The Last Enemy to Be Destroyed Is Death (Easter Day: 20th April 2025)

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The scene is set at dusk with a starry sky. Two cloaked figures on the left, one holding a lantern, approach a rocky tomb. A radiant angelic figure in white with a halo stands near the tomb's entrance, emitting a soft glow. The background features a dark, hilly landscape, creating a mystical and serene atmosphere.

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

Readings – 1 Corinthians 15. 19-26; Luke 24. 1-12         

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

A painting depicting three figures in biblical attire near an empty tomb. The figure on the left, draped in orange and gray robes, holds a jar and appears mournful. The central figure wears a blue cloak over a red dress, standing with a somber expression. The figure on the right, in a red cloak and green dress, holds a white cloth and looks contemplative. The background features a hilly landscape with sparse trees, a cloudy sky, and distant structures, evoking a quiet, reflective mood.
Sketch to the Painting ‘Three Marys Walking to Christ’s Tomb’, Józef Simmler (1864), National Museum, Kraków.

Christians in this country are lucky that the celebration of Easter comes when springtime’s miracle of new life is at its peak. The miraculous nature of new life is clear whenever we see it, from an April field full of cowslips and celandine to a new-born child sleeping in the arms of its mother. The very existence of life is a mystery, and our existence, as a species that can reason and has a sense of right and wrong, is stranger still. There are two explanations for of human existence. One is that we are the product of the spontaneous emergence of life from non-living chemicals, and then trillions of chance encounters over four billion years—that we are a freak occurrence in a meaningless, and largely lifeless, universe. The other is that we were created by something greater than ourselves.

Our first instinct is probably that the only explanation compatible with science is that the human race came about by chance. The universe is a huge place and the four billion year span of life on Earth is a very long time indeed… far too long for us really to get our heads around. You can also be a perfectly good and faithful Christian and believe that God used the natural processes of the universe to allow a species in His image and likeness to evolveand, that, given the sheer size of the universe and the depth of time involved, nothing else would be required.

For a long time that was precisely my position. There is no scientific evidence for God nor, I believed, could or should Christians waste their time trying to find evidence for something that is fundamentally a matter of faith. But do you remember that old saying that if you had enough monkeys hammering randomly at typewriters for long enough, that one of them would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare?

Well, the maths on that have been done repeatedly, and if you had enough monkeys to fill not just the world, but the entire observable universe, and let them type for the whole time until the protons that make up all matter began to decay, then the chance that one of them would produce Hamlet is so low that we don’t even have a name for the number. It’s not one in a billion or one in a trillion, but one in one followed by hundreds of thousands of noughts. If it is improbable that a play named Hamlet could emerge by change, how much less probable it is that a man named Shakespeare could do so?

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Returning to God: A Reflection for Holy Week (Tuesday 15th April 2025)

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A dramatic painting shows an emotional scene with three figures in a dimly lit setting. An elderly man in a red robe tenderly embraces a kneeling younger man, resting his hands on the younger man's shoulders in a gesture of forgiveness. The younger man, dressed in tattered clothing, bows his head. A third figure, standing to the right in a red and green robe, watches with a stern expression. The background is dark, emphasizing the emotional intensity of the reunion.

Given at Christ Church, Worton

Luke 15. 11-32

A historical painting depicts four figures in a dimly lit room. An elderly man with a white beard sits at a table with papers and coins, engaged in a transaction with a younger man standing opposite him, dressed in 17th-century clothing with a white collar and brown coat. Two other figures, a young boy and a woman in a dark cloak, stand to the left, observing the scene. A red curtain hangs in the background, and a marble column is visible on the right. The atmosphere is serious and focused.
The Prodigal Son Receives His Portion by Murillo (1660s), hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Last year, I had occasion to be in Dublin, and ended up having most of a Bank Holiday Monday free just to wander around. I was spending time there for the first time in many years, having at one time visited the city several times a month. I found myself wandering into the National Gallery, which has a pair of paintings of scenes from the life of the Prodigal Son by the 17th Century Spanish painter Murillo.

In the first, the son’s eyes are so firmly fixed on the bag of money he has just been handed that he doesn’t even notice his father’s eyes, full of pain, riveted on him. Behind his father stands his brother, shooting him a look of withering contempt. In the other painting, the son, dressed in rags and surrounded by swine, is gazing into the sky with eyes imploring God’s mercy.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of those bible stories that speaks profoundly into our own time and place. Just as the Father in the parable gives the son free will to squander his inheritance, so our heavenly Father gives us the freedom to take the gifts He has given us and either use them for His greater glory, or to squander them, as we choose.

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Wrestling with God: A Reflection for Holy Week (Monday 14th April 2025)

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A vibrant painting with a red background depicts a dynamic biblical scene. On the right, an angel with golden wings wrestles with a man in a blue robe, their bodies locked in struggle. In the center, a small goat stands near a tree with a gnarled trunk. On the left, several figures in white and blue robes, possibly women, sit and observe the scene, set against a backdrop of green hills and a dramatic sky. The overall mood is intense and symbolic, capturing a moment of spiritual conflict.

Given at St Mary’s, Potterne

Genesis 32. 22-32

“Oh, sorry Vicar!” People often say that when after they’ve just had a good swear in front of me. A vicar is, of course, the sort of person you shouldn’t use foul language in front of. He – or, she, these days – is a very prim and proper person who would never swear, any more than they would drink, and blushes to hear even the first syllable of the word balderdash.

A classical painting depicts a dramatic scene of two figures engaged in a struggle. One figure, dressed in a red and white robe, appears to be a man with a beard, gripping the other tightly. The second figure, with wings and curly hair, is likely an angel, wearing a white garment. They are locked in an intense wrestle, set against a muted, earthy background, suggesting a moment of spiritual or physical conflict.
Rembrandt, Jacob Wrestling with An Angel (1659). Hangs in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

And God is often perceived by the same people, in the unlikely event He exists at all, as a sort of Supervicar, very prim and priggish, in front of whom you want to be on your best behaviour—because if God does exist, and He finds out what’s really going on in your head, then you’re in big trouble.

The same people sometimes tell me that they’d like to believe in God—they envy people who have Faith, they tell me, envy the meaning and purpose our lives and envy our strong sense of community. Of course, we Christians know that we’re actually a bit more prone to isolation and drifting than that, but let’s roll with the idea… These people tell me they envy us our Faith, but they struggle the idea of a God who created life to include the harsh realities of suffering and pain. Because why would a supervicar do that?

The Bible paints a picture of God that is far from a supervicar. Far from expecting blind obedience, in tonight’s reading, God is presented as a mysterious stranger who proactively seeks out Jacob for a good bout of wrestling that lasts all night – we all know about wrestling with God all night don’t we? When dawn breaks, the stranger has not defeated Jacob, who is still battling gamely with Him, although He has been left with a limp from a blow to the hip.

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A Story of Celebrity and Mobs: Sermon Preached on 13th April 2025 (Palm Sunday)

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

Philippians 2. 5-11; Luke 19. 28-40

“the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen”

A large group of people dressed in ancient, flowing robes gathers outside a stone building with an arched doorway. Some sit or lie on the ground, while others stand or lean against the wall. A central figure in a blue robe stands on a carpet, addressing the crowd, with a donkey nearby. The scene is set under a partly cloudy sky with a tree on the right. The painting has a warm, earthy tone, capturing a moment of communal listening or teaching.
Nikolay Koshelev, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.

Palm Sunday speaks into an age of celebrity culture and social media in a way that few other Bible stories do. On Sunday, Jesus is the darling of the crowds, who mob Him like a modern day celebrity. It’s as if Taylor Swift turned up in Morrison’s in Devizes on a Saturday afternoon. Then, in the space of just five days, Jesus falls from favour so spectacularly that the crowds are literally calling for him to be strung up. We’ve seen so many stars fall from their pinnacles in recent years, sometimes deservedly and sometimes not, often because they said something on social media that outraged people.

The Internet is often the first thing that gets blamed for any social or cultural problem these days, and celebrity culture is never far behind. As with any technology, the Internet is an amplifier for both the good and the bad, and here are good and bad sides to social media. On the positive side, it keeps in touch with friends we haven’t seen for years and with family who live too far away for us to visit often. It could be why over the last ten to fifteen years mental health problems among young women have spiked and birth-rates across the world have collapsed.

But, hang on, Palm Sunday happened two thousand years before Facebook was invented! Our most serious problems are just modern variations on problems that have been with the human race since the dawn of time. Selfishness, greed, bigotry, and violence didn’t arrive with the smartphone. Nor did the way that being part of a crowd can turn normally decent people toxic, nor our tendency to abandon our most noble principles once it means risking unpopularity. Our problems today aren’t really caused by social media, or by the mainstream media, or by the way we chase after celebrities who are so often empty. Our problems are caused by the sickness in our souls.

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Beauty and Idols: Sermon Preached on 6th April 2025 (Passion Sunday)

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The interior of a grand Gothic cathedral is depicted, featuring tall, arched stained glass windows at the far end, glowing with vibrant colors including reds, blues, and yellows, depicting religious scenes. The windows are framed by intricate stonework with pointed arches. The cathedral's high ceiling and walls are adorned with detailed stone columns and ribbed vaulting, creating a sense of verticality and grandeur. In the foreground, several lit candles in tall holders cast a warm, flickering light, adding to the serene and sacred atmosphere. The overall scene is bathed in a mix of natural light from the windows and the soft glow of the candles, highlighting the architectural beauty of the space. The image is credited to Gerry Lynch.

Preached at Christ Church, Worton

Philippians 3. 4-14; John 12. 1-8

“Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.”

When we hear this familiar story of Mary the Sister of Lazarus pouring the jar of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet, do we ever think about the perfume and how much effort went into making it? Making perfume can still be quite an involved process today, and it seems to have been even more difficult in the ancient world without modern machinery. We actually know a little about ancient perfume-making from writings that have survived into the present day. In an expensive perfume, flowers, spices, sap, gum, resin, roots, and different kinds of wood were gathered, probably from different places. Nard, the main ingredient of the perfume Mary is said to have used, is a plant related to the honeysuckle which grows only in the Himalayas, for example. For weeks or months, the whole mixture was left to marinade in some natural oil, perhaps olive oil or some kind of odourless seed oil, during which time it would be repeatedly boiled and the sediment thrown away. Then it may have been transported a long way, perhaps even many hundreds of miles, to be sold.

A scenic outdoor view features a clear blue sky above a grassy landscape. A dirt path splits into two directions, winding through the area. On either side of the path, there are patches of green grass and dense bushes with white blossoms, likely in spring bloom. In the background, tall trees with bare branches stand against the sky, indicating early spring or late autumn. The overall scene is bright and serene, suggesting a peaceful nature trail or park setting.
I came out of church after preaching this sermon to this scene of blossoming blackthorns. God’s gift of beauty indeed! Gerry Lynch, 24 March 2025 (public domain).

Although the manufacturing process has changed over the centuries, making perfume still involves the same truly vital ingredients—time, skill, knowledge, patience, creativity, love for the job, and sometimes an appetite for risk. Perfume doesn’t appear by magic. At its root, it is the product of three things: experience, sometimes painstakingly gathered and passed down over many generations; people’s God-given talents; and the God-given gifts of nature. The perfume exists only to make life a little more pleasant, to stimulate our sense of smell, perhaps only for a brief moment. There is something extravagant about perfume: that’s why it’s such a valued gift.

Was Judas right, that the perfume should have been sold? The person who bought it could still have enjoyed the God-given gifts of beauty it contained, and the money could indeed have been spent on the poor. Surely that would have been more useful than a few moments of smell and sensation as the scented oil was poured over Christ’s feet?

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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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