This is where mercy takes her stand: far off, in the distance

David HerbertLeave a comment

Readings: Luke 18:9–14; Ecclesiasticus 35:12–17

The clocks have changed. The weather’s changed.
And we stand now on the bridge between seasons.

Today is the last Sunday after Trinity.
Next Sunday is the first in the new Kingdom season –
when we see the darkness of the kingdoms of this world,
and pray again for the world to be turned the right way up
with the rule of God’s Kingdom founded in heaven.

As the light shortens and we cross that bridge between seasons,
it feels right to pause and ask what endures –
what stands firm when the world tilts and turns.

And Jesus gives us this story;
a parable about where mercy truly stands.

This is where mercy takes her stand: far off, in the distance.

I want us to notice this morning
the two men Jesus talks about in the parable –
a story he addressed to some
who were confident of their own righteousness
and looked down on everyone else.

Notice how the Pharisee did what was expected of him,
just as he was supposed to,
obedient to the teachings of his religion.

He tithed and he fasted.
He did just what was right.
He was a religious success –
the sort of success to make a temple proud.

He stood confidently still,
as if he owned the place –
the temple where he was the perfect fit,

And he smugly gave thanks
that he wasn’t like the others:
robbers, evildoers, and adulterers.

In fact, he put himself first,
the best he could be,
better than all the rest,
better than the tax collector they all despised,
standing over there, at a distance.

He gave himself the prize,
he was the pride of the temple –
the one to catch the eye
of those like him on centre stage:
the success stories,
the ones who come first in their own eyes
and the eyes of the world,
those who are proud of their achievement,
who look down on those who can’t match them.

But he’s not the one who catches Jesus’ eye.
Mercy’s gaze has turned elsewhere.

This is where mercy takes her stand —
not in the proud posture of the Pharisee,
but with the one who stands at a distance,
head bowed, heart open,
praying only, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

The tax collector hasn’t much to commend him.
He’s made a living making compromises,
lining his own pocket when he must,
doing the bidding of an empire,
taxing his people, cheating his people,
keeping them poor.

He too has come to pray.
He stands apart.
He knows he’s not fit
to join those who look down on him.
He knows the weight of those eyes
and their condemnation, surely justified.

But still he prays where he’s been pushed aside –
in that low place, in that honest place –
and he finds the only prayer he can manage:
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

That’s all.

There are people good at praying, like the Pharisee.
It comes easy to them.

But this tax collector has nothing to claim.
He can’t make comparisons; he can’t claim to be good.
He has no list of good intentions.
All he has are these few words –
and that’s enough for Jesus.

Jesus has highlighted two men –
two types, one self-righteous and sure of himself,
the other “worse” by some distance.

There’s only one who goes home justified,
and it’s not the one we expected,
the one who thanks God he’s better than all the rest,
the one who thinks he’s the best he can be.

It’s the other one, the one on the edge,
the one in the distance, going home justified
(whatever “going home” might mean).

That’s quite some punchline from Jesus,
punching the pride of the temple,
and those confident in their own goodness,
who look down on everyone else.

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

That’s turning the world upside down,
and the truth inside out.

And it still happens today,
whenever we’re brave enough to look beyond ourselves.

There’s a man who sits under the bridge in our town.
I’ve passed him many times,
hesitating, not sure what to say,
worried about what it might cost to engage.
But this week, I stopped.
I’d found my opening line.
We talked.
He had plenty to say.
I found him articulate, intelligent, resilient,
unhealthy, unlucky.
I went away thankful.

I wasn’t thankful I wasn’t like him –
God forbid.
Rather, I was thankful that I am.
Thankful that mercy makes us kin,
that empathy builds bridges and common ground.

I had stood my distance – the shame was all mine.
The shame that it’s taken me so long
to learn how to join those down and those out.

This is where mercy takes her stand —
on the bridges, in the margins,
in the hearts of those who stand at a distance.

And maybe this is a small thing to notice,
but it strikes me that the Pharisee, in his way,
is saying what we so often hear today —
“I’m feeling blessed.”
Blessed that life’s gone well,
blessed that I’m not struggling,
blessed that I’m not like those who’ve fallen on hard times.
But the tax collector doesn’t say that.
He doesn’t feel blessed —
he only feels the weight of mercy.
And yet he’s the one who goes home justified,
seen, forgiven, restored.
Maybe that’s what blessing really looks like —
not success, but mercy meeting us
when we’ve nothing left to boast about.

Today is Bible Sunday,
a reminder that Scripture isn’t just something we read —
it’s something that reads us.
The Pharisee knew his Bible well,
but he used it to build himself up.
The tax collector may not have known a verse,
yet he lived the truth of one we’ve heard this morning:
“The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds” (Ecclesiasticus 35).
God’s Word lands where mercy already waits.

And that is what this parable shows us —
the way God’s kingdom comes:
not through pride or perfection,
but through mercy that stoops low
and finds us where we are.

For God sides with the penitent sinner,
with the humble, with the broken,
with those the world overlooks.
And when we begin to see as God sees —
when we recognise the brother under the bridge,
the sister on the edge —
we discover that the kingdom has already drawn near.

This is where mercy takes her stand:
far off, in the distance,
on the edge where humility meets hope,
and where God is already at work,
turning the world the right way up.

All who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
That’s not a threat.
That’s a promise.
That’s the way the world is set right.

Luke 18:9-14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
‘But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

LimpLight

David Herbert2 Comments

This one’s for all who wrestle in the dark and rise, blessed but limping, inspired by reading Genesis 32:22-31 and Luke 18:1-8 – the Revised Common Lectionary readings for October 19th 2025.

How shall we describe the state of Israel today?

The state of Israel today begins with both our readings —
from Genesis 32, the story of Jacob whose name means twister;
and from Luke 18, the story of the widow struggling for justice.

The state of Israel begins at the end of a night of struggle for the twister,
a night of struggle in which Jacob never discovers
the name of the one he’s wrestling with,
but finds himself called by a new name — Israel.

Jacob’s struggle as portrayed by Sir Jacob Epstein (shown in Tate Gallery, London)

Israel struggles with God,
and God struggles with Israel.
That is the very meaning of Israel.
If Israel means anything,
it means struggling with God.

Jacob is the first to be called Israel,
and he is called (renamed) that by the one he struggled with
because he “struggled with God and with people”
and withstood the whole night.

It is the calling of Israel to struggle faithfully through the night.

Jacob is the patriarch of Israel —
the patriarch of those who struggle with God and with people,
and who carry on wrestling through long nights and times of darkness
without being overcome,

people like the widow singled out by Jesus —
a victim of some injustice.
In the face of an utterly unjust justice system,
personified by a judge who neither feared God
nor cared what people thought,
she struggled.

For some time she struggled.
She kept coming at that lousy judge.
She wouldn’t let go until he gave in.

Those who struggle through the night,
with God and with people —
those who struggle to see the night through,
for whom the night is very dark,
and for whom there is little daylight,
those who won’t give up whatever the night brings —
they are the ones whose hope is rewarded.

They carry a blessing for all who wrestle with God
and with the wounds people inflict.

It’s the blessing of God
who himself wrestles through the darkness of the world,
who struggles with people and the suffering they cause,
but who, in spite of all that,
wrestles the whole night long.

This is the love that shines in the darkness
to the break of day.

And yet, the night is long.
Not just one night in Jacob’s life,
not just one night in ours,
but the long night of the world —
a night as long as history.

Through that long night we wrestle,
and God wrestles with us.

There are three struggles woven into this story,
and all three belong to Israel:

We struggle with God.
We struggle with people —
and people struggle with us.
And through it all,
God struggles with us.

That’s what it means to be called Israel:
to live the long night of wrestling,
and to trust that, at the end of it,
there will still be blessing.

The struggle with God

Sometimes it’s the long silence of prayer —
when we ask and wait and hear nothing.
Sometimes it’s the ache of loss,
or the questions that faith won’t easily answer.
We wrestle with God when life doesn’t fit the promise,
when love feels hidden,
when blessing comes only after a wound.

But still we hold on.
Faith is not certainty —
faith is the grip that will not let go until morning.

The struggle with people

And we wrestle with people too.
Not just those who hurt or wrong us,
but in all the difficult ways love tests us —
learning to forgive, to be patient,
to stay kind when we’d rather give up,
to bear with one another’s weakness.

People struggle with us too —
our faults, our sharp words, our stubbornness.
We are all part of each other’s wrestling.

These are the struggles that form the fruits of the Spirit —
the quiet strength that grows only in the dark:
patience, gentleness, self-control,
love that endures through the night.

The struggle with ourselves

And maybe there’s a fourth struggle too —
the one Jacob knew best —
the struggle with ourselves.
The fight to face what we’ve twisted,
to tell the truth about who we are,
and to accept the new name that grace gives us.

Before we can meet God face to face,
we have to face ourselves in the dark —
the parts we’d rather not see,
the wounds we’ve caused as well as borne.
Even that struggle can become blessing.

The struggle of God

And through it all, God struggles too —
not against us, but for us.
God wrestles through the night of the world,
bearing our pain,
refusing to give up on us.
The cross itself is the mark of that struggle —
God’s own wound,
the divine limp that still bears the weight of love.

This is the love that shines in the darkness
to the break of day.

Jacob wanted to know the man’s name,
but the man would not tell him.

Maybe that’s the mercy of God —
that we never get to hold the name too tightly.
The namelessness keeps the struggle open.
It reminds us that this wrestling is for everyone,
that God stands with all who struggle through the night —
beyond borders, beyond certainty, beyond control.

It was not for ease that prayer shall be.
The story of Israel is not the story of the untroubled.
The story of Israel is the story of the very troubled —
the story of slavery, exile, persecution,
the horrors of history, the nightmare.

Amos got it right three thousand years ago.
He condemned the complacent,
those who are at ease in Zion.
He said they put off the day of disaster
and bring near a reign of terror.
They are not fit to be called Israel.
They duck the fight and ignore the struggle.

But Jacob did not.
The widow did not.
And the God who wrestles through the night does not.

Jacob’s blessing comes with a wound.
He carries it into the dawn,
every step a reminder of the night he endured
and the God who would not let him go.

Perhaps this is the mark of the blessed —
not the ones who have had an easy time of it,
but the ones who have been wounded and changed.
The ones who know that life is not straightforward,
that faith is not certainty,
and that love costs something real.

Israel limps into the sunrise,
blessed and broken.

And still, the night is long —
as long as history,
as wide as the world.
Still, God wrestles with us,
still struggles with his people,
still bears our wounds,
and still blesses us.

And when the dawn comes —
as surely it will —
the blessing will not erase the limp,
but redeem it.

For the love that shines in the darkness
will shine until the whole world
limps into the light.

Afterthoughts
What might it mean for a people, or for a church, to be known by its limp – to be blessed not in strength but in struggle?
If God still wrestles through the long night of the world, where do you see that struggle – and that love – happening today?

Border Crossing: the dangerous way of grace

David HerbertLeave a comment

Our politics, like our hearts, are haunted by borders and fear. But Luke’s gospel shows Jesus walking the edge — not to keep people out, but to draw them in. Preached in a week when fragile talk of a ceasefire in Gaza flickers across the news, this reflection on Luke 17:11–19 and 2 Timothy 2:8–15 explores what happens when the unchained word of God crosses the lines we draw, healing what fear divides.

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee.
This is what Luke wants us to notice —
that Jesus is on the edge, not in the middle.
He’s on the edge where belonging is uncertain.

In nature, the edge is often where life is richest.
When two landscapes meet — forest and field, land and river —
there’s a place called an ecotone.
It’s a place of tension, yes,
but also of surprising life,
where species from both sides mingle
and new life appears.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus walks the edge —
because that’s where new life is breaking out.

We’ve all walked that edge:
in the playground,
the first days in a new job,
moving into a new community —
will we be included, will we settle?

Luke introduces us to ten lepers,
forced to live on that edge
by their communities who have wrenched them from home,
from all they’ve ever known, by one word — Unclean.

They are the wrong side of the border,
cast over the edge —
and that’s why they have to shout to Jesus.
They have to get their word across that boundary.

This is how Jesus gets to Jerusalem —
by walking the edge,
the dangerous way,
where grace and fear meet,
where the kingdom begins to break through.

But not every edge is walked the same way.
Our leaders keep pointing us to the edge too —
the edge of our borders, our safety, our identity.
They edge us with fear.
They tell us who to blame, who not to trust,
who belongs, and who should stay outside.

And we see again what happens
when fear builds its own borders.
Across the news this week —
the fragile talk of ceasefire,
the first steps toward peace in Gaza —
we glimpse what it costs to live so long
behind walls of pain and suspicion.

Every side has its wounds,
every border its fear.
And yet even there,
the smallest word of peace,
the tiniest crossing of compassion,
is a holy thing.
It’s where grace dares to walk the edge again.

And that’s the challenge for us, too.
Because we all have borders of our own —
those quiet lines we draw in our hearts,
between those we find easy to love
and those we keep at a distance.

The question is:
whose edge are we walking?
The one that fear builds,
or the one Jesus blesses —
the edge where healing begins?

Fear has its own language,
and it spreads easily.
You can hear it in the way people talk,
the way headlines shout,
the way words build walls
long before bricks ever do.

That’s what happened to the ten lepers.
They were pushed to the edge by words —
words that said Unclean,
words that exiled them from home,
from family, from touch.

And now they have to shout from a distance,
just to be heard —
their voices straining across the border,
trying to bridge the gap
that other people’s words created.

And Jesus sends a word back.
No touch, no ceremony —
just a word that crosses the border:
“Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

And as they go, they are made clean.
The word runs free.
It doesn’t stop at the boundary;
it heals as it goes.

Paul once wrote, chained in a prison cell:
“I may be in chains,
but the word of God is not chained.”

It’s the same truth here.
The unchained word runs ahead of Jesus,
crossing the lines that fear has drawn,
healing what twisted speech has broken.

This isn’t the first time Luke shows us Jesus on the edge.
From the very beginning, his gospel has been about
the outsiders God draws in.
It’s Luke who tells of the shepherds —
night workers, unclean in their own way —
hearing angels sing of peace on earth.
Luke remembers the woman who wept on Jesus’ feet,
the prodigal welcomed home,
the beggar Lazarus lifted up,
and another Samaritan —
the one who stopped on the roadside to bind up wounds.

In Luke’s world,
the people we push aside
become the very ones who show us what mercy looks like.
And here again, it’s the Samaritan —
the one no one expected —
who becomes the model of faith,
the first to come home to God.

But one turns back.
One crosses the border again.
He’s the foreigner —
the one who, by every rule, should have stayed outside.
Yet he comes closer,
falls at Jesus’ feet,
and his first word isn’t a cry for help,
but a word of thanks.

Ten were made clean —
but only this one is made whole.
Because healing isn’t complete
until it finds its voice in thanksgiving.

That’s the word Jesus has been waiting for —
not Unclean, not Go away,
but Thank you.
A word that restores relationship,
that binds what fear has torn apart.

The Samaritan becomes the first citizen
of this new borderland kingdom —
a kingdom without fences,
where mercy is the mother tongue.

And maybe this is what it means
to follow Jesus on his way to Jerusalem —
to walk the edge,
not the safe, well-marked path,
but the dangerous way,
where love meets fear
and refuses to turn back.

Because that’s where the unchained word still runs free —
crossing borders,
breaking through divisions,
making strangers into neighbours,
and outcasts into brothers and sisters.

Prayer

May the Christ who walks the edges
find us there —
where fear builds walls
and grace dares to cross.
May his word set us free
to speak peace,
to live thanks,
and to walk the dangerous way of grace.

From the Riverbank

David HerbertLeave a comment

– Sister Itchen and the River of Life
A sermon for Harvest Festival at St Lawrence’s Napton, inspired by St Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, the Warwickshire River Itchen, artist Stephen Broadbent’s River of Life sculpture in Warrington, the writing of Robert Macfarlane and the indigenous wisdom represented by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s a thanksgiving for the quiet grace that still flows through creation, and a reminder that we are family with all that lives.

We are brothers and sisters together,
one family, caring for one another.
It’s 800 years this year since St Francis highlighted the interdependence of all things that have life,
and I thought it would be appropriate to have Francis helping us in our Harvest thanksgiving,
when we give thanks for the fruits of God’s creation.

Today we praise God for his creation,
for the nature given to us.

We would be mistaken to think we praise God alone.
For Francis, all creation sings God’s praise —
our whole family: Brothers Sun, Wind and Fire,
Sisters Moon and Water.

If St Francis had walked here,
I think he would have sung of Brother Itchen —
the river that rises at Wormleighton and flows its way
past Priors Hardwick through here in Napton.

It seeps quietly through our fields,
watering crops and feeding wildlife,
joining its voice to the River Leam and the Avon beyond.

It’s not a mighty river like the Jordan or the Nile,
but a patient, life-giving one —
a reminder that the grace of God often flows quietly,
unnoticed, yet sustaining everything around it.

Robert Macfarlane asks in a book I’m reading,
“Is a river alive?”
I think the Itchen would answer yes.
It breathes, moves, nourishes —
and if we listen carefully, we can almost hear it praise.

Other songs of the church treasures spell this interdependence of praise out in more detail.
The Benedicite calls
the sun, moon and stars,
every shower of rain and fall of dew,
all winds, and fire and heat,
winter and summer,
the chill and cold,
frost and cold, ice and sleet,
mountains and hills,
everything that grows upon the earth,
springs of water, seas and streams,
whales and everything that moves in the water,
all the birds of the air, the beasts of the wild,
flocks and herds, men and women
all to praise and glorify God,
alongside those of upright spirit,
those who are holy and humble in heart.

Psalm 148 is a call to worship
for the angels, the sun, the moon and stars of light,
for the waters, sea monsters and all deeps,
for fire and hail, snow and mist,
for mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars,
wild beasts, all cattle, creeping things, birds,
kings of the earth and all people,
men and women, boys and girls
to worship and praise together.

The prophet, Isaiah, anticipated the joy of creation.
He saw the mountains and the hills bursting into song
and the trees of the field clapping their hands.

And, of course, we know that the hills are alive with the sound of music.

This is ancient wisdom that is treasured in many indigenous cultures
but which has been forgotten over the years.
We forget we are called to worship with the whole of creation
and we presume we worship alone — homo sapiens.

Is that why our family ties with the rest of nature have broken?
We’ve stopped caring as brothers and sisters.
Instead, we’ve used our dominance for exploitation of our brothers and sisters.

Robert Macfarlane asks in a book I’m reading (and heartily recommend),
“Is a river alive?”
“Is a river alive?”
I think the Itchen would answer yes.
She breathes, she moves, she nourishes —
and if we listen carefully, we can almost hear her praise.

That same living flow runs through the Bible —
through the river that rises in Eden, watering the garden,
through the waters that break open in the desert,
through the River of Life that Ezekiel and John both saw,
flowing from the throne of God,
their trees bearing fruit each month,
and their leaves for the healing of the nations.

The artist Stephen Broadbent knows something of that healing power.
His River of Life sculpture in Warrington
was created after two boys were killed by a terrorist bomb there in 1993.
In that place of loss and grief,
Stephen imagined a river of life flowing through the heart of the town —
a river that gathers up pain and turns it into hope.

The bronze figures he shaped seem to rise from the water itself.
They are imprinted with the hands of children,
contemporaries of the boys killed,
their hands open in welcome and peace.

By the river are the leaves of trees – 12 of them,
one for each month of the year,
a monthly reminder that the river and her trees
are there for all time, even the worst of times,
always remembering, healing and renewing life.

That is what God’s river does —
whether in scripture, in the heart of a town like Warrington,
or in the quiet fields of Warwickshire.
She carries life wherever she goes.
She invites us to join her flow —
to live as people of blessing, healing, and renewal.

I’ve got an allotment this year.
I see something of that same grace there.

An allotment teaches you that nothing is wasted.
Weeds go on the compost, scraps rot down into soil,
and what looks like death becomes food for life.

The tiniest seed, almost too small to hold,
can multiply into a hundredfold abundance.
And if you care for the soil, safeguard the earth,
you discover her astonishing energy for renewal.

It changes the way you look at things.
You learn the value of everything,
you learn to work with the grain of creation, not against it.
And you discover joy in being part of that family again —
brother soil, sister seed, mother earth,
working alongside us in God’s garden.

So today, at Harvest, our thanksgiving is not a private prayer.
It is part of a chorus with the sun, the moon, the wind, the water —
with rivers that sing and trees that clap their hands,
with a creation that still waits for healing,
yet never stops praising.

St Francis knew it 800 years ago.
The Bible has sung it for thousands of years.
Artists and poets remind us in scarred places.
And even the humble allotment teaches us:
we are family with all creation.

Our calling is to live as grateful brothers and sisters,
giving thanks, safeguarding the earth,
and letting the river of life flow through us
for the healing of the world

Are the rich fit for the kingdom of God? Here’s the test.

David HerbertLeave a comment

A sermon for September 28th 2025 – the 15th Sunday after Trinity (Proper 21C)

All three readings, (Amos 6:1a, 4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16: 19-end) address the issue of wealth. (There is far more in the Bible about wealth and riches than about sexual morality, though that is hard to believe when we listen to the politics of the church).

Amos condemns those who are at ease in Zion, those who feel secure in Samaria – the notables of the first nations.
He condemns those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, who drink wine from bowls and massage themselves with the finest oils, but who don’t give a fig about those whose lives are ruined.
For Amos, they will be the first to be exiled.
The revelry of the loungers shall pass away – and we will be all the better for that.
Now, there’s a phrase to conjure with. “They shall pass away” –
dead, no more, nada – thank God –
and those who are the victims of their indifference will breathe a sigh of relief.
What use are the loungers to the world?

The kingdom of God does not belong to the comfortable and secure,
but to the last, the least, and the lost.

Then Paul, in his letter to Timothy talks about the great gain in godliness combined with contentment.
He doesn’t condemn people for having things but warns against wanting more and more.
True wealth is “godliness with contentment”.
That’s the way to be happy.
Paul warns Timothy about the dangers of desire.
“Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.”
The danger of desire is that it makes us restless, blind to our neighbour, and forgetful of God. When we chase being first we often step over those who are last.
When we crave more, we forget those with less.
When we seek security in wealth, we leave others lost.

Paul warns that desire blinds us to our neighbour.
And Jesus shows us the tragic result – a rich man so blinded by wealth that he couldn’t see Lazarus at his own gate.

Isn’t it interesting that nobody knows the name of the rich man?
But we all know Lazarus.
The rich man has been forgotten.
That phrase again – he is passed away. He is no more. He is dead.
He is in torment for the torment that Lazarus went through at the rich man’s gate.
He was covered with sores,
and was so hungry he’d have gladly eat the crumbs from the floor of the rich man’s table.
See how the dogs came and licked his sores.
The compassion of the dogs is such a contrast to the indifference of the rich man.

The rich man was at his gate, on his doorstep.
Compassion was surely in his reach.
But he’d made wealth his wall,
and when death came, that wall turned into an unbridgeable chasm.
He passed away into torment, dead to the kingdom of God.
Whereas Lazarus is carried by all the angels to be with Abraham – carried as one of the people of God.
“The loungers shall pass away” says Amos.
And in this parable, the rich man – nameless, forgotten – has passed away.
Dead to God’s kingdom, dead to compassion, dead to life.

We are a rich nation.
And yet, how often we choose not to see the plight of the poor.
The men, women and children arriving in small boats —
are they not Lazarus at our gate?
They lie at the threshold of our common life, in need of compassion.

And here’s the Gospel twist:
Lazarus means “helped by God.”
God helps the poor, the overlooked, the forgotten.
They are not abandoned.
And in God’s strange mercy, they are also sent to help us.
Lazarus is not just a man to be pitied — he is a gods­end.

How the rich man needed Lazarus.
At the end of the parable, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers.
But Abraham replies:
They already have Moses and the prophets — they should listen to them.
He could also have said:
They already had Lazarus — lying at their gate.
That was their opportunity. How many more chances do they need?

Lazarus is the examiner of compassion,
who stands at the door and knocks to see if any love of God lives in this household.
This is where the kingdom of God begins: in the last, the least and the lost whom God helps.

The rich man failed the test.
He failed the test to help the ones God helps.
He was like those condemned by Amos – a reveller, a lounger,
and he becomes one of the first in the gospel to go into exile, into torment, into unending death.

Can a rich man ever enter the kingdom of God?
Yes, but only if they help the ones God helps.

The tragedy for the rich man was that he never recognised Lazarus as the gift God had sent him. Wealth had become his wall against him.
When death came, that wall turned into an unbridgeable chasm.
The rich man passed away nameless, forgotten, as Amos warned.
“The revelry of the loungers shall pass away.”

But Lazarus —
helped by God, sent by God —
was lifted up and carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham.

Pope Francis reminded us that the poor are our evangelisers.
They proclaim the gospel to us.
They show us the face of Christ.
They test our compassion
and teach us where the kingdom of God begins (and where it ends).

So the question is this:
will we see these godsends at our gate,
within our reach, and open the bridge of compassion?
Or, will we, like the rich man, turn away and pass away?

Safeguarding is the Mission of God

David HerbertLeave a comment

I had thought that this Sunday was Safeguarding Sunday. It’s not.
That’s November 16th.
But shouldn’t every Sunday be Safeguarding Sunday?
When we look at our readings for the day, (Amos 8:4-7 & Luke 16:1-13),
they are all about safeguarding,
and they expose our current safeguarding focus as hopelessly inadequate.

Safeguarding isn’t just reacting to scandals of abuse,
but is the mission of the church.
Our calling is to protect the vulnerable,
to care for creation and to defend the excluded.

And safeguarding begins with the little things.
The soil beneath our feet.
The worm in the allotment.
The bee that pollinates our food.
The sparrow that falls unnoticed to the ground.
Creation itself is vulnerable,
and safeguarding must mean cherishing the earth, not exploiting it.

If we cannot be faithful with the earth — the very ground of our life —
how can we expect to be trusted with the riches of the kingdom?

Safeguarding has a political edge which is being overlooked.

We are in the Season of Creation,
a season for highlighting the needs of the earth and the environment
and our responsibilities for safeguarding the planet.

And we are in the season of disenchantment and political turmoil
when we are seeing thousands of people taking to the streets
to protest against immigration,
who want to turn the clock back
to make Britain Great again,
or America great again,
or make themselves great again.

There are safeguarding issues here as well,
challenges to safeguard those who are vulnerable,
those in the firing line, those claiming asylum,
those terrified in the targeted hotels,
those who are scared to be seen in public.

My son told us of his experience last weekend.
He was in London during the protests.
Protesters surrounded the Uber they were in,
banging the windows, shaking the car
and shouting to the driver, “GO HOME”.
He was a Bangladeshi who has lived here for twelve years.
His home is here. That requires safeguarding.

And there is the other side.
Those protesting aren’t all fascist or racist.
They are people who feel they don’t belong,
who feel they’ve been left behind
by a society which has put financial gain above everything,
where the gap between rich and poor has grown ever wider.
It is hard for me to speak for them,
but have they had enough of “rip off Britain”,
have they lost hope? Have they been safeguarded?
Is what we are seeing on the streets a consequence
of the lack of safeguarding for these least and last,
with a poverty of opportunity?
I will not demean these people as racists or fascists.
I have lived in their communities.
Most of them have just reached the end of their tether.

They become easy prey for those who would exploit them for their own ends,
false shepherds who would mislead them with false promises.
You know who I mean.

And into this world — our world — comes the voice of Amos (Amos 8:4-7 – printed below),
eight centuries before Christ.
Because his scripture has been treasured,
we have been hearing Amos for nearly 3000 years!
He names what safeguarding failure looks like in his time:
people trampling on the needy, treating the poor as expendable,
twisting religion to cover up exploitation.
Are we any different now?
He cries out against a society where profit matters more than people,
and where the very ones who most need protection are sold for a pair of sandals.
Amos is God’s safeguarding officer, raising the alarm.

And then Jesus, in Luke’s gospel, gives us this line:

Whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much.

It’s a complicated parable, but this is the heart of it: the little matters.
Whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much.
The small ones matter.
The least matter.
The soil matters.
The worm matters.
The daily, unnoticed acts of honesty and care matter.
Because in the little, the kingdom begins.

Being faithful in the little means safeguarding creation itself:
tending the soil, honouring the creatures that work unseen,
the worms, the insects, the birds —
each one part of God’s great economy of life,
the web of life that holds us.

Being faithful in the little means safeguarding people:
the child, the refugee, the neighbour
who feels they don’t belong.

Being faithful in the little means safeguarding our choices,
managing ourselves in those moments
which could turn into flash points when we fly off the handle.

Being faithful in the little means safeguarding our community:
choosing honesty when it would be easier to cut corners,
choosing care when it would be easier to look away.

The little matters – because in the little the kingdom begins.

Jesus speaks of being our shepherd,
the true shepherd
who safeguards the last, the least and the lost.
That must include those who have been misled
by opportunistic shepherds who trade in fear.
They, too, are vulnerable, though they don’t always see it.
They are last and least in ways that make them lash out.
But they are still little ones Jesus longs to safeguard.
So safeguarding is not just paperwork or policy.
It is the mission of God, entrusted to us:
to safeguard the earth, to safeguard the poor,
(and protest against the causes of poverty and exclusion).
It is the mission of God
to safeguard even those who have lost their way.

Every time we join this mission,
we are being faithful in the little,
and the little is what God treasures.
The little are the treasures of the kingdom.

Our commonwealth is woven together
from moments of safeguarding the vulnerable,
moments of honouring the smallest,
moments of choosing care over indifference.

This is what God entrusts to us.
This is what it means to live for the kingdom.

The little matters,
because in the little, the kingdom begins.

Amos 8:4-7

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
  and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, ‘When will the new moon be over
  so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
  so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
  and practise deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
  and the needy for a pair of sandals,
  and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds

Here, where the lost are found

David HerbertLeave a comment

A reflection for a small church on Luke 15:1-10 and 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Why are we here?
We are here to hear Jesus.

Our gospel reading introduces us to a gathering to hear Jesus:
“The tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear him.”
That is the gathering we join,
and we do that alongside Paul,
who in our first reading names himself the worst of all sinners,
an ex-blasphemer, persecutor and violent man.

That is the context of every worshipping community.
In our gospel, it caused trouble for Jesus.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered their opposition:
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So Jesus told them two parables.
Luke pairs them: a man’s story and a woman’s story.
A shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to search for the one lost sheep.
A woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds her lost coin.
Luke underlines the quality of their searching.
They both show “immense patience”,
a patience that refuses to give up,
a patience that never says “it’s not worth it”.
The shepherd goes after the sheep until he finds it.
The woman spares no effort until she finds it.

They are finders.

Jesus tells these parables against those who were muttering.

The tax collectors and sinners gathered to hear Jesus were also finders.
They had found in him the word of life.
Luke even arranges his gospel so that this gathering follows immediately after Jesus says: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen.”
Who is it that comes to listen?
The tax collectors and sinners.
They are the finders.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law are also within earshot, but they refuse to listen.
They just scoff.

Luke keeps staging this confrontation.
The tax collectors and sinners are outcasts –
lost by the systems of the world governed by the rich and powerful,
represented here by the Pharisees and lawyers.
The Pharisees and lawyers are respected, secure, and honoured.
In the kingdom of their own making, they are the winners.
They have the best seats. They decide who is in and who is out.

But Jesus sees them differently,
not as winners, but as losers.
They lose people.
They’re dismissive of those who don’t fit.

And isn’t that the way of the world?
We keep losing people
through contempt and neglect,
through systems that write off the poor, the dishonoured, the inconvenient.

These two parables aren’t just about a sheep and a coin,
but about everyone lost in the games of the rich and powerful.

We live in the kingdom where scoffing, exclusion and arrogance are normalised.
But we live for the kingdom where the winners are seen as losers,
and the lost, the last and the least become finders.

And here we are: gathered, like them, not by merit,
but by the word of Jesus,
finders of the way.

The church is the fellowship of the found:
found by Jesus, founded on his word.

I don’t know whether any of you are watching the new series of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams.
He sets up cricket teams in some of the most deprived areas.
He visits a pupil referral unit in Liverpool,
boys permanently excluded from school,
written off as trouble. Lost boys.
And he makes a team of them.

Flintoff refuses to let them stay lost.
With immense patience, he works with them,
coaxes them, encourages them,
hoping they might find purpose, dignity, hope.

If one man can give such patience to boys dismissed by the system,
how much more will Christ Jesus seek and find the lost?

That is what Paul says in our first reading.
He calls himself “the worst of sinners”—
a blasphemer, persecutor, violent man.
If anyone was beyond hope, it was him.
Yet Christ Jesus showed him mercy,
so that in him the immense patience of God might be displayed,
the patience of the shepherd,
the patience of the searching woman
magnified in Christ’s patience for us.

Paul is proof that no one is too far gone,
no one is finally lost to God.

And that is why we are here.
We may feel small, even overlooked,
like a congregation easily written off.
But in Christ’s kingdom, no congregation, no gathering is lost,
and no person is forgotten.

We are not the society of the scoffers,
drawing lines and writing people off.
We are the fellowship of the found,
found by Christ’s immense patience,
gathered by his mercy,
called to practise the same humility and hospitality:
ready to search, to welcome, to rejoice
whenever one who was lost is found.

Jesus still eats with tax collectors and sinners.
He still makes room for the poor, the marginalised, the left-behind.

And here we are,
the ones he has found,
gathered at his table.
Here we are,
the fellowship of his patience,
the people of his joy.

Every welcome we give is a share in heaven’s joy.

Every time the overlooked are honoured,
the lonely embraced,
the written-off given a place,
we join the joy of the finders of God
and the joy of God in the lost God has found.

Here we are. Found, forgiven, rejoicing.

Match of the Day

David HerbertLeave a comment

a poem marking the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War 2

Match of the Day cameras
focus their lenses on
young boys and their disappointments
in the closing minutes
in the dashing of hope.
The fingers on their hands
go to the bone
of the sockets of eyes
to prevent their tears
staining their faces.

After the match, so we’ve heard,
men will go home
and pass on their beating.

There are no cameras
for those beaten in war.

They’re all parading victors
their celebrations
their talk of living for peace.

How does it feel to be
a beaten people?
What would history tell us
if written by losers?

The shame is in defeat,
in losing everything
they’ve ever fought for,
for being on the wrong side
for allowing themselves to be misled,
for still breathing
and surviving
and wondering forever
if they fought hard enough,
or if survival
was its own betrayal.

They need new warriors
to help them fight again.

Kiefer had it,
the imagination
for a nation
down on its knees.

Following Vincent,
he painted the sunflower,
now bent and grey,
head shaking
stem hollowed,
shame-faced,
shaken to its core,
spilling the seed
of its future
watering the bloody earth
for a different
golden dawn.

September 2nd 2025
©DavidHerbert

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.