discipleship – Grits and Grains

Famous Last Words and a To Do List

May 31, 2026May 31, 2026 David HerbertLeave a comment

A sermon for Trinity Sunday reflecting on the last words of Paul to the church in Corinth and the last words of Matthew’s gospel: 2 Corinthians 13.11-end & Matthew 28.16-end

Final words matter.
We know this.

When someone knows these may be the last things they say, they do not usually waste words.
Final words are often concentrated words.
Distilled words. Words carrying weight.

And this morning we have two sets of final words.
The closing words of Paul to the Corinthians.
And the closing words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel.

Famous last words.

And what strikes me is how full of verbs they are.
So much doing.

Paul concludes his difficult letter with a flurry of verbs:
Rejoice.
Strive for full restoration.
Encourage one another.
Be of one mind.
Live in peace.

And then perhaps most awkwardly for many English Christians:
Greet one another with a holy kiss.

That is quite a list. It’s a lot to be doing.

Paul is not writing these words into a peaceful, tidy church.
Something has gone wrong in Corinth.
There has been conflict, bruised relationships, suspicion, division, hurt.

This letter has carried frustration and pain.
So these verbs are not decorative.
They are medicine and prescription,
born of blood, sweat and tears.

This is what you must do, says Paul,
if you are to become again the community God calls you to be.
Not merely what you should believe.
But what you should be doing.

And then we come to Matthew.

Matthew ends his gospel in much the same way.
Again—final words.
Again—a mountain.

That should sound familiar.
Matthew has brought us up mountains before.
The mountain of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus taught his disciples how life in God’s kingdom works.

And now, at the end, the disciples are doing what Jesus told them to do.
They go to the mountain.

Already, before Jesus speaks, they are obeying.

And there Matthew gives us an honest little detail:

When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.
Isn’t that wonderfully human?
Not certainty and triumph.
Not spiritual superheroes.
Just disciples –
worship and doubt standing side by side.

And to that mixed-up group—to worshippers and doubters alike—Jesus gives his final command.
And again the verbs come tumbling out:
Go.
Make disciples.
Baptise.
Teach.
Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.

Again—so much doing.
And perhaps we hear these as tasks. Instructions.
A church to-do list.
A very different list to how we normally list all we do in church!

Why all these verbs?
Why this insistence on action?

And the answer, I think, is because the God revealed in Jesus is not static.
The God we meet in scripture is alive in relationship.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Trinity, not solitary.
Not self-enclosed.
But eternally giving,
receiving, loving, sending.

The doctrine of the Trinity was never meant to be a mathematical puzzle to solve.
It is an attempt—our stumbling human attempt—to say something true about the God we have encountered.

God is relationship.
God is communion.
God is love shared and given.

And if we are made in the imago Dei—the image of God—then we discover who we are not in isolation but in relationship too.

Which means these verbs are not arbitrary religious duties.
They are invitations into God’s own life.

Rejoice. Because joy belongs to God.

Encourage one another. Because God is giver and sustainer.

Live in peace. Because peace is the atmosphere of God’s kingdom.

Go. Because God is always sending love outward.

Make disciples. Not recruits or customers or winners of arguments—but people learning the way of Jesus.

Baptise.
And notice here, this is Trinity Sunday after all, –
Jesus says:
Baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Not names.

Name.

One name.

One life.

One communion of love into which people are welcomed.

Baptism is not simply joining an institution.
It is immersion into the life of the triune God.
Into belonging.
Into relationship.
Into grace.

And then:

Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

That word obey can sound severe to modern ears.
But Jesus is not asking for cold compliance.

What has Matthew shown us Jesus commanding?
Love your enemies.
Bless the poor.
Forgive.
Show mercy.
Seek first the kingdom.

Obedience here is learning the practices of love.
Learning how to live God’s life.

And perhaps that matters especially for us gathered here today,
the 5th Sunday of the month,
a gathering from six churches,

not a huge number,
not hugely impressive by the world’s arithmetic,

but enough for now.

Paul wrote to small churches.
Jesus entrusted his mission to a small uncertain group on that mountain.

Small is beautiful.
Small numbers count in the kingdom of God.
Where two or three gather, there I am among them.
The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to search out the one lost.
God seems remarkably unembarrassed by small beginnings.

And then Matthew ends with what may be the greatest verb of all.
Or perhaps not a verb, but a name.
A promise.
After all the commands:
Go.
Make.
Baptise.
Teach.
There comes this:
And remember…

Or more literally:
Behold.
See this.
Never lose sight of this.

And then the great divine declaration:

I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Not I was.
Not I will be, if you get things right.

I AM.

The eternal verb.
The name God has always spoken to those he loves.
The name spoken to Moses from the burning bush.
The deep grammar of God.

I AM.

And perhaps this is the truth holding all the other verbs together.
We do not rejoice, restore, encourage, go, baptise or teach in order to make God present.
We do these things because God already is present.

Because the great I AM is with us,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit –
not distant,
not abstract,
but the living God drawing near,
inviting us into the holy work of relationship,
the joyful labour of love,
and the shared life of God.

Always.
To the end of the age.

Stressed? Just one thing’s needed

July 20, 2025July 20, 2025 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.

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.