A Tart with A Heart: Sermon Preached on 8th March 2026 (Third Sunday of Lent)

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at Holy Cross, Seend and St Mary’s, Potterne

Exodus 17.1–7; John 4.4–42

“They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman…”

A black and white photograph, showing a middle-aged woman seated in what appears to a domestic kitchen setting. She has a voluminous, bouffant-style dark hair and is wearing large decorative earrings. She holds a cigarette elegantly in one raised hand, her expression contemplative and self-assured. She is dressed in a boldly patterned blouse featuring an interlocking geometric or basket-weave design. Behind her, a gas cooker and kettle are visible on shelves, suggesting a working-class home interior. Her posture and expression convey a strong, independent character. The image has the grainy, high-contrast quality typical of mid-twentieth century British television drama.

Elsie Tanner holds court

People of a certain age might remember Elsie Tanner, a character from Coronation Street’s golden age. For those who can’t remember her, let me quote an academic anthropologist who described Elsie Tanner as a “tarty woman” who had the ability to “attract men like bees to honey”. At the same time, she had a heart of gold, helping those down on their luck even when she was barely managing herself. If you’re too young to remember Elsie, a similar figure might be Ophelia, brilliantly played by Jamie Lee Curtis in the movie Trading Places, a working girl who rescues the wealthy banker played by Dan Aykroyd after he ends up on the streets when his employers destroy his life in a bizarre sociology experiment.

The traditional term for characters like these in fiction is a “tart with a heart”, although Wikipedia tells me this term is “now considered offensive”. This character type exists in the literature of many cultures, including ancient Greek comedy, popular in the Eastern Mediterranean where Jesus and St John the Evangelist lived.

The Samaritan woman from today’s reading from John’s Gospel is clearly such an Elsie Tanner character. She had already been through five husbands and was now living with yet another man. Jesus was a holy man, and holy people weren’t supposed to hang around with disreputable people like that. But Jesus is chatting away, one-to-one, with nobody else present, with this woman known to be of loose morals. This is a scandalous encounter that provides a harvest of theological meaning rich for the picking.

In fact, his followers were surprised, the text tells us, that he was talking to a woman at all! Men and women did interact in Jesus’ time, both in Jewish communities and among the Graeco-Roman cultures they lived among. But there were limits! Men – in respectable society, anyway – were discouraged from having private or extended conversations with women they weren’t related to, and discouraged from being alone with them in public. Such situations, it was believed, brought temptation to the man and suspicion upon both parties.

But that wasn’t the end of Jesus’ trampling on social conventions. He isn’t just chatting to the ancient Holy Land’s Elsie Tanner. He’s chatting to a Samaritan – and we all know what dirty rascals those Samaritans are, don’t we?

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Discovering Anglicanism – Ecclesiology at Lambeth Conferences 1867–1998

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Cover of Ecclesiastical Law Journal, featuring the journal title in black text on a red background with publisher information at the bottom.

I’m pleased to have another academic paper published, this one in Cambridge University Press’ prestigious Ecclesiastical Law Journal. This one is open access so you can have a read: “Discovering Anglicanism – ecclesiology at Lambeth Conferences 1867–1998”.

The abstract is as follows:

This article explores how some scholars have defined Anglicanism, before examining the institutions that have unified Anglicanism internationally throughout its history. It explores a number of classical statements of authority in Anglicanism, and explores how rapid cultural, liturgical, and demographic change from the 1950s challenged the unspoken assumptions on which these statements rested. These left Anglicanism facing less coherence, just as Global North Anglicanism was losing confidence due to the religious crisis of the 1960s. The article then explores the factors that led to the crisis of 1998 which weakened those institutions, a situation that continues to the present day. Finally, the article offers some thoughts on the future and the enduring, if unfashionable, importance of patriarchs as leaders in churches today.

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Was Nicodemus a Bit Thick?: Sermon Preached on 1st March 2026 (Second Sunday of Lent)

Posted on March 1, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at Christ Church, Worton

Romans 4. 1–5, 13-17; John 3. 1-17

“How can anyone be born after having grown old?”

Alt text: A Baroque oil painting depicting two figures seated across from each other at a candlelit table. On the left, a younger bearded man with long brown hair, dressed in a blue robe with a red draped cloak, gestures upward with one finger as if making a point. On the right, an older bearded man wearing an elaborate striped turban and richly embroidered robes places one hand on his chest while pointing at an open book on the table with the other. Between them, two lit candles in iron candlesticks cast warm light across the scene. An open book, additional stacked volumes, and a small wooden box rest on a patterned tablecloth. The background is dark, focusing attention on the intimate, earnest exchange between the two figures.

Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn, Christ Instructing Nicodemus (ca. 1631). In a private collection.

Was Nicodemus a bit thick? I have often found myself wondering this as I have read this passage, where anything other than a very literal understanding of Jesus’ words seems to go over his head.

But Nicodemus is identified as a leader of the Jews, so was presumably a smart cookie. He is also identified as a Pharisee. The Pharisees were big into keeping the rules found in the Law of Moses.

This encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus immediately follows Jesus’ first visit to Jerusalem in St John’s Gospel, where he caused quite a stir by performing miraculous deeds and claiming that if they destroyed the Great Temple, He could raise it up in three days. This seems to have upset some folks, and perhaps that is why Nicodemus – a respected member of the religious elite, remember – came to Jesus by night.

But although Jesus might have upset other people, Nicodemus says that because of these miracles, he knows Jesus must be a teacher from God. But Jesus doesn’t bask in this praise. He replies straightaway that nobody can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. And that’s where we’re left wondering if Nicodemus is a bit thick, because he doesn’t grasp that this might have symbolic or spiritual meaning and starts babbling about going back into your mother’s womb. Then Jesus tells him he needs to be born of water and Spirit – which, from our perspective, is a clear reference to baptism. Baptism is more than a symbol, it is a sacrament: but it has symbolic elements that are obvious, to people then as much as to us now – the water symbolises both washing away sin and also a drowning to the old self, after which the renewed person rises up afterwards.

Part of why this might have been difficult for Nicodemus is that, as we’ve already noted, he thought following God was all about keeping a set of God-given rules. What was all this business about being born again supposed to mean? Nicodemus was already a son of Abraham, known for being obedient and pious—wasn’t that enough?

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Where Did It All Go Wrong?: Sermon Preached on 22nd February 2026 (First Sunday of Lent)

Posted on February 22, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot and Christ Church, Bulkington

Romans 5. 12–19; Matthew 4. 1–11

“…just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”

A dramatic oil painting depicting the biblical scene of the Temptation of Christ. In the foreground, a solemn figure in flowing pale robes sits with downcast eyes and a weary, resolute expression, his long brown hair and beard framing a gaunt face marked by deep shadows beneath the eyes. Behind him, a sinister hooded figure draped entirely in black leans in close, one hand gripping the seated figure's shoulder in a possessive, intimate gesture, whispering with a sly, menacing expression partially obscured by the dark cowl. The background features a turbulent sky of deep amber and burnt orange tones, suggesting a desolate wilderness. A dark bird, likely a crow, flies in the distant right. The painting's photorealistic style and chiaroscuro lighting create an intense atmosphere of psychological tension between spiritual steadfastness and evil persuasion.

The Temptation of Christ,©Eric Armusik (2017). In a private collection.

Where did it all go wrong?

Tuesday marks the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The 2020s have been a bumpy decade. The horrors of the 7 October attacks were followed by the horrors of the Israeli assault on Gaza, where the 75,000 dead include 18,000 children. These terrible figures are still much smaller than the number of those killed in Sudan’s largely ignored civil war, or in Burma’s entirely ignored civil war, or the terrible war fought in Northern Ethiopia between 2020 and 2022, which you probably haven’t even heard of and which looks in serious danger of flaring up again.

The story of the human race is glory interspersed with horror. Capable of great feats of technology, and art, and most profoundly of all of great self-sacrificing love, it nonetheless seems to be our lot to descend from time to time into the pit. On the grandest of scales, the golden ages of nations and civilisation are followed by spells of decline and even ruinous destruction. Meanwhile, in our own lives we find that time and again we fail to live up to the high ideals which we wish to live by. Time and again, we do selfish and stupid and self-destructive things in ways that often leave us horrified and mystified afterwards. Worst of all, it seems to be upon those we love most deeply that we are capable of inflicting the most grievous wounds. No matter how hard we try to live truly good lives, some force seems to drag us down into the worst version of ourselves.

Where did it all go wrong?

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Give Up Illusions… And Sweeties: Sermon Preached on 18th February 2026 (Ash Wednesday)

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at Christ Church, Bulkington (Benefice Service)

2 Peter 1.16–21 ; John 8. 1-11

A close-up of a person's forehead marked with a dark ash cross, a traditional symbol applied during Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the Christian calendar. The cross is clearly defined against the person's pale skin, with brown hair visible at the top and edges of the frame.

I don’t know about you, but I have a pile of books that I still haven’t read sitting on the little table next to my armchair in the living room. And I also, on the little table on the other side of the armchair, have another pile of books that I still haven’t read.

I suspect I’m not the only person here like that.

Still and all, when I was doing my weekly radio review column for the Church Times on Monday, I heard a doctor in Scotland being interviewed about his new book, which is about the mental health crisis, and how the way we categorise poor mental health might lead us to underestimate the resilience of the mind. It came out literally just last week and I wanted to be one of the first people to own a copy, so off I popped to Mr Amazon.

Will I have time to read it? Of course not! I just wanted it!

When do you know you have enough? Much of our lives are built on an unspoken illusion: that if we just had a little more, we would finally feel secure. No matter how much we have, most people always just seem to want just a little bit more. And the little bit more is always justifiable in its own terms: just a little bit more financial security for my retirement, just a slightly bigger car so I can help ferry the grandkids around, and that long haul flight would be so much easier in Premium Economy. One of my parishioners told me yesterday that I wasn’t well paid. When I think back to my memories of my maternal grandmother, who died when I was seven—I’m rich beyond her wildest dreams.

We’re all fantastically rich compared to most people who have ever lived. Even kings and emperors for most of human existence lived with a burden of disease and early death of loved ones that is hard to imagine from our standpoint.

That’s why I think it does us so much good to give a few things up for Lent. When I think back to the Ash Wednesdays of my primary school days, Lent was all about what you gave up. I don’t think any of my childhood attempts to give up sweets and crisps lasted more than about 48 hours. Yet although even these little child’s gestures were beyond my capacity, they started being considered as insufficiently sophisticated as we got older.

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Heaven in Lidl Car Park: Sermon Preached on 15th February 2026 (Sunday Before Lent)

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at Holy Cross, Seend and St Peter’s, Poulshot

2 Peter 1.16–21 ; Matthew 17.1–9

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun.”

Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Lidl in Devizes transfigured? We don’t expect to see transfiguration when we’re running out to buy a packet of biscuits and a cheap bottle of wine… but it happens.

A Lidl supermarket sign is illuminated against a stunning twilight sky. The sign features the retailer's iconic yellow circular logo with the distinctive blue diamond and red "Lidl" text centered on it. The sign is mounted on black support posts atop a dark-colored building structure, creating a stark silhouette against the colorful backdrop. The sky displays a vibrant gradient of colors transitioning from deep purple at the top, through shades of pink and mauve in the middle, to warm orange and peachy tones near the horizon. The building's roofline is visible in the foreground, rendered as a dark shape against the luminous evening sky. The bright, backlit sign contrasts dramatically with the darkened storefront below, suggesting this photograph was taken during either dawn or dusk, capturing the store's entrance during the twilight hour. The image conveys a serene, atmospheric quality typical of golden hour photography.

“Branded Twilight”, © Derek Finch, 16 May 2025, used under Creative Commons Licence 4.0.

We all know what it is to drive down a familiar road, somewhere that’s a bit run-of-the-mill and isn’t exactly known for being pretty, and find that your eyes are suddenly open to a beauty that you hadn’t noticed before. Often it might be the way the Sun lights a long-familiar scene, especially in the golden hours around sunrise and sunset; or it might be the sudden appearance of a red kite or a lost pair of deer; or it might be the trees in autumn, and at this time of year it is often, of course, the flowers.

Well, Lidl looks very different in twilight, especially on one of those rare evenings when the clouds are lit crimson from below. When the conditions are like that, sometimes you find that for a minute or two, the strip lights in the store shine through the window with just the perfect cast to complement the clouds. I remember one night in particular, about three or four years ago, when I was doing my shopping just a little bit later in the year than this, and this wonderful sight was accompanied by a hint of springtime blossom on the breeze, and a blackbird was singing for the last time in the day before it went to sleep—and just for a brief moment, you could sense Heaven breaking into the car park of Lidl in Devizes.

In just the right circumstances, even the most banal of things can experience a transfiguration, reminding us that the whole of creation is supercharged with awe and wonder.

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Once Pentecostalism Rose in Latin America. Now the Churchless are Growing.

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

There are three great stories in the demographics of the Christian world over the last two generations. One was widely heralded and remains much discussed, the other two are much less so.

One, is of course, the secularisation of the West. The second, a big part of my academic work, is the explosion in Christian numbers in Africa: from around 60 million at independence to something like 700 million today. The third is the move of millions of Latin Americans from Catholicism to Protestantism, usually Charismatic and Pentecostal forms of Protestantism, since around 1970.[1] Evidence is starting to build that, starting in the 2010s, there has been a change in direction. Catholicism has continued to lose both nominal and active adherents, but those leaving were less inclined to move toward Evangelicalism than out of organised religion altogether.

David Martin’s Tongues of Fire (1990) was the one of the first serious academic works on the subject in the UK, and has a place of pride on my bookshelf; in the USA, David Stoll’s Is Latin America Turning Protestant? of the same year possibly had more impact.[2]

A group of Brazilian Pentecostal worshippers participates in a baptism ceremony at the River Jordan. In the shallow, murky brown water, several people dressed in white clothing gather around a man in a light blue shirt who appears to be leading the service. On the riverbank, observers dressed in casual attire hold smartphones and cameras to record the event. The scene captures a moment of religious celebration, with participants smiling and engaged. Vegetation lines the water's edge in the background. The photograph, taken on November 16, 2022, by photographer Gerry Lynch, documents this spiritual pilgrimage to one of Christianity's most sacred sites. The joyful expressions and communal participation reflect the significance of baptism within Pentecostal faith traditions.

Brazilian Pentecostals being baptised in the River Jordan. © Gerry Lynch, 16 November 2022.

The gathering turn to Protestantism emerged during a tumultuous period in Latin American Catholic life, with the rise of Liberation Theology among what had been a reactionary clerisy in the 1960s and then its shattering from above under the pontificate of John Paul II. While Liberation Theology claimed to speak for the poor, it was during its ascendancy that the continent’s impoverished legions, long underserved by priests, started looking elsewhere for spiritual sustenance. “The Catholics opted for the poor and the poor opted for Pentecostalism” runs the old canard.

But departures to Pentecostalism accelerated further in the decades since Latin American Catholicism’s renewed tack to the Right: and it was a modest tack – the shift should not be overstated; there was no return to the reaction of the first part of the 20th Century.

How great is the scale of the departure from Catholicism in Latin America? Catholic identification dropped from approximately 90% in the 1960s to 70% in 2010, and further to 57% by 2020.

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Snowdrops Signal a Pregnant Cosmos: Sermon Preached on 8th February 2026 (Second Sunday Before Lent)

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne

Romans 8.18–25; Matthew 6.25–34

“Consider the lilies of the field… they neither toil nor spin, yet… even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”

Salisbury Cathedral rises majestically against a brilliant blue sky scattered with a few wispy white clouds on this sunny February day. The pale limestone of the Early English Gothic masterpiece glows in the clear light, its intricate west front alive with pointed arches, traceried windows, statues, and ornate gables. Three towers anchor the structure, crowned by the cathedral’s world-famous central spire that tapers dramatically into the heavens. In the foreground a broad, vivid green lawn stretches toward the building, crossed by long, sharp shadows from bare winter trees. A handful of tiny figures stroll along the paths, giving scale to the immense architecture. The whole scene radiates serene, timeless grandeur in the crisp winter sunshine.

Salisbury Cathedral, 4 February 2026, by Gerry Lynch (public domain)

February can be an underrated month – although the weather hasn’t been too kind to us this year with the grey and the rain. But when we get a sunny, calm, day, like we had on Wednesday, it becomes clear that winter’s lease is running out. There is heat in the Sun—when it gets a chance. The days are getting rapidly longer: in these parts, daylight lengthens by over an hour and a half during February.

Most of all, it is the flowers that make this time of year. First the snowdrops, then the crocuses, then the primroses and the daffodils and all the rest of them pop up, long before the first buds appear on the trees. They cheer us up not only because they tell us that winter will soon be over, but also because they are so pretty.

Of course, these early flowers are important for practical reasons. Their nectar feeds honeybees and other insects that wake from hibernation early. Mice and voles feed on snowdrops; slugs and snails feed on the early flowers too, as they do on almost anything, and they in their turn feed creatures further up the food chain. But the beauty of the first flowers is a gift in and of itself.

Why should the concept of ‘beauty’ mean anything to us at all? What gives us a sense that some things are beautiful and others aren’t? It isn’t a matter of survival of the fittest in the game of evolution. I mean, daffodils are beautiful but I don’t recommend you try to eat them, not unless you want a trip to A&E. Lions and tigers and cheetahs are beautiful but, if you’re in nature, you don’t want to contemplate their beauty for all that long.

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Epiphanytide Reflection 2026

Posted on February 5, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

I wrote this short piece for the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education’s newsletter. I am sorry that it comes to you a few days after the end of the Epiphany season, but my laptop was stolen before I could upload it.

This Baroque-style oil painting shows the Adoration of the Magi. The Virgin Mary, haloed and serene, sits on steps cradling the infant Jesus, who reaches toward the visitors. Beside her, elderly bearded Joseph leans forward attentively.Three crowned kings approach in a classical portico with tall columns and distant domed buildings under a dramatic sky. The first, bearded, kneels offering a golden vessel on a platter. An older king kneels nearby with his gift. The prominent Black king, dark-skinned in rich red robe with white fur trim and pointed golden crown, stands reverently to the right, hands crossed, his jar of myrrh close by.Behind them, two harnessed camels and attendants wait, suggesting their long journey. The scene radiates reverence, exotic splendor, and divine homage.

Adoration of the Magi by El Greco (1568), Museo Soumaya, Mexico City.

Until Candlemas on 2 February, we are in the season of Epiphany, one of the neglected parts of the Church’s year.

At the Epiphany, the Wise Men bowed down and worshiped the infant Christ as divine while he was still in the manger. What is particularly significant about this is that the Wise Men were not Jewish: central to Christ’s mission was that He was to manifest God’s love for the whole human race as His children, and not just one ethnic or religious group. At Epiphany, we see Christ already fulfilling this aspect of His mission in infancy.

We tend not to think of Christian children as agents of Christian mission, but rather more as recipients of teaching and formation. There are good reasons why we hesitate about the idea – adults sometimes manipulate the natural enthusiasm and innocence of the young; also, many missional tasks are also inappropriate for the very young to engage in until they have reached a greater degree of emotional maturity and interpersonal sensitivity.

Yet, set alongside our heavenly Father, we are little children. We are all inadequate to the truth and goodness of God in all its fullness.

At a time when even in Church schools, children from Christian homes are in a small minority, every Christian child in this country today grows up learning how to live in a secularised, multi-faith, society. So that they can live well in such a society throughout their lives, it is good that we teach our children how to explain their faith and why it matters to them in a way that is full of kindness and gentleness and sensitive to the differences of others. As is so often the case, we might find we have as much to learn from them as to teach them.

Children are not the Church of tomorrow; they are the Church of today, in the pattern of Christ, who even in his cot was already saving the world at that first Epiphany.

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What if God was One of Us?: Sermon Preached on 1st February 2026 (Candlemas)

Posted on February 1, 2026 by Gerry Lynch

Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne; Christ Church, Worton; Holy Cross, Seend; and Christ Church, Bulkington

Hebrews 2. 14-18; Luke 2. 22-40

“Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

A 15th-century Northern Renaissance panel illustrates the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Candlemas, Luke 2:22–40). The scene is set in a Gothic temple interior with tall red marble columns, golden capitals, pointed arches, and small decorative windows featuring religious figures.From left to right: Joseph, wearing a green turban and maroon robe, holds a white dove and looks toward the center. Beside him, the veiled prophetess Anna gazes devoutly. At the heart, the Virgin Mary, in a rich red robe with gold trim and blue mantle, presents the nude infant Jesus, who sits on a draped ledge holding a small basket of two turtledoves; golden rays form His halo. Elderly Simeon, bearded and in an elaborate gray robe with gold and yellow accents, receives the child reverently, his own halo glowing. A tall candle or staff nearby symbolizes Christ as the light of the world.The composition creates a luminous, sacred atmosphere of prophecy and divine recognition.

Jacques Daret, The Presentation in the Temple (c. 1434-35), hangs in the Petit Palais, Paris.

I wonder how many of you know that 1990s hit song by Joan Osborne about God? You hear it on the radio quite often still, or playing in the supermarket when you do your shopping. It goes like this:

♫“What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?”♪♫

I’m not sure the word slob is appropriate, but one thing that makes Christianity unique among religions is that Christians believe that God really was one of us. Maybe not a slob, but one who did all the normal human things, including going to the loo and blowing His nose, and sometimes being afraid, and being tempted to do things that were wrong.

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