Tag: St Leonards Priors Marston

Hope Has Hooves: Keeping Faith When the World Feels Mean

David HerbertLeave a comment

This sermon was preached for the Second Sunday before Advent — sometimes called Kingdom Sunday, and this year also marked as Safeguarding Sunday.
It begins with the prophet Malachi’s vision of a day when “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings,” and when God’s people “will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”
It’s a vivid, earthy picture of freedom — hope that doesn’t float above the world but thunders joyfully across it.
Hope, as it turns out, has hooves.

‘Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace.
All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble,
and that day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty.
‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them.
But for you who revere my name,
the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.
And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.’ (Malachi 4:1-2a)

I thought I’d let Malachi do the talking this morning. 

He did his talking 450 years before Christ after the Jewish community had returned from exile.
They thought everything was going to be hunky-dory.
The Temple had been restored, the worship re-established,
and people hoped – and expected – that Israel would be great again.

But the glorious renewal never materialised. It rarely does.

The community Malachi is speaking to is one that had expected to be spared the ways of the arrogant and the evildoers.
Instead they found themselves small, struggling and disillusioned.
They are weary. They are disappointed. They’ve had enough.

And into that discouragement, Malachi tells them not to give up.

In my last parish we lived next door to a dairy farm.
The farmer knew how much we loved the moment when the cows were released into the fields after winter – those first few minutes when they leap and dance and frolic before settling down to graze away their days.
On our final day there, as a goodbye, he freed the cows (earlier than he normally would) just so we could watch them. A little gesture of joy and encouragement.

Watch the moment when these animals are released and leap into life.
This is the kind of hope we’re talking about — wild, earthy, triumphant (From the Funky Farmer)

That’s the image Malachi gives us: “You will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”
Imagine that, he implies.
Feel it.
Let that joy into your bones.

The day is coming,
the day to end all days,
the day we’ve prayed for,
the end of wrongdoing, the end of misery, the end of oppression,
the end of the arrogant, the end of the evildoer.

But between the promise and its fulfilment, they still had to live through some very tough times indeed.
They still lived between a rock and a hard place.

He’s speaking to a community who’ve given up waiting for times to change,
who’ve lost hope.
And he may as well be speaking to us.

Things haven’t changed that much. His times are still our times.
The arrogant and the evildoers still seem to carry the day,
and we too can feel like a struggling and disillusioned generation.
We get weary. We get disappointed.

This is one of the readings appointed for today.
And its words speak, with beautiful conciseness and clarity, of the day we all pray for –
the day when everything broken will finally be set right.

And what Malachi offers is not a vague or floaty hope.
Not a “pie in the sky when you die” kind of hope.
Not the sort of hope that shrugs and says,
“Well, it won’t happen in my lifetime—maybe someday, somewhere else.”

No.
Malachi’s hope is earthed.
It has muscle and movement.
It has sun-warmed skin and strong legs.
It leaps. It runs. It frolics.

Hope, in Malachi’s vision, is not an idea.
It’s an animal set free.

Hope has hooves.

And because hope has hooves, it doesn’t wait politely for the world to improve.
It doesn’t sit still until things get better.
It doesn’t retreat into a dream or escape into the clouds.

Hope is not about leaving this world behind;
it’s about this world being set right.

The freedom Malachi imagines does not happen “up there” or “somewhere else”
but here—in the fields of our own lives,
in the soil beneath our feet,
in the communities that have grown tired and heavy with disappointment.

Hope is grounded.
Hope is embodied.
Hope is movement.

And that is why those who have given up hope
so often spiritualise it, soften it, postpone it.
They make it so distant that it no longer touches the earth.
They reduce it to wishful thinking or to a future reward
instead of a promise that breaks into the present.

But real biblical hope always has dirt on its feet.
It always has skin in the game.
It always demands something of us.

It is a hope with hooves—
a hope that will not stand still
because God will not stand still.

And so we pray for that day.
Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer — “your kingdom come” — we are praying Malachi’s prayer.
We’re praying for the day when wrong is ended, when justice rises,
when the oppressed stand tall,
when the broken are made whole,
when healing breaks out like sunlight over a cold field.

But praying for that day is not passive.
It is not waiting-room spirituality.
It is preparation.
It is participation.
It is permission for God to rearrange our lives as well as the world.

Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, puts it plainly:
“Never tire of doing good.”

Never tire.
Not when we get weary.
Not when hope feels heavy.
Not when the world seems to resist every effort toward kindness, justice, truth.

Because if hope has hooves, we need to keep ours moving.

Doing good is not an extra.
It is not the garnish on Christian faith.
It is the shape of hope lived out.
It is the daily, steady work of aligning our lives with the world God is bringing into being.

And Jesus, in the Gospel reading, speaks of upheaval—
nations in uproar,
wars and rumours of wars,
the ground trembling beneath our certainties.

But then he says something deeply strengthening:
“Do not be afraid.”

Not because everything is fine — it isn’t.
Not because everything will suddenly get better — it may not.
But because God is with us in the meantime,
and it is precisely in these mean times
that our hope matters most.

The world being turned the right way up is bound to be unsettling.
Those who profit from cruelty won’t like it.
Those who cling to power will resist it.
Those who prefer darkness will fear the light.

But discipleship has always been lived with courage.
Courage to do good when others give up.
Courage to tell the truth when lying is easier.
Courage to protect the vulnerable when it costs something.
Courage to embody hope when cynicism is fashionable.

And that brings us to Safeguarding Sunday.

We haven’t mentioned it until now —
and that’s intentional —
because safeguarding isn’t a special theme for one Sunday,
or a box to tick,
or a duty we dust off once a year.

Safeguarding is simply hope in practice.
It is the grounded hope Malachi speaks of,
the persevering hope Paul commends,
the courageous hope Jesus prepares us for.

Safeguarding says:
in this community,
in this place,
every person matters.
The vulnerable are protected.
The wounded are listened to.
The frightened are safe.
This is a place where harm is named, not hidden,
and where healing is made possible.

Safeguarding is part of the way we pray “your kingdom come.”
It is part of the way we “never tire of doing good.”
It is part of the way we “do not be afraid.”

It is hope with hooves —
hope that moves,
hope that watches over,
hope that makes room,
hope that keeps all God’s people safe
until that promised day dawns
and we go out and frolic like well-fed calves.

So today we keep our hope alive,
we keep our feet moving,
and we keep one another safe.

Hope doesn’t just have feathers,
as Emily Dickinson writes in her poetry.
Hope has hooves.

The calling of God’s people in every generation
is to keep faith in these mean times,
to never give up hope in these mean times,
to never stop loving in these mean times.
These are the things we need to keep going forever,
faith, hope and love,
until the day comes which sees the end of the arrogant and the evildoer,
the day the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in its wings.

Until then, we keep faith.
We keep hope.
We keep love.

Our call is to live for that day.

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.

Here, where the lost are found

David HerbertLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

They are finders.

Jesus tells these parables against those who were muttering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here we are. Found, forgiven, rejoicing.

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”.

The miracle of hearing at Pentecost

David HerbertLeave a comment

This is a sermon prepared for a small congregation in a small Warwickshire village. The reading for the day is Acts 2:1-21.

We’ve been watching the ITV drama Code of Silence. It is a vivid demonstration  that all of us hear differently.
Rose Ayling-Ellis plays the part of a deaf catering worker who has the gift of being able to read lips.
So, she can hear what others can’t.
She can hear what people are saying even though there may be a screen between them.
She can hear what people are saying in a crowded bar, or the other side of the room.
So long as she can see them she can make out what they are saying.

We all hear differently. 

All of us are listening for different things.
We listen for nuance, tone of voice.
There are things we are wanting to hear.
Each of you will hear this sermon differently.
You may hear a word that sets you off on a train of thought and you lose the track of the rest of the sermon.
You may listen to every word because there is a word you are desperate to hear.
And the word you’re desperate to hear may well be different to the word the person next to you is desperate to hear.

Some will hear nothing.
Either, I the preacher have been so poor that I have failed to engage,
or we are so frazzled and preoccupied that nothing gets through.

Some may be so physically deaf that all they have to read is body language.
What is the bearing of the preacher?
Is there encouragement? Do I count? Is this good news?

Different generations will hear differently.
Young children will get it differently to those who have grown old and tired.
Men and women may listen for different things.

Those who are first have always heard the gospel differently to those who are usually last and weakened by the ways of society.
Those who usually come first and feel entitled, will be offended by the gospel.
Those who are the least and last, the humble and the humiliated, will feel encouraged, strengthened and empowered.
Those who are prosperous will hear the gospel differently to those who are poor.
Those who suffer pain or grief,
Those who have been wronged will hear differently to their wrongdoer.

And here we are – a few of us in this little place, joining the gathering of Christians across the world, of all ages, races, languages and walks of life, each of us having heard the apostles’ teaching in our own way – and all of us drawn, in some form or fashion, to the way of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Here we all are, across continents and centuries, hearing so differently from each other, yet all of us hearing God speak the language of our hearts – and all of us drawing closer together as a result, in spite of the many barriers we’ve built between us down the ages.

That is a miracle!
The one who tells the story of Pentecost in our reading from Acts describes the bewilderment of the crowd “because each heard their language being spoken”.
It’s a miracle of communication,
a miracle of hearing,
a miracle of understanding.

The author tells us that the disciples were all together in one place.
These are the same people whose failings have been highlighted throughout the gospels. Again and again we hear of their misunderstandings, their lack of faith, their betrayals. Even after the resurrection, they still don’t understand.
Jesus tells them to wait.
Not to act, not to preach, not to fix it all.
Just wait.

Their wait ends at the festival of Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, just when Jews have flocked into Jerusalem for the ancient harvest festival of Shavuot.
Originally it was the celebration of the grain harvest – a time of thanksgiving, but by Jesus’ time it had become something more. It had become a celebration of the giving of the Law and the harvest of God’s word.

And on that day, the disciples finally discover what they’ve been waiting for.
They were waiting for understanding.
They hear in their heart, deep in their bones, that all those moments of doubt and failure hadn’t disqualified them, but actually prepared them to be vessels of grace.

It turns out that they were waiting to become the Church,
a people breathed on by the Spirit
and set on fire with a purpose of God’s own making.

And the crowds heard them – not just with their ears, but with their hearts.
They heard in their own languages – not the language of religion or power, but the language of their deepest selves.

It was a miracle.

Not that the disciples spoke, but that the people truly heard.
They didn’t hear a lecture.
They didn’t hear a scolding.
They heard the wonder of amazing grace poured out in all flesh –
sons and daughters, old and young,
rich and poor, insiders and outsiders.

That is still the miracle of Pentecost.
The same Spirit who moved in Jerusalem moves here too –
in our waiting, in our words, in our worship, in our hearing.

Even in our misunderstandings and failures, the Spirit can breathe life and make meaning.
Whether we hear clearly or faintly<

Whether we are full of faith or full of doubt,
the Spirit comes to stir us to love, courage and hope.

We may not speak many languages, but the Spirit speaks ours:
the language of fields and farms,
the language of family and loss,
of longing and gratitude.

If we wait, if we are willing and listening,
the Spirit still comes even here, even now.
Thanks be to God.

The Sound of Jesus: hearing his voice, following his call

David HerbertLeave a comment

Using scripture appointed for the 4th Sunday of Easter (YrC), Psalm 23 and John 10.22-30, here’s a reflection on what it means to hear the voice of Jesus in a noisy world.

I love preaching that brings Scripture to life—and that brings Scripture back to life, and I hope you do too. That’s a reminder that every time we open scripture together we are bringing it back to life. What matters today is what we call people, what we call ourselves and what we call God. Today is Vocations Sunday – a day to explore our calling, our calling of one another and God’s calling of us.

That’s the point Jesus makes when he is confronted by Jews at the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem with the question showing their lack of understanding of him. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” I’m discovering that John is always telling us the time. In our gospel readings through this Easter season, all from John’s gospel, he has always told us the time. It’s morning, it’s evening, it’s early in the morning. Today, we hear that it is “winter”. Perhaps John wanted to introduce a shiver in his readers to indicate the coldness of these Jews towards Jesus and the frostiness of their relationship towards him.

Jesus replied to them to say “I did tell you, but you do not believe”. He draws the distinction between those who do believe and those who don’t. Those who do believe have listened to his voice and followed him. It’s his voice that makes us think vocationally. We are those who believe. We’ve heard his voice.

Vocation is not just about what we do – it’s about whose voice we listen to, and whose voice we speak with.

We live in noisy days. Everyone has something to say. Social media, politics, advertising, even the voices in our own heads – so many trying to define who we are, what we’re worth, and what matters. Those who follow Jesus make out his voice in all the hullabaloo. As Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. They listen to my voice and follow me. Even surrounded by the sound of enemies, or even traumatised by suffering, or even as we walk through the darkest valleys overshadowed by death, there is the one call we listen out for. It’s the call that leads us to metaphorical green pasture and the still waters that refresh the soul.

And here’s the gift and challenge of vocation: those who follow Jesus begin to speak like him. They begin to sound like him. It’s not because they have perfect words, nor because they are fluent in the language of the kingdom, but because they speak in love. They echo his truth that so loves the world. They call people “beloved”. They become the kind of people whose words give life.

This is Jesus calling. His calling isn’t just for those who we say “have had a calling”. His calling is for the sake of the world. His calling is for the whole church – to hear, and to follow. On this Vocations Sunday, we’re not just praying for more priests or deacons (though some who hear his call might follow that course). We’re also praying for a church that listens to the voice of Jesus and follows his call, for a church that sounds like Jesus. We are praying for a Pope who sounds like Jesus, for an Archbishop who sounds like Jesus, and for one another, that we dare to follow the voice of Jesus even when it sounds strange in our world of noise.

So, let me ask you. Can you hear his voice?

Do you hear his voice,
the still small voice of calm,
the voice on the lake, in the storm?
Do you hear his voice
in the noise of your lives?
Do you hear his voice
above the voices of harm?
Do you hear his voice
singling you out
for the new rule of the kingdom?

What does he call you?
Are you Forgiven?
Are you his Friend,
freed, no longer slave?
Are you his Beloved?

And what of others?
Can you hear him calling them?
Can you hear him
calling the last first,
the first last?

Can you hear him
calling the stranger
closer as neighbour,
extending the family
by calling brother, sister,
even mother of those
quite unrelated?

His call goes far and wide,
as far as those who are called
“far from the kingdom of God”,
even to those who’ve grown rich
at the expense of others,
the proud and arrogant,
the self-righteous,
the self-satisfied, the guilty.

He calls the warnings of woe,
speaks of mercy to the guilty.
He calls the wayward home,
and calls the proud down.

Love’s call is strong, not mealy-mouthed,
exactly what is needed by those
who put themselves first,
those who are comfortable now.

This is the call of the shepherd
who loves his sheep
and raises his voice
for them to follow.

But the call of the shepherd
also raises the alarm
to disrupt the plans of wolves.

That is not a gentle voice we hear
nor does the shepherd
reassure us to stay where we are.
His is the leading voice,
leading us to fresh pastures,
calling us back, calling us out,
calling us up to the narrow way
that leads to life.

Can you see
how his voice might carry
in every breath of the church,
on the wind and wings
of the Spirit?

Do you know
the messages of your own lives
in your words and deeds?

And can you imagine
all your words being of
the one word that made you
and called you by name
Forgiven and Beloved?

Can you imagine your voice
reverberating his love and
amplifying his call?

Can you imagine
that being your only call?

There are those
who find it hard to hear
and difficult to believe
the voice that calls them
Forgiven, Beloved,
First, not Last
Friend, no longer Stranger,
Brother, Sister, even Mother.

What did he say?

They need the words
in love’s translation,
the amplification
of those who follow
the sound of his voice.

So listen well, church.

Get the sense of vocation.
We know his voice,
we hear his call.

Let us follow the sound
of his voice so truly
that we too call
strangers friends
and the last first.

Let us see how
the voice of Jesus
carries light
into the darkness
of the night.
Let us echo
the good news
that names us
and calls us
Beloved.

© David Herbert

In the thick of things – a sermon for Palm Sunday

David HerbertLeave a comment

On Palm Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ humble entry into the thick of things where we say he is very welcome. This sermon for a small Warwickshire church picks up that theme. The readings appointed for the day are Luke 19:28-40 and Philippians 2:5-11.

Entry of Christ into Jerusalem by Pieter Coecke van Aelst Bonnefantenmuseum 1246

I love preaching that brings scripture to life, and we are in the thick of it, aren’t we? We’re in the thick of it, with one thing after another.

We’re always in the thick of things with things going on in families, things that prevent us having a balance in our lives, worries about our health, pressures in our relationships. We are in the thick of things. In the thick of things our reptilian fear threatens to overwhelm us.

We can hardly believe what we are seeing of what’s going on for the people of Ukraine.
We can’t believe our eyes when we see news of the destruction of lives and communities in Gaza.
And now we’re on the edge of a trade war brought on by the obscenity of a billionaire President’s complaint that the wealthiest nation on earth feels cheated and that they are going to get their own back on nations that are poorer.

And in the thick of things, we are, like Jesus’s generation, “an unbelieving generation” (Mark 9:19). We are people of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips. (Isaiah 6:5). How can we be any other? We live in the thick of things. The thick of things take their toll on the way we are, our minds and our behaviours.

Today of all days, Palm Sunday, we look to Jesus who was, and is, always in the thick of things. When he rode into Jerusalem he rode into the thick of things. (Not that he wasn’t already in the thick of things in his ministry in Galilee.) But in setting his mind to go to Jerusalem he was setting his mind to get to the thick of things – Jerusalem, the place of religious and political capital, the place of those who made the rules, the place of turmoil, the place which had such an effect on people’s lives – on their fortune, their anxiety, their shame.

When we reenact the welcome of Jesus by the crowds in Jerusalem we are saying how welcome Jesus is in the thick of things for us. In the thick of things we turn to Christ. That’s the choice we made at baptism. “Do you turn to Christ?” “I turn to Christ”. We turn to Christ in the thick of things because there really is no choice.

Isn’t there?

The truth is that we are spoilt for choice. There are so many contenders, so many who want to govern us, to rule over us, to be our landlords, presidents, press barons and manipulators. That’s why there are so many power struggles. It’s surprising what an unbelieving generation believes. It’s surprising (and alarming) who an unbelieving generation will follow..It is shockingly easy to be misled when we are in the thick of it. We are sheep in the midst of wolves.

There is a choice. Who will we choose?

African-American writer Octavia E Butler wrote this in her Parable of the Talents:

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
She went on:
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought, because when we don’t we find ourselves in the thick of things.

Who do we choose to lead us in the thick of things?

While Butler warns us of bad leaders, another voice—from an unexpected place—tells us what does hold evil in check. This is from The Hobbit.

“Some people believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

In the thick of things we look for a messiah, someone to save us, usually an alpha male, a charismatic leader, someone with great power – a disaster who leads us into war, or poverty, or slavery, or hatred and fear.

Today, we wave our palms as Jesus comes before us, as in Jerusalem, so in our lives. (Incidentally, we see the deaf community waving the palms of both hands in the air – that is silent sound of welcome applause.)
Our palm waving is the sign of our choice, the welcome of Jesus into our lives.

We are at the beginning of the week.
When we get into the thick of the week we find out how Jesus was when he was in the thick of it,
the way that he hung out to the end,
the way he turned the tables on the religious leaders in the cleansing of the temple,
his refusal to justify himself in front of Caesar’s representative, Pilate,
his non-violence when he told Peter to put down his sword
the greeting of his betrayer with a kiss
the promise of paradise to the thief at his side, the way he made a brother of him

All these things add up, and in the thick of the crowd people changed their mind.
They didn’t like the choice they’d made by welcoming Jesus.
They preferred Barabbas.
When they were given a choice about who should be saved,
Barabbas or Jesus,
they chose Barabbas.
They mocked Jesus.
They insulted him, spat at him, and hung him out to die.

It shall not be so with us.
We have saved Jesus for when we are in the thick of things,
all those moments when we are searching
for a better way for our work, for our love,
we have welcomed Jesus into the thickness of our lives
and inclinations, when our tempers flare
when hatreds and jealousies might prevail
when our worries keep us awake
we have chosen Jesus as our saviour.

Let Jesus always be our choice
whenever we are tempted
by the ways of the world
in the thick of things,
in our relationships with one another
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
He never considered equality with God something to be used for his advantage,
but chose instead the way of a servant,
joining the suffering of the last and least
always following the rule of the kingdom
that puts love first and the last first.

That’s the way we choose when we wave our palms to welcome Jesus into our thick of things.

So let us wave our palms not as decoration, but as declaration. That in the thick of things—today, this week, this world—Jesus is still our choice, our way to go.

Here Am I: Embracing God’s Call in Worship

David HerbertLeave a comment

Worship fires us. Worship hires us. This is what we see at the heart of our two readings today. (Isaiah 6:1-8 and Luke 5:1-11). This is a sermon for the 4th Sunday before Lent for a small church “in vacancy”.

The poetry of Mary Oliver is full of worship. Here are some of her lines:

Poems are not words, after all,
but fires for the cold,
ropes let down to the lost,
something as necessary as bread
in the pockets of the hungry.

Poems are not words, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as food in the pockets of the hungry.

There is poetry in the heart of worship – fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost. We repeat these lines of poetry in the heart of our worship. We call it the Sanctus. The poetry goes along these two lines:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty,
the whole earth is full of his glory.

This is the song of the seraphim overheard by the prophet Isaiah in his vision of heaven when he was transported in worship. They are words which reverberate in our own worship. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. This has become our song too.

In Mary Oliver’s words, they are fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the earth is full of his glory. This is the song of those Isaiah sees around the throne – the song of the seraphim. 

Seraphim are the fiery ones. That is the meaning of seraphim. Their words are fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost. They are ropes we hang onto as we join Isaiah as he is transported in worship.

The whole earth is full of his glory. This is the faith of the heavenly host. It doesn’t mean that everything is hunky dory. Isaiah knows only too well his own lies and the lies of those around him. I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And that hasn’t changed over the centuries, has it? We say one thing and mean another. We mislead and are misled. Truth is distorted to our own ends. We, too, are a people of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips.

In our gospel reading Simon Peter is transported to a similar sense of wonder and worship. Luke paints the scene well. Jesus is on the edge of the lake, with people on the edge. 

Crowds are all around him. The only space he could find was by getting into the boat of one of the fishermen, one whose life was all at sea, a landless labourer on the lowest level of Roman occupations pushed to the edge by the taxes they had to pay for the right to fish and the right to sell their fish. Jesus put himself in the same boat as them.

Jesus told Simon Peter to put out a little from the shore – and there Jesus sat and taught the crowds on the shore. (Interestingly, he would have been on a lower lever to those he was teaching.)

Jesus then told Simon Peter to “put out into deep water, and there let down the nets for a catch”. They were astonished by how much they caught because they had been fishing all night and had caught nothing.

To deep water, far from the safe haven where everything is smooth sailing is where Jesus led Simon Peter, to where life is desperate, dangerous and difficult, the place we’re afraid to go to – and it was there that Simon Peter saw the glory of the Lord in the miraculous catch which would mean that he and his partners had something to take to market.

Both Simon Peter and Isaiah are gifted a vision of the glory of the Lord that fills the earth. Simon Peter’s reaction is similar to Isaiah’s. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man.” Jesus answers as if to calm the storm arising in Simon Peter. “Don’t be afraid.” he tells Simon Peter. “From now on you will fish for people.” And from that moment they did, pulling their boats onto the shore. They left everything and followed Jesus.

For Isaiah it had been a burning coal from one of the fiery ones to his unclean lips which took away his guilt and opened his mouth to the Lord’s question, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” with his own words, “Here am I. Send me!”

Both recruits, Isaiah and Simon Peter were recruited in worship and their sense of the glory of the Lord that fills the whole earth. Neither recruit thought themselves worthy. One was a man of unclean lips, the other “a sinful man”.  Neither was a strong candidate, neither had anything they needed to prove and neither was recruited on merit. Once again we see the rule of the kingdom of God which starts with the last and the least in the building of that kingdom – the very opposite to the general rules of every other kingdom.

And here are we. Here are we, caught up in worship, sharing the sense of God’s glory in spite of our unworthiness, clinging to the songlines from the heart of heaven through the amazing grace of God. Lines let down to the lost, as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty,
the whole earth is full of his glory.

And here we are. Here we are in what we call “a vacancy” waiting for someone who knows the earth is full of God’s glory to say to the Bishop “here am I, send me”, someone who will leave everything to follow Jesus to the Bridges Group.

And here we are. Here we are – possibly tiring in waiting. It is, after all, getting to be a long vacancy. Let us not lose heart. Our worship becomes our encouragement however deep the water in which we find ourselves. Let the live coal touch our lips and be the fire for our cold hearts so that we don’t become prophets of doom.

Even in the waiting, God’s glory is at work. It may seem like there is no answer, but His glory fills the earth, and He is already moving in ways we can’t always see.

Here we are, worshipping through the amazing grace of God in sight of the glory which fills the earth. Our worship opens our minds, our hearts and our mouths. Our worship prepares our next step beyond our unworthiness

Our worship calls us back to God’s glory. How shall we respond to that call? Is ours a “yes” to God, or a “no” to God? Peter typifies us. His call reminds us that God is always at work in the deep waters, in the quiet moments, in the challenging seasons preparing his people to fish for people by reaching out in love and serving in faith. How shall we respond? What is the “here am I” that God is waiting to hear from our heart.

Here we are.
Here we are,
a few of us,
too few of us
if we keep saying “No”,
enough of us
if our response is “Yes”,
all of us
growing older by the day.
Here we are
looking round for help.
Who’ll do this,
who’ll do that?

It’s easy to lose heart and to say “nobody will”. That is the language of doomsayers and the sound of bitter experience. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and it’s the sound of people speaking for everybody. It’s not the sound of hope and not the sound of those who believe God’s glory is at work throughout the world in ways we can’t always see.

Here we are, without churchwardens. “Nobody wants to be churchwarden”. That is doomsaying and is without hope. When we say “Nobody wants to be ….” we are speaking for everybody. We can’t speak for everybody, only for ourselves.  Somebody will be churchwarden. It’s just a case of waiting for one or two people to be caught up in the glory that fills the earth – for their “yes” to the call they hear in their sense of worship, and for their reassurance that their recruitment is not about their merit but about God’s love and glory.

Even in the waiting, God’s glory is at work. It may seem like there is no answer, but His glory fills the earth, and He is already moving in ways we can’t always see.

How will each of us respond to the call of the moment when we realise Holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty and the whole earth is full of his glory. The call will be different for each of us. 

What is the “Here am I” that God is waiting to hear from your heart?

Yes, be angry, but don’t take anger into your darkness

David HerbertLeave a comment

Sometimes a sermon feels half-baked, but that’s all this preacher has this Sunday for a small congregation meeting in the heart of Warwickshire. The focus is on anger, one of the gifts of being human, in the context of violent anti-immigration riots which have been going on in towns and cities in the UK over the last week or so. “Be angry, but don’t let the sun go down on your anger” is the text from the reading appointed for the day – Ephesians 4:25-5:2.

August 11th 2024

See how fearfully and wonderfully made we are. That’s the frame of mind of the Psalmist. We say our Amen when we join the prayer of the psalmist. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our Amen is our Yes to this frame of mind and part of our adoration of God. The Psalmist thanks God: “You yourself created my inmost parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalms 139: 12-13)

We don’t just come with our physical make up. We have our psychological make up. We have soul. We are fearfully and wonderfully made – complete with our basic instincts and appetites. Without those instincts and appetites we wouldn’t survive or organise ourselves or build society. The desert fathers listed these instincts so that they could help people discipline them, because without that discipline they turn on us and ruin us.

Among their list of instincts and habits, as an example, is the habit of dejection – which lowers our sights and expects the worst of ourselves. Greed is in that list, and so is anger. They tried to cover all our basic instincts and habits of thought, recognising the demons that turn those instincts against us. They recognise that we all get caught up in corrupt chains of thought that ultimately bind us. You may see that in yourself. I see it in myself. I hear one thing, which leads me to another – it is my doom-looping which has made me bound to think and behave this way and that.

This morning we have a letter to read dating back nearly 2000 years which is dedicated helping to free people from these chains of thoughts and behaviours. It comes to us from the Christians of Ephesus.

Be angry, the letter reads recognising the basic instinct of anger which is part of our make up – part of being fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Be angry – why not? Jesus got angry. Our anger can be very useful. Cassian, one of the desert fathers, taught that the proper focus for anger is on our malicious thoughts and on the destructiveness we see around us. These are things we need to get angry about. Imagine a world in which no anger was focused on such things. Imagine ourselves and what we would be like without an anger against some of the ways we are. Anger can make things better.

And anger can make things worse. Anger can turn nasty. Our anger can be deeply hurtful of others and ourselves.

Anger needs reining in. Ephesians has given us a pearl of wisdom which has become almost proverbial. Be angry, but don’t let the sun go down on your anger. I dare say that has saved a good many relationships. Don’t let the angry word be the last word of the day. Don’t take your anger into the night. Keep your anger in the light.

Don’t take your anger into the darkness. Break the chain of thought before the chain of thought traps you in darkness.

We’ve seen anger spilling onto our streets this last week using mis-information to make targets of immigrants and their defenders, and Muslims and their mosques, 

Having read his book The Lightless Sky I’ve been following Afghan refugee Gulwali Passarlay. He featured in the Channel 4 election debate. He posted on Twitter this week that he has “never been this afraid” He’s lived in the UK for 17 years and been a citizen for the last 5. He posted: “I’m afraid for my kids. I to;d my wife, don’t go to the park. I had to travel from Bolton to take my kids to nursery because I was afraid for my wife to walk on the road.” There were NHS staff frightened to go to work. And yesterday I heard that a Faceboog group of British Asians in Leamington were warning members not to go into town because of the possibility of racist attack.

The mob violence we have seen is anger gone wrong – anger pent up, anger that has been taken into darkness by perpetrators who have been misled – and we all need to be very afraid. Thank God for the counter-protesters, and for those who day in and day out defend the stranger and the defenceless.

When we take anger (as well as our other instincts) into our darkness, into the night and into our sleep, we find that, there the darkness spins chains of doomloops to bind us. Anger belongs to the day. Be angry, but be angry in the light of day. The Ephesians tell us, Don’t make room for the devil to work with your anger.

If we don’t make room for the devil to work in our anger we leave room for compassion and love to work there, to direct and discipline our anger.

The permission for anger in Ephesians comes with disciplines that rein in this basic instinct. Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. We belong together. We are made for one another. Anger needs the light of truth, so we only speak the truth to our neighbours and about our neighbours. We’ve seen this week how the incitement to riot relies on falsehoods, deception and misinformation.

In anger, let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear …. Be imitators of God … and live in love.

Anger is one of our instincts. We are fearfully and wonderfully made – with anger and much else. God loves our anger when we are imitators of God. His anger was shown by Jesus. His anger and wrath is against those who put themselves first, the entitled, the supremacists who demean others and put others beneath them and never go to their help. His anger and wrath is against those wolves in sheep’s clothing who lead people astray.

But for those put last, for those lost and misled, for those least, for those forced to flee, for those seeking sanctuary and safety, for those housed in the hotels being attacked in the mob violence, there is only words of love giving grace to those who hear them, and the promise of a rule which puts them first, not last.

Ephesians 4:25-5:2
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

For the shamed and ashamed

David Herbert1 Comment

Here’s a sermon for the 5th Sunday after Trinity (year B) for a group of churches who on the 5th Sunday of the month come together for their “Gathering”, together with a poem which inspired me for this – Harry Baker reading Unashamed. The gospel for the day is Mark 5:21-end.

June 30th 2024

The preacher’s task is to bring the gospel to life. The test is whether you love the gospel more after the sermon than before and whether it has a greater power.

To start, I wondered whether we could spend a few moments hearing from one another any words or phrases that particularly struck you, shouted at you or surprised you ……….

Just as today’s gospel comes to us in two parts, so this sermon has two parts. In the first we will look for Mark’s meaning. The second is an application to us.

Mark 5:21-end
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him, and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well’.
Immediately her haemorrhage stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe’. He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping’. And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

The gospel has two parts – as expressed by our two readers. There’s the story of an unnamed woman and the story of a girl who we know as Jairus’s daughter. Both of them are healed by Jesus. The story of the woman’s healing is sandwiched into the story of Jairus’s daughter. The story of one interrupts the other.

By arranging the stories in this way, Mark, the gospel writer makes sure that we read them in the context of each other. He downplays one in relation to the other, leaving the reader with the task of amplifying the other.

There’s an overlapping timeline. Unusually Mark gives us precise detail about how old Jairus’s daughter is. She’s 12 years old. And he tells us that the woman had been haemorrhaging for 12 years. Their stories overlap. The woman  became ill just when Jairus’s daughter was born. 12 years ago. 

We always need to prick our ears up when we hear the number 12 in the gospels. It’s a number pattern that sums up Israel’s identity. The 12 tribes of Israel. The 12 disciples. 12 baskets of food left over at the feeding of the 5000. By including these details Mark is wanting us to realise that these two stories are about Israel and the kingdom of God.

The woman had suffered 12 years of haemorrhaging. Mark tells us she endured much under many physicians. They’d taken all her money. She had nothing, and far from getting better she’d got worse. This is what the institutions of Israel did to people.

It was worse than that. There were strict rules for people like her. They were listed in their scriptures. “When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period … she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge … Any bed she lies on will be unclean … anything she sits on will be unclean … anyone who touches them will be unclean. They must wash their clothes and bathe with water. (Leviticus 15:25-31)

For 12 years this woman would have been told she was unclean, and would have known those who came into contact with her would have been unclean. Not only is she poor, she’s in pain – and she is isolated and cast out because people had to be kept separate from things that made them unclean. She reminds me of the widow in the temple who Jesus watched as she put two coins into the treasury. It angered Jesus to think that her religious leaders had taken everything from her. She was left with nothing. Here, too, this woman is left with nothing. Her physicians had taken everything.

The rules of society were kept by the synagogue – people meeting together to observe the rules and be bound by them. Jairus was the ruler of the synagogue, the ruler of the rule-keepers, that ruled people in or ruled people out, that ruled people like our friend in the story out, and that made all women like her unclean, untouchable outcasts of society. Jairus had the power, privilege and prestige of being the ruler of the synagogue – and his daughter will have benefitted all her life from the prestige and protection of bring his daughter. There is such a contrast between the woman and the girl.

Did you notice how the crowd outside Jairus’s house laughed at Jesus? I was hurt when I read that. How dare they? But then I realised that this was the ruler’s family, his house, his daughter. They were used to being the most important. They were used to being first. They were probably offended that Jesus had put them last because he had allowed the least to interrupt him and make him late.

He was late because he wanted to know who had touched him. He’d felt something. She comes forward and tells him “the whole truth”. It was this that made Jesus late for his next appointment. He had put the last first. He had been touched by the least, the outcast – this poor woman. He listened to the whole truth from her. I love that phrase “the whole truth” – the truth of her suffering, the truth of her isolation, the truth of her treatment, the truth of her poverty, the truth of her loneliness and the truth of her faith in Jesus, that he, of all people could bear her touch.

This would have taken time. Jesus listens to her whole truth and finds in her faith the whole truth. He loves her. He calls her “daughter”. She is a true daughter of Israel. Her faith has made her such. She has been last but she comes first. She comes before the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. The one who was used to coming first was going to have to wait. They were all going to have to wait while the last came first.

Where does this leave us? Loosely connected to all this I wanted to dwell on one of the words that struck me when I was reading this in preparation for today – that is the the word “crowd”. It’s mentioned three times in this passage. Hearing performance poet Harry Baker prompted me on this. He’s touring with his show he’s calling “Wonderful”.

Harry Baker performing Unashamed at his favourite place, Margate

For a moment I want to put us in the crowd around Jesus. We are, after all, here for “the gathering” (all the churches coming together). Gathering is a more genteel way of saying crowd. We’re not quite in the Glastonbury league, but we are a crowd. 

We’re with the woman who wants to reach Jesus. We’re with all those who believe Jesus can bear our touch – however unclean we may feel, or however ashamed we’ve been made to feel. We’re with all those who believe they’re a lot better for knowing Jesus than if they’d not. We’re careful not to crowd people out, particularly those others who know they only need to touch Jesus to feel better.

Shall we tell Jesus the whole truth of our lives, knowing he welcomes the interruptions of the poor, in spirit or otherwise? Or just the edited version? Or just our best side?

Shall we see in each other the whole truth, the whole truth of those we see around us, the whole truth seen by Jesus – that in the words of the psalmist (Psalm 139), that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”? Is that how we are going to see each other? Is that how we are to make others feel? Not “unclean and ashamed”. There are already enough people making us feel like that. But “fearfully and wonderfully made” – not many see that in us, and not many are interested in “the whole truth” about ourselves – except, we hope, this crowd, these our brothers and sisters, claimed by Jesus as his sons and daughters – children in the kingdom of God, people in whom Jesus sees the truth that despite all appearances we are fearfully and wonderfully made.