Month: March 2025

Hope for the Bad Guys: Sermon Preached on 30th March 2025 (Fourth Sunday in Lent)

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A painting by Giovanni Paolo Pannini of St Paul preaching in what purported to be the ruins of Rome, although there wouldn't have been such ruins in St Paul's day!

Preached at St Mary the Virgin, Bishops Cannings (Devizes Deanery Evensong)

Prayer of Manasseh; 2 Timothy 4. 1-8

“Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works!”

Karel van Mander Manasseh, Repentant Sinner from the Old Testament (1596). In the collection of the Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Have you ever heard of Manasseh, whose prayer was our first reading this evening? He is one of the main bad guys in the Old Testament—or at least he started out that way. He became the King of Judah when the great prophet Isaiah was an old man. Unlike his father, Hezekiah, who had been a pious man, Manasseh was an open worshipper of idols who abandoned many of the most important tenets of the religion of Moses, David, and Solomon. Although Isaiah’s end is not recorded in the Bible, there is an ancient Jewish tradition, going back many centuries before Christ, the Manasseh had Isaiah executed by sawing him in two. He had evidently spoken too many truths for the comfort of the new man in power.

Now, I wonder how many of you had even heard of the Prayer of Manasseh before this evening, let alone that the Church of England lectionary occasionally sets it as a reading in church? The Prayer of Manasseh comes from the collection of writings known as the Apocrypha, which your Bible may or may not include—although if you’re an Anglican, it should include it. The Thirty-Nine Articles say that the Church should read from the Apocrypha “for example of life and instruction of manners”, but that they cannot be used to establish any doctrine. They are enlightening writings to read, but don’t have the weight in Christian teaching of canonical Scripture. The New Testament contains many references the Apocrypha, and these writings enjoyed a prominent place in the early church.

Interestingly while some parts of what we Anglicans call the Apocrypha are regarded as fully part of the Old Testament in Roman Catholic teaching, the Prayer of Manasseh isn’t among them. It has roughly the same status in Roman Catholic teaching as it does for Anglicans. But it is fully part of the Old Testament for some our Orthodox brethren, and this long prayer of forgiveness for the gravest of sins is used in the Orthodox liturgy for compline, or night prayer.

After some decades of ruling Judah in an ungodly way, Manasseh was captured by the Assyrians and taken away in chains. The Second Book of Chronicles records that in prison in Babylon, Manasseh returned to the fear of the Lord, after which he was released and restored to his throne. This is supposedly the prayer he prayed in jail.

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The Tough Message of Mother’s Day: Sermon Preached on 30th March 2025 (Mothering Sunday)

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A classic rood screen, late Victorian, with Mary and St John both facing the nave along with Christ, St Mary to the left.

Preached at Christ Church, Worton and Holy Cross, Seend

Colossians 3. 12-17; John 19. 25-27

“…he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’”

A painting depicts a somber scene of the Crucifixion. At the center, a figure is nailed to a wooden cross, wearing a white cloth around the waist. The sky is dark and stormy, adding to the dramatic atmosphere. Below the cross, several figures are gathered, dressed in robes typical of ancient times. A woman in a striped robe kneels at the base of the cross, her head bowed in grief. To her left, another figure in a white robe stands with hands clasped, looking up at the cross. To the right, a woman in a light blue and white robe also gazes upward, her expression one of sorrow. In the background, other figures, including soldiers in armor and onlookers, observe the scene. The ground is rocky and barren, emphasizing the bleakness of the moment.
James Tissot, “Woman Behold Thy Son” (1886-94), in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

Sometimes you’ll hear people complain that Mother’s Day, a modern commercial invention, has eclipsed Mothering Sunday, the traditional celebration kept on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, which is today. Mothering Sunday was traditionally the time that people who worked a long way from their homes came back to their “mother church”, the place where they were baptised and became a child of the Church. Of course, as a result, they had a chance to see their families. You’ll most often hear the complaint about Mothering Sunday being abandoned from a certain type of slightly grumpy old-fashioned High Church clergyman. Although I am very much such a grumpy old-fashioned High Church clergyman, I am in fact quite strongly in favour of Mother’s Day and that we keep it in church.

You see, Mother’s Day does two things at one—certainly it speaks into our own lives and our own families. Yet it also speaks into one of the beliefs about God and the universe that makes Christianity truly unique—that Jesus Christ is God made human. Jesus Christ is God, every bit as much as the Father, the maker of the universe, and every bit as much as the Holy Spirit, the mysterious force of life and love which circulates everywhere, and which we find rather difficult to understand. For Christians, Jesus Christ is not just a wise and holy teacher, and not even a prophet, but God Himself.

You may be wondering how Mother’s Day speaks into this. We see it in today’s very short Gospel reading—the incredible, horrendous, scene on Cross where Jesus, close to death, has been abandoned by all His followers except for four women, including His mother, and ‘the disciple he loved’ – generally assumed to be St John the Evangelist. Jesus asks John to take care of his mother. Think of what’s going on here: Jesus must be in physical agony, exhausted and close to death, and His main concern is the welfare of his mother. When we think of ‘the love of God’, we tend to think of something remote and abstract, perhaps even a bit overwhelming and frightening. But this isn’t remote or abstract love—it isn’t love for a great principle or a sort of universal love for all of humanity, wonderful and important as these things are. This is the love of one person in particular for another actual person, in the face of death. Most of us have experienced the sheer intensity of love when someone we love is dying; it can be overwhelming even when it doesn’t involve a brutal public execution. This is what God’s love is like—so intense it can be overwhelming, and felt for you in particular.

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Time to Change Direction?: Sermon Preached on 23rd March 2025 (Third Sunday in Lent)

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Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot and St Mary’s, Potterne

1 Corinthians 10.1-13; Luke 13.1-9

“but unless you repent, you will all perish

If I’m being honest, I didn’t much like today’s readings when I sat down to prepare my sermon. ‘I know it’s Lent’, I thought to myself, ‘but surely we could have been set something a bit more hopeful than these.’ I’m not sure that I enjoy them any the more this morning.

A painting depicts a snow-covered medieval-style building, likely a church or cathedral, with a tall tower and a steeply pitched roof. The structure is made of dark stone, with small arched windows and a set of steps leading up to an entrance. A lone figure in a black cloak stands in the foreground, facing the building. The scene is set during a snowy day, with snowflakes falling and accumulating on the ground and rooftops. The sky is overcast with dark, moody clouds, and in the background, there are more buildings and a hilly landscape, also dusted with snow. The overall atmosphere is cold and sombre.
Repentance, by
Nicholas Roerich (1917). Hangs in the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York City.

But real religion, which actually sheds light on the human condition, is more than uplifting spiritual Prozac. I don’t think you’re always meant to enjoy what you read in the Bible, or always to be lifted up by it. Some of the most important things for healthy and wholesome life aren’t uplifting—like going to the dentist, or eating your greens.

A Bible that only ever gave us a lift would be a Bible that only made sense in a world where everything always turned out right in the end. But the good guys don’t always win, mistakes sometimes have awful consequences, and sometimes life is just hard.

These are also an awkward pair of readings to preach 0n because they seem to disagree with each other. St Paul warns that those who stray from God’s path risk being punished by Him; Jesus, in contrast, says the victims of a building collapse were no more sinners than anyone else, and nor were the victims of persecution by the tyrannical King Herod.

Scripture isn’t a soloist, it’s a choir. If we take seriously the idea that the Bible was inspired by God, then we also need to take seriously that God caused it be written in the messy form it actually takes. If the Bible is a choir, then sometimes it sings like a Palestrina Mass, all pure intervals and authentic cadences. And sometimes the chords of Scripture’s harmonies are more challenging, like something you’d hear from Shostakovich or Benjamin Britten, or even like Schoenberg and Stockhausen. Sometimes the Bible has to speak into the dissonance that is part of real life. Sometimes the Bible has to speak into lives that have no easy answers; into our lives when there are no easy answers.

So, to understand what God is saying to us through His written Word in our own lives, in our own time and place, we need patient discernment, to listen to what God is saying through the bits that sit least comfortably with one another, and the bits that sit least comfortably with us. We need humility too, because we may not always understand what God is saying to us through the Bible. We also need to understand that what God says to us may change through our lives as we change—today’s life-giving new insight may become stale and deadening over time. God may often ask us to change direction.

And that’s where we see the harmony in this awkward pairing of readings. Both agree that the Christian life is about repentance. Repentance is a very loaded word, but it simply means to turn around, and start living as God calls us to. Repentance should be a journey that lasts throughout our lives, and it may be one where we may need to change direction repeatedly to get to where God is calling us. Sometimes following God’s call is like driving at seventy on a motorway—but usually it’s like finding our way through a maze of winding lanes that twist and turn. God never changes, but the world changes and we change—or we should change, or else we become stale.

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New Life and the Cross: Sermon Preached on 16th March 2025 (Second Sunday in Lent)

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A serene churchyard scene features several weathered stone gravestones of varying shapes, some with rounded tops, standing amidst a vibrant field of wildflowers. The ground is covered with a dense carpet of yellow daffodils and purple-blue flowers, interspersed with green grass. In the background, a large tree with a thick trunk is partially visible, adding to the peaceful, natural setting. The sunlight illuminates the scene, highlighting the delicate blooms and the aged texture of the gravestones, creating a tranquil and reflective atmosphere.

Preached at Christ Church, Bulkington and Holy Cross, Seend

Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

“For many live as enemies of the cross … their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven.”

A picturesque scene features a historic stone church with a tall, ornate tower and large arched windows, bathed in warm, golden sunlight. The church, St Mary's in Potterne, sits atop a gentle hill covered in lush green grass dotted with small yellow and pink wildflowers, possibly primroses. In the foreground, two leafless, gnarled trees with thick trunks stand on the hillside, adding a rustic charm. The sky above is clear with a soft gradient of blue, suggesting either sunrise or sunset. In the background, a red-brick cottage with chimneys peeks out, enhancing the serene, pastoral atmosphere of this springtime setting.
Potterne churchyard at sunset, 15 March 2025 © Gerry Lynch.

March can be a cold month but it’s full of new life. The song birds are in full cry as they stake out their territory for the year, but most of all it’s the flowers that catch the eye at the moment. The primroses and the daffodils are at their finest, adding dashes of yellow everywhere.

The natural beauties of the springtime raise our spirits and fill us with joy. But why should we find them beautiful? After all, if the cold, scientific account of human nature favoured by people like Richard Dawkins is correct, human beings are nothing more than the product of billions of years of random mutations and the survival of the fittest. In this view, everything that we are has evolved over time to do only one thing—to ensure we pass on our genes to the next generation. If that is true, it makes perfect sense that we find (some) people beautiful – for this helps us find a fit mate who will give us the best chance of producing offspring who will themselves survive.

But it makes no sense that we find daffodils and primroses beautiful. We don’t eat them, or their seeds and bulbs—in fact, they could make us quite ill. Of course, they’re very important to our survival because, flowering so early, they’re a critical nectar and pollen source for bumblebees and honeybees emerging from hibernation. But we didn’t need to worry about the survival of the pollinators until very recently.

It makes no sense that we find these flowers beautiful. Still less does it make sense for us to find music beautiful, or a handsome piece of furniture, or a great cathedral.

It makes no sense unless, of course, our lives have some sort of deeper meaning than mere survival, and we human beings are more than biological robots. We all know, I think, that we are made for more than that. When we look at the stars on a clear night we know instinctively that beauty is written into the meaning of the universe.

Our instinct for beauty is a sign that we were made for more than just life in time and space and matter.

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Faith in a Geopolitical Wilderness: Sermon Preached on 9th March 2025 (First Sunday in Lent)

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A wide desert landscape under a clear blue sky, with scattered dry, golden-brown shrubs dotting the sandy terrain. In the background, a range of rugged, brown mountains stretches across the horizon, creating a stark contrast with the flat, arid foreground.

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

Romans 10. 8b-13; Luke 4. 1-13     

“Jesus… was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

In the wilderness, the rules and habits that helped us to flourish in civilised life no longer work; in fact, they can be a hindrance to survival. In the wilderness, we are thrown back entirely on our own resources. There is nobody to help us—except, of course, for God. The wilderness can kill us—or we can use it to allow our illusions about ourselves and the world to die. We can use it to teach us to trust in God, and God alone.

A barren desert landscape featuring a twisted, leafless tree with sprawling branches in the foreground. The ground is covered with dry, sparse vegetation and sandy soil. In the background, rugged, layered mountains rise under a vibrant blue sky with wispy, streaked clouds. Explain desert ecosystems Discuss desert photography
In the wilderness, Tankwa Karoo National Park, South Africa © Gerry Lynch, 27 January 2025

“We now live in a geopolitical wilderness where the post-Cold War order has collapsed.” I last used that phrase in a sermon three years and three days ago, on the First Sunday in Lent 2022, when we last had this pair of readings set for us. That was less than a fortnight after Russia launched its massive invasion of Ukraine. It is even more obvious today that the assumptions most of us held about the nature of the 21st Century world have turned out to be illusions.

We hear that frightening geopolitical wilderness reported every day in the news bulletins, so let us keep it in mind as we turn to today’s Gospel reading, for its detail is easy to overlook. 

Christ is challenged with three very specific temptations: the temptation to put worldly comfort before the Mission given to Him by His Father, symbolised by turning stones into bread; the temptation to take no responsibility for His own wellbeing, abusing God’s care for Him, symbolised by throwing Himself from a building and trusting in angels to catch Him; and the temptation to take power Himself as the solution for all the world’s problems, at the price of worshipping Satan.

These events take place immediately after Jesus was baptised by John, and immediately before He began His ministry of healing and teaching in Galilee. It is seems Christ, truly human as well as truly God, had to confront these temptations before He could brave the crowds who would for a time cheer Him as a wonder-worker, crowds who would try to seize him by force and make Him king.

Christian leaders in every age must confront these three temptations: the temptation to use the Faith as a means of obtaining worldly comfort; the temptation to hide behind the Faith as a means of avoiding personal responsibility; and the temptation to see the Faith as a means of solving the world’s problems.

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Mercy Transcends Justice: Sermon Preached on 5th March 2025 (Ash Wednesday)

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A black-and-white photograph of a rural landscape featuring a wide, open field with a dirt path running through it. The field is bordered by a line of bare, leafless trees and dense shrubs, with rolling hills visible in the background under a cloudy sky. The scene evokes a quiet, wintry or early spring countryside setting.

Preached at St Mary’s Potterne

Joel 2. 1-2, 12-17; John 8. 1-11

“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Ash Wednesday—a day when we think about our sinfulness. Is that depressing?

This painting depicts a religious scene set on a rocky mountaintop, featuring Jesus Christ in a blue robe with a red inner garment, standing on a peak and pointing towards a dark, winged figure representing Satan. Jesus has a golden halo around his head, symbolizing his divinity. Two other figures, likely angels, dressed in flowing robes, stand behind him, observing the scene. The background includes a golden sky and a detailed, colorful cityscape with fortified walls, towers, and domed buildings, painted in pastel shades of pink, green, and blue, extending across the hills. The overall style is reminiscent of medieval or Renaissance religious art, with a focus on spiritual symbolism and dramatic contrast between the figures.
The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain by Duccio (1308-11), originally part of an altarpiece in Siena Cathedral, now part of the Frick Collection, New York.

Well, I think it’s only depressing if we forget that thinking about our sinfulness is also an opportunity to think about God’s mercy. There’s a phrase I often use, that expresses one of the central truths of the Christian faith—God came to save us in the person of Jesus Christ not because we are good, but because He is love. We don’t save ourselves by being just about good enough to reach a pass mark for heaven set by a cosmic headmaster—instead God saves us out of His mercy.

I don’t think there’s enough mercy in the world. Mercy is easy to misrepresent as something soft-headed. One of the problems with the culture of our times, which is driven by what happens online, is that it usually lacks mercy. I think there are two main reasons for that. One is that most of us don’t realise when we type angrily behind our screens that there is a real person at the other end of the Internet receiving that anger. But this lack of mercy is also because on the Internet we’re always looking over our shoulders to see if what we’re doing is sensible and socially acceptable. Social media is a great X-ray machine into human psychology and it shows us that mercy is often seen as weak on transgressors and, in times of conflict, that exercising mercy is seen as letting the side down. This hostility to actually showing mercy is as prevalent among those who like to think of their attitudes as embodying kindness and concern for the marginalised as much as it is among the rest of us.

But that is to misunderstand mercy. When we show mercy, we don’t have to pretend that wrong has not been done to us. We show mercy when we choose not to take up the redress or vindication that would quite rightly be ours.

Perhaps in recent times, the Church has focused too narrowly on the idea of justice. Now, justice is a wonderful thing and I would hardly argue against it. But few of us would want to be on the receiving end of an entirely fair share of God’s justice for the worst things we’ve done in our lives. And there are other great aspects of human character, besides justice, to which Christians are called to live out. We all need mercy sometimes. If justice isn’t tempered by mercy, it can be a cold and even cruel thing.

Mercy transcends justice. When we are merciful we touch God’s nature.

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