christendom

Forgiveness and Repentance: (Second Sunday of Easter: 27th April 2025)

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A wide photograph shows a large, ancient stone wall with uneven blocks, some with patches of greenery. In front of the wall, dozens of people gather in an open plaza. Many are standing, some sitting on white plastic chairs, and others are under large white umbrellas. A few individuals wear black hats or colourful clothing, and some appear to be in prayer or conversation. A flagpole with a blue and white flag stands near the centre. The scene is bathed in warm, golden light, with stone structures and arches framing the left side.

Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne

Readings – Acts 5. 27-32; John 20. 19-31

“God exalted him … that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

A fresco painting shows a group of people in a historical setting with stone buildings and a tower in the background. On the left, a woman in a grey dress holds a child, while others in robes stand nearby. In the center, two men in flowing robes, one yellow and one red, appear to be speaking or gesturing. At their feet, a person in a red robe lies on the ground, seemingly lifeless. The scene is framed by architectural elements, including a column on the right and a red wall with a small window on the left. The sky is pale with soft clouds.
St. Peter Distributing the Common Goods of the Church and the Death of Ananias, Mascaccio (c.1427), a fresco in the Brancacci Chapel within the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.

On Good Friday, I heard an interview by the Rev’d Kate Bottley on Radio 2 with Esther Ghey, the mother of Brianna, the teenaged victim of a particularly brutal murder in Warrington two years ago, a murder carried out by other teenagers and motivated at least in part by transphobia. It was emotionally intense and at times profound, especially when Mrs Ghey said she had befriended the mother of one of her own daughter’s murderers, having witnessed her genuine distress at the trial and realising as a result that they shared a depth of woundedness that few mothers do. Such extraordinary empathy is rare and is often those who have been deeply wounded themselves who are capable of it.

Mrs Ghey was very clear that she wasn’t religious herself. Yet at the same time, she also reported seeing vivid sunset skies far more often since her daughter’s murder. As pink was Brianna’s favourite colour, she interpreted this as Brianna letting her family know she was OK from wherever she was now. The two things that jumped out at me are, firstly, if it needs to be said again, we Christians have no monopoly on goodness and Jesus Christ never said we would; and secondly that, although most people in this country now seem to think of themselves as having left Christianity behind, their attitudes are still saturated with Christian concepts which over dozens of generations have soaked into the psychological soil of this country and continent. By and large, people still believe there is something more than this life, although they may be reluctant to define what that “something” is.

The final words of this morning’s Gospel reading want us to believe in something very definite—“that Jesus is … the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

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Lest We Forget: Sermon Preached on 7th May 2023 (Coronation Sunday)

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Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot

Readings – Joshua 1: 1–9; Romans 13: 1–10

“For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”

The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was the high-water mark of British imperialist triumphalism. Seventeen carriages, let by Victoria’s open-air affair, processed from Buckingham Palace through to St Paul’s Cathedral for a service of thanksgiving. Eleven colonial prime ministers and the representatives of more than a dozen overseas monarchies were present, from as far away as Iran, Japan, and Thailand. But the spirit of the day was incarnated by the partying throngs on the streets, enjoying a celebratory special Bank Holiday at a time when workers’ rights were much fewer than they are today. Edward Elgar’s wonderful Cockaigne Overture is perhaps that day’s most enduring legacy, with its rambunctious major-key crescendos capturing the boisterous fun of Cockney celebrations.

A black and white photo taken in 1897 as an escort of Indian Cavalry passes the Houses of Parliament in London watched by crowds for the Diamond Jubilee festivities of Queen Victoria, on 22 June 1897
The “pomp of yesterday” – an escort of Indian Cavalry passes Parliament during the Diamond Jubilee festivities of Queen Victoria, 22 June 1897.

One cultural figure we might have expected to join in the mood of artistic imperialist triumphalism was the chief propagandist of Empire, Rudyard Kipling. Yet he only wrote towards the end of the festivities, and even then solely in the form of a poetic commentary on them, sounding a warning note that was particularly surprising from a man only marginally religious.

“God of our fathers, known of old, 
  Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
  Dominion over palm and pine —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

[…]

Far-called, our navies melt away;
  On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
  Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!”

All of our blessings as individuals, as nations, as the human race, flow only from God. All of us forget this from time to time. Certainly the policy-makers of Victorian imperialism at their worst often forgot in whose name they held that dominion over palm and pine, forgetting too often also the care for the outsider and the poor that He commanded His followers to bear always in mind.

We should not damn the Victorians entirely for their worst faults, which were real but not the whole story. From the factory acts to universal free schooling to the final suppression of the slave trade, they sincerely believed in bettering the lot of all. Yet it is hard to see the spirit of the carpenter’s son from Nazareth in the deliberate suffocation of indigenous leadership in the emerging Church of Black Africa, or the many famines of Victorian India, or the big famine in Victorian Ireland.

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