Sermons & Other Words

Ash – so often a sign of destruction, of despair even. Justin Welby and Rowan Williams have written movingly of their experiences of ash in Rwanda, in New York on 9/11. The ovens of Auschwitz also come to mind. All experiences of ash without hope, ash as witness to human evil but with no promise of anything better.

But I would like to turn to another hero of mine, David Attenborough, for a different picture. “In the forests of Australia fire travels fast, consuming dry leaves and twigs. But the tree trunks are so tall and free from low branches that the flames do not reach the crowns of the biggest. After only an hour or so the fire has passed, the ground is black. Where once there was a tangle of shady green leaves, there is now open space and for the first time in decades, sunlight strikes the ash-covered ground.

And now in a slow and gentle rain, the seeds drift down to earth. They had hung in the branches for years but the heat has cracked them open. They have few competitors and within a week they germinate and begin to grow.

Continue reading “Hope from the ashes”

Fools and hell fire.   Insults and council.   Anger and judgement.  Look and lusts.   Adultery.   Divorce.   Cutting off hands and tearing out eyes.   Yes or no and nothing in between.

What are we to make of this challenging Gospel reading?    None of us can hear these words without feeling uncomfortable.    Indeed one might say these instructions are impossible and place them in the file marked Jesus having an off day.

And yet there is something here, for is not the point that they are indeed impossible.    Maybe Jesus never intended these words to be taken literally.

Maybe instead they were given to remind those who sought to guard faith by rules that however well we think we are doing, it’s never going to be enough.

Continue reading “Never good enough”

Our Gospel this evening is such an evocative scene.    We know the story well.    The old man Simeon on seeing Jesus ‘took him in his arms and praised God.’    His words of praise reverberating down the centuries.

They are memorably captured for me at least, the in language of the Book of Common Prayer.   We shall hear them sung later on.    It begins ‘Lord now lettest thou they servant depart in peace’ and goes on to include these words ‘For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation; Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people;’         

I want to think about seeing salvation in these words tonight, and I do so using this familiar story something of which we can picture in our minds, not least because we know what’s it like to hold a baby.

And though babies can be infuriating; they smell, they cry, they eat, they don’t do much.    When they’re on form, when they smile and giggle and look at you in a way that only a child can, we are, like Simeon, filled with wonder and praise.

Continue reading “Seeing Salvation”

“You are the salt of the earth.”

“You are the light of the world.”

When we moved house in the summer, there was the usual cupboard clearing – and discarding of foods with use by dates somewhere in the last century…

But not the salt. I am ridiculously irritated by use by dates on salt. Salt from Cheshire has been there about 220 million years…we dig it up and suddenly it seems it will lose its saltiness if we don’t use it up within the year.

But that perhaps, is Jesus’ point. It is ridiculous to think salt can lose its saltiness, it would be ridiculous to light a lamp and hide it.

So we can’t avoid it – we’ve accepted God’s offer of grace and love in Jesus, so we have also accepted the cost of being his disciples. We are the salt of the earth – what might that look like in 2017?

Continue reading “You are the salt of the earth”

Part of Halleluiah chorus…

I guess many of you know how it goes on – “King of kings and Lord of lords”

Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. I don’t know about you – but thinking about Jesus – ‘King’ is not the first image that comes to my mind.

But he is the person I hope rules my life; he is a ruler who I think is worth following; and he is building a kingdom.

Our gospel reading gave us an idea what kind of kingdom. Here is Jesus, nailed to the cross – mocked, humiliated – but his only words are of forgiveness. Forgiveness for the criminal who at the last minute recognises Jesus as king; forgiveness even for those who crucified him.

Christ our king wants a kingdom built on forgiveness – and he relies on his followers to build this kingdom here on earth. A kingdom built on forgiveness – I once had a glimpse of what that might look like…

They were the sort of class you get once in a teaching career – motivated, well behaved and they just got on well together… From their first day in school they were a lovely class.

Continue reading “Halleluiah chorus…”