Are You A Leper?: Sermon Preached in St Mary’s, Potterne, Sunday 9th October 2022 (Seventeenth  Sunday after Trinity)

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Readings — 2 Timothy 2: 8–15; Luke 17: 11–19

“As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dividing ourselves into insiders and outsiders is one of our most basic human instincts. It would be nice to think that, as we are all equally loved by God our heavenly Father, we could see all eight billion people in the world as our brothers and sisters. But human psychology doesn’t work like that. We know that not everyone can be trusted, but we also know that we need to trust strangers sometimes.

Two fences with a road running between them and two pedestrians passing with their back to camera.
Us and Them – the West Belfast Peace Line at Conway Street, 6 June 2020.

Subconsciously, whether we admit it or not, when we meet strangers we are always hunting for clues about whether we can trust them or not. This might be whether they look and sound like us, which can have damaging consequences for society, but we also often trust people who are different from us if their behaviour is what we expect, or their beliefs are like ours. The Samaritans were the most dangerous kind of outsiders – they looked and sounded similar to the Second Temple Jewish community that Jesus came from, and their beliefs were largely similar, but very different in some important respects. All of us who lived in Northern Ireland during The Troubles became very adept at looking for subtle cues about whether people who looked and sounded just like us were indeed from our own tribe – or were potentially dangerous outsiders.

In the Roman Empire of St Paul’s time, to claim that an executed criminal was God made human was a weird, even creepy, belief. So to be a Christian was to make oneself into something of an outsider. Therefore in the Second Letter to Timothy, which our Epistle this morning came from, there is a repeated theme of Paul telling Timothy not to be ashamed of the Gospel. For Paul himself, the Gospel is so valuable that he has allowed himself to suffer what must have been the ultimate indignity for this proud Roman citizen – he was a jailbird.

What was so valuable that it was worth being “chained like a criminal”, treated as the ultimate outsider? It was that Jesus Christ was “raised from the dead” and that: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him.” That was the treasure worth paying any price for.

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Strange outbreaks of positivity over Northern Ireland

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I was published in Unherd over the strange emergence of good vibes about breaking the EU-UK bad blood over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Headline in Unherd from Gerry Lynch's article on the Northern Ireland Protocol

“After nearly two years of ugly in-fighting over the Northern Ireland Protocol, there has been a sudden outbreak of positivity from key players in London, Dublin, and Brussels about the possibility of a deal to amend or replace it. Even self-styled “Brexit hard man” Steve Baker, now a UK government minister in the Northern Ireland Office, told Tory conference-goers he was “sorry” his behaviour had weakened Anglo-Irish relations. He later asserted to BBC Radio Ulster his willingness “to eat a bit of humble pie” to achieve a deal.

[…]

“Although real gaps remain to be bridged, most parties have an interest in a deal being done. Above all, it would remove the risk of a UK-EU trade war erupting during a winter where it would be of primary benefit to Vladimir Putin. More subtly, it would be of assistance to both London and Brussels in the war of values, hard evidence that free democracies are better than autocrats at finding solutions in messy territorial and ethnic disputes. An agreed and flourishing post-Brexit Ulster would be a fine counter-blast to the hell Moscow has made of the Donbas.”

To read the rest, please click through to Unherd – it’s free.

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Worthless Slaves?: Sermon Preached in Christ Church, Worton, Sunday 2nd October 2022 (Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity)

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Readings – 2 Timothy 1: 1–14; Luke 17: 5–10

“We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but I could have done without a Gospel reading like that. We are told to be like the poor slaves toiling in the fields all day, then as soon as they come home ordered to prepare their master’s dinner before they get the chance to eat and drink themselves. It’s not exactly the most encouraging text in the current circumstances.

Christ Church Worton, 2 October 2022.

I am tired after the last two and a half years of Corona-Christianity, of the endless chopping and changing of regulations and routines, of the closures and the re-openings, of putting huge effort into learning new skills that became obsolescent a few months later. It was blooming hard work, made more exhausting by being constantly told that the pandemic had forced the Church to confront that it has no money and that we need to get used to a leaner Church more dependent on volunteers. This comes on top of decades of the lay people in the villages, the Poor Bloody Infantry of the Church of England, being amalgamated into ever bigger benefices with ever fewer clergy even as the demand for share goes up. Of course, every clever reorganisation presents itself as the solution to the current problems, but ends up being superseded by the next clever scheme a few years down the line.

There is money in the system, but it’s never for churches or benefices like this; only ever for churches in student towns and big cities promoting a style of worship that is a million miles away from village Anglicanism. Strangely, those churches often seem to promote a sort of theology of success that is also a million miles from the Gospel Jesus is proclaiming this morning, where the reward for hard work is yet more hard work. It is enough to make you lose faith.

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Paddington Bear and the Girl with Blue Hair

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A little think-piece on class, faith, and evangelism in the England of 2022.

I encountered the girl with blue hair when we both replied to a mutual on Twitter. She was a graduate who worked in the arts in a university town. She didn’t agree that the Royal Funeral would do the Church of England any good, because in her social bubble the reaction to it and everyone involved in it had been negative.

I gently challenged her that her social bubble may not be representative, and she agreeably agreed that was the case; indeed the world would be a different place if her friends were representative, she said. She seemed genuinely amiable, in a way that few people on Twitter are.

Like all of liberal Protestantism and Vatican II-embracing Catholicism, the Church of England has long been obsessed with people like the girl with the blue hair – highly educated, thoughtfully intelligent, genuinely kind, and seeming to represent the future, something exemplified by enthusiasm to remain on trend culturally and politically. Much effort has been expended in trying to produce a Christianity that can be embraced from within their value system – one that is focused on building the Kingdom on Earth and minimises the importance of what it is in Heaven.

But the liberal upper-bourgeoisie has never been representative of the population as a whole – indeed, they may be the segment of the population most closed to coming to a lively Christian faith. Mainly from secure backgrounds and often with a healthy combination of agreeableness, intellect, and diligence thanks to having done well in the genetic lottery, they can expect to have comfortable and rewarding lives. Faith in the crucified God may not be appealing to them, whereas Faith in the perfectibility of humanity may, barring some major external personal or social shock, simply seem natural.

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Harvesting the Bread of Life: Sermon Preached in St John’s, Devizes, Sunday 25th September 2022 (Harvest Festival)

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“I am the bread of life. Who ever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Readings – Philippians 4: 4–9; John 6: 25–35.

On Thursday, I attended one of the Creationtide talks we are hosting in St Mary’s, this one by Damian Haasjes of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. It was a very good talk, but I was amazed at the lengths its funders forced the Trust to go to assemble a hard economic and public heath case that spending time in nature is good for people, especially more vulnerable people. I would have thought it was obvious, because enmeshing ourselves in the web of life so transparently lifts the spirit and heals the soul. Our present Western culture often seems obsessed with the price of everything while being happy to be ignorant of the value of anything. The most transcendent, spiritual, and mystical parts of our lives are expected to justify themselves in pounds, pence, and additional Quality-Adjusted-Life-Years.

Please keep that in mind as we explore this morning’s Gospel reading, containing a phrase familiar to many of you, “I am the bread of life”.

Sunset with crepuscular rays shining behind some low hills t Oare, Wiltshire, on 29 September 2022 © Gerry Lynch
The obvious beauty of nature: sunset at Oare, Wiltshire, on 29 September 2022 © Gerry Lynch

It helps us understand this incident better if we know its place in the chain of events in St John’s Gospel. Firstly, it comes the day after John’s version of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and indeed the crowd from the day before seems to have followed Jesus despite His attempts to slip away to somewhere quiet.

Many of these people, therefore, have only the day before benefited directly from Jesus working perhaps His most high profile and spectacular miracle, feeding thousands of them with just a few baskets of bread. More than that, they have benefited from a miracle that identifies Jesus as the true successor of Moses – because it directly parallels the way God fed the Hebrews fleeing Egypt under Moses’ leadership with Manna from heaven.

But despite having swallowed His miraculous bread, the crowd doesn’t want to swallow Jesus’ difficult teaching about the bread of life. They want another mega-miracle to feast their eyes on, and shortly after this morning’s passage, when he doesn’t give them one, the crowd turns on Jesus, and He starts to lose followers.

I think there is something profound and easily missed here about our insatiable appetites. One miracle, even if it’s, you know, pretty spectacular, is not enough to convince the crowd of Jesus’ nature. Accepting that we have enough is difficult for us. That lies at the root of our present ecological crisis.

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On Current Trends, Northern Ireland Will Leave the Union

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I was published in Unherd on the 2021 Northern Ireland Census figures. Demography isn’t destiny but it contributes powerfully to it. This week’s Northern Ireland 2021 Census release, showing Catholics outnumbering Protestants for the first time, does not in itself doom the Union. It should, however, represent a major warning to Unionists on both sides of the … Read more

A Queen and A Poor Sinner: Sermon Preached in St Peter’s, Poulshot, Sunday 11th September 2022 (The Period of Mourning for the Death of Queen Elizabeth II)

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“every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life”

Readings – 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:4; John 6:35–40

As I prepared to preach a sermon as we mourn a long-lived monarch of deep Christian faith, the story of another royal death 106 years ago pushed its way into my mind. It is about the funeral of Emperor Franz Joseph von Habsburg, who was as deeply faithful a Christian as Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; he also sat on his throne for almost as long as she did on hers.

Franz-Joseph reigned for 68 years after assuming the throne as a result of the great Europe-wide popular uprisings of 1848, and died in the middle of the First World War. On one level his life story seems impossibly remote – even his surname invokes the medieval world; yet it was recent enough to encompass democratic elections, trade unions, worldwide telecommunications, and the sort of horrific artillery barrages we have seen recapitulated on the flats fields of Ukraine this year. Indeed, it was recent enough that it is possible to watch a few minutes of film footage from his funeral procession through the streets of Vienna on YouTube.

The procession was appropriately full of pomp and circumstance. Beautifully attired dignitaries and a detachment of elegant hussars on white steeds escorted a casket draped in the black and gold of the Habsburg family which had ruled vast territories for six hundred years.

Emperor Franz Joseph’s funeral procession through Vienna in 1916

When the procession arrived at the Imperial Crypt, a great iron door barred the way to the family mausoleum. On the other side stood the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna waiting.

The officer leading the casket stood at the door, knocked, and cried “Open!”

“Who goes there?” responded the Cardinal from behind the iron doors.

The officer replied: “We bear the remains of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, Franz Joseph the First, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the faith…” continuing with all the Emperor’s thirty-seven titles.

“We know him not!”, the Cardinal replied abruptly.

The officer once more knocked the vast iron door, and again the Cardinal replied – “Who goes there?”

The officer this time used a shorter title for the deceased Emperor.

The Cardinal replied again, “We know him not!”

The officer then knocked for the third time. The Cardinal replied for the third time, “Who goes there?”

This time the officer’s answer was different: “We bear the body of Franz Joseph, our brother, a sinner – like us all.”

“This man we recognise”, replied the Cardinal finally, and the huge iron doors swung open to admit the body of an Emperor.

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Transcendence Amid Our Troubles: Sermon Preached at St John’s, Devizes, Sunday 28th August 2022 (The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity)

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Readings – Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16; Luke 14:1,7–14

“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”

On Friday, I accompanied Mike our churchwarden up into the tower, so he could have a look at why our church clock is currently broken and take some photos to send off to the experts. Having arrived here, as many of you will remember, in very strange lockdown circumstances, this was my first trip up the tower. This was therefore the first chance I had to see the wonderful Norman stone-carving in the bell-ringers’ chamber. It is of the same pattern as the stonework behind me in the chancel, but unlike the stonework on this level, it is essentially untouched by later restoration. What is remarkable is that the people who carved it must have known that, six metres or so up in the tower, it would be seen by very few people. Yet that seemed not to matter, as they were doing the work for the glory of God. In a strange way, it seems to be beauty created for its own sake that moves us most deeply; it seems to be the things that nourish us most emotionally do so precisely because they have not been made to be useful.

Restored Stonework on the Norman Pattern in St John’s Chancel

There is, to me, something about the depth of time here in St John’s that puts everything in perspective; the events these stones have witnessed put our present day troubles in their proper context. It is not that we do not face grave problems, but it helps to be reminded that people have always faced grave problems, and people have always, at their best, transcended them. Yet there is something more than that in the air here – it feels like prayer has been soaked into the stones, as if the way people have prayed here and celebrated the Eucharist here over nearly 1,000 years has worn thin the barrier between this world and what lies beyond.

I don’t know about you, but I can hardly bear to listen to the news at the moment. The world faces profound problems, and it feels like our political system has seized up entirely in the face of those problems. It is fairly obvious that there is going to have to be some tremendous re-configuration of our energy supply, and the response from our leaders seems to be to act like a rabbit in the headlights. For example, I have yet to hear any politician levelling with the public about the scale of very disruptive infrastructure work that will be needed, both to deal with climate change and to reduce our vulnerability to the like of Mr Putin. Beyond fears of climate disaster, many of us fear acutely and with good reason that we will be left poverty-stricken over this winter. One feels entirely powerless in the face of it.

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Keeping the Sabbath?: Sermon Preached at St John’s, Devizes, Sunday 21st August 2022 (The Tenth Sunday after Trinity)

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Readings – Jeremiah 1:4–10; Luke 13: 10–17

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not the sabbath day.”

Let me begin with a story from my mother country, about a young Presbyterian minister newly arrived in his first congregation, out in the rural parts of County Antrim where a strict observance of the Lord’s Day is considered essential, at least among Presbyterians. Having spent part of his training in Africa and another part in a deprived housing estate closer to home, the young minister was full of fire for God’s Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in heaven, and he tried to ensure his sermons inspired his congregation to work for social justice. Sometimes they may have even been a bit… whisper it… political.

Edinburgh Street Preacher, 14 December 2018 © Gerry Lynch

Not all of his congregation were impressed by these sermons, and one old spinster in particular would enjoin him Sunday by Sunday to return to more traditional themes. As the weeks turned into months she did so in increasingly shrill tones. Wasn’t it terrible Reverend Campbell, she said, that the supermarkets were open on a Sunday these days and, worse still, that some of members of this very congregation went straight from church to do their shopping, and wouldn’t he like to preach against that? Even worse, she later revealed, some villagers went to the pub for their Sunday lunch, and beyond even that, some of them went to pubs run by Roman Catholics. Now, surely that was something he needed to take a stand against instead of blethering on about the cassava harvest in Nigeria.

Eventually, the young minister had his fill of it, and found he had to say something, even to a lady who put a generously stuffed envelope on the plate every Sunday.

“Miss McDonald”, he said, “surely even our Lord healed people on the Sabbath.”

“Aye”, she replied, “And I didn’t think any better of Him for that either.”

I’m sure I’m not the only one here to have been at the wrong end of some obnoxious and aggressive Bible-thumpers in my time. It’s therefore always reassuring to rediscover, as we do in this morning’s Gospel, that Jesus, God made human, was the target for Bible-thumpers Himself. We’ve all known people about whom one might reasonably joke that “He would tell God he was wrong about the Bible.” Today’s Gospel reminds us that this quite literally did happen. We have the Bible itself reminding us that there are spiritual dangers in using it as a quarry to have a go at other people.

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View from Yerevan in The Tablet

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It’s good to be in print in this week’s The Tablet (11 August 2022 edition) with a “View from Yerevan” – a piece about beautiful town planning, the revival and the absence of churches, losing a war, refugees from far away, and having one of the world’s most difficult geopolitical positions. It’s easy enough to … Read more