Tag: ChatGPT

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.

What Have We Settled For?

David Herbert1 Comment

The scriptures we read this Sunday are not the comfortable writings of a comfortable people. They are the testimony of the beaten, the displaced, the silenced, and the overlooked. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham — each bears the marks of suffering and hope. They lived by faith in what they could not yet see, refusing to settle for the way things were. This is a sermon about refusing to accept the world as it is. The readings for the day (8th Sunday after Trinity, Proper 14C) were Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 and Luke 12:32-40.

This is not about “pie in the sky when you die.” It is about a kingdom promised by Jesus to his “little flock” — a kingdom of justice and mercy breaking into the here and now. The question is: have we settled for something less?

What Have We Settled For?

Faith, the kingdom of God, and refusing to accept the world as it is.

“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

That’s how our reading from Hebrews begins — with what is perhaps the nearest the Bible comes to a definition of faith.
And it’s not about having everything figured out, or clinging to beliefs with gritted teeth.
It’s about confidence in what we hope for — trust in a promise we can’t yet see, but which shapes our steps today.

The kingdom of God is Jesus’ promise to his “little flock” in our gospel reading: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
It is a kingdom for the poor.
A kingdom for those ready for service.
A kingdom for those who refuse to settle for the way things are.
It’s a kingdom for those who keep watch for what is not yet seen, but has already been promised.

Amongst them, ones like Abraham —
ones like those who refuse to settle for the way things are —
it is amongst them that Jesus promised to come with his kingdom rule where the first comes last and the last first.
For here, amongst the faithful,
the poor, the beaten, the stranger,
Jesus becomes their servant.

This is one of the texts we have been given this morning to bring to life.
This is the text we have been given by the church which has treasured this and so many other texts of scripture for the sake of blessing and encouragement.

How are we going to bring this scripture to life?

The appointed reading from Hebrews today skips over some verses.
We don’t actually hear the parts about Abel, Enoch, and Noah,
the writer’s first three examples of faith before Abraham appears.
And yet those missing verses matter, because they set the tone.

Abel — the first murder victim in scripture,
killed by his own brother Cain.
Jealousy, resentment, and violence snuff out his life.
In Abel we see the first in a long line of victims,
the first of the murdered, whose blood cries out to God.
In our own day, Abel stands with every innocent life taken by violence —
the child caught in crossfire,
the protester beaten in the street,
the woman killed in her home.
In the world’s eyes, the murdered are the last,
powerless, silenced, gone.
In the kingdom of God, they are heard, remembered, and brought first into God’s justice.

Enoch — about whom we know almost nothing, except this:
“he walked faithfully with God” and
“he could not be found.”
That’s all we’re told.
In Enoch we see the first of the “disappeared”,
those who are taken away,
who vanish without a trace because the powers that be do not want them around.
In our own day, Enoch stands with the journalist who never came home,
the political prisoner taken in the night,
the asylum seeker lost in the system.
The disappeared are the last, erased from the record.
In the kingdom of God, they are remembered by name,
and God himself will bring them into the light.

Noah — survivor of the flood that swept everything away.
He prepared for what he had not yet seen.
He built in hope while others laughed.
He came through the storm,
but he knew what it was to live in a ruined, water-washed world.
In our own day, Noah stands with the flood refugee,
the survivor of earthquake or wildfire,
the one starting over in a land that is not their own.
Survivors are often treated as last, dependent, unwanted, pitied.
In the kingdom of God, they are the first to be comforted and restored.

And Abraham — the archetypal migrant.
He left his land and his people to follow a call into a future he could not yet see.
He lived his whole life as a nomad,
moving from place to place,
pitching his tent, always a foreigner, never arriving.
He died still looking for the better country.
In our own day, Abraham stands with those who cross borders for safety or hope,
the refugee, the economic migrant, the traveller family moved on again and again.
Migrants are often treated as last: outsiders, intruders, burdens.
In the kingdom of God, they are welcomed as first,
citizens of the better country from the moment they trust God’s promise.

Those who are commended for their faith are a murder victim, one of the disappeared, a flood survivor, and a migrant.
They are commended because they settled for nothing less than what God had promised.
They refused to accept the world as it was.
They longed for a better country.
And God is not ashamed to be called their God.

And so here’s the question the text presses on us:

What have we settled for?

Have we made peace with the world as it is – the injustice, the exclusion, the false comforts?
What compromises have we made?
Have we been lulled into a sense of false security?
Have we settled for something less? Have we become people without hope?
Is there anything we hope for, or have we written it all off as “wokery”?
Have we become cynical rather than hopeful?
Tired rather than faithful?
Have we come to terms with what we see around us — and settled for that?

The faithful of Hebrews never settled for the world as it was.
They walked as strangers and foreigners, refusing to be at home in injustice.
They pitched their tents in hope.
They died still longing for the better country.
And because they longed for it, they glimpsed it, and lived as if it were already here.

That’s what Jesus promises his little flock:
“Do not be afraid… your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
Not the kingdom as pie-in-the-sky when we die,
but the kingdom as God’s liberating rule breaking in here and now:
justice for the last, welcome for the stranger, honour for the poor, mercy for the sinner.

The faithful, when they gather around the table, give thanks for the service of Jesus,
the servant king feeding his watchful people
and giving us a taste of the better country,
the better foundations for our lives,
ever-present to those who will settle for nothing less than the justice and mercy of the kingdom of God.

The faithful please God by walking with God.
They never stop.
They keep on walking, always looking for what they don’t yet see in terms of justice and mercy.
They never settle for anything less.

An afterthought:
What do you think faith is? Do you agree with this definition from Hebrews 11 —
“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”?

That’s a very different thing from thinking of faith as a set of doctrines: “I believe this, I believe that.” That sort of faith can easily become an intellectual exercise, something for those who can get their heads around abstract ideas — which, because of educational privilege, often favours the first and the foremost, not the last and the least.

But the faith that waits for justice and mercy, and will not settle for anything less, is not about abstract ideas. It comes from the heart of who we are. It’s the faith of those who have endured, who have kept walking, who know what it means to hunger for the better country God has promised.

Stressed? Just one thing’s needed

David HerbertLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except when one gets distracted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is how Jesus responds:

“Martha, Martha…”

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

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

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

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

In Revelation 3:20, we hear Jesus say:

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Herbert1 Comment

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

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

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

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

Let’s do some word association.

What word do you associate with Samaritan?

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

Very different sets of word associations

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

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

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

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

They are the ones Jesus “sees”.

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


Here are the last.


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

You would expect them to do good. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Samaritan loves his enemy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will we just leave them there, beaten and hated?

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

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

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

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

Using AI in sermon preparation

David Herbert2 Comments

This is for preachers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Go Deeper Theologically:

You could enrich the message by bringing in voices from:

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

3. Develop the Christology

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

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

4. More Contemporary Case Studies

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

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

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

5. Artistic / Liturgical Expression

This theme cries out for integration with other art forms:

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

6. Extend Toward Action

In a follow-up, explore:

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

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

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

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