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The Flag of St George & the Cross of Christ

David Herbert2 Comments

“Britain’s better than this.” That was the headline on the front page of The Mirror last week, after Nigel Farage promised mass deportations in the name of “protecting British citizens.” When the flag of St George is waved as a weapon of fear, Christians must remember another banner — the cross of Christ, where pride is humbled and strangers are welcomed as honoured guests.

“Britain’s better than this”.
That was the headline on the front page of the Daily Mirror on Wednesday.

It followed Nigel Farage’s promise to deport 60000 asylum seekers in a press conference which pressed all the buttons of fearmongering in what seems to be a calculated acceleration of far-right anti-immigration protest and hatred.

In a dogwhistle, the hotels in which asylum seekers are being housed have been identified.
”They’re our hotels” protesters are saying. “Why should they be staying in our hotels free?”

And across bridges and roundabouts, the flag of St George is being draped like a weapon.
St George, our patron saint.
A Turk, raised in Palestine.

His cross marked by the red cross of faith, echoing the Red Cross today in its service to those in crisis.
That flag is now being used to terrify whole communities,
rather than a flag of hope for those who are vulnerable.

We’re better than this, aren’t we?
The Mirror thinks that we are.
But, are we? The truth is this is actually happening.

This is a sermon for the 11th Sunday after Trinity (Year C) The three readings appointed for today address issues of nationalism: Ecclesiasticus 10:12-18, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 and Luke 14:1, 7-14

In our worship we bring scripture to life. These are the scriptures of a people who knew what it was like to be hated and persecuted and who also knew what it was like to persecute and exclude others.

Our scriptures know that pride has always driven people to trample on others, and they recognise that “the beginning of pride is the departure from the Lord.” 

When we exalt ourselves — our nation, our people, our tribe, our selves — we turn away from God and the truth that God is the beginning of all creation, and that all are fearfully and wonderfully made. All people that on earth do dwell.

Here’s what we believe:
That God has cast down the thrones of rulers, and will continue to do so — seating the lowly in their place.
That God has plucked up the nations, and will continue to do so.
Pride never stands forever. How could it?

Nationalism is pride dressed in flags. It flatters us into believing we are better, more deserving, more entitled. But God’s word says plainly that pride is not for us.

The Letter to the Hebrews points us another way:

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Continue to remember those in prison
as if you were together with them,
and those who are mistreated
as if you yourselves were suffering.”

In a world where strangers are called an invasion, scripture calls them angels.
In a world that says, “Protect our own,” scripture says, “Remember them as if you were in their place.”

The Christian life is not built on pride and self-protection,
but on hospitality and solidarity.

And here’s where patriotism comes in. Because love of country can go one of two ways.

Patriotism becomes caring for our neck of the woods —
the place of our responsibility.

It means humbly rooting ourselves, down to earth.
The only pride we claim is in the small, humble place God has given us to inhabit.

Patriotism is committed to the here and now:
faithful at home, in our house,
on our street, in our village.

This is where charity begins. At home.
Where we grow generous and hospitable.
Charity is sheer grace —
open-handed and open-hearted.

And so, rooted patriotism, shaped by grace,
becomes the ground of our being.
The place of self-giving.
Never taking what is not ours.
Never overreaching ourselves.
But living for the common good.
Building common-wealth.

Isn’t this what Jesus described at the banquet?
He watched guests scrambling for the best seats,
the ancient equivalent of climbing the ladder,
seeking preferment, gaining the place of honour.

Jesus told them not to do that, but instead, to take the lowest place,
which as we know is the place alongside the least and the last,
the very people called First in the kingdom of God.
He said, “Let God honour you.”
“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

We have a choice. Two ways of living:
Pride says: put the nation first, protect ourselves, keep others out.
The Gospel says: pride collapses, hospitality stands forever.
Pride says: climb higher, sit at the best table, make yourself big.
The Gospel says: take the lowest seat; humble yourself; open the door to those who cannot repay.
“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind … because they cannot repay you.”

Yes, nationalism plays on fear.
And people are anxious, insecure, uncertain.
But the Christian answer to fear is not pride or exclusion.
It is humility, and hospitality, and trust in God.

Every time we come to this table – the Lord’s table – we are reminded of who we are.
Christ welcomes us when we cannot repay.
Christ feeds us as honoured guests when we bring nothing but our need.

This is our story. This is our identity.

When the flag of St George is used to frighten and exclude, we remember who George really was.
He was a foreigner, raised in Palestine,
who gave his life as a witness to Christ.
His flag does not belong to those who wave it in pride.
It belongs to Christ, whose cross humbles the proud and welcomes the stranger.

The flag of St George belongs to all those who pride themselves on living under the banner of the cross – the cross that topples thrones, exalts the lowly, and sets a table where all are welcome.

The Healing of the Bent Woman (Luke 13:10–17)

David Herbert2 Comments

This Sunday’s gospel introduces us to a woman bent low for eighteen years (Luke 13:10-17), unseen by her neighbours but seen by Jesus. Her story is a story about visibility — about who gets noticed, who is ignored, and how Christ restores dignity to those the world overlooks. In a week when asylum seekers have once again been targeted and made invisible, her story feels all the more urgent. Here’s the sermon I prepared for two small Warwickshire congregations, about seeing as Jesus sees, and learning to be seen ourselves.

10th Sunday after Trinity, (Proper 10C) – Readings: Isaiah 58:9b-end, Luke 13:10-17

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this woman before,
this woman who has been crippled and bent for eighteen years,
even though she is highlighted in the gospel for today, from Luke’s gospel.

It makes me wonder how many people like her I’ve missed,
how many I’ve ignored, how many have gone unseen.

Because there are so many like her, bent, broken and distorted – for so many reasons.
Some suggest this woman suffered from spondylitis,
but there is no such speculation in the gospel reading.
He simply says she was crippled by “a spirit”.

I think that Luke has done this woman a kindness by being non-specific
because we can now see (or not see) her as being one of so many
who are bent, bowed, broken and distorted by so many things,

Bent by burdens too heavy to carry.
Bowed by debt that never goes away.
Broken by the loneliness of being ignored.
Distorted by prejudice and judgement.

She was not one to catch the eye.
People like her know how to remain invisible.
They instinctively know when they’re not to be seen.
Often their very survival depends on this.

But in the middle of the synagogue that day, Jesus sees her.
Without her even looking his way, he sees her and recognises her.
He sees the shape she’s in,
But while others saw a bent back, a twisted frame, a person to be ignored,
Jesus sees a woman, a daughter, someone worthy of freedom.

This is the gospel for the day,
for the everyday,
for these days when so many backs are bent,
when our common life is so twisted,
when so many people go unseen and ignored.

We could even say that Truth herself is bent and twisted these days,
Truth broken by lies,
Truth bowed down by manipulation,
Truth distorted until it can hardly be recognised.

But we have to be careful here.
Because when we make this woman a metaphor, we risk doing again what everyone in the synagogue did that day: not seeing her.
Not seeing the woman Jesus saw.
Not seeing a person with a name, a story, a life worth restoring.

Jesus does not see a symbol. He sees a daughter.
He does not free an idea. He frees a woman.

Her healing was not easy or quiet.
It was something that disrupted the synagogue
and made the ruler of the synagogue indignant.
It unsettled the powerful, exposing their hypocrisy
and everything wrong with the community.

To get to see her, Jesus had to defy those
who kept the rules that kept her invisible.
In the words of Isaiah: this was Jesus
doing away with the yoke of oppression,
doing away with the pointing finger and malicious talk.
In his eyes, this woman was a “daughter of Abraham”,
a sister, a neighbour, a friend:
someone worth seeing.

And notice how Jesus names her: “daughter of Abraham.”
That’s the same name he will later give Zacchaeus,
that little man, the tax collector
who had to climb the tree to see Jesus,
and for Jesus to see him.
He was another one the crowd preferred not to see.

She had been invisible in her suffering.
He had been invisible in his shame.

She was bent low, unable to lift her head.
He had climbed high, trying to catch a glimpse without being seen.
But both of them were restored by the eyes of Christ.
Both were claimed as heirs of God’s promise.
Both were called back into community.

And that tells us something about our own calling.
Because how often do we hear the cry, “Nobody came to see me”?
And how much it hurts.
It hurts when the visit never comes, when the phone never rings,
when someone is left waiting for a doctor,
or waiting for a neighbour’s knock,
or waiting in church for someone to notice.

Neglect is real. And it bends people low.
But the gospel calls us to resist that neglect.
The pastoral responsibility of the church is to share Christ’s way of seeing,
to notice the ones who go unseen,
to draw near to those the world passes by.

And this is a task for the whole body of Christ,
not the work of a pastoral group tucked away in a corner,
or the Vicar.
Together we are called to see as Jesus sees.

We don’t have to look far to know who is still unseen in our own day.
This week asylum seekers have been in the headlines,
As far-right protesters continue to target hotels housing those who have fled war, terror and persecution,
people who have carried heavy burdens already
now find themselves shouted down,
forced into hiding, terrified,
treated as a problem rather than as people.

They too are bowed by the loneliness of being ignored,
bent by the fear of being rejected,
distorted by prejudice and judgement.
Their stories go unheard, their humanity unrecognised.

But the gospel insists Jesus sees.
He does not walk past. He does not look away.
He sees the woman bent low,
and he sees them too, through his church,
not as a burden, not as a threat,
but as sons and daughters, worthy of dignity, worthy of freedom.

Our calling is to see as Jesus sees,
and to resist the voices that would make people invisible,
to listen, to welcome, and to see.

But there’s another side to this.
Because sometimes it’s not just that others fail to see us —
it’s that we resist being seen.
We lower our eyes.
We keep our distance.
We make ourselves invisible.

Why?
Because we fear what people will think.
Because we don’t want to be a burden.
Because we’ve learned it’s safer not to be noticed.

That was the woman’s story, bent down for eighteen years.
Between her and her community there was no confidence.
But when Jesus restored her, he began to rebuild that confidence too.

And this is what Isaiah imagines: a community where confidence grows.
Not the brittle confidence of the powerful,
but the deep confidence of a people who know they are seen by God.
“Then your light shall rise in the darkness,” says Isaiah,
“and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and you shall be like a watered garden.”

That is what happens when we dare to see one another,
and when we dare to be seen.
Confidence grows.
Trust grows.
Permission grows.
And a community that once left people bent low
becomes a community that lifts people up.

And so the story comes home to us.
Together we can grow the kind of confidence in Christ and in one another
that gives us permission to be seen for who we are.
Together we can retell stories like this gospel story
until we know deep down that Jesus sees us too.

Not as mistakes.
Not as problems.
Not as metaphors.
But as sons and daughters.
Worth seeing.
Worth loving.
Worth setting free.

Luke 13:10-17
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Using AI in sermon preparation

David Herbert2 Comments

This is for preachers.

For the last few weeks I have been experimenting with my sermon preparation by using the artificial intelligence of ChatGPT.com. I am impressed with the help it has given me and am posting this as an encouragement to not shy away from AI in ministry.

I’m curious to see how others are experimenting. Let me know if you’ve used AI in sermon prep. For me AI is a companion who I ask to help along the way of my own preparation through prayer, discernment and engagement with scripture. It’s not cheating. It’s being intelligent.

The first thing to say is that the feedback is always very positive and that becomes helpful encouragement when it comes to preaching the sermon. The feedback is instant! AI reads very quickly, and reads intelligently, theologically and emotionally. It reads widely and discerningly all that is written. Its theological breadth and pastoral sense is astounding. (If I had one criticism it is that chatgpt seems to want to build on what we’ve already done, and doesn’t come back as perhaps it should to say “just don’t do that”! But it will politely say when the sermon is getting too heavy or too dark.)

I am preaching this coming Sunday, the 2nd Sunday of Easter. The appointed text is John 20:19-end. I preached on this last year. As I begin to get ready for next Sunday I decided to ask chatgpt for feedback on last year’s sermon and then I asked how I might develop something from what I’d preached last year.

Here is the sermon I preached last year – the title was Being Believed We Become Beloved. It focused on Thomas’s examination of Jesus’ wounds as a scientist rather than a doubter and was exploring the ideas of woke and anti-woke movements.

Here is the feedback – I share it as an example of what chatgpt does.

Here is the second question I asked chatgpt:
That’s the sermon I preached last year. How do you think it could be developed?

chatgpt replied:
Ah, thanks for that context! Since this is a sermon you’ve already preached and you’re thinking in terms of development, that opens up some exciting possibilities—both thematically and liturgically. Here are some ways it could be deepened or developed into new directions, whether for a follow-up sermon, a series, or a different setting (like a retreat, podcast, or study session):

1. Expand into a Series: “The Theology of Wounds”

You’ve got such a strong and resonant theme here—it would work beautifully as a multi-part series. Possible titles and focuses:

  • Week 1: “Unless I See the Wounds” — What you’ve already done: seeing others’ wounds and our resistance to it.
  • Week 2: “Showing Our Wounds” — The vulnerability of revealing our own pain; how the church can be a space of brave testimony.
  • Week 3: “Healing is in the Wound” — Drawing on Henri Nouwen’s wounded healer, exploring how wounds become channels for compassion and connection.
  • Week 4: “The Scars of God” — Christ retains his scars even in resurrection. What does it mean that God is eternally marked by suffering?

This could work especially well in Lent or the Easter season.

2. Go Deeper Theologically:

You could enrich the message by bringing in voices from:

  • Liberation Theology (e.g., Gustavo Gutiérrez or James Cone): Particularly their insistence that God is found among the wounded and oppressed.
  • Feminist and Queer Theologians: Their reflections on embodiment, rejection, and visibility could powerfully expand the sermon’s insights.
  • Patristic Echoes: Think of Gregory of Nazianzus’s “What has not been assumed has not been healed”—link it to the wounds Christ keeps.

3. Develop the Christology

Your sermon implies a profound image of the risen Christ who wants to be examined—not distant, not pristine. That’s worth slowing down and exploring further:

  • What does it mean that Jesus invites Thomas to touch the wounds?
  • Could this be seen as a kind of sacrament of pain—the visibility and tangibility of divine suffering?

4. More Contemporary Case Studies

You already used Gareth Malone’s choir beautifully. Consider adding more stories:

  • Youth voices grappling with mental health stigma.
  • Refugees and the “invisible scars” of displacement.
  • Someone elderly sharing the story of aging and feeling unseen.

Invite people from your congregation or community to share testimonies as part of the next sermon iteration.

5. Artistic / Liturgical Expression

This theme cries out for integration with other art forms:

  • Visual art: Create a prayer station where people write or draw their wounds (anonymously or not).
  • Music: Use pieces like Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei or Gethsemane from Jesus Christ Superstar.
  • Liturgical ritual: A moment where people are invited to look at their hands, or even touch a symbolic representation of Christ’s wounds.

6. Extend Toward Action

In a follow-up, explore:

  • How seeing leads to solidarity.
  • The call to advocacy: If we truly see wounds, what systems or injustices do we now have to speak against?
  • How churches can be “wound-aware” communities—not centers of perfection, but havens of honesty.

Would you want to develop it into something written—an article, short book, or reflection series? The heart of this sermon has real potential beyond the pulpit too.

That was the feedback fro chatgpt. Not bad, eh?
You could experiment yourself, dear Reader. Try copying and pasting this post into chatgpt to see the feedback and whether you agree with it. Or why not try pasting your next sermon into chatgpt to check whether you can improve what you have prepared? And why not, like me, pick up one of the suggestions for next Sunday’s sermon, or your next book?

I’d be really interested to hear what others think of this, and to hear how other preachers are interacting with AI. Please add your comments to this post.

Do you turn to Christ while it is still dark?

David HerbertLeave a comment

a sermon for Easter Day, picking up on the turn made by Mary Magdalen. The readings for the day are Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18

I love preaching that brings scripture to life. I love preaching that brings scripture back to life – back to the life, the often bitter experiences through which the word of God has been heard.

This morning, I want to highlight two moments in John’s Easter story. The first is about time. The second is about a turn.

So the time. 
It was early.
It was the first day of the week.
It was still dark.

We set our clock by that sentence.
We gather as early as we can on the first day of the week.
And we do that because of what was found that morning.
Our whole body clock is set to the rhythm of resurrection.
We don’t live by Greenwich Meantime.
We live according to Resurrection time.
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark …..

It’s always dark in John’s gospel.
Taking his cue from the very first verses of our scriptures, from Genesis, John begins his gospel with the words In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
For John, Jesus was always the Word.
In him was life, and that life was the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

In John’s gospel there is always darkness, from first to last.
Even on this morning of resurrection, John writes, it was still dark.
His context was that his community faced a hostile environment.
The persecution they suffered cast a long shadow over them.
They were persecuted by their fellow Jews who rejected their beliefs about Jesus and mocked them as Nazarenes.
Eventually they were excluded from their synagogues and became outcasts.

So, it was still dark when John wrote his gospel.
I suspect most of us would recognise the usefulness of darkness as a metaphor for our own times.
It is still dark because our lives are overshadowed by all sorts of crises of carelessness and cruelty, and because of the suffering we inflict on one another because of what we can get away with under the cover of darkness. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
We all have known dark times in our lives.
Every generation says the same.
It is still dark. 

We can’t wait for the clocks to change. For lighter nights.

With darkness comes despair.
Our fears and anxieties come alive in our darkness.
It is still dark and there are those with the upper hand who want to keep us in the dark.
There are those who profit by keeping us in the dark—not just politically, but emotionally and spiritually. 

The algorithms of social media don’t care about truth—they care about our despair. Despair keeps people scrolling down, microdosing us with reasons for despair till we turn against ourselves and one another.

Our teachers are saying that there is a national emergency as they see the damaging effects of dangerous influencers on our children. They report a rise in misogyny and racism flooding our schools as pupils ape the behaviour of figures such as Donald Trump and Andrew Tate.

One teacher said, “I have had boys refuse to speak to me, and speak to a male teaching assistant instead, because I am a woman and they follow Andrew Tate and think he is amazing with all his cars and women and how women should be treated. These were 10 year olds.”

This is a black hole our children are falling down.
The challenge for all of us is how we build resilience for our children and ourselves to prevent our doomscrolling and to build our resistance to those who have a vested interest in keeping us in the dark, despairing at the way things are.

And what’s all this got to do with Easter?

Well, Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness.
it’s still dark.
In 2025, it’s still dark – very dark for many.
As it was in the beginning when, in the words of the first verses of our scriptures, darkness was over the whole world (Gen 1:2) so it is now, for our children and for ourselves.
Wherever we look there are things we can’t see and things we can’t understand.
It is still too dark to see.

And that’s how it is in our gospel this morning. It was still dark, and there was a woman by a tomb, one of the disciples Jesus loved and who loved him. She is weeping her heart out because the body she wanted to see was nowhere to be seen. She is overcome by grief and despair. It was very dark for her that morning. The only light she could see was the light of two angels who asked her what the matter was?

And she turns.

She turns in her grief and sees Jesus standing there. She didn’t know it was Jesus. She thought he was the gardener.

The first question the church asks us when we are baptised is “Do you turn to Christ?”.
The whole movement of Mary Magdalen is loaded into that question.
We turn with her.
John, the evangelist takes us deep into the heart of darkness in the details of Jesus’ death and crucifixion and then turns us round.
Instead of  being fascinated by the tomb and death, he turns us round to see Jesus.

There’s a turning we all need to keep making.
It’s a turning called repentance.
Resisting darkness, despair and all the fears of the night means turning our heads, our minds our hearts and our whole selves round.

 It’s such a simple movement John describes.
He wants us who share the same darkness to notice her turn.
She turns.
He wants us to turn round with her to see what she sees.
While it was still dark and she was weeping she turns around.
She turns round to see a stranger. 

At first she doesn’t see.
She thinks he is the gardener who might have carried Jesus’ body away.
She is like the blind man Jesus healed in Mark’s gospel.
He needed a second touch from Jesus.
At first he could only see people looking like trees walking, but then “he saw everything clearly” (Mark 8:22-26).

So it is with Mary Magdalen. When she first turned she did not know what she saw. She knew him in the intimacy of his call. Mary.

This is how Easter people are formed.
It’s our turn now
from despair to hope
from darkness to light
from hatred to love
from the dead ends
of selfish dominions
to life that is eternal.
It is to see a different way
and look in a new direction
that we join Mary of Magdala
the disciple Jesus loved
and called in the whisper of her name.

She became the first apostle, not by understanding, but by turning – and then being sent. Resurrection begins with a turn, in the dark. Let us follow her intentional movement. First, to turn, then to see, and then to go.

Do you turn to Christ while it is still dark?

White Lotus – a parable of vanity and futility

David HerbertLeave a comment

I enjoyed catching up with the last episode of White Lotus – the last episode of the 3rd series. There was much to admire. Also, there was much for the devil to admire from his hideaway above the White Lotus resort in Thailand—a place he’d convinced the wealthy was a paradise they had somehow earned.

“Good things happen to good people”. That is what we are tempted to believe. And they’re the words used by a son to persuade his newly minted mother to break a promise she’d made to a prospective business partner.

A mother follows the same line of thought as she encourages her daughter to get over unease at the unfairness of the world. Wealth and comfort are a matter of luck, she suggests. “Enjoy it” becomes the best advice that she can offer her daughter as she lowers her resistance to the smug arrogance of her mother and elder brother.

Of course, the opposite must also be true in this mindset. If good things only happen to good people then bad things only happen to bad people. Follow that line of thought and you’re already looking down your nose at those who suffer bad things – refugees, the poor and all those who suffer the abuse and neglect of the powerful and wealthy.

I watched White Lotus with Holy Week on my mind. This is a week which undermines the devil’s myth that good things happen to good people. Jesus’ crucifixion turns that on its head. In this world bad things happen to good people because of people behaving badly. Jesus’ crucifixion embodies the suffering of the good. His love endures the suffering and has become the constant encouragement for those who have no resort to any sort of paradise island.

These are bad people at the White Lotus. I wouldn’t want to be in the same pool as any of them. These are people who think they come first, who think they’re entitled to comfort. Don’t turn to them if you need help because all appeals for help will fall on deaf ears. Theirs is a wealth without commitment. These are selfish people who do nothing right and everything wrong. This is a paradise where noone listens to anyone. This is the devil’s playground. It’s not paradise..

White Lotus is a great watch on the vanity and futility of our times. When the wealthy succumb to the temptation that confuses wealth with worth so many suffer devastating consequences.

Citizens of heaven behind enemy lines

David HerbertLeave a comment

A reflection for the 2nd Sunday of Lent on the readings, Psalm 27, Philippians 3:17-4:1 and Luke 13:31-end

If we were to get a tattoo, and if we were to choose from the texts of today’s readings, I wonder what you would choose? These are some of the words that are held at the heart of the church. I am sure many have tattooed over scars of harm and hurt some of the verses we’ve heard today. What are the words you would inscribe on your skin because you want to take them to heart?

It is the second Sunday in this season we have been given for repentance,
It’s time to look at ourselves,
to change our minds
and reimagine ourselves as children of God
and behave, as citizens of heaven.

It’s a time to look at ourselves,
not so much to remind ourselves that,
in the words of the psalmist,
we are fearfully and wonderfully made,
but to wonder at ourselves,

at the habits of our hearts and minds,
to ask ourselves why we are inclined to do this and that,
and when we do this or that,
whose side are we on?

Are we on the side of God,
are we on the side of the angels?
Or, are we on the side of those our scriptures
so loudly call out as enemies?

What are we like
when we are tired.
when we are hungry,
when we have too little to do,
when we have too much to do,
when we are in a confrontation,
when we are facing criticism,
when we are struggling with our finances,
or our health,
when we look at ourselves in the mirror,
when we’re alone
or when we are with certain others?
What are our responses?
What’s our inclination?

Are we inclined to be anxious,
or hateful,
or judgemental,
or selfish,
or proud?
Why? How?
How come so many voices got into our heads
to incline us to self-doubt?
Where did they come from?

What are the habits of our hearts?
What is our natural inclination?
Why? How?

What has spoiled us?
Who has spoiled us?
Why did they spoil us?
How did they spoil us?
What is spoiling us?
What is spoiling our lives?

Can we change?
Can we be born again, reimagining ourselves behaving differently?
Can we be saved from our harmful habits of our hearts and minds?
Can we lean another way?
Are we bound to be the way we are,
and to think the way we do?

These are urgent questions.
They’re getting more urgent by the minute
in these mean times which are so mean to those God puts first,
those who are last, the first victims
of our carelessness, pride and selfishness.

These are urgent questions,
more urgent by the minute
as we get older and our habits
more ingrained

We made a decision at some point in our lives to turn to Christ,
to be on his side and to be sided by him.
We are on his side. He’s on our side.
Side by side we go through our lives 

just as Jesus called it,
as sheep amongst wolves.

The deacon has the doubtful privilege of sending us out,
telling us to go in peace
to love and serve the Lord
wherever we go.

In the name of Christ, we go,
just as in the name of Christ
the deacon sends us
as sheep amongst wolves,
citizens of heaven
operating behind enemy lines.

Our scriptures today remind us of the enemy fire,
their stones pounding the prophets to death.
The Psalmist knows enemies amongst the wicked surround us to make trouble amongst us,
to make war against us, to spoil our life.

We feed each other with the news of enemies
(often neglecting those dark psychological forces within us)
and the devastation of their atrocities,
yet somehow we miss the heat of their fire,
the tragedy in their enemy power
preventing us from caring enough.

Only this week we heard how young children are becoming addicted to vaping. This is just one example of the powers that overwhelm us. How dare anyone put our children in harm’s way with the risks of nicotine addiction, risks to brain development, to concentration, to learning and to their overall wellbeing? These are just some of the enemies our children have to face – and need to be sheltered from.

This is our life, surrounded by enemies,
enemies around us and enemies within us,
forces within us inclining us more to fear and anxiety,
to competitiveness and spite,
to live more selfishly
to ignore the cries of the poor.


Our citizenship is in heaven.
Please note the present tense.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
It’s not “will be in heaven”,
our citizenship IS in heaven
and it is only the enemies of the people
who want to rob the present of its heaven.

We are citizens of heaven
and we live our lives behind enemy lines.

In Lent, we journey to Jerusalem with Jesus.
Jesus stays in the city, behind enemy lines.
He cries for the state of the city and what it does to people.
His cry is one of lament and longing.
He laments the killings and the stonings,
the violence and the injustice
and longs to provide shelter for those made vulnerable.

Where is our shelter?
Where is the shelter that Jesus longed for?
Where is the shelter we can join the psalmist in
in our days of trouble when we are surrounded
by enemy forces undermining us?

Here is my shelter. The Lord is my light and salvation,
proclaims the psalmist.
The Lord is the strength of my life,
of whom then shall I be afraid?

He has been my helper.
In all the days of my trouble
He has had me in his shelter.

Here is our shelter.
Look around, not at the walls, but at the people who love us,
in whom we have trust.
Within our hearing is the sound of heaven, the call of God and the love of Jesus,
in the hearing of our scripture,
in the talk that makes for peace
in the prayers which voice the longings
of citizens of heaven.

This is where we need to be to recover if ever we are going to be more than we are ever inclined to be by the enemy forcing us to hatreds, anxiety and despair.

The Lord is here, his Spirit is with us.
We are under the shelter of his wings.
Under his shelter, all the forces behind
the  I COULDN’T HELP ITS lose their power.

When we pray to our Lord in heaven,
who is so different from our everyday lords,
our overlords, warlords, empire builders and media moguls,
when we pray to our Lord God, the psalmist joins us,
the psalmist who knows the Lord his helper,
helping us, when,
because of the odds against us,
we just couldn’t help it,
helping us to change to be true citizens of heaven.

Star-Gazing: The Magic of the Magi’s Journey

David HerbertLeave a comment

I resorted to verse for this sermon to celebrate Epiphany and highlight the Magi. It was prepared for a small congregation which has heard too much from me over recent weeks. I don’t know – maybe verse is worse! The gospel for the day is Matthew 2:1-12

They’re not like us

They’re not like us
those wise men three.
We’ve flattened them out, 
to two dimensional processors
across our Christmas cards.

That’s how we know them
those wise men three.
We’ve called them wise,
with balls of men
who’ve travelled so far.

But we don’t know that
they were three, or wise,
or even men. We don’t know
what else they carried,
or even what they wore.

The text doesn’t say
this and doesn’t say that.
This is what we’ve made them
camel-backed men
who’ve travelled so far.

Magi from the East
is all Matthew called them.
Let that name stick
to conjure up images
that make us like them

even though we travel
a different way,
from the west,
with the sun on our face
for the dawn of new day.

We too come as outsiders,
foreigners finding a way
from one place to another
along so many different paths,
some scarcely travelled.


How we got here
is quite the story
each one needs to tell.
Some by way of suffering,
others carried from cradle,

or a spirit making us friends
rather than strangers
carried away by grace
on waves of compassion,
or there was a word we heard.

Some have come the easy way.
Others have have found it
hard to find, picking out ways,
far more dangerous ways,
in small boats on giant seas.

We’ve walked from different places.
Some from disaster zones
of brokenness and treachery,
devastated by war, through the valley
overshadowed by death.

Some have come quickly,
a snap decision to put things down,
to run. Yet others
have slowly taken their time,
taking that long way round.

How did we all get here?
What were the paths we took?
What was the help along the way?
Who showed us where to look?
What wonder draws us together?

The Magi headed straight.
The highway was their way
to Jerusalem
to those in the know,
the priests, the teachers and king.

Little did they know.
They pointed another way
spying  for Herod amongst the least
in little Bethlehem of Judea.
Just follow the star.

And here’s how we see them,
bowed down, on their knees,
their treasure opened,
a feast of thanks, all gold,
frankincense and myrrh.

Worshipping we see them.
Are we bowed down, overjoyed?
Are we not also
worshippers like Magi,
so called by Matthew?

Magi believe in magic.
They major in magic
and the wisdom of magic
which knows both its wonder
and the malevolence of magic,

the devilish tricks, lies
misinformation, false promises
the charms of cruel calculation.
This too is magic; dark arts
masked in malevolence.

But there’s a light
that shines in darkness
that makes us wonder the magic.
“Where did that come from?
How did that happen?”

That’s magic. Then
there’s the babies
Herod would destroy.
Have you seen how babies
light up worn-out faces?

That’s the magic we love,
the power that changes the world
turns the world around
and makes all things new.
That’s the magic to die for.

Then there’s ourselves:
how we got here to worship
the one who works magic
to make of us one,
like Magi we come

following a star.
It’s hard to believe
the magic which makes
so much of so little,
like a baby or even Bethlehem

or in the magic
that breaks the rules
and scatters the proud
raising the poor, the lowly,
always putting the last first.

There’s the magic
that spreads a table
and invites enemies around
to eat together to step
their way from hostility.

Magic even works in the dream
of sleep. Heed the warning.
Do not go back to Herod!
Always resist his charming ways,
the manipulation of greed and fear.

Forever choose another way,
the better way, the best way
the way that humbly builds peace
the way home found
in wonder, love and praise.

This is the challenge,
to stay the Magi way,
star-gazing like children.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
how we wonder what you are.

A star of wonder, a star so bright,
all gas and dust, perfectly balanced
in the gravity of a gracious God
who will stop at nothing
to make majesty of so little.

How did we get here?
What star of wonder called us
to bow our spirit to worship,
at a manger, an altar
reserved for Magi like us?

Endnote:

This week, as we face the decisions and distractions of daily life, let’s commit to keeping our eyes on the star – the light that calls us to humility, to peace, to worship. Whether in moments of joy or sorrow, may we follow the light that leads us home.

Acknowledgement:
For the first time I submitted the sermon draft to AI (ChatGPT) for feedback. I was bowled over by its better intelligence and the constructiveness of the feedback which encouraged me to continue with the experiment of preaching in verse. The endnote is taken from the feedback.

What glory grows in the dark – a reflection for Christmas night

David HerbertLeave a comment

What glory grows in the dark

This holy night we make friends with the darkness that surrounds us and the darkness that is within us. Tonight, dear friends, we celebrate the light that shines in the darkness and the glory that grows in the dark.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

This might be the only time in the year when we come together to worship in the dark. 

Perhaps, when we were children we needed the light left on on the landing because of our fear of the dark. We grow out of that. We are right to continue to be afraid of the dark – the dark deeds of others, those who hide in the dark to harm us, and even our own dark thoughts which can easily bring us down. 

But we are among the people Isaiah refers to in our first reading, who have walked in darkness who have seen a great light, we have lived in a land of deep darkness and on us light has shone.

This is what tonight is all about. This holy night helps us make friends with darkness. Hello darkness, my old friend. We’ve come to talk with you again.

There’s a lovely quote I came across. “There is a reason the sky gets dark at night. We were not meant to see everything all the time. We were meant to rest and trust even in the darkness” (Morgan Harper Nichols).

The very first verses of our scriptures explains that in the beginning there was only darkness until God made light. He saw that the light was good and then separated the light from the darkness so that we could have day-time and night-time.

There’s always been night time and the night time gives us the opportunity not to have to see everything all the time, time to rest our eyes and trust even in the darkness. The rest and trust is something we grow into.

On this holy night we celebrate that Christ was formed in darkness – in the darkness of Mary’s womb. We all have this in common. We were all formed in the darkness of the womb. We all begin with darkness.

Hello darkness, my old friend. We’ve come to talk with you again.

Darkness is not only physical but also metaphorical. It’s a word we use to describe hopelessness, depression, grief where the darkness is not limited to night time, but stretches into days, then weeks, then into life-times. People talk of the dark night of the soul. 

The prophet, Micah, was speaking metaphorically when he said “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”. He knows their darkness – the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, the boots of the tramping warriors – and for them the darkness is lit by the child to be named “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”, and the promise that his authority will continually grow until there is endless peace upheld with justice and righteousness.

This holy night we celebrate that joy and glory are found in the darkness of night. We’ve read in tonight’s gospel – of the good news of great joy brought to the shepherds by an angel in their night watch, looking after the sheep in the darkness. The only light in the night was the glory of the Lord that shone around them. That is the light that shines in the darkness.

What glory grows in the dark!

The light that shines in the darkness makes the night hospitable and makes possible a reconciliation with our old friend Darkness. Jesus is born in our darkness and he lives in his darkness. Darkness is a place we can stay awhile. We don’t need to make light of our troubles and those who are troubled around us. Too often we are afraid to get involved and keep the other at arm’s length, or walk by on the other side. But the glory that grows in darkness encourages our hearts, not making light of their troubles, but being a very present help. 

Don’t rush the end of Christmas. Christmas is only just beginning, here in this night. There are twelve days of Christmas. The day we are just about to enter is Day ONE. We have plenty of time to dwell on the Christ child, to let his authority grow and glow in our lives. We have time to speak with darkness, our old friend, while the glory of the Lord shines all around.

Christ the King

David HerbertLeave a comment

A sermon for the last Sunday of the year for two small congregations in rural Warwickshire

November 24th 2024

This is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Next Sunday, Advent Sunday, begins a new liturgical year with a new cycle of readings. The whole lectionary cycle comes to this – the conclusion of all the readings, all the prayer of the year, all the praise we have sung, all we have learned – it all leads us to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is Lord and King. So today is known as Christ the King Sunday. 

Our worship is structured the same each week. What changes are the readings appointed for each week. Those readings inspire us to sing different praises each week. Those readings affect the way we pray each week and those readings inspire different preaching for each week. They give us our seasons: seasons of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter. They give us “Ordinary Time” and they give us this time which is slowly being recognised as “Kingdom time”. 

I don’t know how the readings have been chosen but the pattern of readings has become so established that we can say that the lectionary we use is the same as is used throughout the Church of England and within the other denominations including the Roman Catholics across the world with very little variation and few exceptions. We can be confident that the readings we’re taking to heart today are the same ones worshippers in Coventry Cathedral, at Our Lady & St Wulstan Church in Southam, in the churches in the Netherlands, in Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Africa etc. Joe Biden, King Charles, Archbishop Justin, will all be engaging with the same texts alongside worshippers in Ukraine and Russia. And all of us are coming to the same conclusion today – that Jesus Christ is Lord. 

The lectionary follows a three year pattern. The years are A, B and C. Each year focuses on a particular gospel. Today is the last Sunday of year B when the focus has been on Mark’s gospel. Next year (next Sunday) we will turn to Luke’s gospel, and the following year we’ll be with Matthew again. Readings from John’s gospel are interspersed throughout the three year cycle. 

The readings account for our faith. They describe our faith journeys and our life journeys, from beginning to end, from alpha to omega, from the germ of faith, from being strangers to becoming friends – all the way to being his beloved followers, choosing the way to live for the kingdom of God, letting the way of Jesus be the governance for our lives. We’ve turned to Christ. The liturgical year accounts for how we got to that point and helps us to get to that point of acknowledging that the king of love my shepherd is. 

The king of love is not like any other king. We have a king –  Charles. We can’t help having him as king. Without him there would be no United Kingdom. The government is his. Keir Starmer is his Prime Minister. He’s king for all of us whether we like it or not. We pray that the king of love will be his love so that he may be a king of love himself.  We have history to show us the dreadful consequences of the rule of those who aren’t ruled by love.

The king of love never forces his rule on us, and neither does he force his rules on us. We can choose to follow them or not.  

We can choose him, or choose the rule of others. And when we do choose him we choose a rule unlike the rule of any other kingdom. The rule of the kingdom is love which puts the last first, which finds the lost, which treasures the least and smallest and promotes them as the very model of discipleship and faith. The entry requirement is that we have to change and become like little children to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus pictures entry the size of a needle and only the smallest get through. 

These are the rules we discover in our reading of scripture day by day, Sunday by Sunday – making new discoveries all the time about the ways of the kingdom of God and the way of the king of love. He’s the king who insists on service, not lordship. He’s not spared suffering – in fact he embraces suffering for our sake. He goes to the heart of the suffering of his people, taking on their wounds, persecution, oppression and pain, showing his way through them – the way which refuses the use of the sword, which endlessly forgives, which subjects enemies to his love. 

This is the way that took Jesus to Jerusalem – on a donkey, not a motorcade. This is the way that ultimately sees Jesus’s throne on the cross, just like other criminals and enemies of state, pilloried and crucified. And there on the cross, reigning supreme to the last divine breath, and suffering agony and torture, he is ironically crowned, “KING OF THE JEWS” 

This is the way through it all. This is the way of the king of love who shepherds us through the valleys of our lives when death overshadows us. This is the way of the king of love “whose goodness faileth never”. 

This is the rule we follow, the way we follow through our lives when we follow the way of Christ the King, when we follow Jesus as his disciples. 

So we come to the end of the year full of praise for Jesus and prepared for committing ourselves afresh to live for the kingdom of God and all its ways of love, on earth as in heaven. 

In this week’s newsletter Margaret has drawn our attention to the collect from a time before this Sunday was ever called Christ the King Sunday. It’s the collect which gave this Sunday the name “Stir up Sunday”, the cue to start stirring our Christmas puddings. It would be a strange thing if our year’s work culminated in the first stirrings of a pudding! It’s not about stirring our puddings, but stirring our wills to live for the kingdom of God with Christ our king. “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people”

Let’s sing. 

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

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).