David Herbert

When prayer gets risky: what Abraham and Jesus teach us

July 26, 2025August 10, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

There are lessons to be learned about how to pray in both readings appointed for the 6th Sunday after Trinity (Proper 12C). This sermon explores what it means to pray like Abraham and Jesus. The readings are Genesis 18:20-32 and Luke 11:1-13.

I want to begin, as I so often do, by saying how much I love preaching that brings the scriptures back to life. Surely that is the point of preaching — to let these ancient words breathe again, so they speak into our lives with all their surprising grace and challenge.

Today we have lessons in prayer.
One from Abraham and one from Jesus — both treasured in scripture,
both handed down through generations as pearls of love.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more and more aware of something about our scriptures.
They are not the comfortable writings of comfortable people.
They are the scriptures of a people who know what it’s like to be beaten,
to be hated, to be exiled and poor.

They are the treasures of those who have discovered the good news of a kingdom
so different from the kingdoms that rule over them —
kingdoms of injustice and indifference.

I had a small taste of that kind of indifference this week — two and a half hours on the phone with the TalkTalk supposed helpdesk, after an engineer had supposedly fixed our broadband the day before.
It was one of those maddening, circular conversations where no one seems able to help and your time seems to mean nothing.
And I found myself thinking: in the empires we live under today, it’s often shareholder profits that come first — and customers, ordinary people, come last.
It’s a small thing, a First World problem, but it reminded me how easily we’re made to feel powerless, unheard, even invisible.

The kingdoms of this world haven’t changed that much.

And that’s what makes the scriptures so precious.
They are not polite reflections from the powerful. They are the prayers and stories of those who know what it’s like to be last — and who dare to believe that in God’s kingdom, the last are first.
A kingdom that lifts up the last, the least, and the lost.
A kingdom that puts the bullies and tyrants last and sends the rich away empty.

It’s against that background that we hear Abraham’s prayer and the prayer we have always said Jesus taught us.

Think of Abraham’s life.
It was no easy road.
God singled him out and called him into migration — forced him to leave everything he knew for a future he could not see.
He endured famine.
He had to make his way, as many migrants still do, with deception and lies just to survive.
His faith was tested to its limits.

And here we see him in conversation with God about Sodom —
a violent and corrupt city, a city whose sins cry out to heaven.
Abraham could have said, “Yes, Lord, wipe them out. They deserve it.” But he doesn’t.
Instead, Abraham pleads for Sodom.
He bargains with God for the sake of any righteous people who might live there.
“What if there are fifty righteous? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?”
Each time God agrees to spare the city for their sake.

Do you see what’s happening?
Abraham stands in the gap for a city most would have written off.
He prays out of love — even love for an enemy city.
This is no detached, polite prayer.
This is bold, persistent intercession.

Abraham dares to hope that God’s mercy might outweigh God’s judgment. And God listens.

This is how the beaten, hated, and poor pray:
not from a place of superiority,
but from within the mess of the world.
They pray not only for themselves
but for their neighbours, even their enemies.

And then we come to Jesus.
His life, too, was marked by difficulty.
Born into a world ruled by empire,
he knew poverty, rejection, and violence.
When his disciples ask him to teach them to pray,
he gives them words shaped by that reality:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us … for we ourselves forgive.
Do not bring us to the time of trial.”

This is not a safe or sentimental prayer.
It is a radical act of trust and love.
It longs for a kingdom where tyrants no longer rule,
where the hungry are fed, where debts are forgiven,
and where the trials of this world are ended.

And notice: it’s not “give me my daily bread” but “give us our daily bread.”
This is the prayer of a people —
a community that knows its dependence on God and on one another.

This is the prayer of those who, like Abraham, refuse to give up on the world.

And Jesus doesn’t just teach this prayer — he lives it.
From the cross, he prays, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
Even in the moment of his own suffering, Jesus intercedes for his enemies.
He shows us that to pray in the midst of trouble is to love in the midst of trouble.

So what do we learn from Abraham and Jesus?
We learn that prayer is not for the strong and self-sufficient but for those who know their need.
Prayer is not an escape from the world’s mess but an entry into it.
Prayer is where we bring the beauty and the brokenness of the world before God and ask for nothing less than its redemption.

This is the radical love at the heart of prayer:
love that prays for the beaten and the poor,
but also for the violent and corrupt.
Love that does not give up on God’s mercy, even for Sodom.
Love that says, “Your kingdom come,”
even when the kingdoms of this world seem unshakable.

So today, as we join together,
lifting our voices in the prayer Jesus taught,
let us remember:
this is not a polite religious exercise.
This is the prayer of Abraham bargaining for Sodom.
This is the prayer of Jesus calling down the kingdom of heaven.

It is the prayer of those who dare to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.
It is the prayer of those who believe that God’s mercy is wider than we can imagine.

It is where we have a say, particularly those who come first in the kingdom of God –
those who otherwise have too little say in anything else to do with them.

These are the pray-ers we join when we dare to pray as Jesus and Abraham have taught us.

So let us pray boldly.
Let us pray persistently.
Let us pray with hearts full of love –
for the world, for our enemies, for the kingdom that is coming.
Let us be one with those Jesus counts first –
joining the last, the least and the lost in their prayer.
Amen.

Stressed? Just one thing’s needed

July 20, 2025July 20, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

This sermon explores why Luke tell us the story of Martha and Mary. Why did he think it was important for his readers? I always begin my sermon these days by saying how I love preaching that brings scripture back to life, and that I assume those who are listening do too. The gospel for the day is Luke 10:38-42: it’s about Martha’s resentment (and, maybe, our resentments too).

The question I have reading the gospel set for today is: why did Luke think it was so important to tell this story? It is, after all, a minor incident – the day that Martha had a strop. What is it that Luke wanted his readers to hear? It’s certainly a story that has taken off. Everyone knows about Martha and Mary – even though some of us can’t remember which is which. None of us would be any the wiser were it not for Luke.

It is a small, everyday story that I think we can all relate to.
Who hasn’t invited people into their home only to feel stressed by the so many things that need to be done—getting the meal ready on time, setting the table just so—and then having to hide all that stress, frustration, and tension behind a smiling welcome?

This is a story of two sisters. But really, is Luke telling the story because it is the story of us?

Martha is the older sister.
She’s the one who opens her home to Jesus—not just Jesus, but also his twelve disciples.
That in itself would have raised eyebrows: a household of women welcoming in a group of men.
Where’s the risk assessment for that?
Where’s the safeguarding policy?

There would have been a lot to do to make these guests welcome.
And it seems Martha was the one doing it all.
Luke says she was “distracted with much serving.”
The literal meaning of the Greek is that she was “dragged around”—pulled this way and that by all the tasks.

Meanwhile, Mary is just sitting there, listening to Jesus.

The two sisters are both followers of Jesus. They’re both his friends.
But they are very different.
Martha is a “doer.” Mary is a “listener,” a “dreamer.” The church is made up of both.
If we drew a Venn diagram of this congregation, we’d see some who are hands-on people and others who are heads-in-the-clouds people—and many who are a bit of both.
One isn’t better than the other.

Except when one gets distracted.

And that’s Martha’s problem.
It’s not that her work is unimportant or that her hospitality is wrong.
It’s that she has lost her focus. She’s no longer attending to her guest.
Instead, her gaze has shifted to her sister’s shortcomings.
Instead of speaking to Mary, she complains to Jesus about Mary.

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

Martha’s serving has become all about her—her effort, her stress, her sense of injustice. She’s been “dragged around” by her tasks and “put herself in an uproar” (as the Greek word for “troubled” suggests).

The story of Martha and Mary echoes other sibling rivalries in Scripture.
In Genesis, Cain and Abel both make offerings to God, but it’s the younger brother’s offering that’s accepted.
Cain puts himself in such an uproar over the seeming injustice that he murders his brother.

In Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, it’s the older brother who refuses to join the party when his younger sibling comes home. He too is dragged around by resentment. He can only see the injustice of it all—how hard he’s worked, how little he’s been appreciated.

This is a pattern in Scripture. The first becoming last, the last becoming first. The kingdom of God upending the old order. And here, it’s the younger sister, Mary, who has chosen “the better part.”

Isn’t that how it often is with us? When we get upset, it’s so often because we’ve put ourselves first. Our effort. Our fairness. Our feelings. When that happens, we lose sight of Jesus. We lose sight of the guest.

This isn’t a story about pitting action against contemplation. The church needs both. The problem isn’t Martha’s serving. It’s her distraction.

We’ve all been in Martha’s shoes, trying to do the right thing in the wrong frame of mind. We’ve probably seen it being played out in our church politics, when, for example, a meeting gets distracted, dragged off track by our focus on the shortcomings of others, where we’ve “put ourselves in an uproar”.

Is this why Luke wanted his readers to know this particular story? So that they would hear Jesus’ response.

This is how Jesus responds:

“Martha, Martha…”

When Jesus uses a name twice in Scripture—“Martha, Martha… Saul, Saul… Jerusalem, Jerusalem…”—it’s never in anger. It’s in love, in compassion. Martha has worked herself into an inner storm, and Jesus does what he always does with storms:

“Peace. Be still.”
“You are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is needed.”

This is a word Martha needed to hear, and it’s a word that’s been needed ever since—by every one of us who’s let worries, distractions, and resentments drown out the voice of Jesus.

The good news is Jesus doesn’t withdraw from Martha because of her distraction. He speaks to her lovingly, inviting her back to the one thing that matters: attending to him.

In Revelation 3:20, we hear Jesus say:

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.”

Jesus never forces his way in. He waits for us to open the door. That is how he calls on us.

The question for Luke may be how we are when we answer Jesus’s call, when we open our lives to him and make him our guest.
How do we welcome him?
Will we listen, like Mary, who chose the one thing needed?
Or will we get distracted, dragged around by many worries and upset by the shortcomings of others?
In which case, will we listen, like Martha, and hear Jesus’s words to us – words spoken to us in love and compassion, words to calm the storm?

I assume that is what Luke wanted us to hear from his gospel today.

Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you stood at the door and knocked,
and we welcomed you in.
Calm the storms of our hearts, still our anxious minds,
and free us from the distractions that drag us away from you,
so we may serve you with joy and without anxiety or resentment.

The Samaritan, the wounded, and the question that won’t go away

July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 David Herbert1 Comment

We know parable of the Good Samaritan so well we can almost recite it by heart. But maybe that’s the problem. Its edges have worn smooth with repetition, and its challenge no longer cuts as sharply as Jesus intended. What happens when we let it confront us afresh? Here’s a sermon that asks us to imagine hearing it for the first time — and to wrestle with the question that won’t go away: “Who is my neighbour?”.

My customary intro – so customary these days that we could almost do it as call and response.
Here goes: I love preaching that brings scripture back to life.
Call: Do you love preaching that brings scripture back to life?
Response: We do.

But how do we bring scripture, such as this parable of the Good Samaritan back to life when we’ve worn it smooth with repetition, so familiar that its sharp edge no longer cuts?

Can we imagine the pointedness of the parable for those hearing this for the first time?
Imagine hearing this for the very first time.

Let’s do some word association.

What word do you associate with Samaritan?

What words do you think Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries associated with Samaritan?

Very different sets of word associations

Here’s a bold assertion I read this week: This parable has single-handedly shaped the reputation of the Samaritans. Samaritans stood for everything the Jews hated. In their eyes the Samaritans were despised as the last, the least and the lost. There was no such thing as a “good” Samaritan. Now a Samaritan is someone we can call when we are at the end of our tether. A Samaritan is a first responder – one who runs into trouble to help – unlike those who run away at the first sign of trouble.

But to the question posed by the lawyer, “Who is my neighbour” Jesus casts the main characters as those last, least and lost. There are two main characters.
There is the one attacked by robbers and there is the Samaritan.

It is interesting to note who and what Jesus sees first when he preaches the good news of the kingdom. Jesus sees first not the powerful or the prominent, but the ones left behind,
the last, the least and the lost,
the stripped, beaten, and left for dead,
the wounded and the hated.

The Samaritan and the victim are the ones Jesus sees first when he responds to the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbour?”.

They are the ones Jesus “sees”.

And these last, least and lost become the leaders in this discussion about neighbourliness.
Jesus promotes them to be the first to teach the lawyer (and all Jesus’s hearers) a lesson on the question “Who is my neighbour?”

Here are the last.

And here are the first,
way off in the distance,
the priest and the levite,
the first people Jesus’s hearers would have thought should have responded to the stripped, beaten and robbed.

You would expect them to do good.

They are prominent people.
They come first in the public eye, just as they come first in the story Jesus tells.
They are the professionals – the ones who should know the scripture the lawyer quotes: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
They would have known that as the key to eternal life, but they fail to walk the talk.
I wonder if the lawyer would have done the same – walked by on the other side, failing to walk the talk.

What happens is that the first come last in the eyes of Jesus and the kingdom of God.
They are the ones who become the outcasts by just walking by.

When Jesus preached he said to those who would listen:
Love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you. (Luke 6:27-28)

And here today, we hear of a Samaritan,
loving his enemy,
doing good to one, who in all likelihood, hated him
an answer to prayer for the victim, who in all likelihood,
joined in the abusive banter of the time.

The lawyer asked, “who is my neighbour?”
We might ask, “Who is my enemy?”

Enemy is a word of two parts.
There is the ene – meaning not,
and there is the emy,
like the French word ami,
behind which is the Latin word for friend – amicus.
My enemy is literally the one who is not my friend,
not only the one who hates me, curses me and abuses me,
but the one to whom I am nothing, a nobody.

The Samaritan loves his enemy.

This isn’t just about ancient hostilities.
Our world still draws lines between us and them.
Think of the debates around borders and strangers today.

We live in xenophobic times.
Perhaps these times are no different to other times.
Perhaps these times are no different to Jesus’ own times.
Perhaps we’ve always been wary of strangers.
They’re never our friends as long as they are strangers.
They’re the enemy to be kept out.

Behind the lawyer’s question was the idea that there has to be a limit to who our neighbour is.
Probably, like the lawyer, we share the basic assumption that our neighbours are people like us, and people who like us.
But in this parable Jesus not only single-handedly reshapes the reputation of the Samaritan, but he also challenges the scandal of the boundaries we build with our hatred and suspicion.

The lawyer leaves Jesus with the question “Who is my neighbour?”

The question Jesus leaves the lawyer with is, “Will you be a neighbour?”
“Will you go and do likewise?”
“Will you bear to be a neighbour to your enemy – being compassionate, attentive, practical and generous?”

We are left with the same questions.
Will we go and do likewise?
Will we follow the Samaritan’s lead?
Will we cross the road?
Will we engage with the victims of the way things are?
Will we go to the help of the wounded and hated?
Will we attend to their wounds? Will we find help?

Will we just leave them there, beaten and hated?

Will we keep them at arm’s length, as enemy, as “not our friends”?
Or, will we go and do likewise?
Will we love our enemy, doing good to those who hate us, blessing those who curse us, praying for those who abuse us?
Just as Jesus did.
Will we maintain the dividing lines?
Or will we simply be a neighbour, like the Samaritan,
who, unlike the lawyer, never stopped to ask,
“Who is my neighbour?” – as if there needs to be a limit.

PS. I’ve started using ChatGPT to help me prepare for preaching. This week the algorithm threw me a question that stopped me in my tracks:

What if being a neighbour means crossing every line we’ve drawn between “us” and “them”?

PPS It was Jennifer S. Wyant who claims this parable “singlehandedly reshaped the reputation of the Samaritans”.

Crossing the Lines of Division

June 22, 2025June 22, 2025 David Herbert2 Comments

Sermon for Proper 7C – Trinity 1
Readings: Galatians 3:23–end and Luke 8:26–39

Every generation lives with conflict. Sometimes it shocks us; other times, it simply exhausts us. We ask, again and again, “Why can’t people just get on?” But our scriptures don’t hide the truth: division runs deep — in history, in systems, in souls. This sermon explores how Paul names those divisions, how Jesus crosses them, and what happens when grace refuses to stay on its side of the line. In a world chained by difference, Christ brings the freedom of unity — not by erasing our stories, but by re-membering us into something new.

Here we go again — at the risk of repeating myself…
I love preaching that brings scripture back to life, and I hope you do too.
I say this often, but it bears repeating: when we open scripture together, we are not just reading words,
we are bringing them back to life.
And we’re bringing them to life in a world of division.

There are times when the world feels more dangerous than ever.
This week has been one of them: Israel launches missiles at Iran, Iran retaliates, and then Donald Trump gets himself involved — in his customary statesmanlike manner.
And those of us on the fringes wonder, “Why can’t people just get on?”
It’s a question many of us have asked all our adult lives, as one conflict after another flashes across our screens.

It’s as if we’re surprised when conflict breaks out,
even though our scriptures describe human history as full of it.
From the moment Adam and Eve grew up enough to blame each other,
and as for their children; Cain grew jealous of Abel and killed him.

This is the backdrop of scripture: a history full of conflict, grievance and wrong.
And that shouldn’t surprise us.
Human nature leans toward grievance and defence.
We feel a moral obligation to address what’s been done to us.
We shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t get along.
The real surprise is that we ever do.
In spite of our differences, it’s astonishing how often we manage peace.

This is the human reality Paul addresses when he writes to the Galatians.
We often skip to the famous bit: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female…”
And we instinctively expand it: neither young nor old, gay nor straight, rich nor poor.

But we often miss the phrase just before: “We were held in custody under the law… we were locked up.”

We were locked into divisions. Bound by binaries.
And those divisions still exist — even in the church.
There has been one law for the gay and another for the straight.
One law for men (they could be ordained), and another for women (they could not).
There was a time when it mattered whether you were married or divorced.
These divisions weren’t just opinions — they were rules.
“This is the law,” people said. “These are the boundaries.”

But Paul names these laws for what they are: temporary, partial, and not the final word.
These binaries are unequal — and unequal binaries breed resentment, not reconciliation.
The good news is that in Christ, those old structures no longer define us.
The new reality is that all who are baptised into Christ are clothed with Christ. We are one.

So what does that actually look like?
What does it look like when someone, long bound by division, is finally set free?

That’s the power of the story in Luke’s Gospel.

Here is someone completely undone by division — fragmented and chained, living among the tombs.
They call him “Legion,” which isn’t his real name.
It’s a name that suggests occupation: a Roman military unit.
Empire has invaded his soul.
He is not just possessed — he is colonised.
He has become the embodiment of a fractured, binary-riddled world.

He’s been locked up — like those Paul was writing to.
Chained hand and foot by the law of empire.
He had broken the chains, yes — but the people still kept him out.
They feared him. He had to be driven away, kept apart.

And that’s where Jesus meets him.

Jesus crosses over — not just a lake, but boundaries of culture, class, purity, power.
He goes where the pigs are, among the tombs — all unclean territory for a devout Jew.
But this is how far Jesus is willing to go to restore a life.
To say: no one is beyond healing.
He crosses all the boundary lines, the enemy lines.
No one is so divided that they can’t be made whole.

And when the man is healed,
when he is clothed and in his right mind,
sitting at Jesus’ feet,
the people are afraid.
They’re afraid by the healing.
They’re afraid of what it might mean if the old boundaries don’t hold.
If he is restored, what does that mean for the system we’ve built?

They send Jesus away.

But before he goes, Jesus sends the man home.
And notice — he is no longer called Legion.
He is “the man”. A person. A human being.
He’s been re-membered — brought back into the body, into community.
He’s been clothed not only with literal garments, but in the language of Paul, clothed in Christ.

And this rehumanised man becomes a witness.
His life, restored, is a sign that another world is possible,
a world in which division doesn’t get the last word.

Because this is what the kingdom of God looks like.
Not just healing wounds, but undoing the whole system that caused them.
Not just restoring one man, but revealing that the lines we’ve drawn,
between the first and the last, the worthy and the broken,
don’t stand in the light of Christ.

In God’s kingdom, the last become first.
The one known as Legion, the one cast out,
becomes the first to preach the good news of Jesus to his people.
The law that once divided is replaced by a love that restores.

So today, let’s stop being surprised by conflict.
Conflict and division is the rule, the law, the norm (these days)
as it always has been. That’s what we’re locked in to
and what we’re locked in by.
So let’s stop being surprised by conflict
And instead start being amazed by grace
and the freedom that is made possible in Christ
who crosses the boundaries that divide us
to help us find our peace.
No longer divided, we are made one.
That changes everything.

I’d love to hear your thoughts — how do you see these lines being crossed in your own life or community?

A Call to Worship and Defiance

June 15, 2025June 16, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

A sermon for Trinity Sunday.

I love preaching that brings Scripture to life and that brings Scripture back to life, and I hope you do too. I begin this way as a reminder that when we open scripture together we are not just reading words from the past; we are bringing it back to life. What matters today is what happens to us when we worship God.

I take us back to the words of Mary, and the words Jesus would have heard her sing, and the song which has become a heritage track for Christians down the ages:

“My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has seen the lowliness of his handmaiden.
He that is mighty has magnified me and holy is his name.
He has shown strength with his arm, scattering the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their seat and has lifted up the humble and meek.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

When we worship, we join Mary – and every other worshipper – in magnifying the Lord, until the name of God takes on a rich texture full of the meaning of life.

There are those who take the name of God in vain—using it without meaning, without reverence, without love. “Jesus Christ” is what they sday when they hit their thumb with the hammer. “God Almighty” – but not to worship, only to swear.

But when we magnify the name of God in worship, we are not just saying it louder—we are seeing it deeper. And what comes into view is the mystery at the heart of God: not a solitary ruler, but a communion of persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When we worship God, we magnify God until we see God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, perfectly united in love and purpose – a community of love giving everything for the sake of the world. —a community revealing the nature of relationships and the purpose of love and being alive for others.

What the magnification reveals to the worshipper remains hidden to those who never stop to magnify: the relational depth of God, the joy of divine communion, the living mystery of Father, Son, and Spirit, woven into the very fabric of creation.

When we join this worshiping community we join in this magnifying – seeing more, knowing deeper, loving wider.
We don’t change the size of God but through magnifying we begin to see God in the smallest things: in the still, small voice of calm; in the broken bread; in the least, the last, the lost.

The magnification of the Lord is an act of defiance.

When we magnify the Lord, when we consider the heavens, the work of his fingers, when we realise that we are the ones sought after by God, when we know our place in the created order – no more than a little lower than the angels, then we realise our responsibility for all creatures: animals, birds, fish and the very state of our oceans.

We are responsible for the state of things.
And when things fall apart, it’s not because God has forgotten us- but because we have forgotten who we are.
Made a little lower than the angels, yes – but crowned with glory and honour, and called to care.

There is a call to worship, to give worth to God, to magnify the Lord.
It is a call to wake ourselves to the beauty of a God who is Father, Son and Spirit, Creator, Wisdom and Breath of life.

Worship is a defiance of our worst selves and a remembrance of our true vocation: the call of God which crowns us with glory and honour and calls us beloved.

And it is an act of defiance against those who disrupt and spoil the very nature of human being, being human – those who abuse and neglect their neighbour and their responsibility for all that God has made.

Our worship is defiance.
According to the Psalmist, even the praise that comes from the mouths of babes at the breast becomes part of the stronghold of God –
the strong hold of God on the world – against the enemy and the forces of chaos and destruction.

And our worship is God’s creation.
Our worship would be empty, foolish and mis-directed were it not for the fact of God’s majesty – if not for the fact that there is something – Someone – worthy of magnification. Our worship is a consequence of the worth of God, when we magnify the Lord.

That’s Psalm 8: awe and vocation, majesty and meaning.

But now we listen for another voice—one that calls not from the stars, but from the street where the paths meet.
In Proverbs 8, Wisdom raises her voice.
She calls out at the crossroads, beside the gates, where life happens. And her voice is not new.

She was there from the beginning—before the mountains were shaped, before the depth of the oceans was established.

Wisdom is the voice of God’s delight—
the artisan at the Creator’s side, rejoicing always, delighting in the world, delighting in us.

Christians have long heard here the echo of the Son, the Word through whom all things were made.
And the Spirit – Hovering, present, giving breath.

This is the dance of Proverbs 8: not a cold blueprint for the universe, but a joyful choreography of divine relationship.
This is Trinity: not abstract doctrine, but the lived heartbeat of God – Creator, Word, and Breath in motion, in joy, in love.

Wisdom’s call is a call to worship.
This has always been her call, from the very beginning, when the world came to be – because as soon as the world came to be, there was the need to defy our worst selves, to resist the enemies of God,
and to magnify God until we see God –
not as remote, above the heavens, pie in the sky –
but as here and now, a stronghold of love, poured out from the whole being of God.

And so, like Mary,
our souls magnify the Lord.
Not because we make God larger,
but because in worship, we finally see.

The miracle of hearing at Pentecost

June 8, 2025June 15, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

This is a sermon prepared for a small congregation in a small Warwickshire village. The reading for the day is Acts 2:1-21.

We’ve been watching the ITV drama Code of Silence. It is a vivid demonstration that all of us hear differently.
Rose Ayling-Ellis plays the part of a deaf catering worker who has the gift of being able to read lips.
So, she can hear what others can’t.
She can hear what people are saying even though there may be a screen between them.
She can hear what people are saying in a crowded bar, or the other side of the room.
So long as she can see them she can make out what they are saying.

We all hear differently.

All of us are listening for different things.
We listen for nuance, tone of voice.
There are things we are wanting to hear.
Each of you will hear this sermon differently.
You may hear a word that sets you off on a train of thought and you lose the track of the rest of the sermon.
You may listen to every word because there is a word you are desperate to hear.
And the word you’re desperate to hear may well be different to the word the person next to you is desperate to hear.

Some will hear nothing.
Either, I the preacher have been so poor that I have failed to engage,
or we are so frazzled and preoccupied that nothing gets through.

Some may be so physically deaf that all they have to read is body language.
What is the bearing of the preacher?
Is there encouragement? Do I count? Is this good news?

Different generations will hear differently.
Young children will get it differently to those who have grown old and tired.
Men and women may listen for different things.

Those who are first have always heard the gospel differently to those who are usually last and weakened by the ways of society.
Those who usually come first and feel entitled, will be offended by the gospel.
Those who are the least and last, the humble and the humiliated, will feel encouraged, strengthened and empowered.
Those who are prosperous will hear the gospel differently to those who are poor.
Those who suffer pain or grief,
Those who have been wronged will hear differently to their wrongdoer.

And here we are – a few of us in this little place, joining the gathering of Christians across the world, of all ages, races, languages and walks of life, each of us having heard the apostles’ teaching in our own way – and all of us drawn, in some form or fashion, to the way of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Here we all are, across continents and centuries, hearing so differently from each other, yet all of us hearing God speak the language of our hearts – and all of us drawing closer together as a result, in spite of the many barriers we’ve built between us down the ages.

That is a miracle!
The one who tells the story of Pentecost in our reading from Acts describes the bewilderment of the crowd “because each heard their language being spoken”.
It’s a miracle of communication,
a miracle of hearing,
a miracle of understanding.

The author tells us that the disciples were all together in one place.
These are the same people whose failings have been highlighted throughout the gospels. Again and again we hear of their misunderstandings, their lack of faith, their betrayals. Even after the resurrection, they still don’t understand.
Jesus tells them to wait.
Not to act, not to preach, not to fix it all.
Just wait.

Their wait ends at the festival of Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, just when Jews have flocked into Jerusalem for the ancient harvest festival of Shavuot.
Originally it was the celebration of the grain harvest – a time of thanksgiving, but by Jesus’ time it had become something more. It had become a celebration of the giving of the Law and the harvest of God’s word.

And on that day, the disciples finally discover what they’ve been waiting for.
They were waiting for understanding.
They hear in their heart, deep in their bones, that all those moments of doubt and failure hadn’t disqualified them, but actually prepared them to be vessels of grace.

It turns out that they were waiting to become the Church,
a people breathed on by the Spirit
and set on fire with a purpose of God’s own making.

And the crowds heard them – not just with their ears, but with their hearts.
They heard in their own languages – not the language of religion or power, but the language of their deepest selves.

It was a miracle.

Not that the disciples spoke, but that the people truly heard.
They didn’t hear a lecture.
They didn’t hear a scolding.
They heard the wonder of amazing grace poured out in all flesh –
sons and daughters, old and young,
rich and poor, insiders and outsiders.

That is still the miracle of Pentecost.
The same Spirit who moved in Jerusalem moves here too –
in our waiting, in our words, in our worship, in our hearing.

Even in our misunderstandings and failures, the Spirit can breathe life and make meaning.
Whether we hear clearly or faintly<

Whether we are full of faith or full of doubt,
the Spirit comes to stir us to love, courage and hope.

We may not speak many languages, but the Spirit speaks ours:
the language of fields and farms,
the language of family and loss,
of longing and gratitude.

If we wait, if we are willing and listening,
the Spirit still comes even here, even now.
Thanks be to God.

Love comes home – picking up Lydia’s purple thread

May 25, 2025May 25, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

A reflection for the 6th Sunday of Easter based on the readings for the day, Acts 16:9-15 and John 14:23-29.

I love preaching that brings Scripture to life—and that brings Scripture back to life, and I hope you do too. I say this every time as a reminder that when we open scripture together we are bringing it back to life. What matters today is that love comes home. In both our readings today, love comes home.

Hear the promise in John 14:23-29 as Jesus promises that both the Father and himself as Son will make their home with anyone who loves Jesus and obeys his teaching. Love comes home and makes a resurrection appearance.

In our reading from Acts (16:9-15) we begin to understand from Lydia how the Spirit of God opens our hearts for us to open our homes. Our heart is our home, our hearth is our home.

Paul and Silas met Lydia at Philippi. When he set out Paul was expecting to meet a man from Macedonia. Instead he meets a bunch of women.

Philippi was a Roman colony. She wasn’t from Philippi but was from a city called Thyatira. She wasn’t at home in Philippi. Her name emphasizes that. Lydia wouldn’t have been her real name. She was called Lydia because that’s where she was from, where her home far from Philippi was. She was from Thyatira which is in the Turkish province of Lydia. Hence Lydia.

Perhaps Lydia was on a business trip. She was a dealer in purple cloth. Purple cloth would have been in demand in a Roman city.

It was Cleopatra that made purple popular. Julius Caesar travelled to Egypt in 48BC and met Cleopatra. He saw how she loved purple, and embraced it himself, decreeing that only Caesars could wear togas dyed completely purple. It became the colour of imperial power for both the Roman and Byzantine empires. (I got that from the Jamaica Observer – something I’ve never referenced before!) So we begin to build a picture of Lydia as a successful businesswoman who would probably have been dealing with the court representatives of Caesar’s empire. Purple was reserved for royalty, priests and nobles. These are the people Lydia would have been dealing with.

Paul and his group met Lydia at a place of prayer by the river. The storyteller tells us it was outside the city gate. These are details to underline the fact that none of these people, Paul, Silas, Lydia (and perhaps her household), none of them were at home. This is wild praying. They were all travellers.

We don’t know whether Lydia was a Jew or a Gentile. And we don’t know whether that place by the river was a recognised place of prayer, or whether it became a place of prayer because people prayed there. What we do know is that Lydia puts herself in the place of listening Israel as she listened to Paul. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptised, she invited Paul and Silas to her home. She persuaded them to come and stay at her house. She was insistently hospitable. But she doesn’t just host the missionaries, she hosts the mission of God by taking love home.

When love comes home she turns our homes inside out. Lydia is a powerful woman, a successful woman. Instead of building her business empire she puts everything at the disposal of God’s mission for the sake of the world.

Holman Hunt paints the picture for us of love coming home, making a resurrection appearance.
It’s Jesus standing at the door and knocking (cf Revelation 3:20).
It is said that one of the reasons the Conclave elected Francis Pope in 2013 was because of a reflection on that passage when he suggested that when Jesus stands at the door and knocks, he’s not only wanting to come in and join us, he’s wanting us to come out to join him.
He calls us out of our comfort zones to embrace the “peripheries” of society in the world he is already loving and calling home.
When love comes home, she casts out fear, knocks down walls and rearranges the furniture of our minds.
Love turns our home inside out.

Holman Hunt’s image fits Lydia’s story perfectly. Her heart opens, and her home follows suit.

Scripture doesn’t usually give us the details of the jobs women did, but we’re told that Lydia was a dealer in purple cloth, the colour of empire, power and status.
I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed but purple is the Church of England has adopted.
The signage and letterheads are all purple. The shirts our bishops wear are purple.
What does it mean when the church wears purple?
Are we signalling prestige? Or is it Lydia we recall?

Our new Pope, Leo XIV seems to suggest that the church should be more like a home than a palace.
Addressing those who no longer believe, no longer hope and no longer pray, and including those who are fed up with scandals, with misused power, with the silence of a Church that seems more like a palace than a home, he committed the church to being a home for the homeless where the weary find rest and refreshment.

He said that God doesn’t need soldiers. He needs brothers and sisters. We all know that it’s brothers and sisters that make a home.

Following that purple thread, are we then, when we wear purple, reminding ourselves that our calling, like Lydia’s, is to put everything – status, power, influence -at the service of love, to make love feel at home in our world? Purple was the colour Lydia laid down on the table of hospitality to welcome love home. She dealt in purple and traded it for the gospel.

In a recent speech on immigration Sir Keir Starmer suggested that we are “becoming a nation of strangers”. He’s got himself into a lot of trouble. But what if there is a grain of truth in what he says? It doesn’t mean we should pull up the drawbridge and tighten our controls. Our scriptures tell us that love will come home to those who love Jesus and love often comes in the form of a stranger. Paul thought he was going to meet a man from Macedonia. Instead he met someone stranger, Lydia, a dealer in purple, a worshipper, a listener. She opened her home to him and love came home to her.

Love comes home, and when it does, it never leaves things as they are but turns us inside out. It opens hearts, it opens homes, it opens the Church. It rearranges our priorities, flips our ideas of power and calls us to join Jesus outside the gate – by the river, in the wild places, wherever people are listening.

The Sound of Jesus: hearing his voice, following his call

May 11, 2025May 11, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

Using scripture appointed for the 4th Sunday of Easter (YrC), Psalm 23 and John 10.22-30, here’s a reflection on what it means to hear the voice of Jesus in a noisy world.

I love preaching that brings Scripture to life—and that brings Scripture back to life, and I hope you do too. That’s a reminder that every time we open scripture together we are bringing it back to life. What matters today is what we call people, what we call ourselves and what we call God. Today is Vocations Sunday – a day to explore our calling, our calling of one another and God’s calling of us.

That’s the point Jesus makes when he is confronted by Jews at the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem with the question showing their lack of understanding of him. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” I’m discovering that John is always telling us the time. In our gospel readings through this Easter season, all from John’s gospel, he has always told us the time. It’s morning, it’s evening, it’s early in the morning. Today, we hear that it is “winter”. Perhaps John wanted to introduce a shiver in his readers to indicate the coldness of these Jews towards Jesus and the frostiness of their relationship towards him.

Jesus replied to them to say “I did tell you, but you do not believe”. He draws the distinction between those who do believe and those who don’t. Those who do believe have listened to his voice and followed him. It’s his voice that makes us think vocationally. We are those who believe. We’ve heard his voice.

Vocation is not just about what we do – it’s about whose voice we listen to, and whose voice we speak with.

We live in noisy days. Everyone has something to say. Social media, politics, advertising, even the voices in our own heads – so many trying to define who we are, what we’re worth, and what matters. Those who follow Jesus make out his voice in all the hullabaloo. As Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. They listen to my voice and follow me. Even surrounded by the sound of enemies, or even traumatised by suffering, or even as we walk through the darkest valleys overshadowed by death, there is the one call we listen out for. It’s the call that leads us to metaphorical green pasture and the still waters that refresh the soul.

And here’s the gift and challenge of vocation: those who follow Jesus begin to speak like him. They begin to sound like him. It’s not because they have perfect words, nor because they are fluent in the language of the kingdom, but because they speak in love. They echo his truth that so loves the world. They call people “beloved”. They become the kind of people whose words give life.

This is Jesus calling. His calling isn’t just for those who we say “have had a calling”. His calling is for the sake of the world. His calling is for the whole church – to hear, and to follow. On this Vocations Sunday, we’re not just praying for more priests or deacons (though some who hear his call might follow that course). We’re also praying for a church that listens to the voice of Jesus and follows his call, for a church that sounds like Jesus. We are praying for a Pope who sounds like Jesus, for an Archbishop who sounds like Jesus, and for one another, that we dare to follow the voice of Jesus even when it sounds strange in our world of noise.

So, let me ask you. Can you hear his voice?

Do you hear his voice,
the still small voice of calm,
the voice on the lake, in the storm?
Do you hear his voice
in the noise of your lives?
Do you hear his voice
above the voices of harm?
Do you hear his voice
singling you out
for the new rule of the kingdom?

What does he call you?
Are you Forgiven?
Are you his Friend,
freed, no longer slave?
Are you his Beloved?

And what of others?
Can you hear him calling them?
Can you hear him
calling the last first,
the first last?

Can you hear him
calling the stranger
closer as neighbour,
extending the family
by calling brother, sister,
even mother of those
quite unrelated?

His call goes far and wide,
as far as those who are called
“far from the kingdom of God”,
even to those who’ve grown rich
at the expense of others,
the proud and arrogant,
the self-righteous,
the self-satisfied, the guilty.

He calls the warnings of woe,
speaks of mercy to the guilty.
He calls the wayward home,
and calls the proud down.

Love’s call is strong, not mealy-mouthed,
exactly what is needed by those
who put themselves first,
those who are comfortable now.

This is the call of the shepherd
who loves his sheep
and raises his voice
for them to follow.

But the call of the shepherd
also raises the alarm
to disrupt the plans of wolves.

That is not a gentle voice we hear
nor does the shepherd
reassure us to stay where we are.
His is the leading voice,
leading us to fresh pastures,
calling us back, calling us out,
calling us up to the narrow way
that leads to life.

Can you see
how his voice might carry
in every breath of the church,
on the wind and wings
of the Spirit?

Do you know
the messages of your own lives
in your words and deeds?

And can you imagine
all your words being of
the one word that made you
and called you by name
Forgiven and Beloved?

Can you imagine your voice
reverberating his love and
amplifying his call?

Can you imagine
that being your only call?

There are those
who find it hard to hear
and difficult to believe
the voice that calls them
Forgiven, Beloved,
First, not Last
Friend, no longer Stranger,
Brother, Sister, even Mother.

What did he say?

They need the words
in love’s translation,
the amplification
of those who follow
the sound of his voice.

So listen well, church.

Get the sense of vocation.
We know his voice,
we hear his call.

Let us follow the sound
of his voice so truly
that we too call
strangers friends
and the last first.

Let us see how
the voice of Jesus
carries light
into the darkness
of the night.
Let us echo
the good news
that names us
and calls us
Beloved.

Nostalgia never wins the day: there’s fights to fight and victories still to win

May 4, 2025May 5, 2025 David HerbertLeave a comment

A reflection for VE Day for the 3rd Sunday of Easter. Readings for the day: Acts 9:1-6, Psalm 30 and John 21:1-19

Our readings today are those appointed for the 3rd Sunday of Easter (year C) – and they’re a perfect fit for this week when we celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day on Thursday, May 8th. How do these readings, Acts 9:1-6, Psalm 30 and John 21:1-19 reflect the experience of victory in Europe, what it meant then in 1945 and what it means now in 2025?

Psalm 30 may well be a reflection on war – and more specifically, a reflection on surviving and winning a war.
“You didn’t let my foes triumph over me …
You brought me up from the dead … from among those who go down to the Pit.”

That was God’s doing.
But how many have gone through the hell of war and not survived?
How many were herded into the hell of concentration camps?
How many Jews, Roma, LGBTQ+ people?
How many people were killed resisting evil?
How many families shattered, communities broken, bodies and spirits scarred for life?

And yet …
“You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” (verse 11)

Verse 5 may say it best:
Heaviness may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning.

That was VE Day – a dawn after a long, dark night.

Then we heard what scripture has to say about Saul before he became Paul (Acts 9:1-6).
Make no mistake. Saul was an absolute tyrant “breathing out murderous threats” against Jesus’s followers.
He was an architect of hell.
He had legal letters giving him power to arrest followers of Jesus.
Earlier in Acts (8:1-4) we are told that after Saul’s involvement in Stephen’s martyrdom Saul ravaged the church, going house after house, dragging men and women off to.
Here was a tyrant, a religious stormtrooper.
He needed to be stopped.
It was a light from heaven that flashed around him that did it.
It blinded him. He was never able to see the same way again.
When he got his sight back, he saw the world completely differently.

In our gospel reading (John 21:1-19) six disciples fished all night and caught nothing.
Then – “early in the morning”, a stranger stood on the shore.
They didn’t know it was Jesus.
But when they followed his call to cast their net on the other side of the boat, they caught a huge haul of fish.
Only then did they recognise him.
This is the third time, John tells us, that the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples – and he always tells us what time it was.
In our Easter gospel, it was “early on the first day of the week” (John 20:1)
In last Sunday’s gospel, it was “in the evening” (John 20:19),
Today it’s “early in the morning”, the first light at the end of a dismal night.
just as May 8th 1945 must have seemed – the first light after long nights of total blackouts.

It’s breakfast time.
We’re gathering around the table to eat and drink together, just like those first disciples overjoyed with their catch and their rediscovery of Jesus.
This is the breakfast table too.
We gather round to bring the scriptures back to life.

The question is, what does Victory in Europe really mean, not just 80 years ago in 1945, but for us now.
For many in 1945 it meant the end of unimaginable suffering, the fall of a monstrous regime and a return to peace.
But for others, especially in countries like Germany VE Day was the Day of Defeat.
And yet, 40 years later, German President Richard von Weizsacker called it something else.
He called it a “Day of Liberation” – liberation from tyranny, from lies, from fear, from a system that devoured its own people.

Germany was beaten.
But our scriptures have a lot to say about those who are beaten – as we discover in today’s readings.
Those beaten are given a second life.
Think about Jesus, crucified, dead and buried – utterly beaten by the authorities, and still appearing on the seashore.
Think about the disciples defeated by a night of failure, turned around by morning..
Think about the psalmist whose mourning was turned to dancing.
Think about Saul/Paul – persecuted, transformed into the missionary of grace.
Post-war Germany was not just a defeated enemy but a mission field for reconciliation and rebuilding and we should be joining German Christians in giving thanks for all of that.

There was a victory – declared on May 8th 1945.
A huge victory.
But we can’t settle for nostalgia.
There are many more victories yet to be won.
New nationalisms are emerging here and abroad which are undermining the truth of others, of those desperate for refuge.
There are still people who are hungry, broken and forgotten.

We sing the hymn Peace, perfect peace is the gift of Christ the Lord.
It reminds us that there is such a thing as imperfect peace, and then there is perfect peace.

The perfect peace of the Lord is, as we say, a peace which passes all understanding.
It’s the peace that met Peter and the others on the beach,
the peace that transformed Saul on the road,
and the peace that raised up the psalmist from the pit.
It’s the peace that tends to the hungry, beaten and forgotten,
a peace that puts the last, least and lost first.

In our gospel reading Jesus told the disciples to cast their nets the other way – to try the other side.
As we move beyond VE Day let’s seek the peace of Christ,
casting our nets in a new way
that tells the truth,
that seeks the lost,
that reconciles enemies
and that turns mourning into the scenes of dancing and revelry we remember from VE Day 1945.

So may we, like those disciples, recognise the risen Christ on the shore,
and with joy cast our nets in new ways,
seeking not only peace,
but peace that restores,
peace that heals,
and sets the world dancing once more.

Seeing the wounds Jesus shows us

April 27, 2025May 5, 2025 David Herbert2 Comments

A sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter – Year C for two small churches. The gospel for the day is John 20:19-end.

*The Incredulity of St Thomas* by Caravaggio – or should it be called *Jesus showing Thomas his wounds*?

I love preaching that brings Scripture to life—and that brings Scripture back to life.

That’s a line I’m going to repeat each week to remind us that every time we open Scripture together we are bringing it back to life.

This morning we return to John’s Gospel, still caught up in the wonder of that first Easter day (John 20:19-end). It’s a story only he tells.

John himself brings scripture back to life.
Particularly we see the influence of the creation story from the 1st chapter of our scriptures.
We can see that in the way that he tells us the time.
On the evening of that first day of the week.
It’s like last week’s gospel reading which began: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark. (John 20:1)
We are still on that first day which was like the first day of creation, when, according to Genesis 1:2, earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.
That’s the time in today’s gospel. It was the first day of the week, and it was evening.
In other words, darkness was forming.
Taking our cue from Genesis, John’s readers can expect God’s wonders on this new day of creation.

Thomas wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came on that first day, the day of resurrection.
It was the other disciples who had to let him know that they had seen the Lord.
Thomas told them that he would never believe “unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side”.
It is this I suggest we focus on in our worship today.

Thomas is the patron saint of those who are blind because seeing wasn’t enough for him.
He needed to examine Jesus’s wounds by touching them and feeling them.
And the wonderful thing on that second Sunday, the first day of the week following, was that Jesus came and stood among them again and showed Thomas his wounds.
He welcomed his touch. He guided his hand. He let him explore his body.
Thomas is the patron saint of those who struggle to believe what they can’t see—or even what they can.
He shows us that resurrection faith isn’t just about seeing.
Sometimes it’s about touching, questioning and wrestling with God.

Jesus showed Thomas his scars. He wants his disciples to see them.

In the Last Supper, he took a loaf of bread and he broke it.
He wanted them to see his body in the brokenness of the bread.
“Take, this is my body,” he said. (Mark 14:22).
Then he gave them a cup for all of them to drink from.
In that cup he wanted them to see his blood.
“This is my blood of the covenant poured out for many.”
Even before he was wounded he wanted to show his disciples the wounds he was going to suffer.
And in today’s gospel, in one of his resurrection appearances, he invites Thomas to have a look at those wounds – to examine, inspect and see with his hands as well as his eye.

Thomas recognises Jesus through his wounds, just as Jesus wanted him to.
And this is how we come to know Jesus.
Just as Thomas encountered the risen Christ in his wounds, so too we encounter him today in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
Every Communion we have with Jesus we have this invitation to examine the wounds of Jesus. Every time the bread is broken we are invited to see the brokenness of the body of Christ and to feel that brokenness in our mouths.
Every time we take this cup we are invited to taste the blood of Christ shed for us.

What is it that Jesus showed Thomas?
What did he want his disciples to see?
What does he want us to see when he shows us his wounds, when he invites us to see his body and his blood?

The first things we see are the wounds to his hands and feet where the nails were driven into his body by the hammer blows of empire.
Then, if he turns we see the wounds of the whipping scored into his back for being the scourge of empire and religion.
Then we see the scars on his head where they pressed the crown of thorns and added insult to injury, to press home the point that this “pretender” was nothing.

The rule of the kingdom of God is that the last, the lost and the least come first and those who are first in the kingdoms of this world come last.
The rule of the kingdom of God turns the rules of the world upside down.

In the wounds of Jesus, his disciples see a man who embodies that rule of the kingdom of God. In the brokenness of his body, in the bloodshed, we see a man the religious and political capital tried to reduce to nothing.
The plots against him and his crucifixion were intended to humiliate him and his followers – to make them least, last and lost – GONE for ever.

The problem for them was that the rule of the kingdom of God puts the least, last and lost – those lost and broken by the ways of the world – first.
When Jesus stood among his disciples, first without Thomas, then with him, he was the living proof of the fundamental rule of the kingdom of God.
Here was the humiliated, crucified and killed one.
You can’t get more “least, last and lost” than that.
Here he was, “the first fruits of those who have died”, Christ raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20).

This is what Jesus showed Thomas –
the scars are the living proof of the rule of the kingdom of God.
Jesus stood among them as living proof of the rule he’d always followed,
that puts the last first and the first last.
Here is the one they put last made first.
This is what Thomas saw. This is what he said:
“My Lord, my God” – the rule of the kingdom of God realised in those few words.
“My Lord and my God” – Jesus comes first for Thomas.

So Jesus stands among us still, not with condemnation, but with scars.
What do we see? What difference does it make? Does Jesus come first?

Jesus doesn’t shame Thomas for his questions. He meets him in them.
He doesn’t rush belief. He invites it — gently, patiently, personally.

And he does the same with us.
To all who doubt, who ache, who long to see and touch and know — he says,
“Here I am. Peace be with you.”

He doesn’t hide his wounds. He offers them.
He lets us trace the pain and the mystery of a love that suffers with us and for us.
And in that wounded, risen body, we find our hope.

This morning, he says again:
“This is my body. This is my blood.”
This is how I choose to be known.
Look closely. Taste carefully.
And, if you are among the broken,
do not be afraid.