Posts by Nick Jackson

Holy Hands


Sermon Year B – Trinity 9
Ephesians 4.1-16, John 6.24-34
Revd. Matthew Peat

Have you ever wondered what Jesus’ hands looked like? I don’t think I had until last week. I was sat in Leeds Station waiting for a train and found myself thinking about this sermon, looking at peoples’ hands.

So as I looked around, I saw children’s hands, holding onto their parent. Hands grasping baggage; holiday or business. Lovers holding hands and there was even a gentleman with a prosthetic hand.   And I had been thinking about hands for three reasons.

Firstly the post communion prayer from last week that had been in my mind since we prayed it last week ‘strengthen for service, Lord, the hands that have taken holy things’.

Secondly because of that demand at the end of the Gospel, when those who have followed Jesus, heard his teaching on the bread of heaven and say to him ‘Give us this bread always.’ The bread Jesus talked about was himself and we when we come here we open our hands to receive him.

And lastly because of that connection between strengthening our hands for service, receiving Christ and the theme of that first reading from St. Paul where he writes of growing up and of ministry used in the service of Christ to build up his body.

Put together, they seem to be telling me that we are invited to see our hands as holy.

Continue reading “Holy Hands”

More than Meets the Eye


Sermon Year B – Trinity 7 – Sermon for the Baptism of Elliot Christie
Ephesians 2.11-end, Mark 6.30-34, 53-end
Revd. Matthew Peat

If you’ve ever listened to Saturday Live on Radio 4, you’ll know that every week someone gets to choose their inheritance tracks.

These two tracks comprise one song or piece of music they cherish, usually because it reminds them of a particular time, place or story together with a track they would like to pass on to the next generation.   For both we hear why they have chosen them.

Listening to it recently, with Elliot Peter Christie’s baptism in mind, made me ask what would be the inheritance track of my faith. What words rather than a song would I want to pass onto him that might accompany him through his life?

I decided that for me, the one thing, the one phrase, in a slightly obtuse way, about the faith so central to my life, would simply be this, that there’s more to life than meets the eye.

There’s more to life than meets the eye.

Continue reading “More than Meets the Eye”

What’s it to be; Paranoia or Hope?


Sermon Year B – Trinity 6
Ephesians 1.3-14, Mark 6.14-29
Revd. Matthew Peat

‘It’s sometimes been said that if someone came up to you in the street and whispered, ‘They’ve found out! Run!’, nine out of ten of us would.’ These are the words which Rowan Williams began his Enthronement sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003.

I want to begin there because I think that by the time Kind Herod reached the end of his days he had come to embody the kind of paranoia that sees people out to get him at every turn. When he thinks that every conversation in hushed tones is part of a plot to overthrow him.

And so stripped of all his defences, mindful of the choices he made to protect that power, I think we can be pretty sure that if Herod were in the shopping centre at Crossgates and someone crept up behind him and said run – he would.

We meet him this morning as he begins to hear rumours about Jesus, another threat to his power. No doubt the order he gave to murder John (to preserve his popularity after a foolish promise) has worried him, so in his paranoid state he thinks ‘John whom I beheaded has been raised’.

History tells us that the traits which defined Herod have defined despotic leaders ever since. Even today we can look around the world and see those who will do almost anything to protect their power. But in some small way we all know a bit of what it is to be paranoid, to be anxious and fearful to think that others are talking about usand plotting our downfall.

In contrast to Herod’s paranoia that defines the Gospel St. Paul in our Epistle gives a different vision for life. A life lived ‘so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live to the praise of his glory.’ Paul invites us to live in hope.

And as we think of his words I think we know enough about Paul to know that he wasn’t immune to worry and anxiety, those things which left unchecked lead to paranoia, rather his security wasn’t bound to what other people thought of him. Continue reading “What’s it to be; Paranoia or Hope?”

Choral Evensong Sermon


Jeremiah 20.1-11a, Romans 14.1-17
Revd. Matthew Peat

We’re not here to judge. We’re here to love.

One of the things you have to try and learn to do when you chair meetings, is to keep them moving, and not let them get bogged down in minute detail. Of course sometimes that detail is a necessary part of the discussion but for much of the time your job as chair is to keep things moving to keep the meetings gaze firmly on the big picture.

In the reading we heard from Epistle to the Romans this evening, they are it seems stuck in the detail and cannot seem to find a way out. They are arguing over this and that about what food to eat or not and the consequences for eating such food. Paul’s chairman’s letter comes as the chair to try and help them.

Interestingly he doesn’t say to them that what they are discussing is unimportant rather that they have lost sight of the big picture and so their life together has become a stumbling block for others for they have ended up arguing about judgement and how their actions will have eternal consequences.

Listening to Paul’s words you can sense his despair (echoed by church leaders down the ages) as he tries to tell them they are wasting too much time on the wrong questions. They should certainly not be worried about judgement for that is God’s department instead he says they are to focus on building the kingdom of God, a kingdom built on righteousness, peace and joy. Continue reading “Choral Evensong Sermon”

Holy Baptism for Joshua Iles – What’s in it for me?


Year B Sermon – Trinity 4
Mark 5.21-end
Revd. Matthew Peat

Well Joshua Jonathan Iles you’ve flown a long way to be here. Whitkirk isn’t Texas and yet if you had been baptised in the lone star state, it would be just the same.

The waters of baptism there and here are just the same, they have the same power to unite us with Christ as we obey his command. And yet perhaps Joshua if he were a little older might be thinking what’s in it for me?

It’s a good question and sometimes people seem to have the wrong idea of what baptism can do for you.   It certainly doesn’t offer any guarantees or security that the tragedies of life will not affect you, it doesn’t mean that you won’t make a mess of your life, it isn’t some kind of invisible force field to protect you from evil. However it does unite us with Christ and that unity is about life.

That brings us to reflect on the Gospel for today. We heard of the the woman who struggled for so long  with haemorrhages who is healed as she touches the hem of Jesus’ cloak and that event is framed by the raising of Jairus’ daughter. It is a dense and rich gospel passage that is at once disturbing and encouraging.

Why disturbing? Simply because we have no experience of what it describes. Just this last week the church was full to bursting for the funeral of a local 19 year old lad who’d had cancer. His parents had journeyed with him and they together with family and friends were here to participate in something no parent should have to.

For them the raising of Jairus’ daughter is likely difficult because that cannot happen for them or indeed any parent whose precious and beloved child is taken from them.    Continue reading “Holy Baptism for Joshua Iles – What’s in it for me?”

Parables invite us to see more


Sermon Year B – Trinity 2
1 Samuel 15.34-16.13, Mark 4.26-34
Revd. Matthew Peat

Jesus was an unpredictable fellow. I reckon it was sometimes pretty frustrating to be around him.    He did unexpected things, he is elusive, difficult to pin down. He tells stories without explaining them, leaving you with more questions than answers.

Its part of what makes him, for me at least, such an intriguing and engaging figure. Our friend yes but taken seriously this isn’t a cosy, easy friendship, life with Christ is full of surprises.

I think that’s why in each of the Gospel’s in one way or another, they ask the question ‘if you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’ In other words make it obvious, keep on message and tell us what we think we need to hear.

But no, that kind of question invites the wrong answer, hence Jesus’ reluctance to engage with it.    Instead as the Gospel reminded us today ‘he did not speak to them except in parables.’ But why?

The reason for me is about the nature of our relationship because we’re invited into a grown up relationship with him. So Jesus is not our master and we his slave at least not in the conventional sense rather he is our friend and companion.

That’s why he sometimes seems elusive because he invites us into a depth of relationship beyond the superficial, invites to say yes to him, not just once but again and again as we go through life sharing our journey with him.

On that journey we meet him in so many ways not least through his parables, we heard one this morning. These are great stories that get beneath the surface of things, they challenge us and lead us to think about things differently. Consequently they might sometimes give us more questions than answers, but exploring those questions is part of what faith is all about.

But isn’t always easy, that’s why we sometimes want to echo those words ‘If you are the Christ tell us plainly.’ The desire for simple answers seems to run deep. Continue reading “Parables invite us to see more”

The Well of Life


Choral Evensong Sermon
Deuteronomy 6.10-end, Psalm 36
Revd. Matthew Peat

‘Take care that you do not forget the Lord’ wrote the author of Deuteronomy but if we’re honest we sometimes do.

We live as though we are the centre of the world. As though we can manage perfectly well thank you very much, we forget who and what we are made for.

One way we counter our forgetfulness is through worship, what we are about this evening when we deliberately stepping into that place where we remember who we are.

When we remember that the God whom we worship is the God of all things, who we are to worship and adore in all times and seasons, good and bad.

Even those times when we want to tell God to get lost, we come and through worship remember who we are, remember amidst the frustrations and sadness’s of life that we are but dust.

The psalm for this evening, 36, captures something of the paradox of what it is to be human.

On the one hand it speaks of self-deception and guile ‘Sin whispers to the wicked, in the depths of their heart; there is no fear of God before their eyes.’ 

And on the other speaks of how though we may strive to deceive ourselves, we cannot deceive God and in him we find life. ‘With you is the well of life and in your light shall we see light.’

Super words those, likening a well, a place where life giving water is found with what happens when we don’t forget the Lord. I shall return to that image a bit later.

Water and life is also picked up in other verses of the psalm, reminding us that with God we shall ‘drink from the rivers of your delights.’

So my friends ‘take care you do not forget the Lord.’

But how do we do that amidst so many demands, people to see and places to be and so many other supposedly more exciting things to do? Continue reading “The Well of Life”

Behold what you are, become what you receive.


Feast of Corpus Christi
Revd. Matthew Peat

What one thing would make all the difference to your spiritual life?

What is the one easy win that could make a real difference?

What to do amidst the mountains of worthy books on prayer and worship that doesn’t feel too difficult?

I guess we all struggle with those questions sometimes yet take heart for the one thing you do tonight simply by being here makes all the difference. For here we receive Christ, what more could we ask and we take his life into our own.

In an age when we sometimes think of mission as seeking to be ever more relevant and accessible, tonight we remember that the beating heart of the church has been and always will be this Eucharist.    For here the bread and wine, by the power of the Holy Spirit become for us Christ’s body and blood.

So the one thing we can do, the easy win, is simply turn up as you have done because that’s what Christ does. Every single time we do this in remembrance of him, he is here with us.

But there is more, the transformation we think of tonight isn’t just about bread and wine but about ourselves. St. Augustine when writing about that moment in the liturgy when the consecrated elements are held up before the faithful, said ‘Behold what you are, become what you receive.’ Continue reading “Behold what you are, become what you receive.”