enable the worship of the people of God
when so often we are led to believe that we have to be anything but ourselves?
It is by staying with people, as they are, that encourages people to be as they are.

And one good shepherd reminded us of another good shepherd,
who knows the voice of his sheep
and whose sheep know his voice.

And so, a word was born.

And we called that word … withdom.

Some of us weren’t so sure.
“Withdom is not a proper word,
it’s not in the dictionary.”

But we let it stand
because it carried our meaning.

It was never meant to find its way into the dictionary,
or become word of the year.

It was meant to lodge
in our theological imagination …


as just the way God is,
with us,
full of withdom,

and the way we’re called to be
with all those God loves
and chooses to be with,
all those blessed by withdom,
the least, the last, the lost.

We dared to imagine
the rule of the kingdom of God
being the withdom of God.

And once we begin to see it,
we notice it everywhere.

There is much withdom
in our readings today.

In our reading from Acts (Acts 2:14a, 36-41),
Peter stands with the eleven
and addresses the crowd who were with them.
Three thousand of them accepted his message
and joined the eleven –
not just agreeing with them,
but coming to be with them.

The Road to Emmaus: Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

The gospel (Luke 24:13-35) puts us alongside two grief stricken disciples
as they make their way home.
They are joined by a stranger,
who walks with them,
in their grief,
through the valley of the shadow of death.

He is with them.

Nothing could stop him being with them.

Not their confusion.
Not their grief.
Not even their walking away.

He would not be separated
from their lived experience.

This is what he shows them
as he walked with them, stayed with them,
broke bread with them.

And this is the truth we are given –
that nothing … can separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus,
neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers that be,
nothing in the whole of creation
can break the withdom of God. (Romans 8:38-39)

And if this is the withdom of God …
then this is the life we are called into.

Not to drive people.
Not to fix them.

But to be with them.

To stay with them
until they find their voice.

To be a people who can be trusted …
because we come alongside.

To be with those
who have been told they are not good enough …
and those who are walking away …
and those who don’t recognise hm.

This Easter morning – r evening –
the risen Jesus
comes alongside two disciples
who are confused,
disappointed,
walking away,
not good enough … perhaps in their own eyes.

And he is with them.

Nothing could stop him being with them.

So, if you have ever been led to believe
that you are not good enough …
that God is somehow not with you …
hear this story again.

The Lord is here.
His Spirit is with us.