repentance

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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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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