David Herbert

For crying out loud, what do you want me to do for you?

October 27, 2024October 28, 2024 David Herbert1 Comment

A sermon for the Last Sunday after Trinity (Year B) encouraging us to join Bartimaeus in his loud prayer that helps him see. The readings for the Last Sunday after Trinity (B) are Jeremiah 31:7-9 and Mark 10:46-end.

October 27th 2024

Here’s the question. “What do you want me to do for you?” This is the question Jesus asked Bartimaeus. It’s exactly the same question he asked the two disciples who approached him in last week’s gospel. The sons of Zebedee, James and John, came forward to Jesus, saying: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you”, to which Jesus replied: “What is it you want me to do for you?”

It’s a question any helper might ask. “What is it you want me to do for you?” It might well be a question you imagine Jesus asking you. As you settle down in prayer you might imagine Jesus asking you, “What do you want me to do for you?” Our prayer may specifically answer that question as we lay open the heart of our concerns to God.

Not that we expect God to do all we ask. Remember James and John. They wanted Jesus to do for them wherever they asked, but what they asked for was so wide of the mark that there was no way Jesus was going to do it for them. They asked to sit either side of Jesus in his glory – there was no way Jesus was going to save the seats for them. As it turned out the gospel shows us in the crucifixion scene that those to the left and right of Jesus “in his glory” are those disgraced by society, those shamed and ashamed – all three of them convicted criminals.

But sometimes our prayers are answered. Sometimes what we ask to be done is done, as in the case of Bartimaeus.

The beginning of his prayer is shouted out and is heard above the noise of the crowd. Often our prayer is a cry, and sometimes we cry out loud, as Bartimaeus does here: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ He goes against the crowd who mercilessly tried to shut him up. But he carried on shouting, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus heard his prayer. He couldn’t help hearing him: he was shouting so loud.

Mercifully Jesus called him to him asking that question. “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied, “My teacher, let me see again”. Jesus recognises the faith of the blind man in what the blind man has called him. He’s called him “Jesus”, “Son of David” and “Teacher”. According to Mark, Bartimaeus has seen in Jesus what the disciples have so far not seen. He’s the one who’s seen. It’s the disciples who are blind. When we call anyone “Teacher” we’re already trusting them to show us the way. Jesus responds to such faith, insight and trust. To the blind man he says “your faith has made you well”. Jesus had helped him see again – and Mark leaves us with this spectacle of Jesus journeying to Jerusalem with this beggar by his side. We don’t very often see the procession into Jerusalem that way, do we? But that is the way Mark paints the picture.

We can’t get away from the blind in our worship. Our other reading is also about the blind and the lame. They are what’s left of Judah after generations of suffering at the hands of the babylonian empire six centuries before Christ. Babylon invaded Judah three times that century and occupied her for 50 years. Judah was ruined. There was very little left. So much had been destroyed – Jerusalem, the temple – everything that gave them a national identity was gone. And most of the people had gone as well – killed or deported. Those who were left lived with the humiliation of being beaten. They were refugees scattered far and wide.

This scripture from Jeremiah has been treasured because of the vision Jeremiah has for these people and the words he has for them – the blind, the lame and those scattered to the four corners of the earth. These are traumatised people. They are survivors of devastating disaster. Some of you will know what it is to be traumatised by what’s happened to you. You may have lost someone or you may have suffered a life-changing injury. The news these days is full of reports of whole communities destroyed and traumatised by war in Gaza, Beirut, Lebanon. We look into their faces. There are no words. We often frame our speechlessness with those very words. “There are no words”, we say.

Traumatic shock leaves us reeling disrupting our normal mental processes because we can’t work out what is happening to us. The mind shuts down and the memory of the traumatic events become fragmented. The wounds are unspeakable. There are no words. The mind automatically shuts down feelings and turns off human responses locking violent experiences away in a form of self-protection which often means we never get to understand our pain, our loss, our grief. Trauma disrupts the trust we have – whether that is in God, in others or in the future. The future we had in mind is simply no longer there – and many traumatised people are left feeling that there is no future. “I see no future.”

This is the context for Jeremiah. He is part of a people traumatised by events. They have lost everything. There are no words. They have no vision for the future apart from their ongoing pain. But Jeremiah gives them words. They’re words given to him by God. Jeremiah shares his vision. Our reading comes from a part of the book of Jeremiah which is known as “the Book of Comfort”. God through Jeremiah is restoring their faith and renewing their hope. They have a vision for the future. Jeremiah is helping them see again.

Our readings are related. In both people are being helped to see again. That’s the one thing Bartimaeus asks of Jesus in today’s gospel. “I want to see again.” In our Old Testament reading Jeremiah helps the whole people to see themselves again, something like the people they had always been.

I suggested that you might use Jesus’ question in your prayer. Imagine Jesus asking you, “What do you want me to do for you?” After all you’ve been through, whatever that is, what will your answer be? What will you ask for?

Remember that Jesus asked that question to James and John as well as to Bartimaeus. He wasn’t interested in answering James and John’s request for status and privilege. Jesus will never answer our thirst for power, wealth or prestige. It’s no good praying over our lottery ticket. He only answers the beggar’s prayer.

Our readings are related to inspire the church to join the beggar in his prayer (not James and John in theirs).
Do we turn to Christ to help us see – to help us see differently,
to help us see ourselves differently,
to help us see our neighbours differently,
to help us see strangers differently,
to help us see our enemies differently,
to help us see the future differently,
to help us see our past differently?

Anais Nin wrote: “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” Maybe we’ve grown old. Maybe we are jaded, tired, cynical. Maybe ….

Lord Jesus, help us to see.
Help us see the way you see so that we may follow you that way.

The glory of Jesus, the bullied and the shamed standing side by side

October 25, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

Sermon for Trinity 21B – Oct 20th 2024

This sermon is for the shamed, the bullied, the ostracised, the oppressed as we get to grips with our readings for today from Isaiah 53:4-end and Mark 10:35-45. I am increasingly aware that the gospel of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit is for the shamed, bullied, ostracised and oppressed. God takes his place with them.

We may well have been bullied, shamed or ostracised.

And/or we may have been the bullies responsible for shaming and ostracising. Or we may have joined in because we were afraid that if we stood out from the crowd we, ourselves, would be bullied, shunned and ostracised.

To jog your memories, let me take you back to school. I’ll take you to my school all those years ago. It was an all boys school. Then, as now, the slightest difference was picked up and became opportunity for mockery and worse.

There was a boy we called Cheggers, even though he hated that name. We were probably 12 or 13 at the time. We’d do monkey impressions in front of him, making fun of the way his jaw was set slightly differently and the way he walked differently. Of course, I joined in. I joined in because that was the safest thing for me to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Cheggers. I didn’t know him – and the bullying kept it that way. How could he ever make himself known in those circumstances?

There’s a six part series on Sky Atlantic called Sweetpea featuring a young woman who was bullied and neglected. She becomes a “ghost” of her former self – always feeling invisible. People keep bumping into her, saying, “I didn’t see you”.

The bullied and ostracised are never seen for who they are. We see that in the fear-ful treatment of refugees when they’re not seen as people but as a threat. We didn’t “see” Cheggers. We only saw his difference and the opportunity for joking and banter – at his expense. We didn’t know who he was. We didn’t want to know how he felt. It didn’t matter that he probably felt awful. We didn’t know that, perhaps he was the bravest boy amongst us – brave enough to keep coming back, lining up with us to brave the taunts and humiliation again and again.

And here’s where it matters – in the scriptures we treasure, to the Jesus we follow.

In those days, my schooldays, he, Cheggers, was the one who bore our sin. Our hatred, anxiety and fear was turned on him and he suffered because of us. In the language of our reading from Isaiah, he was wounded for our transgressions. “He was oppressed” by us. “He was afflicted” by us, myself included.

Such is the emotional and physical suffering of the scapegoat.

We usually read this passage from Isaiah with Jesus in mind. It is normally read on Good Friday when we turn our minds to the suffering servant bearing the shame and pain of crucifixion. This is how we have come to know Jesus – mocked, bruised, afflicted and even numbered as one of the transgressors, one, two, three of them in the crucifixion scene.

But what we say of Jesus from this passage we can surely say of any we’ve scapegoated that he/she/they have borne our sin – our hatred, anxiety and fear. They are oppressed and afflicted when we, like sheep, have gone astray, turning to our own way of doing things. They are wounded by our transgressions and crushed by our iniquity.

It’s not clear who Isaiah is referring to as the scapegoat in this passage. He might have someone in mind, or a community used to suffering persecution (such as the Jewish people down the centuries) or any sufferer of bullying. We don’t need to narrow the scapegoat’s identity down to Jesus, though, certainly the choice of Jesus was to join the afflicted, tormented and bruised, becoming one such himself.

In the book of Acts we find this very same passage from Isaiah being read, and Luke takes us scripture readers to this particular scripture reader. (It’s Acts 8:26-40). It’s an angel who directs Philip to the reader who is on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. He is an official in the court of the queen of Ethiopia. So important. But he was a eunuch. Historians of the period point out that although eunuchs could be given great responsibilities they were seen as “monstrosities”, stigmatised for being morally and sexually distorted and the objects of suspicion and derision. They were seen as sexual deviants. They were a laughing stock scapegoated for no fault of their own.

So, here, on the road to Gaza, we have a man who was seen as “not a man” reading of one who was “oppressed and afflicted”, who was “wounded for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” – and an angel of the Lord, from the realm of glory, had directed one of Jesus’s disciples to help him to read, mark and inwardly digest that he was reading about himself, and that he was also reading about Jesus – and there and then, he was baptised.

God’s realm of glory is very different to the realms of glory we have in the world, where glory is measured in wealth and winning, in power and popularity – and in importance. This is the way of thinking of James and John when they come to Jesus and ask him for the best seats in the house. Their request, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

The disciples are always getting it wrong according to Mark’s gospel. They’ve missed the point of Jesus and his mission. Jesus points out the ways of the world and underlines the suffering caused by the ways of the world. He points out that those we recognise as our rulers so often lord it over us, making themselves exceptions to their rule, enjoying the power they have over others – and in so many cases turning out to be tyrants, striking fear into people, upsetting their lives and causing suffering.

He said, It is not so among you: but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be your servant must be slave of all. This is not what James and John had in mind when they came to Jesus with their request to be one up on everyone else. (Nor is it what we have in mind when we choreograph our ecclesiastical processions or when we excuse the abuses of power in a culture of deference.)

No, scripture points us to another way of doing things. Glory in the kingdom of God is for those, in the words of Isaiah, afflicted, wounded and oppressed by the powers that be, just as Jesus was afflicted, wounded, mocked and shamed by those rulers of Jerusalem and Rome, the rulers of religion and empire – just as the eunuch would have been, just as whole groups of people are, just as certain ethnic groups continue to be.

Who will be on Jesus’ left, and who will be on Jesus’ right in his glory? Is it James? Is it John? Mark gives us the answer. The glory of Jesus is first witnessed by the Roman centurion, who, faced with Jesus, said “truly this man was God’s son!”. And on his left hand and on his right were neither James or John. They were nowhere to be seen. They’d deserted him. Instead, on his left and on his right were two “bandits” – together with Jesus – the three of them shamed, mocked, scorned and killed by empire and those who want the glory of being empire builders.

This, brothers and sisters, is where the gospel of Jesus Christ takes us – to the cross where one oppressed, afflicted and wounded was hung out to die – with one on his left and another on his right, neither of whom are James or John. They’re still glory seeking – they’re in hiding, saving their own skin. The glory of the kingdom is the salvation of those who bear the sins of the world – victims of shame, injustice and empire (maybe ourselves included).

Delight and service in the nature of things: more down to earth preaching for the Season of Creation

September 23, 2024September 23, 2024 David Herbert4 Comments

September 22nd 2024

Imagine this. Whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way.

Whatever we do affects everything and everyone else. That’s what Norton Juster wrote in his children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth published in 1962. “Whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes around the world.”

This has become known as the butterfly effect – exploring the possibility that a butterfly flapping her wing might eventually cause a tornado half way round the world and weeks later. Whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. The effects caused by a butterfly’s flap of a wing might be tiny in their first instant, but then grow and grow. Of course, we don’t know, but the theory underlines the importance of cause and effect AND just how interconnected everything is.

In the garden where the trees are, in the garden of connections, Eden – there we were made. We were made for this world of connections, part of this world of connections. Formed from the dust of earth it just took a breath of God to breathe life into us. Having made one he made another from the rib of the other. Made for each other they were, forever relational we are – NOT as we may think these days, made for nuclear family life, husband, wife, children living away of their private bit of land behind locked doors – disconnected. We were not made for that. We were made for the garden where we’re all connected.

In those first days of creation gardeners were obviously hard to find. Genesis 2:5 – “there was no one to till the ground”. The one made from dust and the one made from his rib were made to be gardeners, to till the earth, to keep it, to serve it and sustain it.

Someone asked me last Sunday whether I believed the creation stories in Genesis. I absolutely do. I don’t get the sense that we are reading God’s diary entries – you know, on this day this happened, the next day this, and you’ll never guess what happened on the sixth day. No, it’s not history we are reading when we read Genesis. Some truths are more important than historical truth and scientific facts. What is most important is the deep spiritual truth that sees God in everything. I love the poetic imagination that sees God in our beginnings, that sees us made from earth alongside everything that there is, and that sees everything made in terms of love and goodness. These are the truths to treasure. They give us an everyday sense of vocation and down to earth purpose.

There was no one to till the earth till man and woman standing side by side started helping one another in the garden.

There are two ways of looking at this gardening job. In the first creation story (Genesis 1:26-28) God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air …..” This language of dominion has led us up the garden path into the frame of mind of domination – thinking it’s all for us, misleading us into a sense of entitlement and into behaviours which have exploited and abused those to whom we are supposed to be lovingly connected. As a result we see rivers choked, earth stripped bare, forests on fire, coastlands flooding, icecaps melting and the extinction of whole species.

The other way of looking at the job is in the language of “tilling the earth”. The Hebrew word translated as tilling is abad. The most common meaning of that verb is serve. Human beings were created to serve Earth – the whole world and all its connections rather than dominating creation and overruling all other species of creation.

We are in the liturgical Season of Creation. This is the fourth Sunday in the Season of Creation which began with a day of prayer for the preservation of the natural environment on September 1st and ends on the Feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4th. It’s a relatively new liturgical development intended to turn the liturgical dial the crises we see all around us, and is the result of an initiative begun in the Orthodox Church and taken up by the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

We haven’t always taken the time to celebrate creation with all our connections and patterns of nature. We haven’t always taken the time to reflect on the consequences of our actions. What is life, if full of care, we take not time, to stop and stare at the wonder of our creation, the wonder of our nature and the awesomeness of the responsibility we have for one another. What is life if we don’t bring our wonder into our worship, our remorse into our prayer? This Season of Creation gives us time for all of this, and time for us to turn our commitment to our vocation and responsibility to till the earth, to serve and sustain all that is.

When we look into nature we see an instinct to nurture. Many of us are transfixed when we see nature programmes such as Springwatch looking through cameras at the ways bird nurture their chicks. We’re bowled over by the way commitment of emperor penguins incubating their eggs for months on end. We can scarce take it in that trees communicate with each other and care for each other through their own underground broadband fibre network in their wood-wide web.

Wherever we look in nature we see love. It’s a love that makes sacrifices, a love that nurtures new life and makes new connections. It’s a love that is divine and seems to many to be the very image of God – ourselves included. Love is the heart of creation. Whatever love does affects everything and everyone, even if only in the tiniest way.

In these times of Earth’s suffering we need our times of wild swimming, of tree bathing, of country walks. We need our times with animals, our time working the land. We need the time to witness the awesomeness of nature with all of its nurture and abundance of love. Immersing ourselves in nature refreshes us. It’s good for our mental health. And nature needs to make that connection with us for her own sake. If we don’t give her the opportunity to remind us constantly of her love then she easily gets forgotten by us who have the responsibility and calling to be her servants and sustainers.

And we need something like this Season of Creation
to refresh and inspire our wonder in our human nature,
to commit ourselves to the safekeeping of the whole of creation

and to reshape our worship of God
whose delight was and is In the beginning of all things
and whose delight is in our tilling and serving of all that is.

With our ear to the ground – down to earth preaching for the Season of Creation

September 15, 2024September 15, 2024 David Herbert1 Comment

This sermon was written for the 3rd Sunday in the Season of Creation and is dedicated to Earth and those who suffer along with her. Genesis 2:4b-23 and Romans 8:19-23 were the chosen readings.

September 15th 2024

It’s not all about us. Sometimes it seems like it is, either about the congregation or about people in general. We may be forgiven for thinking its all about us. But it isn’t.

Psalm 148 calls the whole creation to praise the Lord – the sun and moon, the stars, sea monsters and the deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind, mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars, wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds, kings of the earth, princes and rulers, young men and women, old and young together – let them all praise the Lord.

It’s not all about us. The whole creation is called to praise the Lord together. Its all about us being joined in praise together.

Today is the 3rd Sunday of the Season of Creation. This Season of Creation is a reminder of our joint vocation; that It’s not all about us, but is for the whole of God’s creation. It’s a reminder of our separation, egocentricity, selfishness and sin.

The Season of Creation is a relatively new variation to the liturgical year, dating back to 1989 when Patriarch Demetrios (of the Orthodox Church) invited all people of goodwill to dedicate September 1st as a special day of prayer for the preservation of the natural environment. It became an ecumenical project backed by the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion and turned into a season beginning on September 1st and ending on the Feast of St Francis of Assisi – October 4th.

You will see that this sermon sticks out like a sore thumb from today’s liturgy. And we’ve changed the readings so that they fit the Season of Creation better than the ones we are supposed to be reading today. There is a lot of work to be done to develop theological and liturgical resources to respond to the crises we see all around us, and the cries which come from the heart of creation. It’s not something I’ve done before either – it’s all new to me – but I do feel a strong sense of vocation to make this start – including penance for our neglect of the subject.

We have to begin somewhere. Your Harvest festivals and Pet Services are something of a start and echo the faith of the psalmist in Psalm 148.

I suggest we begin by putting our ear to the ground. Hebrew is the language of most of our scriptures. Adamah is the Hebrew for ground/earth. Adam bears that image in his name. God planted a garden.

We may have the Monty Python question. What has the earth ever done for us?

It was from the ground of the garden that God grew “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). From the ground God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air. (Genesis 2:19). From the dust of the earth God made humanity. There is no other way. Earth is the mother of all living creatures. Everything comes from the earth – except woman. The Genesis tradition has it that she was formed from the rib of the one born of earth.

Those who play with words will know that HEART is an anagram of EARTH. Earth is the heart of creation..

Aboriginal poet Mary Duroux laments:

My mother, my mother,
what have they done?
Crucified you
like the Only Son?
Murder committed
by mortal hand!
I weep, my mother,
my mother, the land.

The primitive and aboriginal understanding of the elements of creation is that we are caretakers of them. But over the centuries earth has become an increasingly abused and exploited partner, subject to human violence and carelessness.

We’ve denuded her. We’ve stripped her, scarred her and left her exposed to the elements. We have fought over her and left her covered with blood. We have dug into her and taken her jewels, mining her with human greed. Mine, mine, mine! People fighting over her coal, gold and diamonds, pulling her one way and another – land grabbing. She’s mine, mine, mine.

If we put our ear to the ground we will hear her deep sigh of suffering.

The story of the Fall in Genesis is also the story of Earth. God said ‘because you … have eaten of the tree which I commanded you ‘You shall not eat,’ cursed is the ground because of you’ The curse on the ground may strike us as grossly unjust. What has earth done wrong. But the story of the Fall tells the deep truth that earth is cursed because of us, because of our disobedience, because of our greed, because of our abusive behaviours. Earth bears her curse like so many mothers bear the curse brought on them by their children.

We live in the midst of beautiful countryside. We enjoy looking over it. Our ear to the ground may be deceived by the restfulness of this patch of earth. But don’t be deceived. I bet the politics of the land round here is as contested here as anywhere – planning permissions, boundary disputes – not to mention the ripping apart of the earth to make way for HS2. Earth is cursed because of us – and Earth hasn’t been given her say. The voice of Earth in pain has been suppressed – just as the voices of so many exploited and abused remain suppressed.

When we have our ear to the ground we hear the Earth. She has her say. It’s not a human voice. She screams and groans her own way – and many of her groans and screams will be joining the groans and screams of others. Very often people are suffering grave injustice in those places where Earth hurts. People are hurt most where Earth hurts most, and Earth is hurt most where people hurt most because of the extremes of injustice, poverty and war. Think Ukraine. Think Holy Land. Think fire and flood where Earth and human life are cursed together, crying and screaming together in their own ways.

The prophets of the Old Testament had their ear to the ground. Jeremiah understood her desolation and heard her mourning and crying. Isaiah sees Earth “languishing”. Joel hears the groaning of the animals after fire has devoured Earth’s pasture and burned all the trees of the field.

Paul has his ear to the ground in the passage we’ve listened to from his letter to the Romans. He knows that creation has been subjected to futility and that the whole creation has been groaning … not only creation but we ourselves, who have the fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly. This Season of Creation takes us down to Earth. As the Earth groans, we groan as the Spirit of God groans within us to urgently pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

Faith takes our ear to the ground. She keeps us down to earth. Humility is a word which finds its meaning from humus, the soil. The rule of God is that the humble are blessed. How blessed are the humble. They shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5). In their care Earth will find her peace. Her curse will be lifted and with all the redeemed her voice will be full of praise.

Note: The poem by Mary Duroux appears in her collection Dirge for Hidden Art

Creation Day

September 1, 2024September 1, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

September 1st is Creation Day – the first day of the Season of Creation which ends on October 4th, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi. Genesis 1 was the reading chosen for the creation Day liturgy at church in the heart of Warwickshire countryside.

September 1st 2024

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)

Who would want to deny that? Even at the extremes of suffering, even when human nature goes grievously wrong there is a sense that, even then, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And not just us. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, even the crawling insects and the tiny seeds – all of them fearfully and wonderfully made.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made
say the people of God
in words that have reverberated
down the centuries
from the faith of the Psalmist
who echoed the words
of all those who see God
in their beginning
in one generation after another.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made
say the people of God
in words that reach
across the ages
from the very beginning
of all who see God
in the end
even in the bad times,
the mad times, the mean time.

Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. You can’t get more “beginning” than that. Genesis – the start of everything. Page 1 in our Bibles (even though this opening page of our scripture is far from the first to be written). There in the beginning is our sense of wonder, how everything came into being. This is no scientific account – how bored we would be by that. This is us – finding some order for the awesomeness of the world around us, and accounting for our wonder by putting God at the heart of everything there is.

This is the sensing by those fearfully and wonderfully made that God is the making of us. So fearfully and wonderfully made are we that nothing else can account for just how fearfully and wonderfully made we are.

There is a universal wonder in creation. We wonder “why?”, we wonder “how?” and we wonder “who?”. All people of goodwill share this sense of wonder. You have to be very insensitive, selfishly egotistical and cruel not to. And the people of God put God at the beginning seeing creation and creativity as wonderfully divine. We see God in our beginning, in a love that is never ending. We see God in the beginning – and we see God in the end, with his love in us and for us through all the time from beginning to end, in the time we call the “mean time” and the hard times.

Even in the meantime, in the darkest times we discover new things about life on earth – as we dig the garden, as we watch Life on Earth through the lens of David Attenborough and Chris Packham. We can never know enough. We are always learning, intrigued by the play of light and darkness, the stars, by the birds and the bees, all creatures, seeds, plants – and forever challenged with the sense of responsibility

The wonder we have is the beginning of faith and hope, the genesis of faith and hope, the generation of faith and hope which takes us through all our days, from the very first day of creation to the last when, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “all will be well and all manner of things shall be well”, when there will be peace beyond our understanding (Philippians 4:7), when mountains and hills will burst into song and the trees will clap their hands (Isaiah 55), when God’s kingdom comes on earth – as it is in heaven.

These verses from Genesis are pearls of wisdom and love, strung together by wonderful imagination. They put us at the heart of God’s creation, seeing us as the image of God. It was the sixth day of his work and the finishing touch of his creation. There was nothing more for God to do other than delight in his work. The next day he rested having put his work into the hands of his very image.

In his image he made us – male and female he made us to be just like him in his love of creation and in his care for everything that is, subduing the forces of nature just as he had done in these 6 days of creation.

Today, September 1st, is being celebrated as Creation Day – a world day of prayer for creation. It’s been part of the Christian calendar for the last 35 years Patriarch Demetrios issued the first encyclical inviting all people of good will to dedicate September 1st as a special day of prayer for the preservation of the natural environment. The call was first taken up by Orthodox Christians. Then the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion joined to develop an ecumenical initiative for a Season of Creation taking us from today (September 1st) to the Feast of St Francis of Assisi (October 4th).

These days, our love for creation has to take a new turn. Creation groans and demands the compassion which is the very likeness and image of God’s compassion. The seas are rising, coastlands eroding, communities are flooded and people are fleeing. The earth is burning fire while prosperous industrial nations choke the atmosphere with smoke. Species are becoming extinct as scientists fight for their lives. What we once saw we no longer see – and these were supposed to be the friends we loved and cared for.

Creation groans after decades of neglect, exploitation and abuse. It’s time we said sorry. It’s time we begged life on earth for forgiveness. It’s time we sought reconciliation. It’s time to start loving again. The whole of life was committed to the men and women God created in his likeness. None of all that life could do wrong. It was only us who could go wrong through our greed, self-interest and negligence. This Season of Creation is time for us to pray, to confess, to commit to what has been committed to us, and to reimagine the wonders of creation with God in all our beginnings.

Yes, be angry, but don’t take anger into your darkness

August 11, 2024August 11, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

Sometimes a sermon feels half-baked, but that’s all this preacher has this Sunday for a small congregation meeting in the heart of Warwickshire. The focus is on anger, one of the gifts of being human, in the context of violent anti-immigration riots which have been going on in towns and cities in the UK over the last week or so. “Be angry, but don’t let the sun go down on your anger” is the text from the reading appointed for the day – Ephesians 4:25-5:2.

August 11th 2024

See how fearfully and wonderfully made we are. That’s the frame of mind of the Psalmist. We say our Amen when we join the prayer of the psalmist. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our Amen is our Yes to this frame of mind and part of our adoration of God. The Psalmist thanks God: “You yourself created my inmost parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalms 139: 12-13)

We don’t just come with our physical make up. We have our psychological make up. We have soul. We are fearfully and wonderfully made – complete with our basic instincts and appetites. Without those instincts and appetites we wouldn’t survive or organise ourselves or build society. The desert fathers listed these instincts so that they could help people discipline them, because without that discipline they turn on us and ruin us.

Among their list of instincts and habits, as an example, is the habit of dejection – which lowers our sights and expects the worst of ourselves. Greed is in that list, and so is anger. They tried to cover all our basic instincts and habits of thought, recognising the demons that turn those instincts against us. They recognise that we all get caught up in corrupt chains of thought that ultimately bind us. You may see that in yourself. I see it in myself. I hear one thing, which leads me to another – it is my doom-looping which has made me bound to think and behave this way and that.

This morning we have a letter to read dating back nearly 2000 years which is dedicated helping to free people from these chains of thoughts and behaviours. It comes to us from the Christians of Ephesus.

Be angry, the letter reads recognising the basic instinct of anger which is part of our make up – part of being fearfully and wonderfully made.

Be angry – why not? Jesus got angry. Our anger can be very useful. Cassian, one of the desert fathers, taught that the proper focus for anger is on our malicious thoughts and on the destructiveness we see around us. These are things we need to get angry about. Imagine a world in which no anger was focused on such things. Imagine ourselves and what we would be like without an anger against some of the ways we are. Anger can make things better.

And anger can make things worse. Anger can turn nasty. Our anger can be deeply hurtful of others and ourselves.

Anger needs reining in. Ephesians has given us a pearl of wisdom which has become almost proverbial. Be angry, but don’t let the sun go down on your anger. I dare say that has saved a good many relationships. Don’t let the angry word be the last word of the day. Don’t take your anger into the night. Keep your anger in the light.

Don’t take your anger into the darkness. Break the chain of thought before the chain of thought traps you in darkness.

We’ve seen anger spilling onto our streets this last week using mis-information to make targets of immigrants and their defenders, and Muslims and their mosques,

Having read his book The Lightless Sky I’ve been following Afghan refugee Gulwali Passarlay. He featured in the Channel 4 election debate. He posted on Twitter this week that he has “never been this afraid” He’s lived in the UK for 17 years and been a citizen for the last 5. He posted: “I’m afraid for my kids. I to;d my wife, don’t go to the park. I had to travel from Bolton to take my kids to nursery because I was afraid for my wife to walk on the road.” There were NHS staff frightened to go to work. And yesterday I heard that a Faceboog group of British Asians in Leamington were warning members not to go into town because of the possibility of racist attack.

The mob violence we have seen is anger gone wrong – anger pent up, anger that has been taken into darkness by perpetrators who have been misled – and we all need to be very afraid. Thank God for the counter-protesters, and for those who day in and day out defend the stranger and the defenceless.

When we take anger (as well as our other instincts) into our darkness, into the night and into our sleep, we find that, there the darkness spins chains of doomloops to bind us. Anger belongs to the day. Be angry, but be angry in the light of day. The Ephesians tell us, Don’t make room for the devil to work with your anger.

If we don’t make room for the devil to work in our anger we leave room for compassion and love to work there, to direct and discipline our anger.

The permission for anger in Ephesians comes with disciplines that rein in this basic instinct. Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. We belong together. We are made for one another. Anger needs the light of truth, so we only speak the truth to our neighbours and about our neighbours. We’ve seen this week how the incitement to riot relies on falsehoods, deception and misinformation.

In anger, let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear …. Be imitators of God … and live in love.

Anger is one of our instincts. We are fearfully and wonderfully made – with anger and much else. God loves our anger when we are imitators of God. His anger was shown by Jesus. His anger and wrath is against those who put themselves first, the entitled, the supremacists who demean others and put others beneath them and never go to their help. His anger and wrath is against those wolves in sheep’s clothing who lead people astray.

But for those put last, for those lost and misled, for those least, for those forced to flee, for those seeking sanctuary and safety, for those housed in the hotels being attacked in the mob violence, there is only words of love giving grace to those who hear them, and the promise of a rule which puts them first, not last.

Ephesians 4:25-5:2
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

The congregation is the point

July 21, 2024July 21, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

I don’t think I have ever preached a sermon where the point has been the congregation before. The congregation seems to be the point of the readings set for the 8th Sunday after Trinity (year B). They are Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:11-end and Mark 6:30-34, 53-end (text below). I’m covering a long term “vacancy” in a group of churches. I’m hoping these congregations will find encouragement here.

July 21st 2024

The point of today’s readings is the gathering after the scattering – the scattering of people. I don’t think I have ever preached a sermon where the point has been the congregation before, but that seems to be the point that links the readings appointed for today. All four: the reading from Jeremiah, the Psalm, the reading from Ephesians and the gospel reading from Mark – they all build the point. The congregation is the point. The gathering after the scattering is the point.

Never has there been so many people on the move as now. By the end of last year 1 person out of every 69 was forcibly displaced, having been forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order. That is double the number of a decade ago.

I in 69.

Last year the global refugee population increased by 7% to over 43 million people. 73% of them came from just 5 countries: Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine and Sudan.

As well as those 43 million people another 63.3 million people who were forced to flee remain in their own countries. They are known as internally displaced people. Can you imagine this? Over 9 million people in Sudan, over 7 million people in Syria, 6.9 million people in Columbia, 6.3 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 4.5 million people in Yemen – all internally displaced, mostly due to conflict and violence, and some due to natural disasters.

1 in 69.

Every bomb dropped on a village or a housing block in Ukraine and Gaza displaces the families who live there. Every military push forces out those in its path.

I in 69 people displaced and scattered. Poet Warsan Shire, herself a British poet born to Somali parents in Kenya, begins her poem called Home with the lines:
No one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.

Home by Warsan Shire, read here by Sir Jonathan Pryce

1 in 69 people forcibly displaced – according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recent report on global trends. 1 in 69 – and it’s getting worse. 1 in 69 displaced and scattered because of the failure of governments to guarantee their peace and security.

This is the world we live in. Our scriptures reflect the same realities – the failure of government to secure peace and security. Our scriptures come from the heart of people displaced by persecution, oppression and exile – and those moved with compassion for them.

Jeremiah is one such person used to address the tragedy of his contemporaries being displaced in large number and scattered far and wide. Just as the UNHCR report puts the blame on the failure of governments to safeguard peace and security, so does Jeremiah all those centuries ago.

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of the pasture! Says the Lord. Shepherd was a term used to describe the king. Jeremiah’s “woe to the shepherds” is a judgement on the line of kings who have failed the people.

In the previous chapter Jeremiah protests against the succession of rulers whose eyes and hearts have been set on “dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood and for practising oppression and violence” (22:17) in contrast to the good king (Josiah) who “judged the cause of the poor and needy” (22:16).

It was the failure of the rulers to “execute justice and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed” which resulted in the scattering of people. The promise in Jeremiah is to gather the scattered, the ones lost, to raise up shepherds who will shepherd them, so that they shall fear no longer, nor be dismayed, nor go missing.

Similarly, in our gospel reading, Jesus sees the crowd coming to him. (Is Mark here seeing the fulfilment of the promise of Jeremiah?) Mark writes that Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

The verses of today’s gospel immediately follows the beheading of John the Baptist in prison – the beheading of Jesus’s own cousin by Herod at the request of his dancing daughter and wife. Herod, as king, was supposed to shepherd the people, but left the people like sheep without a shepherd. Mark pictures Herod partying with his courtiers and the “leaders of Galilee” – the very ones who should have been keeping watch of the people. Another Partygate. Mark pictures Herod and his court getting fat at the expense of the poor.

The lost and scattered, then as now, are always the victims of failed government, self-serving leaders (misleaders) and corrupt shepherds. The lost and scattered are always the people on whom God shows compassion, through the prophets, through Jesus and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

All we see in today’s gospel is people gathering and coming together around Jesus and the disciples. The intention was that Jesus and his disciples were going to find a deserted place so that they could get some rest. They went by boat. But they were spotted. Many saw them and recognised them, and they hurried on foot from the towns and got there before the boat landed. There were five thousand of them – an unimaginable number of people, like sheep without a shepherd.

Again, later, when they landed at Gennesaret in the second section of our gospel reading), people recognised Jesus and they rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.

Notice the rush people were in. Mark underlines their hurry. They rushed about that whole region bringing the sick to wherever he was. Wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak.

Jesus doesn’t let them go. He has compassion on them.
He heals them. He makes clean what the religious (mis)leaders had made unclean He restores them to their communities – no longer outcasts.

He feeds them – yes, the crowd in today’s gospel is the crowd he feeds with just the five loaves and two fish.
And he began to teach them many things.

Here is the good shepherd doing what good shepherds do: gathering the scattered, the least, the lost, the sick and helpless – making right the people the bad shepherds and corrupt leaders had wronged.

This is the point: the gathering after the scattering. The crowding together is the point.

And here we are – gathered, a congregation.
How do we see ourselves?
Do we see ourselves as among those on whom Jesus has compassion?
Do we see ourselves as held together by his love?
Do we see that without our gathering we would (in the words of the epistle) remain as strangers and aliens, hopeless and far off?
Do we see that we are brought to this point “by the blood of Christ”?
Do we see that we are citizens with the saints and members of the household of God?
Do we see ourselves built together spiritually as a dwelling-place for God?
Do we see that Jesus feeds us – even as we walk together through the valley overshadowed by death?
Do we see that Jesus has begun to teach us many things?
Do we see this as the rule of heaven, his will on earth, as it is in heaven?
Do we see ourselves as the lucky ones, even as the ones the world counted least, or last or even lost, who by amazing grace have become among the first gathering of Jesus?
Do we see ourselves being joined by others, including some of the many others who make up the 1 in 69 people currently on the move, without a shepherd?
Do we see this as our place of belonging – after all our longing?

Is this not home, where we belong – counted, fed, healed, restored?
Do we see our congregation as the point that proves Jeremiah’s promise, the gathering that justifies our faith in the Lord our shepherd?

Mark 6:30-34, 53-end

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while’. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognised them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognised him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

How do we pray?

July 7, 2024July 7, 2024 David Herbert2 Comments

My eyes were turned by the simplicity of Psalm 123, the psalm appointed for the 6th Sunday after Trinity (year B), prompting this brief exploration of how we pray.

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes,
to you that are enthroned in the heavens.

As the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master,
or the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,

So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,
until he have mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.

Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of the arrogant,
and of the contempt of the proud.

July 7th 2024

Can you smoke while you pray? No. Can you pray while you smoke? Of course you can. So goes one of the old jokes about prayer.

How do we pray? I googled “why we pray with our eyes closed”. The answer from Christian Stack Exchange: “For many, prayer is a private matter, an intercession between a person and another higher power. Closing your eyes as you do it is a way to block out distractions and focus on the conversation. Instead of using your eyes to communicate with others, you shut them and turn your thoughts inward.”

The psalm appointed for our worship today (Psalm 123) has been described as a “primer on prayer” (Richard Clifford) and as “one of the loveliest prayers in all of scripture, simple and direct, trusting and confident, spoken out of need and in much hope”. (Bellinger and Brueggemann)

The eyes of the prayer are very much open – and the prayer is very much a public matter.

How do we pray? Poet Naomi Shihab Nye explores Different Ways to Pray:

There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could somehow
fuse them to the sky.

There were the men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms –
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain,
because there was also happiness.

Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen
to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.
When they arrived at Mecca
they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times,
they would bend to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.

While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.
These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.

There were those who didn’t care about praying.
The young ones. The ones who had been to America.
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
Time? – the old ones rayed for the young ones.
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.

And occasionally there would be one
who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,
and was famous for his laugh.

How do we pray? As Jesus taught us so we pray. They’re the words that launch our prayer – “Our Father ……” But surely we want to join Jesus as he prayed. The book of Psalms was his prayer book as it is for all Jews as well as ourselves. The prayers of the Psalms came readily to Jesus’ lips, as we know from the time he was crucified when he directly used the words from Psalm 22. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” which, incidentally is a cry of trust, not a cry of abandonment. That prayer goes on:”All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they shake their heads …… Dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me …… they divide my clothes among themselves and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, be not far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion!” The psalms and the tradition behind them is where Jesus and his fellow Jews got their prayers from.

Psalm 123 is one of a collection of psalms of ascent – prayer-songs of pilgrims on their way up to festivals in Jerusalem. It’s a personal prayer that becomes a shared prayer. It starts with “my eyes”. “To you I lift up my eyes” which becomes the eyes of the whole pilgrim community. Not “my eyes”, but “our eyes”. This is the prayer of a people matching stride for stride on their way to Jerusalem. Stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder – their eyes lifted to the one “enthroned in heaven, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, or as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress”.

Those of you who have dogs will know that look – as they wait for us to recognise their need, whether that is food, water or a walk. So the eyes of the pilgrims “wait”. They wait “until he have mercy on us”.

This is the manner of the prayer of the pilgrim community – the community who believes in God’s mercy and the people promised God’s blessing by Jesus: those who are poor, those poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the ones reviled and scorned – the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:1-13)

This is the prayer of those, who in their own words “have had more than enough”. They’ve had more than enough of contempt, more than enough of the scorn of the arrogant, of the contempt of the proud.

This is how we pray if we join Jesus – himself scorned by his own village and by the powers that be. We join Jesus as he joins others who have had enough, who have had enough of contempt, who have had enough of the scorn of the arrogant and of the contempt of the proud. The arrogant and the proud never look up. They don’t walk as part of the pilgrim community – because they don’t lift up their eyes to the one enthroned in the heavens. Their eyes look down. They look down their noses at the poor, the refugee, the unfit, the least, the lost and all those Jesus promises God’s blessing – the meek, the merciful, the persecuted, the scorned.

I don’t know about you but I’ve had more than enough. I’ve had more than enough of the scorn of the arrogant, I’ve had more than enough of the contempt of the proud. I’m ready to walk with them, stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder – our eyes looking up in hope and expectation to the one who answers our call for mercy, love and a new earth.

When we pray we lift up our eyes. Because of the hope that is in us, we refuse to be be downcast, with eyes cast down, self-defeated. We refuse to look down our noses – we defy the gaze of the proud who admire themselves and look down.

We know the words of “we’ve had enough”. We’ve got the music of the psalms to articulate our prayer. Shall we answer the call to prayer, to join the prayer of Jesus who only joins the prayer of the scorned and those who seek mercy?

Are we going to join Fowzi in his prayer? Are we going to join his laugh? Remember, he’s the fool. Or, rather, he’s the one the proud call foolish. Like us, he’s had enough. He has had enough of the scorn of the arrogant. Shall we follow his eyes as he lifts them to the one enthroned in the heavens, fixed in his search for help and mercy – as the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master, or the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress?

Note: Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Different Ways to Pray is from Words Under Words: Selected Poems published in 1995.

For the shamed and ashamed

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 David Herbert1 Comment

Here’s a sermon for the 5th Sunday after Trinity (year B) for a group of churches who on the 5th Sunday of the month come together for their “Gathering”, together with a poem which inspired me for this – Harry Baker reading Unashamed. The gospel for the day is Mark 5:21-end.

June 30th 2024

The preacher’s task is to bring the gospel to life. The test is whether you love the gospel more after the sermon than before and whether it has a greater power.

To start, I wondered whether we could spend a few moments hearing from one another any words or phrases that particularly struck you, shouted at you or surprised you ……….

Just as today’s gospel comes to us in two parts, so this sermon has two parts. In the first we will look for Mark’s meaning. The second is an application to us.

Mark 5:21-end
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him, and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well’.
Immediately her haemorrhage stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe’. He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping’. And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

The gospel has two parts – as expressed by our two readers. There’s the story of an unnamed woman and the story of a girl who we know as Jairus’s daughter. Both of them are healed by Jesus. The story of the woman’s healing is sandwiched into the story of Jairus’s daughter. The story of one interrupts the other.

By arranging the stories in this way, Mark, the gospel writer makes sure that we read them in the context of each other. He downplays one in relation to the other, leaving the reader with the task of amplifying the other.

There’s an overlapping timeline. Unusually Mark gives us precise detail about how old Jairus’s daughter is. She’s 12 years old. And he tells us that the woman had been haemorrhaging for 12 years. Their stories overlap. The woman became ill just when Jairus’s daughter was born. 12 years ago.

We always need to prick our ears up when we hear the number 12 in the gospels. It’s a number pattern that sums up Israel’s identity. The 12 tribes of Israel. The 12 disciples. 12 baskets of food left over at the feeding of the 5000. By including these details Mark is wanting us to realise that these two stories are about Israel and the kingdom of God.

The woman had suffered 12 years of haemorrhaging. Mark tells us she endured much under many physicians. They’d taken all her money. She had nothing, and far from getting better she’d got worse. This is what the institutions of Israel did to people.

It was worse than that. There were strict rules for people like her. They were listed in their scriptures. “When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period … she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge … Any bed she lies on will be unclean … anything she sits on will be unclean … anyone who touches them will be unclean. They must wash their clothes and bathe with water. (Leviticus 15:25-31)

For 12 years this woman would have been told she was unclean, and would have known those who came into contact with her would have been unclean. Not only is she poor, she’s in pain – and she is isolated and cast out because people had to be kept separate from things that made them unclean. She reminds me of the widow in the temple who Jesus watched as she put two coins into the treasury. It angered Jesus to think that her religious leaders had taken everything from her. She was left with nothing. Here, too, this woman is left with nothing. Her physicians had taken everything.

The rules of society were kept by the synagogue – people meeting together to observe the rules and be bound by them. Jairus was the ruler of the synagogue, the ruler of the rule-keepers, that ruled people in or ruled people out, that ruled people like our friend in the story out, and that made all women like her unclean, untouchable outcasts of society. Jairus had the power, privilege and prestige of being the ruler of the synagogue – and his daughter will have benefitted all her life from the prestige and protection of bring his daughter. There is such a contrast between the woman and the girl.

Did you notice how the crowd outside Jairus’s house laughed at Jesus? I was hurt when I read that. How dare they? But then I realised that this was the ruler’s family, his house, his daughter. They were used to being the most important. They were used to being first. They were probably offended that Jesus had put them last because he had allowed the least to interrupt him and make him late.

He was late because he wanted to know who had touched him. He’d felt something. She comes forward and tells him “the whole truth”. It was this that made Jesus late for his next appointment. He had put the last first. He had been touched by the least, the outcast – this poor woman. He listened to the whole truth from her. I love that phrase “the whole truth” – the truth of her suffering, the truth of her isolation, the truth of her treatment, the truth of her poverty, the truth of her loneliness and the truth of her faith in Jesus, that he, of all people could bear her touch.

This would have taken time. Jesus listens to her whole truth and finds in her faith the whole truth. He loves her. He calls her “daughter”. She is a true daughter of Israel. Her faith has made her such. She has been last but she comes first. She comes before the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. The one who was used to coming first was going to have to wait. They were all going to have to wait while the last came first.

Where does this leave us? Loosely connected to all this I wanted to dwell on one of the words that struck me when I was reading this in preparation for today – that is the the word “crowd”. It’s mentioned three times in this passage. Hearing performance poet Harry Baker prompted me on this. He’s touring with his show he’s calling “Wonderful”.

Harry Baker performing Unashamed at his favourite place, Margate

For a moment I want to put us in the crowd around Jesus. We are, after all, here for “the gathering” (all the churches coming together). Gathering is a more genteel way of saying crowd. We’re not quite in the Glastonbury league, but we are a crowd.

We’re with the woman who wants to reach Jesus. We’re with all those who believe Jesus can bear our touch – however unclean we may feel, or however ashamed we’ve been made to feel. We’re with all those who believe they’re a lot better for knowing Jesus than if they’d not. We’re careful not to crowd people out, particularly those others who know they only need to touch Jesus to feel better.

Shall we tell Jesus the whole truth of our lives, knowing he welcomes the interruptions of the poor, in spirit or otherwise? Or just the edited version? Or just our best side?

Shall we see in each other the whole truth, the whole truth of those we see around us, the whole truth seen by Jesus – that in the words of the psalmist (Psalm 139), that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”? Is that how we are going to see each other? Is that how we are to make others feel? Not “unclean and ashamed”. There are already enough people making us feel like that. But “fearfully and wonderfully made” – not many see that in us, and not many are interested in “the whole truth” about ourselves – except, we hope, this crowd, these our brothers and sisters, claimed by Jesus as his sons and daughters – children in the kingdom of God, people in whom Jesus sees the truth that despite all appearances we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We’re all at sea in our small boats

June 23, 2024June 23, 2024 David Herbert2 Comments

This is a reflection on the sea and the troubled waters we call life for the 4th Sunday after Trinity (B).

I spotted “the other boats” in the gospel reading for the day, from Mark 4:35-end (text below). They played on my mind as we prepare for a UK election which some want to turn into an election on immigration. It made me think – “we’re all at sea” and the forecast is for more storms. This sermon comes with a health warning – it is metaphor heavy.

The first verse we see when we open our Bibles is “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

The last verses in our Bibles are also about water – the “river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city, feeding trees bearing fruit for all seasons and leaves for the healing of the nations”. (Revelation 22:1-2)

In the beginning of the Bible there is total darkness. In the end, there is only light – no darkness and no hiding.

The Bible begins in water and ends in water. And between the two there is all the difference in the world – as different as night and day.

The Bible begins in water. The water is chaos. The first thing God does is make light. The second thing he does is sort the waters out. He separates the waters of heaven and earth, gathered the water together and let dry land appear. That’s how it began.

This is a theological view of life. This is how we open our Bibles. We open them with an understanding that we are all at sea. From the very beginning we have been surrounded by water, the sea, the deep. We’ve been on flood alert since the time of Noah.

Probably all of us here have had times in our lives when we have felt overwhelmed, engulfed or drowning – and used these metaphors to describe how we felt, using so many metaphors drawn from our collective experience down the ages of chaos and the sea. So much of our language reflects this. Like “we’re out of our depth”, or “we’re in it up to our neck”, or “we’re all at sea”.

The Bible begins with water and ends with water. From day one there is storm after storm. The waves crash all around us until that day when the waters become calm and do God’s bidding of giving life and healing to the whole of creation.

These are the times we live in, when there is one storm on top of another. For the time being we are between the devil and the deep blue sea. (Another popular saying.)

These are the times Jesus lived in as well. The storms he faced were different to ours. With his contemporaries he was assaulted by religious oppression and exclusion, a taxation poor which kept them in poverty and debt, and an occupation by a foreign power which robbed them of their freedom.

His attitude at times like these is captured in the snapshot we have of him in today’s gospel reading. They’re all at sea. A great gale arose, and the waves were beating the boat and swamping it. And Jesus slept. Calm as you like.

There were other boats. It’s strange how you miss details like this. I must have read this passage hundreds of times, but I’ve never seen those four words before. There were other boats. Have I never noticed these other boats because the focus has always been on Jesus’ boat? Have I only spotted these boats now because of the small boats that desperate refugees are taking to to escape to safe havens.

(Isn’t it terrible that some people are turning the election into an election about immigration and the people in these small boats?) It is Refugee Week – and we need to spot their boats, not stop their boats. There is a growing refugee crisis – that means a crisis for a growing number of refugees. 1 in 69 of the world’s population is now displaced, largely because of conflicts around the world. It’s important we respond to their Mayday. M’aidez. Help me! It is, after all, the refugees who have the problem – all those who have no safe routes for escape. They have enough problems without being turned into a political football.

We’re all at sea. We’re not all in the same boat. We’re not in the same boats as the refugees. We’re all in our different small boats. We’re all at the mercy of troublemakers, powers-that-be, the forces that make waves, and the sea so dangerous.

There’s a well known fisherman’s prayer that captures our plight. It’s become known as the Breton Fisherman’s Prayer:

Dear God,
be good to me;
the sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.
Amen.

They’re words from a poem by Winfred Ernest Garrison.

It’s not surprising that so many make that prayer their own. The words fit the experience we call “being all at sea”.

The sea is our life with its currents and tides, its ferocity and deceptive charm constantly eroding and undermining us. The challenge of our lives is how we navigate these waters.

We are like those who, in the words of Psalm 107 “go down to the sea in ships and ply their trade in great waters”, who have seen the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. While they were at their wit’s end as they reeled and staggered like drunkards, they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were calmed.

Our lifetime at sea is summed up in our baptism. We are soaked in deep water, and brought through water as if this is an acknowledgement of our life at sea, weathering the storms faced by us all, Jesus included. The question we’re asked in baptism is, “Do you turn to Christ?” Our response then is “I turn to Christ”. It’s stated as a promise. Perhaps it should be stated as a habit.

In the storms of life, when you’re all at sea, when you feel you’re drowning, do you turn to Christ? The faithful ones, like the ones in the psalm, will say, “Yes, I turn to Christ. He’s the one who can sleep in the storm. He’s the non-anxious presence. We turn to him to hear him say ‘Peace! Be still!’ – and when we do, the wind dies down and we feel the calm.”

It’s easier said than done because in the midst of things it is too easy to panic.

The waves that have panicked me have been so slight compared to what others have faced. Dare I say I’ve done enough doom scrolling to sink a battleship? I am only beginning to learn to wake Jesus in my mind, to hear him in the head of the storm, to find better things to think about, to take his word as gospel.

I know that when the sea calms for me, it calms also for all the other small boats.

Here we gather. We call this gathering place the NAVE – the Latin word for ship. We are shipmates in our small boat.

Here we are, all at sea, our metaphorical sea. The metaphorical weather is awful. Even though the long term forecast is for beautiful, calm weather, immediately, all we can expect is one storm after another. There are dark forces within us, and all around us, threatening us – driving so many from their homes, driving them to the edge, condemning them/us to their/our fate on the sea of life.

We are shipmates. We’ve been through it before. We’ve been through the waters of baptism. We’re used to turning to Christ – who in today’s gospel we see in the same boat as ourselves. In the rage of the storm he makes himself heard. We hear him call us “beloved”. The wind and the sea hear him. ‘Peace! Be still!’ they hear him say. For the moment they obey him.

Here we are, churches in the Bridges Group of Parishes – like a bridge in troubled water for all those who live in these six parishes. When we’re weary, feeling small, when times get tough, when we’re down and out, when darkness comes and pain is all around – we know the words of the one even the wind and sea obey.

Mark 4:35-end
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’