Grits and Grains

On our way to Lent – where Mark leads us

February 11, 2024February 11, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

This is a reflection on the transfiguration the Sunday before Lent (Year B). The text is Mark 9:2-9. I had a congregation in rural Warwickshire in mind as I prepared this (and learned so much in the process).

It is the last Sunday before Lent and already the gospel for the day leads us to a liminal space, taking our eyes, hearts and minds to a high mountain to be with Jesus, Peter, James and John and apart from the busyness of everyday life.

From Wednesday we come back to earth. We become ashen faced with our faces smeared with the ashes that remind us that we are but dust. From dust we came and to dust we return. We come back to the earth of the wilderness, where life is full of temptations, everyday life in which we are so often bothered and bewildered.

But for now, we are taken apart from all of that as Mark deliberately takes us, as disciples of Jesus, up a high mountain. We don’t just get the buzz of climbing high. This is a spiritual high that Mark leads us to, though not for long. For a few short verses we are there, and then we are gone.

Alongside Peter, James and John we see Jesus transfigured, his clothes becoming impossibly white. Moses and Elijah are there, one on either side of Jesus. It is quite the picture. We could perhaps imagine this as a stained glass window. Jesus central, Moses on one side, Elijah on the other. Moses being “the law”. Elijah being “the prophets”.

You can see it set in stone, as Peter did. He wanted to build three dwellings there so that they could stay in that moment, on the mountain, in their spiritual high.

How wrong Peter was. Mark explains that he didn’t really know what he was saying because they were terrified. There was no staying there. Just as there was not staying there for them, so there is no staying in our spiritual highs for us.

Jesus takes them down from the mountain top down to earth.
That’s where his love takes them,
away from the rapture and into the political realities of everyday life,
away from the tameness of the mountain top experience into the wilder-ness where it’s dog eat dog
down the mountain Jesus leads us into the valleys overshadowed with death.

That is where we find Jesus and his disciples, not separate, apart, high and mighty, down to earth as the dust of the way everyone walks, one with us in wilderness.

Peter may have had his designs on a stained glass window with its three panels – Jesus at the centre, flanked by Moses and Elijah, but Peter is used by Mark as the lead disciple who represents the misunderstandings of all Jesus’ disciples.

James and John seem to have had a similar design in mind. They pictured glory with Jesus enthroned in the centre with one of them on his right and the other one on his left.

Mark is the one who sees and understands Jesus’s design.

It is the way of the cross. It is the way through the heart of the people he loves. Mark’s gospel leaves us with Jesus crucified in the way criminals were then, with a criminal crucified on one side of him, and a criminal crucified on the other.

And that is Jesus’ design for us as he leads us from the safety of the spiritual high into the valleys overshadowed by death, as he leads us to politically engage in the conflicts of everyday life, showing us the way to live through them with love.

So, a very different stained glass window, a very different pattern to follow: Jesus cut, naked, bruised at the centre, flanked by two criminals on their crucifixes who join the mockery of Jesus.

This is what Mark wants us to fix in our minds. Not the three dwellings Peter wanted to build on the mountain top, but the picture of the three crosses as the way of salvation. How strange this picture is to us, how strange this hanging the church has been showing us down the centuries.

Christ on the Cross between Two Thieves by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), showing the power of empire and the plight of its victims.
This is where Mark leads us – from the mountain to the heart of suffering.

It’s strange because like Peter, James and John we have other ideas of what a messiah looks like. Collectively we have been led my many of them down the centuries – and misled by them – charismatic leaders, many of whom have been tyrants, many of whom have led their followers in ways of violence and retribution in pursuit of peace.

Peter, James and John grew up with the idea that the Messiah would come triumphantly to overthrow the political rulers who overruled them so cruelly and unjustly. Jesus chooses another path – that way of the cross. Not a triumphant way, but a loving way, as servant of all. Mark highlights the mistakes and misunderstandings of Peter, James and John. It is no wonder they got him so wrong.

But they are not judged for their mistakes. Instead, God talks to them, there on that mountain. Mark pictures those three. To them alone he points to Jesus. His voice comes from heaven, and he says “This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him”.

“This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him.” This is the way to understand Jesus – by listening to him. This is God’s call to those disciples. Their vocation is to listen to Jesus. Another word we use for listening is following. Are you following me in what I am saying? Following Jesus is hearing what he says and acting on what he says.

We hear many people talking about what God is saying to them. I’m sorry – but a lot of what they say bears no resemblance to what Jesus says. We hear many people putting themselves in the roles of saviours, but what they do is often diametrically opposed to anything Jesus said. We see mighty leaders with their armies of followers but they are nothing more than tin-pot dictators dictating what they’re forcing their followers to hear.

We follow so many in so many ways. We are tricked, seduced and groomed. We are tempted to take the easy way, the heartless way, the violent short cut rather than the long road, the harder way less travelled, the braver way, the costlier way of patience and endurance.

This is the challenge when we come down to earth from our spiritual high. How are we going to make our way through the political realities of the here and now? Who are we going to follow? Who are we going to listen to?

There is so much noise around us – but through it all the church hangs on to the vocation – the call from heaven, to listen to Jesus’ words all the way to his crucifixion by the powers that be – one of three: Jesus flanked by those two thieves.

Mark 9:2-9

Six days later Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Beginnings and the meaning of life

February 4, 2024February 4, 2024 David Herbert1 Comment

A sermon for the 2nd Sunday before Lent. Both epistle and gospel of the day are about beginnings and the meaning of life. This sermon was for a church in rural Warwickshire.

In the beginning. In the beginning – such a lovely phrase. In the beginning – such a good place to start.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. That’s how John prefaces his gospel.

Our scriptures open at the beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

Some of you will remember Maureen Lipman’s British Telecom adverts. In one she rings her grandson to see how he got on in his exams. He goes through all the exams he failed. She asks, “did you pass anything?”. “I got pottery” – to which grandma says “that’s good, people will always need plates”. “And I got Sociology”. To which Grandma says, “you got an ology and you said you failed!”.

In the beginning was the Word. I’ve not got much in the way of an ology, but I’ve got enough of an “ology” to know that the Greek words for the Word is o-logos. O logos. It is from those two Greek words that we get all our ologies – whether sociology, psychology, geology, astrology, criminology – anyone awarded an ology can claim the credit of beginning to understand the meaning of an aspect of life.

Putting aside any clever, clever ologies we may have we could all say that we have an OLOGY because the Word became flesh and dwells amongst us, with us always, to the end of time. That’s an ology that God has gifted us. He has gifted us his Word, o logos, made flesh, embodying the meaning of God from the beginning. If we want to know the meaning and purpose of God we have to look no further than Jesus.

The Word means meaning. O logos, the ology given to us, means meaning and purpose. From the beginning life has meaning and purpose. This is the viewpoint of faith, hope and trust.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. That is such a beautiful opening for our scriptures.

Our generations, with all our ologies, have tended to scoff at this creation story. “It can’t have happened like that” we say, as if the inspired authors of this literature ever believed it happened like that. We are not looking at God’s first diary and to-do list. Inspired fiction sits alongside inspired history in our scriptures – what matters is not what happened, but what is true. In the beginnings described by the first chapter of Genesis, the openings of John’s gospel and our reading from Colossians – in all of them we have inspired theology that conveys truth.

I am ever more conscious that our scriptures are the scriptures of the Jewish people, so frequently overpowered, conquered, enslaved, exiled, occupied, persecuted, oppressed, impoverished and hated, as well as being so often disobedient and misled (just like the rest of us). They become our scriptures as long as we open our hearts and minds to join those who suffer, redirecting the power and wealth we have for their sake, becoming poor in spirit.

When we read scripture we are always looking through the eyes of a people (like Paul writing to the Colossians from prison) who suffered so much and yet dared to wonderfully imagine that from the very beginning God is working his purpose out, that there is meaning even in the midst of tragedy.

The beginnings described in Genesis and in John’s gospel and in our reading from Colossians are profound theological reflections on the meaning of life in the midst of chaos, surrounded by so much diversity and difference, a wealth of creation – and the part we are called to play.

The “beginnings” of Genesis and John are not the start of things. It’s not a blank page. In the beginning described by John there was stuff going on. There was darkness, and the Word became the light of the world that darkness has never been able to overcome. There was darkness going on, and on and on.

Likewise in Genesis, there was stuff going on. There was formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. In other words, it was chaos – and the creation story imagines what God does with chaos, ordering it and making so much of it for our delight.

The beginnings described by Genesis, John and Paul are all of them in the midst of things. There is always something going on. These scriptures belong to people who are in the midst of things, and passed on to those going through so much. There has been so much love gone into them – their meaning is to inspire faith, hope and love – in us, in the midst of things.

Sometimes life doesn’t seem to have any meaning – particularly when bad things overwhelm us. Sometimes that is about discovering that life doesn’t mean what we thought and that there is a new meaning we have not yet discovered. As we lose sight of the meaning of life we can often forget the meaning of God. We may have been misled into thinking of God in a way he just isn’t.

When we lose that sense of meaning for our lives, when we’re burnt out and exhausted by excessive busyness, or responsibility, or trauma, when we’ve lost our way in the forest, then we do need to retrace our steps, unwind to the beginning to the time when there was always meaning.

When we lose sight of the meaning of life we need to follow the sound of music and start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, the beginning when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – a down to earth meaning, embodied in our lives, in our times and in all we try to do.

The meaning of God is the meaning of life. In our first reading, the letter to the Colossians, we have the phrase He is the beginning. Christ is the beginning for God.

The letter continues: “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross”.

This is the meaning of God and the meaning of life.

We are all “in the beginning” – we are part of the body of Christ who is the beginning. He is the beginning of the work of reconciliation ………. He is the beginning of the repair of broken and exploitative relationships. That is his work, his meaning and purpose. We are all “in the beginning”, in the beginning of a new creation, in the beginning of something new, in the beginning of something better as long as we listen to his word and love his meaning.

In the midst of things, a lot of which we’d rather not be in the midst of, in the midst of things we have the beginnings of life, its meaning and purpose, and the beginnings of God, his meaning and purpose – to find our way where we might lose our way. In our beginning is the Word to inspire our faith, hope and love, the ology which means the world to us.

Colossians 1:15-20

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

John 1:1-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Discovering consolation with Simeon and Anna

January 28, 2024January 28, 2024 David Herbert3 Comments

The weekend of Holocaust Memorial Day is the day we celebrate The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Here’s what I prepared for a small worship gathering in a Warwickshire village.

Presentation of Christ in the Temple – January 28th 2024

I don’t know how many of you watch films, TV or read books. Charles Darwin read novels to relax. But he had one requirement. The book had to have a happy ending. If it didn’t he would fling it furiously on the fire.

So says Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska in her poem called Consolation.

The poem continues:

Roaming in his mind over so many times and places
looking back on all the extinct species,
such triumphs of strong over weak,
so many tests of survival,
sooner or later all in vain,
that at least in fiction
and its micro-scale
he had a right to expect a happy ending.

I don’t know what you make of evolutionary theory, whether you agree with it or not, but I suppose that our usual viewpoint is that of the “survivor” and the “strong” and “fit”. The theory is about the “fittest” surviving. The theory is very good news for the strong as they continually score triumphs over the weak, but it’s very bad news for the forever beaten, weakened to extinction. The logic of natural selection and survival of the fittest was behind the Nazi death camps – their catastrophe we remember this weekend in Holocaust Memorial Day.

Seeing life like that, it is understandable that Darwin looked for happy endings when he read to relax.

Our gospel this morning is about the search for happy endings. Simeon, we are told, was “righteous and devout” and was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel”. His consolation was to take the child Jesus in his arms and to find in him the hope of salvation, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and for glory to the people Israel.

The old lady in the gospel story, Anna, started speaking about the child “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” – in other words, those looking for consolation because of the state of Jerusalem.

The poet continues her poem by listing all sorts of happy endings. Here they are, some of them:

And so, necessarily: sunrays behind a cloud,
lovers together again, kin reconciled,
doubts dissolved, faith rewarded,
fortunes recovered, treasures dug up.
Neighbours regret their mulishness,
good names restored, greed put to shame,
old maids married to respectable ministers,
schemers expelled to the other hemisphere,
forgers of documents cast down the stairs,
seducers of virgins hurrying to altars
orphans taken in, widows embraced,
pride humbled, wounds mended,
prodigal sons invited to the table,
the cup of bitterness poured into the sea,
tissues wet with tears of reconciliation,
universal singing and music-making,
and the puppy Fido,
lost already in the first chapter,
let him run home again
and bark joyfully.

We’re here, not just because we are survivors. We may have survived many plots and lived through many twists and turns but it is because we love our neighbours as we love ourselves that we are here. Together we stand. We know those who are going through hell. We know those who are hanging on by a thread. We know those who are beaten, rejected and weakened by those who are stronger, wealthier and better connected. We know the plight of the poor, the refugee. We know the victims of hate crimes. We know people who aren’t allowed to be themselves. We cry for the children killed in war, for the families who go hungry. We’re here for them, to worship the God who brings consolation.

Nicholas Winton saved the lives of many Jewish children. His life is featured in the film *One Life* now showing in cinemas.

We all understand that fiction is fiction and that too often there are no happy endings. There is too much tragedy and that grieves us so. We live in the world where the strong rule over the weak, and where the weak, if they survive at all, continue to suffer. If only there could be a happy ending to all the unhappy endings.

And so we pray – for those who are poor, those who are sick, those in prison, those who are vulnerable. In our prayers we are looking for consolation for those for whom we pray. We are with Simeon whose eyes were fixed on the consolation of Israel, and we are with Anna in her conversations with those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. We are with them looking for the happy ending for all those who have been wronged and for all those suffering in the state of things today.

We will do all in our power to help those who need our help. We will fight for better lives, happier endings. We gather our energies to make sure that the vulnerable do survive. We know they deserve their happy-ever-after and we will do all in our power to stop those who don’t care for the way it ends for them, the heartless beasts, the wolves, the tyrants.

Israel was suffering from heartless beasts. They were prey to wolves. Tyrants ruled them. They had a history of exile, persecution, oppression – a vast accumulation of trauma and tragedy. Simeon felt that. Anna felt that. And all those Anna spoke amongst felt that. That is why they were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem – a very different ending to the ignominious end which seemed to be their destiny.

Simeon knows there is a happy ending. He has seen it with his own eyes. He has held it in his arms. He has embraced the ending which will see many “fall” and many “raised”. The poor will be blessed. They will rise up. The beasts will be slain. This is the consolation of weak, occupied, isolated Israel. The consolation of Israel is the survival of the least, the last and the lost. The consolation of Israel is the humiliation of the beastly strong. The consolation of Israel is the child. The consolation of Israel is the vulnerability God takes to heart.

Not everyone knows that the Christmas season is a 40 day season in the liturgical year, just like Advent was and Lent is. The Christmas story ends with the presentation of Jesus in the temple. There is a Feast on February 2nd to celebrate this ending. That is the 40th day which churches keep on the Sunday before feb 2nd if they don’t keep weekday festivals. Our gospel reading is the reading for that 40th day.

There are many twists and turns in the Christmas story. There is the danger Mary is in by getting pregnant outside of marriage, there is the discomfort of the journey, there not being any room for them in Bethlehem, the threat to Jesus’ life from Herod, having to take flight to Egypt as refugees. All this is part of the story, let alone the battle between light and dark. There is a happy ending. Simeon finds the consolation Israel was searching for and Anna names their redeemer.

Musicals were playing in the background when I was finishing this sermon. The earworm was Love changes everything. It is love that changes everything. It is love that gives Charles Darwin and ourselves a happy ending. The happy ending is not the survival of the fittest.

The happy ending is the unhappy ending for the villains (often the fittest, strongest, riches and most powerful). The happy ending is the survival of the people God loves – those so easily lost and so often last and least.

Luke 2:22-40
When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own heart too.’

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

Mary’s words in our prayer for Christian Unity

January 21, 2024January 21, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

Here’s the bones of a sermon for two village churches for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2024. The gospel text is John 2:1-11 in which Mary makes her voice heard. Women have had far less “say” through the Christian centuries, and even now – a sure sign that there is no unity in Christian community.

This week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It always begins on the 18th January, the date when we celebrate what God did with Saul, converting him from a zealous persecutor of Jesus’ followers, into someone who came to love them as his brothers and sisters.

It has been a special 8eightday period pf prayer each year since 1908 – co-ordinated by the World Council of Churches – the idea being that we pray “for the unity of the Church as Christ wills it, and in accordance with the means he wills” (Paul Couturier)

Our first call in our prayer for Christian unity is to lament that the lack of Christian unity. Christians remains divided on so many things. Churches remain divided. We rejoice when there is reconciliation, when we find the way to work together, but divisions run deep, hurting the body of Christ.

In the past our focus for prayer may have been the relationship between the denominations and those prayers have borne fruit. Or our hearts and minds may have gone to the troubles in Northern Ireland, as prayer for the Catholic and Protestant communities there.

But, here and now, what does disunity look like andfeel like to us? What is our experience of disunity? Materials for this year’s Week of Prayer have been gathered by an ecumenical group from Burkina Faso. They have invited us to join with them in a process of self-reflection as they consider what it means to love our neighbour in the midst of a security crsis.

We may be less vulnerable to acts of mass violence than in Burkina Faso, but many here live with the memory and/or threat of serious violence centred on issues of identity and belonging. There are also groups within communities who feel particularly vulnerable to violence. For them, prayers for Christian unity become urgent – that we discover the unity Christ wills in accordance with the means he wills.

There is no unity
as long as people are not free to be themselves,

as long as people are disrespected, or disabled or silenced by people more powerful than them,
as long as there are victims of abuse and the injustice inflicted on them has not been righted,
as long as people are frozen out, talked down, talked down to
because of who they are
because of the colour of their skin, because of their gender,
because they’re women,
because of their age (too young, too old),
because they’re gay, or haven’t had the right education
or because they are caught up in historic conflicts and they’re bound to one side or the other,
because of who we are.

Differences don’t have to lead to conflict and division. Differences can be the cause of great rejoicing. They are also the places where love grows.

There will always be differences. Our scriptures open with God celebrating difference in the creation stories with the creation of all sorts of life. He creates relationships by making man and woman. He loves what he has done. God doesn’t iron out differences.

We have a choice. We can love our differences, or we can hate our differences. When we hate our differences we can feel threatened, we can seek to control and manipulate, we can hide the truth of the other and finish up sowing seeds of division.

When we love our differences we rejoice in the gifts of others, we will see our differences as a blessing (even when there is disagreements among us). We will love that the world has so many different points of view, that there are so many different ways to understand things, that there is so much to learn, so much to discover.

Some of our media would have us afraid of our differences, as would the gossip on the street. Sometimes we have to put our hands over our ears on radio phone-in and instead tell ourselves what we hear from scripture as the heart of vocation – “do not be afraid”.

Day by day we make this choice, loving our differences, or hating our differences and thereby creating divisions and seeing life break apart.

One of the great divisions within society and within the church is the difference between men and women, the different ways they’ve been treated. We see this in the politics of the church – about who can speak, teach or lead. We see it in our scriptures. Men play a far more prominent role. They are more powerful and they have a lot more to say.

Yet, in spite of all the patriarchy, it is Mary’s voice that we hear in today’s gospel. She doesn’t say much, but what she does say is truly significant.

She says to Jesus, “they have no wine” and to the stewards, “do whatever he tells you”. “They have no wine” and “do whatever he tells you”. Just nine words!

It would have been no surprise that the wine ran out. Cana was just as poor a village as nearby Nazareth. The farming families there struggled to make a living while at the same time they were being heavily taxed – the Temple tax, tribute to the Roman emperor, and the tax they had to pay to Herod for his various vanity projects. This was a community of poor people.

Mary’s four words, “They have no wine” addressed to Jesus is as a prayer – a prayer trusting the one she is speaking to to be the one to answer the embarrassment of the poor hospitality which was all they could afford.

Mary can lead our prayer. We can follow her in spelling out to Jesus what concerns us. The lack of wine may not be our concern, but we may make similar prayers, such as “They have no food”, “They have no justice”, “they have no room”, “they have no one to care for them” – and her words “do whatever he tells you” becomes the answer to the prayer.

As we pray for Christian unity, as we note any temptation to hate our differences, and our inclination to demean those who disagree with us, we can make our prayer “There is no unity, there is only difference and division”. As we work our way through a PCC meeting, or face up to any resentment we may feel about how we have been treated by others we can follow Mary’s prayer, “there is no agreement”, or “there is no love”.

When we pray for Christian unity, we turn to Jesus and offer ourselves as the answer to the prayer of the church. There may be no unity, but we turn to the one we know to work wonders with difference, who loves difference. Paul sums it up: In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentil, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for we are all one in Christ. These are the wonders God works in our differences.

Luke describes the church in his Book of Acts. In the beginning he shows Jesus’ friends and followers all together in the room, men and women, devoting themselves to prayer, describing how the Spirit came on them inspiring them to speak in such a way that everyone was able to understand them in spite of their differences of nationality, ethnicity, gender and age. And then trhoughout Acts Luke continues to amaze his readers with the sheer diversity of the earliest church. There are men and women, strangers and foreigners, slaves, prisoners (and their guards), Jews and Gentiles, eunuchs. God loves the differences and builds his church from them.

The stewards in today’s gospel did precisely what Jesus told them to do. They filled six huge jars with water which turned to wine, far better than the first wine, the poor wine, the wine of the poor which is never enough. This water ran out as wine, as the wine which never ran out. The jars each held 20 – 30 gallons.. Just imaging – 120-180 gallons of wine – more than enough for this poor Galilee community to drink, make merry and celebrate the wedding feast. More than enough for the disciples to see his glory. More than enough for the church down the centuries to carry on drinking in the way that he told us to – drinking the cup of salvation.

In the midst of conflict and disagreement dare we trust ourselves to turn to Christ to love our difference? Dare we hope for as much as those wedding guests at Cana? Where there is no peace dare we hope for more than enough peace, peace beyond human understanding? Where there is no love dare we hope for so much love to make friends out of enemies and to build community with our differences as another sign of God’s glory?

John 2:1-11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Taking the unsweetened Christmas story into our resolutions

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023 David Herbert3 Comments

This sermon was prepared for the first Sunday after Christmas when I suspect many are tired of Christmas and want to get back to normal. We have to hope we don’t – go back to normal, that is – because then the “lowly” and demeaned are left out as normal. It is to them, the likes of the shepherds and Mary and Joseph, that the glory of God takes us. The gospel text is Luke 2:15-21.

This week, the danger is that life will get back to normal, that we will go back to our old ways, to the old gods which hold our thoughts, and that this coming year, 2024 will be just like any other year with its low expectations and vague hopes for world peace, a lottery win a nice holiday and just getting by.

But if we go back to normal won’t Mary’s pain have been in vain? Time turns on Jesus’s birth. There was a time for us “before Christ”, and there is time after his birth, a new time, the time when we know God’s favour – the day of the Lord, the years anno domini – the time that will surely never be the same again.

I suspect that those who will be glad to “get back to normal”, relieved it’s all over will have imbibed too much sugar or tried to do too much.

How much sugar we take with our Christmas is a good question. The way most people know the Christmas story is through sugar-coated carols and cards. Christmas can get so sweetened that we have difficulty getting the real flavour of Christmas as presented, unsweetened, by the gospel writers, Matthew, Luke and John.

There’s usually a “free from” aisle in our supermarkets these days. I suggest that we keep this aisle in church as a free from aisle. Free from sugar and syrup so that we can get into the meaning of Jesus’ birth. Luke, Matthew and John didn’t tell these stories lightly or sweetly. They tell them deeply, from the depths of a whole community’s memory and experience. And they tell their stories darkly – there is a dark reality to all the elements of their stories. We need to feel their weight, not their lightness. We need to feel their weight to grow in worship, resilience and love for the lowly and the stranger.

Our gospel this morning begins after the angel left the shepherds. An angel had appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. The angel brought good news to them that was to cause great joy for all people. A child, wrapped in cloth, lying in an improvised cot was the sign. The great company of the heavenly host join the angel and the shepherds. They praise God for the news singing at the top of their voices, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests”.

This morning’s gospel begins with the shepherds deciding to go to Bethlehem to see for themselves what God had made known to them. They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. They made known what they’d been told about the child. Their hearers were amazed and Mary treasured their words and pondered them in her heart.

With Mary we treasure their words and ponder them in the heart of the church. But, please, no sugar because if we put sugar in we miss the point that Luke is here making as he paints the picture of those on whom God’s favour rests, around whom God’s glory shines and through whom, and for whom, God chooses the way of saving the world that is lost.

God’s glory shines around the shepherds. These were men who lived out in the fields, on the wasteland around Bethlehem on land which was no good for anything else than grazing sheep. They were there in all weathers, warding off wolves and thieves, working nights, protecting the lives of their sheep, their livelihood – doing the work which was to inspire Jesus’s own self understanding of being the good shepherd. They were an underclass, living rough. Around them the glory of God shines. The press release of the birth isn’t carefully planned for maximum impact in the corridors of power, but is focused in the isolation of these shepherds.

The sweetened versions of the Christmas story, the sweetened Nativity, can never convey the darkness and will always shy away from the poverty. It is the unsweetened versions, given to us by the gospel writers which shows us where God’s favour rests – around the shepherds, on Joseph (a poor artisan carpenter in an obscure village) and Mary – a young girl whose song of praise Jesus will have heard growing up. In her song, the song we know as Magnificat she praises God for looking “with favour on the lowliness of his servant”.

Lowly is the collective noun for those who have been demeaned. The word lowliness is used throughout the Bible to denote misery, pain, persecution and oppression. In our unsweetened version of Jesus’ birth story, Mary embodies the experience of her people, the Jews – their whole history threaded with misery, pain, persecution and oppression. She knew God’s favour rests there, with her people – and those who have joined Mary have come to realise he favours all like her, all those in misery, pain, persecution and oppression. The glory of God is all about them – Mary, Joseph, the shepherds – and all the lowly who make up the extended holy family, and those who want to relate to them as relatives. The love of God is for them – to turn life round in their favour.

Poet W H Auden puts these words into the mouths of the shepherds in his Christmas Oratario For the Time Being:

We never left the place where we were born,
Have only lived one day, but every day

Have walked a thousand miles yet only worn
The grass between our work and home away.

Lonely we were though never left alone.
The solitude familiar to the poor
Is feeling that the family next door,
The way it talks, eats, dresses, loves, and hates,
Is indistinguishable from one’s own.

Tonight for the first time the prison gates
Have opened.
Music and sudden light
Have interrupted our routine tonight,
And swept the filth of habits from our hearts.
O here and now our endless journey starts.

We’ve come to the end of the year, the end of the Christmas holidays is in sight. We may be relieved it’s all over – we have, after all, consumed far too much sugar.

But, let’s not go back to normal.

Let’s join the shepherds just as their endless journey starts when they find a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger – the sure sign that starts us off.

Let’s join Mary treasuring the words of the angels and pondering their words in our hearts.

Let’s join those who are demeaned, those who are lowly.

Let’s make our resolutions for the new year, for new time, a resolution everyday undergirded with daily prayer to join with them; those who suffer misery, pain, persecution and oppression.

Renowned black preacher and theologian Howard Thurman has this to say:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

How about that for our new year’s resolution? How about that as resolution for the rest of our lives? That is coming alive in the unsweetened story of Jesus’s birth and being part of God’s favour and glory.

The gospel of the day – Luke 2:15-21

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’

So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Darkness needs light: a reflection on the coming of holy night

December 24, 2023December 25, 2023 David Herbert3 Comments

I assume that everyone’s feeling tired by midnight on Christmas Eve. Midnight is not the time to be preaching long and hard. Here’s my offering for a group of churches in rural Warwickshire.

Wherever we look in the story of Jesus’ birth there is darkness.

Matthew’s gospel begins with Mary’s disgrace and how Joseph saved her from being cast out by marrying her. Then we’re told that the Magi’s search triggers the slaughter of the innocents by Herod – he killed all the children in Bethlehem and around who were under two years old! Then Mary and Joseph become refugees to escape Herod’s slaughter.

Luke’s gospel begins with the darkness of Joseph and Mary being forced to make the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem by order of the Roman emperor -just to be counted – just to become numbers in the machine of a foreign empire.

John’s gospel begins with the life which was to be the light of all people, the light that shines in darkness.

Darkness is never far from us. It’s within us – all those dark thoughts, and it’s all around us. On this night of darkness we celebrate how the light comes to us, how the light comes to us as love (all vulnerable), how the night becomes holy – thanks be to God.

I wrote this for tonight.

One light,
so much darkness. If truth be told
what Christmas needs
is the longest of nights,
the shortest of days,
and the time when people
are at their coldest
and meanest.

For truth to be told
darkness needs light
for the night to find its way to day,
for those who walk
through the dark night of the soul
lost in a cloud of unknowing
frightened in the valley
of the shadows of death.

If truth be told
darkness lies
in the distance between us,
what we do to one another in war,
rape, rubble, ruin in Gaza and Kyiv.
It rides the nightmares
of suffering, anxiety, despair.
It’s the cost of living.

The data of darkness
is hidden in official secrets
and personal shame,
in the blindness of prejudices
in the lies of truth twisters
in the scheming of profiteers
in the denial of freedoms
in the erections of borders

that divide darkness
from darkness, hiding the terror
from which so many flee.
It’s in their denial. Yes,
there is no room.
It’s in their small boats
not built for the darkness
of the deep and stormy sea.

If truth be told, it’s told in numbers:
in the homeless numbers,
the foodbank users,
the choosers choosing
heating or eating,
the children killed in war.
It‘s in the numbers of those
who are just numbers.

It’s the middle of the night,
when even the clocks
put their hands together
in time to pray.
They pray for first light
to end the night, a baby flame
in the frame of shame,
and then they pray us awake

and in the darkness, see,
shimmering and flickering
in the world which,
if truth be told,
has no room for Light,
where the only place
to rest his head lay
in the love of a mother

and the kindness of a stranger
in the inn the light came in,
casting shadows with halos,
our light never dying.
With the angel band backing,
all hallelujah singing,
watching shepherds
dance the night away.

Joy to the world. Happy Christmas.

Setting Mary free to be herself – listening to her song

December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 David Herbert2 Comments

This is something for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, in a country church in Warwickshire dedicated to Mary, I have focused on Mary’s Magnificat.

Have any of you been put on a pedestal?

I can imagine it’s hard and you can be brought to earth with a bang. You’re not allowed to be yourself, always having to be what others want you to be.

The church hasn’t done Mary any favours. Above all women she has been put on a pedestal for so long that we’ve forgotten what she was really like. It’s what men have done to her over the centuries.

This morning I want us to listen to her song.

My aim in preparing this sermon is that you and I get a better idea of who Mary was. This, I believe will help us into the Christmas gospel and will help us better understand the son who spent most of his life with her in their village and home of Nazareth.

As a church dedicated to Mary, I suggest we dedicate ourselves to her liberation so that she can be herself, rather than what we have made her over the centuries, whether we have devoted ourselves to her as within the catholic traditions if the church, or whether we have been critical of such devotions, as within the protestant traditions.

When we look at her, what do we see? What we see is what people have made of her over the years. We see all the images laid on top of one another as she has been used for this or that purpose.

She has become stereotyped. She comes to us well dressed in her blue flowing gown looking like a beauty queen. She usually has pale skin, blue eyes. She looks peaceful. She looks heavenly. She’s usually on her own, surrounded by quiet. She has her hands together, eyes closed, praying. Often her setting is the architecture of a palace. She is often reading. And in all of this there is no sign of trouble. There is no sound of her song and no sign of her joy. There isn’t much sign that she has done anything at all.

But the gospels give us a very different view of Mary.

She was a woman of history. She was Mary, Mary of Nazareth, a small village of about 300 people off the beaten track to the sophisticated nearby city of Sepphoris. This was the village people scoffed at – “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Archaelogists there have pieced together a picture of rural poverty, with people living in one and two roomed houses clustered around courtyards shared with extended families with shared cooking facilities. They’ve found no signs of any wealth.

This was a small peasant community. Mary was married to the village carpenter. This wouldn’t have been a small business as we know them. He wouldn’t have had the status we give to small businesses. He would have been an artisan, the class below the peasants, earning less than the peasants and serving their needs. They probably would have had a small plot of land for growing food to eke out a living. They would have made their own clothes from their sheep.

They were poor. They were taxed three times. They paid 10% to the Temple. They paid tribute to the Roman emperor. And then they also had to pay tax to fund the vanity projects of Herod, such as the building of nearby Sepphoris, the equivalent of our HS2.

They would have been very poor, barely scraping a living together. Many of them would have been in debt to the wealthy and would have their land taken off them. Resentments grew and there were frequent rumblings of revolt. Many days they would have gone hungry.

Life didn’t treat any of them gently.

It takes a village to raise a child. That village raised Mary and Jesus, Jewish babies having to grow up very quickly. Their village meetings would have dwelt on the different ways their people had suffered in Egypt, in persecution, in exile and the way that God had graced these suffering servants. She picks up the song of Hannah and makes it her song.

My soul does magnify the Lord, she sings. “My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. The Mighty One has done great things for me. His mercy is on those who fear him. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

This isn’t the song of the woman we have put on the pedestal for so long. This is the song of a woman who lives with the day to day challenge of survival. It’s a song Jesus will have heard from his mother and from the scriptures shared in their village meetings. This isn’t a song of the docile, or of those who take things lying down. This is the song of those who rejoice that the proud are scattered, the powerful dethroned and the rich sent away empty.

This is the song which prompted one artist to portray Mary in the style of Russian communist posters, muscular, all boiler suited and booted.

You are a church dedicated to Mary. Can I suggest that we all try to get to know her better and that we talk about her more? Can you let her be herself rather than forcing her to be somebody she isn’t?

As we get to know her better we will know better where God plants his seed and where the baby Jesus grew, side by side with his mother as he joined her in her prayer, magnifying the Lord and praying for their daily bread and the forgiveness of their debts, joining her and watching her in the household tasks, digging the soil, planting seeds, baking bread – funding his imagination for sharing with those who followed him the images of the kingdom of the one he magnified in the song of his mother.

I am indebted to my Advent reading – to the work of Elizabeth A Johnson, in her book Truly our Sister: a Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints

Magnificat

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God mySaviour;
he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is his name.

He has mercy on those who fear him,
from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm
and has scattered the proud in their conceit,

Casting down the mighty from their thrones
and lifting up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.

He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
to remember his promise of mercy,

The promise made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

A final judgement: the parable of the sheep and goats

November 26, 2023November 26, 2023 David Herbert4 Comments

The last Sunday of the Christian year (liturgically speaking, the celebration of Christ the King, the Sunday before Advent (Year A)). The readings from Ezekiel 34 and Matthew 25 (the parable of the sheep and goats) are printed below.

The liturgical year leads us to this. Today is the last Sunday before the new year starts next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, when we start a new round of readings, rediscovering the gospel for our dark times. The liturgical year with all its readings and reflections leads us to the kingdom of heaven, to the coronation of Christ the King and the admission that the love and mercy that makes his majesty should be the rule of our lives. It is our final judgement.

Jesus sees himself with those who are hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and in prison. They are his brothers and sisters. He calls them his family. “Just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me”. (Matt 25:40).

Many of us will be starting to write Christmas cards – some may be of the “holy family” but this passage shakes up our preconceptions of the holy family. The holy family, (the royal family if we accept Christ the King), is made up of those who are hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and prisoner. Jesus is a king like no other, his kingdom is like none other, his royal family is like no other royal family.

It is just like us to idealise the nuclear family – Mum, Dad, baby (and the pet, the wee donkey!), but Jesus “extends” the family. Matthew has already told us of the time when Jesus’ mother and brothers stood waiting to speak to Jesus while he was talking to the crowd. He was told that his Mum and brothers were outside but he said “who is my mother, and where are my brothers?”, and pointing to the disciples he said “here are my mother and brothers”.

So, here we are in this parable of the sheep and the goats with the family Jesus has extended – with his brothers and sisters, those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick and prisoner and our final judgement is based on whether we have sided with them or whether we have walked by on the other side joining with those who won’t be bothered, or who are too busy, or who think they have enough to bother about, or who join those who scoff at the last and the least pretending that their state is a “lifestyle choice”.

Our final judgement is about our kindness to the last and least who Jesus claims as members of his long lost family. Jesus identifies with them all and it’s his gratitude which places those who follow him and his family on his right hand.

You gave me food when I was hungry. You gave me drink when I was thirsty. You welcomed me when I was a stranger. You gave me clothes when I had nothing. You took care of me when I was sick. You visited me when I was in prison.

It’s acts of kindness such as these that sorts the sheep from the goats, that puts some on the right hand of God – the right hand being the the hand of God’s power, the hand of righteousness, the hand that puts things right – and puts some on the wrong hand of God, the dismissive hand, the hand that discards, the hand that says ‘to hell with you’.

(A note on prisons. They served a different purpose in Jesus’ day. It’s where they put people waiting for trial – as with Jesus before his trial, as with Paul, Stephen and John and so many of his brothers and sisters.)

It is about kindness. Kindness appreciates our kinship, that we are one of a kind, humankind. We could say that this final judgement in this parable of the sheep and goats is about the KINDOM extended by Jesus – the kindom (without the g) of the kingdom of heaven. The KINDOM (no G) of God rescues the vulnerable. In the language used by Ezekiel, these too are like sheep and the Lord is their shepherd, searching out those who have become lost, who have strayed, who are injured and who are too weak to withstand the cruelty of the “fat sheep” who “push with flank and shoulder, and butt at all the weak animals with their horns until they have scattered them far and wide.” The kindom of God centres around the victims of the powers that be and those who suffer from the way things are.

Timpsons, the cobblers, is a business that organises itself around kindness. 10% of their workforce is recruited directly from prisons. There are just two rules for staff members: “look the part” and “put the money in the till”. James Timpson is the company’s CEO. He tweets @jamestcobbler, last week listing random acts of kindness of Timpson staff members. It gives some food for thought for those who hunger for kindness.

Nigel at Solihull engraved a memorial plaque for a grieving mother
Thom at Cambridge cleaned a suit for a customer attending their child’s funeral
Raymond at Ponders End donated bone marrow to a stranger
Dave at Loudwater gave an elderly couple a lift home with some heavy curtains
Darren in Henley bought someone a coffee who was sitting in the middle of the road
Terri at Paddock Wood stopped whilst dropping garments back to a branch to help save a person from jumping off a bridge
Etc etc

Then the righteous will answer him, “when was it that we saw you?”. It’s as if this final judgement comes as a total surprise to those who are counted as sheep, to those who find themselves on the right side. Nigel, Thom, Raymond and the rest may also be totally surprised to find themselves on the “right side”. “Just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” What they did in kinship and kindness for the grieving mother, the parents who had lost their child, the stranger, the elderly couple, the one thinking of suicide, “you did it to me”, says Jesus.

I don’t know about you but the questions posed by the sheep (on the right side) and the goats (on the wrong side) weigh heavy with me. “When was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?” I struggle to remember when I ever did any of those things, but I can remember so many times when I have walked by on the wrong side, avoiding their troubles.

How do I justify myself in the final judgement? I can’t and perhaps you can’t. Part of it may be that we are pre-occupied with ourselves. And part of it may be that we just don’t know what to do in the midst of so much trouble.

So what do we do?

We can put in plenty of practice. Practice seeing Christ at the heart of his extended family, a heavenly kin(g)dom on earth amongst brothers and sisters who, in the way of the world, are hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick or in prison. Practice seeing Christ not at the heart of a nuclear family, the so-called “holy family”, but at the heart of the family he has extended by his search and rescue as the good shepherd of those scattered, lost and bruised.

Put in the practice of prayer. Grow your prayer from the love of your own nuclear family to this kin(g)dom of God and let the people of his extended family populate our prayers.

Pray for those who go hungry, depending on food banks. Pray for your brothers and sisters who are parched and who don’t have easy access to water. Pray for your brothers and sisters who come amongst us as strangers, newcomers and refugees, that we may welcome them and that they feel at home. Carry on praying for those who are sick and for your brothers and sisters in prison.

These are the people to populate our prayers – the brothers and sisters of Christ the king – his royal family. And give thanks for all those who join them, on their side, the right side, in their various practical acts of kindness.

We can never do enough. We are not asked to do enough to save the world. The kingdom of God, with Christ as king, is the kingdom where the last and the least are prized. We may be surprised that Christ makes so much of the little we do, even a cup of water for the thirsty, or a knitted blanket for the poorly clad, or just a smile, a word, or a touch. They are the seeds that grow.

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

Therefore, says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prine among them; I, the Lord have spoken.

Matthew 25:31-end

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”

And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison, and did not take care of you?”

Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Three people walk into a parable

November 19, 2023November 19, 2023 David HerbertLeave a comment

Thinking through the parable of the talents for the 2nd Sunday before Advent I wondered what sort of life the cast of Jesus’ parables had in his mind and whether they featured in his other parables, and whether the same happened in the mind of Jesus’ hearers. It did for me and led me to preach this. The text of the parable of the talents is printed below.

Who does the one who hid his talent remind you of from the gospels?

While the parable of the talents is deadly serious there is something jokey about it.

There were three people walked into a parable. One was given five talents. The second was given two talents. And the third was given one. It’s the classic: there was an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irish man ……..

There is a light-heartedness in the parable as you would expect from the one who preaches from the heart and who is the light of the world. He uses exaggeration and the absurd to create a comic effect to engage and challenge us, his hearers and disciples.

We’ve misheard the parable if we think it’s about the sort of talents which make Britain’s Got Talent. The talents Jesus is talking about here is a unit of measurement used for weighing silver. We have our strange units of measurement too. Like a yard of cloth, or a pint of beer. Here we have talents of silver.

Three people walked into a parable. Each given a weight of silver. Here’s the funny bit. A talent weighed 80 lbs (about half my weight) and was worth 6000 denarii. How would you even carry it?

Typically one denarius was the wage for a day’s work. So one talent was the equivalent to 20 years labour at a denarius a day for a six day week. Five talents of silver was worth 100 years labour, two talents was worth 40 years labour. The slave given the one talent wasn’t given a little. He was given less but it was still a small fortune. He was set up for life.

Jesus gives us something here that is hard to imagine because it is so preposterous. The slave with the one talent hid it. Where can you hide so much? How deep do you have to dig the hole to bury it?

So, who does he remind you of, this one who walked into a parable and was given a talent of silver?

He reminds me of the labourers who worked the whole day in the vineyard only to find that the landowner paid those who worked the last hour the same as them. In that parable the landowner hires workers throughout the day – including some at the last hour. He instructs the manager to pay the last first and to pay them all the same. They each get their one denarius. The ones working the longest, and used to being paid the most, complained. But they could have been delighted that the last and least chosen had, for once, been paid what they needed.

These disgruntled ones were probably always used to being the first chosen. There are those who are used to coming first. Coming first is beyond most of us. It requires hard work: the greasing of palms, the pulling of strings, the favour of friends in high places, the use of elbows to stay ahead of the game. They were ahead of the queue on the labour market and the first to be taken on by the landowner. But then they got nothing more than the ones who came last.

Is the one who is given the one talent one who is used to always being amongst those first chosen – and one of the complainers that the last chosen and the least chosen are paid the same? Is he one of those who complain about the state of affairs in the kingdom of heaven where the last always come first and the first always seem to come last?

Something has happened to make him misjudge the master. Something has happened to make him afraid. He says: “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” Whatever led him to think he was a harsh man? There must have been something that made him disgruntled and that coloured his judgement. Was he amongst those used to being first who now were last?

That’s who he reminds me of – of all those who misjudge God, who fear his judgement, rather than loving his judgement because it is full of mercy and love for the last and the least and for those who have suffered the wrongs of how things are.

The Psalmist wrote this into what became the prayer book for millions, including Jesus:
With the loyal you show yourself loyal.
With the blameless you show yourself blameless.
With the pure you show yourselves pure.
With the crooked you show yourselves perverse. (Psalm 18:25-26)

However kind, generous or good the master is, the crooked will always have a perverse view of him. Often, when we read this parable we say we don’t like the sound of the master. What I am suggesting is that this fearful one has got the master wrong. He isn’t actually a harsh man, reaping where he has not sown and gathering where he has not scattered. And that is particularly so if the master is actually God, as he has been for so many who have heard this parable. We surely don’t share in this perverse view of those who complain about the master and are afraid of him.

If we’re not like him then we are like the other two who walked into the parable: those given so much by a generous master who trusted them with all that he had. He trusted them with his life, and his generosity and trust were their stock in trade. That is what makes me think that the one who knew the master to be a harsh man had got him so wrong. He was anything but harsh.

I read this parable with a group of residents of a fairly prosperous retirement village this week. One of them had found it difficult to adjust to a life where she was no longer so high profile and where she was limited by health issues. Being of a similar age I sympathised with her, realising that our power dwindles as we age. We could say that we become less “talented”. But in the gospel where the least, the last and the smallest count for so much, even a little talent, a lightweight born from the thankful heart of a person is good enough for the kingdom of heaven.

Complaints and resentment, on the other hand, bury what little talent we may have ended up with.

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed that the number of talents match the number of loaves and fish with which Jesus fed the five thousand. There were five loaves and two fish. No one went hungry, and there was enough left over to feed a nation. In the right hands so much can be made of so little – a smile, a word, a touch, a seed. This is the currency of the kingdom, the currency of grace, our weight of silver.

There were three people walked into a parable, ourselves included because we have been given our weight of silver, our talent. We have been given enough to set us up for life. It’s not money, that would only be small change. It’s grace. That is what we trade in – unless, like the least talented in the parable we perversely fear God and God ceases to be gracious in our eyes.

Three people walked into a parable. And the punch line is that the worthless slave gets thrown into the outer darkness, the darkness that is beyond darkness, where there is no light, and where there is only the weeping and the gnashing of teeth of his fellow complainants.

But fear and threats is not what the gospel leaves us with. What we are left with is a generous spirit which goes to the heart of our lives. That is the talent given to the church. He sets us up for life to trade in the affairs of the kingdom of heaven, putting the last and least first and forgiving one another. No other talent compares to this.

We are his beloved. We are his trusted ones. He trusts us with his life. (We celebrate that when we receive his body in our hands at Communion).

We are the ones to whom God shows himself loyal, blameless and pure. For us there is nothing perverse about God. There is nothing for us to complain about. There is no reason to fear his judgement. His ways are not perverse, but straightforward love.

Matthew 25:14-30

For it as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one with the five talents came forward bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”
And the one with the two talents also came forward bringing two more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see I have made two more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”
Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”
But his master replied, “Yu wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I do not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested your money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Saints and Stains – a sermon for All Saints Sunday

November 6, 2023 David HerbertLeave a comment

Some churches celebrate All Saints on the Sunday following All Saints Day (November 1st). Here’s a sermon for All Saints Day for our troubled times inspired by the gospel of the day is Matthew 5:1-12, itself a sermon for troubled times.

November 5th 2023

This is how to start a sermon.

How blessed are you who are poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

There are two clauses in that first sentence – if you like, two lines. We could read between the lines “and those who aren’t aren’t” because Jesus is singling out communities and people who are poor in spirit. Theirs, and only theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So reading between the lines of that first beatitude we would have, “How blessed are you who are poor in spirit”, and then brackets (“and those who aren’t aren’t”). But then that doesn’t sound like the gospel until we add another line such as “but grace can change that”.

I thought we would read the gospel again – reading between the lines. Could one side of the church say between the lines these five words: “and those who aren’t aren’t” with the other side of the church following on with the other five words: “but grace can change that”?

Let’s see how it translates:

How blessed are you who are poor in spirit
(and those who aren’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
for yours is the kingdom of heaven

How blessed are the sorrowful and those who mourn
(and those who aren’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
for you will be comforted.

How blessed are you who are meek
(and those who aren’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
You will inherit the earth

How blessed are you who hunger and thirst after righteousness
(and those who don’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
You will be filled

How blessed are you who are merciful
(and those who aren’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
Mercy will be shown to you

How blessed are you whose hearts are pure
(and those who aren’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
You will see God

How blessed are you who are peacemakers
(and those who aren’t aren’t)
(but grace can change that)
You are true children of God

……………….

The kingdom of heaven isn’t a heavenly space into which the poor in spirit move when they die. The kingdom of heaven isn’t so much a space as a rule. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven because they accept, follow and love the rule of heaven which puts the last first and the first last. They accept, follow and love the rule of heaven on earth.

The Beatitudes has been chosen by the church to celebrate this All Saints Sunday. Across the world, across denominational divides worshippers will be hearing this gospel.

The passage tells us something important about the saints, and that is that life doesn’t look too good for those Jesus blessed. They were not squeaky clean. They were not like the unsullied in Game of Thrones. They were not untouched by what was going on around them.

They were in the thick of it, suffering in the thick of it, hoping and praying in the thick of it. Jesus’ blessing comes in the thick of it. Blessed are those of you who mourn – those of you who are upset by the way things are, those who grieve for what’s been lost, those of you who are crying.

Those of you crying out for justice, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those of you crying because of persecution. These people are in the thick of it, just as God’s kingdom people have always been in the thick of it, suffering trouble and troubled to their heart.

God’s kingdom is not for the so-called innocent bystander or those who pass by on the other side – it’s for those who get involved in the politics of the gutter, both victims and helpers.

When we gather to hear Jesus’ preaching we join the crowd listening to his sermon begun with his blessings. There, on the mountain, is the throne of God, the majesty of God in the words of grace, blessing, encouragement and love. In Revelation chapter 7 there is one who looks and marvels at the huge multitude of people around the throne of God. As this one looked he saw that there were people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. What they had in common was that they had all come through a great ordeal, they had come through the thick of it.

In my mind I gave this sermon the title of Saints and Stains. The author of Revelation sees the multitude robed in white – and that is the way we usually picture them in our stained glass – well dressed. The reality is very different. They’ve been through a great ordeal.They’ve been in the thick of it. They are blood stained, wounded. Their clothing is dishevelled and ripped. They’ve walked the refugee trails. They’ve cared for loved ones to their wit’s end. They’ve been bullied and taunted. They’ve been through great ordeals. What do we expect them to look like?

Here’s what St Paul says of himself and his travelling friends. “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed… We do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” (2 Cor 4)

Not all of us face great ordeals but so many in the world are in the thick of it struggling to get food, keep warm, find rest in the midst of war, famine, flight, poverty, prejudice and health issues. Life is difficult. The challenge and call is about how we live in the thick of it and how we help and care.

Those first hearers of Jesus’ preaching heard their blessing in their troubled times, in their troubled hearts, while they were in the thick of it, as ones going through great ordeals. How blessed are you who show mercy. How blessed are you who make peace. In the thick of it there is Jesus’ blessing. In the ordeals of the here and now, not pie in the sky when you die, there is the blessing of Jesus who himself is in the thick of it – (who, incidentally, on the throne of God, with a mock crown of thorns pressed on his head by crucifiers until his blood poured looks remarkably like the ram or lamb caught in the thicket as the sacrifice God provides in the story of Abraham and Isaac and the suffering servant pictured by Isaiah).

It was in the thick of it that Jesus knew his own blessing. It is in the thick of it that Jesus’ blessing has been heard down the ages.

A friend’s suggestion was for all of us to identify people who fit these blessings we call the beatitudes. For example, who would we single out as those in the thick of things who hunger and thirst after righteousness? ………….. These people would be our communion of saints.

We can take that further. Not only naming the poor in spirit, the mournful, the persecuted, but also joining Jesus in their blessing, growing our appreciation, our encouragement and our love for the work they do and the way they are, as well as appreciating, encouraging and loving them in the state they are in, in the thick of great ordeals. What would it be to be a church broken and gracious, hearing and knowing God’s blessing in the thick of things while all the time joining the prayer of others in their ordeals?