sermon

Persistence: Sermon Preached on 19th October 2025 (Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity)

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Preached at Holy Cross, Seend

2 Timothy 3.14 – 4.5; Luke 18.1–8

“Preach the word… in season, out of season”

Do you want to be a record breaker? For me, it all depends what sort of record I might be breaking. I wouldn’t to be like former Nottingham Forest manager Ange Postecoglou, sacked yesterday just 39 days after being appointed, and setting a new record for brevity of managerial tenure in the English Premier League.

Perhaps Mr Postecoglou might take comfort from the fact that he is probably the victim of forces well beyond his own control—a short-termist mentality that demands instant results, which has been produced by a culture that promises instant gratification, as long as we have the money to pay for it.

A classical painting depicting an elderly woman dressed in a dark robe and white headscarf, sitting and holding a young child who is nestled against her. The child, wearing a golden robe, is reading or holding a small book. The background is dark and muted, with warm lighting highlighting the figures' faces and clothing.
William Drost, Timothy With His Grandmother, Lois (early 1650s). hangs in the Hermitage, St Petersburg.

Today’s readings, although different in terms of form and style, both commend to us a different approach to life—one of constancy and persistence, especially when it comes to our Christian Faith.

Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy is written in the style of an old man, realising he is nearing the end of his life, giving advice to a younger protégé. Timothy has clearly been earmarked by Paul as a future Church leader, and his background contrasts dramatically with the first generation of Christian leaders, who all started following Christ as adults, many of them literally following Jesus Christ around the Holy Land while he walked the Earth. Timothy, in contrast, was born into a Christian family, and Paul seems to think His backbone needs a little stiffening.

We see another change—the earliest Christians expected Jesus to return and enact the Last Judgement very soon; in this passage, we get signs that they are starting to realise this Christianity business is for the long haul.

So Paul writes: “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season”. ‘Instant’ in the language of the Authorised Version means persistent; Timothy is to be persistent in preaching the Gospel even when it feels like he isn’t getting anywhere, and even when people who had been faithful Christians get distracted and drift into believing myths that seem to be Christian on the surface but lose the true essence of the Faith at their core.

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Be Like This Dirty Foreigner: Sermon Preached on 12th October 2025 (Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity)

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A painting featuring a group of figures dressed in elaborate, tattered white robes with raised hands, holding staffs adorned with bells and vines. They appear to be in motion, reaching out toward a single figure on the right, also in white robes, standing with arms outstretched against a grayish background. The scene has a mystical and dynamic feel.

Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne

2 Timothy 2. 8-15; Luke 17. 11-19

“He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.”

Whom do you hate?

A painting depicting a group of people in colorful, tattered clothing kneeling and reaching out with raised hands on a grassy hill. In the background, a figure in a white robe stands alone, with a soft, glowing sky above. A few shadowy figures are visible further back on the hill. The scene conveys a sense of reverence and awe.
Gebhard Fugel, Ten Lepers Call Out to Jesus (1920), hangs in the Diocesan Museum of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, in Freising.

Do you hate Muslims?

Do you hate… Tories?

Do you hate Black people? Do you hate posh people? Do you hate Nigel Farage? Do you, well, want to make clear you’re not anti-Semitic, of course, but actually you hate the Israelis? Or do you hate sanctimonious lefty-liberals who have self-righteousness like other people have bad breath?

We all have a little bit of hatred for somebody or other tucked away in us somewhere. None of us is all-kind and all-loving all the time. We all form in-groups and out-groups—that’s just part of human nature. We can’t possibly know everything we need to know to make a judgement as to whether to trust somebody we’ve just met, so we all look for shortcuts to help us form a view of them. Although our higher aspirations rightly make us try to suppress these instincts, it’s not always easy to navigate the world without them, and they aren’t easy to control.

For the Jews of Jesus’ time and place, the people they hated were the Samaritans. Their religion was very similar to that of the Jews, but that just made the ways in which it was slightly different even more upsetting. Unlike the Jews, the Samaritans hadn’t been sent into exile by the Babylonians, but had always lived in the Holy Land— so as far as the Samaritans were concerned, they were the true descendants of Moses and David, while the Jews were the people whose religion had been corrupted by funny foreign ideas.

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Wait Patiently in Faith: Sermon Preached on 5th October 2025 (Sixteenth Sunday After Trinity)

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Preached at Christ Church, Worton and Christ Church, Bulkington

Habakkuk 1.1-4, 2.1-4; Luke 17. 5-10

“I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.”

“Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place. Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head.” That’s a translation from the Bible version known as ‘The Message’ of the first of our readings today. It was penned by the prophet Habakkuk (isn’t that a great name) in what turned out to be the years just before an era came to an end; something that Habakkuk seems to have understood even as most of those around him scoffed. He wrote at a time when standards had collapsed, when wrongdoers seemed to get whatever they wanted and ordinary people saw no justice, when neighbours were bitterly divided from one another. Nobody really knew how to turn the country round from the decline it had settled into.

An old black-and-white illustration depicting a dramatic scene with a person standing on a rooftop, arms raised, overlooking a city with domed buildings. In the background, a hilltop fortress is engulfed in flames and smoke, suggesting a battle or destruction. Another figure is crouched nearby, and the sky is filled with dark, swirling clouds.
Jerusalem is On Fire, from the Art Bible (1896) – public domain image.

Truly, Habakuk was a prophet for our times—but He wrote around the year 600 BC in the Kingdom of Judah. He didn’t know that the Fall of Jerusalem was only a few years in the future, but knew his society was in trouble. Yet he also had faith that his people weren’t coming to the end a story, but merely the end of a chapter. Despite the state of his country, Habakuk still watched and waited for God to speak to him. He didn’t lose faith. And God did indeed speak to him. God told Habakkuk to do something that is now very unfashionable – to wait! – to be patient, for God would indeed grant His people a vision of a better future, but only at the appointed time.

We live at a time when everyone in public life is expected to give an instant reaction to every issue under the Sun, and this reaction has to fit in a two-sentence tweet or thirty-second video on TikTok. We demand our politicians tells us their views about sport and the entertainment business, ridiculing them if they confess to being uninterested in football or too serious-minded for the soaps. At the same time, we demand sportspeople and singers and actors give us their political opinions and act as our moral leaders. Serious problems are trivialised, while trivia is elevated

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How to Win by Embracing Failure: Sermon Preached on 14th September 2025 (Holy Cross Day)

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

Philippians 2. 6-11, John 3. 3-17

“Christ… became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

A religious sculpture set within a stone archway, featuring a central wooden crucifix with a figure of Jesus Christ, flanked by two standing figures, likely the Virgin Mary and Saint John, all crafted in a stylized, weathered material. The scene is illuminated by soft lighting against a textured wall background.
The modernist rood in the Augustinerkirche, an Old Catholic parish church in Zürich. © Gerry Lynch, 11 July 2019.

You lot are a bunch of failures! A load of hypocrites who often do things against your own principles, and fail to deliver what you say you’ll do. Fair weather Christians who cave in too easily when the going gets tough. More than that, I know that at least some of you are here in Church today for decidedly mixed motives.

Don’t think you can try to hoodwink me, because I know all those things to be the case. I know they’re true, because they’re true of me also. And if we read the Bible, we find all that was true of the apostles, of Peter and James and all that lot, and that’s before we even begin talking about St Paul. And that is one of the most important things about Christianity—it’s not, despite what the Good Friday hymn says, a religion that promises to make us good; it’s a religion that makes promises to people who often aren’t very good.

So let me wish you a happy Holy Cross day!—For that is why I started my sermon in the way I did. The Cross has become probably the most successful visual brand in history, and that’s why we often miss that it’s actually a symbol of human failure. God walked among us in the person of Jesus Christ, actual God, healing and teaching and refusing both power and violence, and we put Him to death in one of the most horrific ways possible. We put Him to death in part because He told the truth, and we often hate the truth. Cosy lies often seem more comforting that the sometimes harsh cleanser that is truth. But we’ll come back to that.

The Cross upends everything. That’s the point of it. The means symbol Christ’s defeat is actually the means of his victory, and the symbol of our failure is actually the means of our liberation. The major part of that liberation we will experience only in the world to come, which the Cross opens to us. But some of that liberation we experience in the here and now, in the freedom from needing to be perfect the Cross provides.

I mean, would you have been one of the few who stayed by Jesus’ side even on the Cross? Would you have been with John and that handful of women? I’ve actually met a few of people who thought they would have done – who really thought they’d have managed what Peter and James and Thomas couldn’t do – and all have been the most egotistical pillocks, lacking all self-awareness. The rest of us know better than that. It is at the Cross that our delusions must die—and strangely, it is precisely knowing that we would have failed then, just as we so often do in our day-to-day lives, that liberates us to accept the flawed real people we are, the real people that God loves as they are.

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Should You Hate Your Mum?: Sermon Preached on 7th September 2025 (Twelfth Sunday After Trinity)

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Underneath a partially cloudy sky, hillocks of sand with very little vegetation, stretching far into the distance, although a few tall buildings are just visible on the far horizon.

Preached at Christ Church, Worton; Holy Cross, Seend; and Christ Church, Bulkington

Philemon 1–21; Luke 14. 25-33

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children … cannot be my disciple.”

So, should you really hate your Mum because Jesus told you to?

As a priest, one sometimes gets invited into intimate and difficult bits of people’s lives. Most of that work isn’t appropriate to talk about in front of others, even in private, but you’ll not be surprised to learn that not every family is a happy one. Sure, every family has unhappy aspects and difficult dynamics, yours and mine and everyone else’s, but some are much more difficult than others. Despite that, it’s exceptionally rare to find people who actually hate their mothers, and when one does, it’s quite an unsettling experience. And as for people who hate their children, well that’s what we have social services for!

A classical painting depicting a biblical scene with Jesus at the center, dressed in a red and green robe, surrounded by several figures including disciples and a crowd. He is shown interacting with children, one of whom offers a basket of bread or fruit. A small white dog stands nearby. The crowd, composed of men, women, and children in colorful robes and head coverings, is gathered around, some reaching out or sitting on the ground.
Christ Preaching to the Multitudes by Follower of Tintoretto, late 16th Century.

In fact, the Ten Commandments tell us to honour our Father and Mother. So what is Jesus playing at here? Is this just a bit of hyperbole, saying things that are completely over the top to grab our attention? We should never forget the Gospels are full of examples of Jesus cracking jokes, teasing people, and being sarcastic.

So is what this reading is about, then? When Jesus says you need to give up everything to follow Him, is it actually all exaggerated and sarcastic, so He doesn’t really mean you have to give up absolutely everything, but maybe quite a lot of stuff? Maybe you need to be ready to hate your mother but only if she’s standing between you and following Jesus, or something like that?

I’ve heard that sort of sermon preached on this passage and…? I mean, OK, I suppose… It just feels a bit flat to tell you that Jesus’ message here is to give up lots of things to follow Him but not actually everything because He was just exaggerating to keep the crowd interested. Frankly, that interpretation leaves me wondering why Jesus of Nazareth, one of history’s great public communicators, had such a bad day at the office. It’s like watching Lionel Messi miss a penalty or something.

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Made to Flourish as Ourselves: Sermon Preached on 31st August 2025 (Eleventh Sunday After Trinity)

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A wide field with golden hay bales scattered across the landscape, a blue tractor with a loader stacking bales in the center, and a gentle hill covered with green bushes and trees in the background under a cloudy sky.

Preached at St John’s, Devizes (Deanery Evensong)

Isaiah 33. 13-22; John 3. 22-36

“For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Before I came to live in the countryside, I didn’t really appreciate that there are many different harvests across the year. I mean, I sort of theoretically knew that, but I hadn’t quite twigged that the garlic is gathered in the spring but maize not until Hallowe’en. I only remembered that blackberries came in August because when I was a boy one of my uncles would take us up the high hills that overlook Belfast to pick huge bags full of them. It was a regular summer holiday activity which has buried itself deep in my memories.

A vast golden field of harvested grain stretches across the foreground, dotted with several large, cylindrical hay bales scattered at varying distances. In the midground, a solitary green tree stands prominently on a gentle hill lined with bushes and more trees. The sky above is dramatic, filled with heavy, dark gray storm clouds, with patches of blue sky and sunlight breaking through on the right, casting a warm glow over the landscape.
Harvested fields near All Cannings, Wiltshire, 14 July 2025. © Gerry Lynch

Not until I came to spend my working life driving between the fields in this area, and so many long days walking among them for pleasure, did I really start to understand the rhythm of the agricultural year. So divorced can modern humanity be from the food that sustains it.

Just as crops ripen each in its own season, so every year is different. This year, of course, we have had one of the worst droughts on record. But one of my neighbours in Potterne has just given me some of the most beautiful plums from her trees. In conditions where one crop struggles, another will flourish.

And different crops flourish in different types of soil too—some varieties of grape like sandy soil, others prefer chalk or loam. That’s one reason why wine has such varied flavours. This is one of the glories of God’s creation. God didn’t give us a wonder crop, a sort of manna that could flourish anywhere, but many different kinds of crops not only to flourish in different environments, but to enrich our lives with their flavours and scents.

So each of us is designed to designed to flower, mature, and ripen in different ways and in different contexts. Each of us is made to play a distinct role in the human ecology of our societies and to play a distinct role in the life of the Church. It would be no more a good thing to see every Christian and every congregation being the same than it would be to go to the market and see only one kind of vegetable on sale.

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Is Doing Good Enough?: Sermon Preached on 31st August 2025 (Eleventh Sunday After Trinity)

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A serene river flows through a lush, green landscape, flanked by dense vegetation and trees on both sides. The water reflects the surrounding greenery and the soft light of a sunset or sunrise, creating a peaceful scene.

Preached at Holy Cross, Seend (Benefice Service)

Hebrews 13. 1-8, 15-16; Luke 14. 1, 7-14

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid; what can anyone do to me?”

If you’ve ever wondered what a preacher does during the sermon, it’s to try and make sense of the passages of the Bible that are read at that particular church service, and connect them to the world we live in. So here we go.

A historic stone church with Gothic architectural features, including pointed arches and a tall tower with a clock. The church is surrounded by a well-maintained graveyard with weathered tombstones and lush greenery, including trees and flowering plants. A stone pathway leads to the wooden entrance door, and the scene is lit by soft evening light.
It was lovely to have such a good congregation in this gem for our Benefice Service. (Holy Cross, Seend in evening twilight, 11 July 2025, © Gerry Lynch.)

Are you worried about the state of the world? Does the news from Ukraine and Gaza make you anxious and depressed about the state of the human race? Does the state of this country worry you? If so, you are certainly not alone!

This is hardly unique to our times too. Some of the Hebrews to whom the first of this morning’s Bible readings was addressed must have been worried. We know that because the letter tells them not to worry!

It was written when the Church was very new, perhaps 30 or 40 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the Christians were a tiny and often mistreated group who had much to worry about in their lives. This long letter is full of intricate and beautiful theological and philosophical thinking, but our reading came from a section towards the end, which instead supplied practical instructions about living a good Christian life—one full of love for other Christians, hospitality to strangers, care for those in prison, faithfulness in marriage, and contentment with what one has.

That sort of practical Christianity is a big part of what village Anglicanism should be about.[1] Not showy, not loud – but being a community rooted in hospitality where people care about one another and seek to do good for our neighbours in a very individualistic world.

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Unknown Bartholomew is the Saint for Our Times: Sermon Preached on 24th August 2025 (St Bartholomew)

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A row of six colorful pop art portraits in the style of Andy Warhol. From left to right: a man in a yellow and green outfit with a red background, a blonde woman with a pink and blue face against a peach background, a woman with black hair and a pink face on a beige background, a bald man in a red suit with a yellow face, a man with dark hair and a beard shirtless with a yellow background, and a man with short hair and a brown face on a yellow background.

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

Acts 5. 12-16; Luke 22. 24-30

“A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest.”

A decorative wall plaque shaped like a shield, painted teal blue, with three vertical knives mounted side by side. Each knife has a braided brown handle topped with a gold cap and a slightly curved, weathered silver blade pointing downward.
A shield with the Symbol of St Bartholomew in the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, Pennsylvania, USA.

We know almost nothing about St Bartholomew, yet he is hugely relevant to how we should live our lives in the 21st century. If that seems like a contradiction in terms, please let me explain.

Here’s what little we do know about St Bartholomew. He is mentioned by all three synoptic Gospels – that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke – as one of the Twelve Apostles. He is also mentioned in Acts, as one of the apostles who gathered in Jerusalem after the Ascension to choose Judas Iscariot’s replacement, so he was clearly a significant figure in the very early Church. Apart from that, we know nothing for certain – except for one thing: Bartholomew was a surname, because “Bar” literally means “son”—so he was the Son of Ptolemy.

While Bartholomew is mentioned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts – that name isn’t mentioned in John. But because Bartholomew is a surname, we are pretty sure that he is the same person as someone who is named in John’s Gospel and only there, and who like Bartholomew is always paired with Phillip when he appears—and that is Nathaniel. So he was probably named Nathaniel Bartholomew.

John’s Gospel tells of Philip bringing Nathanael to Jesus, who said he was an Israelite without deceit—which was very generous of Jesus, as Nathaniel’s first reaction to Philip telling Him about Jesus was to ask if anything good could come from Nazareth. But when Bartholomew did meet Jesus, he recognised him immediately as the Son of God.

Some stories have come down to us about Bartholomew’s later life. It is said that he spread the Gospel beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire. Firstly, he is said to have gone far to the east, perhaps even as far as India; then he went to Armenia, which we know was one of the first countries in the world to have a substantial Christian presence. But these stories vary considerably in their details, and none of them seems to have been written down until the 4th century, so we’re not entirely sure what the truth of Bartholomew’s later life was. All of the accounts agree that he was martyred somewhere in Greater Armenia, probably around the year 70.

In the West, it was always believed that Bartholomew was flayed alive, which is why his symbol is three knives, one on top of the other. You’ll see it on churches and other institutions dedicated to him, as well as in windows of the twelve apostles. Even by the standards of the apostles this was a pretty gruesome death.

We don’t know whether or not Bartholomew ever married and had children. We don’t know the details of his journeys, or if he made any converts. His life may have been, by any reasonable standards, a complete failure. Yet, still, the Churches still have a special day to commemorate Him 2,000 years later.

Why is all this relevant to our lives today?

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Can You See Love?: Sermon Preached on 10th August 2025 (Eighth Sunday After Trinity)

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Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne

Hebrews 11.1–3, 8–16; Luke 12.32–40

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

The image is a medieval-style illustration divided into four panels, framed with ornate floral and geometric borders. The top left panel shows a tree with various animals, including a lion, a horse, and a dog, climbing or interacting with it. The top right panel depicts a figure in a red robe standing on a structure resembling a tower or castle, holding a book or tablet. The bottom left panel features a figure in a yellow robe with outstretched arms, standing on a platform, with a monstrous face on its lower body and legs. The bottom right panel portrays a group of people in medieval clothing looking up at a large, menacing creature with a gaping mouth and tentacle-like appendages. The artwork uses vibrant colors and intricate details typical of illuminated manuscripts.
Hildegard of Bingen, Vision of the Last Days (ca. 1150).

How can you be convinced by something you haven’t seen? Well you can’t see love, but I married a couple yesterday and they seemed pretty in love to me. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews, whose identity remains a mystery to us, says that faith is “the conviction of things not seen”. When people are convinced about things they haven’t seen, others often dismiss it as blind faith, or even as wilful stupidity, at least if they don’t agree with them. But everybody has faith of some sort. Even if they don’t believe in God, even if they don’t think they believe in anything that can’t be measured or proven, everyone has some set of assumptions about the deeper nature of reality and how things work beyond the merely physical.

Of course we might say we can see the effects of love; they’re often rather wonderful. I don’t just mean romantic love mixed with sexual attraction – although that certainly is wonderful – but also the selfless love of a parent for a disabled child or the brotherly love of two old friends who’ve been meeting for a Saturday afternoon pint together for the last sixty years.

But you can’t physically measure love itself, in the same way you can measure electricity, or helium, or radioactivity. These things are undetectable by our five senses but we understand the physical processes behind them and have devices that can measure them all accurately. But you can’t buy a love meter from Amazon, or go to Google and look up today’s love maps and find out where the hotspots are.

So how do we know that love exists? Only because we have faith that love exists; we are convinced it exists although we can’t see it or measure it scientifically. We might say, as I noted, that we can see the effects of love – but we can only say that they are the effects of love and not something else because we have faith that love exists in the first place.

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