• St Columba's Sermons
    Past Services
  • Home
  • Worship
  • Past Services

Sermons - March 2023

Sermon 5th March 2023

Sermon 12th March 2023

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 12th MARCH 2023, 4th SUNDAY OF LENT, 11.00am,

The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask,
“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some were saying, “It is he.”
Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.”
John 9:8-9

Among the nominees at last week’s Oscar ceremonies,
two movies offer meditations on seeing and being seen.

In The Whale, which won best actor,
the entire movie is spent in the claustrophobic apartment
of a reclusive English teacher, suffering from morbid obesity,
attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter.
Self-imprisoned within his apartment, by feelings of grief and guilt,
he earns a living, teaching students via the internet.
While he can see his students on screen, his screen remains blank.
He tells them, he must get his camera fixed – but deliberately leaves it turned off.
The film actually with a blank/black screen and just his voice –
which is calm, reassuring, engaging.
You get the impression he is a good teacher.
In time, the students will recoil,
when his shocking physical reality is revealed.

A gentler, more audience-friendly movie, is Stephen Spielberg’s, The Fablemans,
which draws from Spielberg’s own childhood experiences –
“a nostalgic love letter to the movies.”
Young Sammy Fableman falls in love with movies
after his parents take him to see “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
Armed with a camera, Sammy starts to make his own films at home,
much to the delight of his supportive mother.
At one point he films his mother dancing at night-time on a camping trip,
by the light of car headlights – a balletic, free-spirited moment.
Later she says to her son: “You see me.”
In other words – You get me; you understand me at my core.

Two contrasting movie moments:
Camera off. Identity hidden or overlooked.
Camera on. Identity understood, celebrated.

On the road to Jerusalem, on the way to the Cross,
Jesus encounters the man blind from birth;
The story begins with some cruel theology –
The disciples ask Jesus: Who sinned, this man or his parents?
The assumption: blindness/disability is sign of God’s anger and punishment.

The late Jean Vannier, founder of the L’Arche Community,
which works with the severely handicapped says;
it is the question every culture asks.
Why is someone born with a disability?
But he warns, such questioning is talk about a person with disability;
it is not a conversation with that person.
Two different things.

A contemporary prayer/meditation from those with disabilities:
“We are people with abilities too –
we speak with our fingers, we read with our hands, we paint with our feet


We love God but are wary of the scriptures,
bruised by generations of preachers and hesitant of the community called church
which so often defines healing and leaves us on the outside of it.”
(An Improbable Gift of Blessing p.84)

Jesus is categorical: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…”
He doesn’t explain away the unanswerable Why?
Instead, takes the things of life, earth and spittle,
then with firm touch and gentle command
sends the man towards the light.
The one blind from birth, judged by his religion, excluded from his community,
is brought back; a restoration, an amazing grace.

Dusted and done, maybe – but in effect, this morphs into a tale
not about the miracle itself, but about how people perceive it –
shining a spotlight on what internal mindsets, permit us to see – or not.

Very soon, a volley of questions - not all of them kind.
His neighbours barely recognise him.
Previously they have seen only his condition,
a beggar, blind from birth.
Now, the people he has lived and worshipped with for years —
apparently, don’t know how to see him without his disability.
When he declares: “I am the man” his word is not enough;
So, the religious authorities are invoked, and intimacy banished.

Interrogation leads to dispute:
This man is not from God – he does not observe the Sabbath.
But a “sinner” couldn’t perform such signs.

The Pharisees - opticians of the nation’s spiritual sight - are divided.
They operate with an awkward truth;
sight to the blind, is one of the herald calls of the Messiah.
If this “sign/miracle” is pukka – Jerusalem, we have a problem.
This is not the Messiah they anticipated; nor the type they desire.

The drama rolls on; parents are summoned reluctantly into the spotlight.
If they validate their son, they support the messiah conspiracy;
eviction from synagogue and community, their reward.
“Not our call. Ask the boy - he is of age.”
Fear casts out love.
How did their son hear those parental words?

Interrogation Part II: vested interest, rising threat:
“Give credit to God; not credence to Jesus, the sinner.”
The immortal reply:
“I do not know whether he is a sinner.
One thing I do know; I was blind, but now I see.”

Strikingly, sadly, there is no voice to raise an Alleluia,
no singing, Thanks be to God. From anyone – neighbour or priest.
Instead, the stewards of the Mystery of Life
reject the miracle as an affront to their preconceived certainties.

Things spiral downwards:
What trickery has he performed or persuaded you to pretend?
How many times must I explain? Are you also eager to be his disciples? (Incendiary.)
No. You are his disciple. We are faithful followers of Moses
and we do not know where this imposter comes from.
Really!? You have no clue about him and yet he opened my eyes.
“If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

And they drove him out.

Depressingly, it is the professionally religious/those labelled faithful
who make all the wrong moves in this story.
Cynical about eye-witness accounts;
more concerned with ritual rules than individual well-being;
rejecting the one with whom, they might have rejoiced;
in indignation, excommunicating.
“How dare you lecture us!”

With that, the real blindness is confirmed,
Just as previously the cup of water at the Samaritan well
became a metaphor/launchpad for the reality of spiritual thirst
The restoration of sight becomes a metaphor or launchpad
for the reality of spiritual blindness
a shortcoming of humanity, a dearth of kindness.
Jesus’ verdict: “I came into this world for judgement
so that those who do not see, may see,
and those who do see, may become blind.”

Here is warning - of the danger/ delusion that spiritually-speaking, we are full-sighted.
Reminder that sometimes it is our certainties,
that render our encounters dry and barren.
Unwillingness to consider the viewpoint or life experience of another.
“The more convinced we are that we have full insight, comprehension, and knowledge, the less we will see and experience of God.” (D Clendenin)

A minister who asked a member of the church to consider ordination to the eldership, received the reply:
“I don't feel I would be worthy in either a moral or a spiritual sense
when considering the vows.”

The minister replied, “Feeling spiritually and/or morally unworthy is exactly the right place from which to start considering eldership!”
In C18th New England, theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote:
“I make my business, to lay hold of light, no matter who is bearing it.”

How does the story end for the one blind from birth,
who on his first day of sight
has witnessed face to face ugly and angry prejudice?
A world so spectacularly released, yet a new solitariness confined.
Now, the Shepherd, seeks the left behind.

“Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
One more question, to be tripped up by?
No - the voice is different.
And the listener has a lifetime of weighing voices.
The question sounds like an invitation, not an accusation;
This sounds like conversation with, not talk about.

“Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
Tell me who he is, that I may believe.
You know him – he stands before you – camera on.
Lord, I believe.
Ah, you see me.

Sermon 19th March 2023

Sermon 26th March 2023

MORNING WORSHIP
ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 26th MARCH 2023, 5th SUNDAY OF LENT, 11.00am

Then God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal,
and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God:
Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them,
and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”
Ezekiel 37:9-10

Last weekend, if blue is your colour and rugby is to your game,
you were treated to one more rollercoaster of emotion,
that is the gift that keeps on giving
to the follower of the fortunes of Scotland’s national sports team.
On this most recent occasion, a nail-biting Murrayfield conclusion –
wondrously - rather than a suffocating, dispiriting defeat –
the great gallop of a glorious, length of the pitch, last-minute try, to seal victory.
Those fortunate to be there, shared the euphoric moment:
WhatsApp messages ran:
“Phew! Great finish! Wow, that was stressful.
Another: I feel sick and elated in equal measure.

Which drew the response: And the life of a Scotland fan summed up right there!!!”

As John Cleese’s character, in the 1980’s British film comedy, Clockwise, spoke for many:
“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair.
It’s the hope I can’t stand.”

Sick and elated; hope and despair;
contrast or contradiction; Ying and yang?
Most days, most weeks, most lives – we are a weave of both;
a St Columba’s week no exception.

On Wednesday these steps were lined with the reception class pupils at a school assembly,
premature perhaps but sporting homemade Easter bonnets.
Among the company, one remarkable confection topped with Christmas lights –
they didn’t flash, but you felt, they should have!

Their song: Peace is flowing like a river,
Flowing out through you and me,
Spreading out into the desert,
Setting all the people free.

Complete with actions: Then:
Love is flowing like a river,
Joy is flowing like a river,
Hope is flowing like a river:

A sight/a moment, to ease and enliven the spiritual arthritis of even the most jaded.

Yet, as those youngsters sang of flowing things,
in the same week, images of last week’s devastation in Malawi –
rivers bursting their banks, following Cyclone Freddie –
bridges that permit schoolgirls to get to school in Blantyre, gone;
homes swept away before anguished eyes.

In the same week, one first-time visitor
tells me of a powerful experience of prayer in this sanctuary;
the same day, another, is worried sick for the future of a child excluded from school.
Hope and despair; despair and hope.

Our scriptures too, veer from the boneyard desolation of Ezekiel,
to the un-shuttered tomb of Lazarus; departure cancelled, to flight boarding.

Six hundred years before Christ (597BC) the Babylonians overran the Israelite kingdom,
transporting many from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon; amongst them Ezekiel.
Some ten years later, further appalling news –
the invaders had now sacked Jerusalem.
Any hope of an early return, to an unchanged homeland, vanished.
Ezekiel, far from home, dwells among a people in despair –
the living dead, skeletons in the valley of bones.
To which comes the voice of God:
“Prophesy to these bones – their bodies and their breath will be restored.”

Ezekiel finds his voice – prophesies –
so that in his vivid dream-vision,
with the sound of a tide churning a million pebbles,
the bones, rattlingly come together –
flesh and face, rebirth, where before there had been only decay.
Eventually, breath - summoned from the four corners of the earth -
that those re-fleshed – “lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”
Surely, one of scripture’s most vivid images – this boneyard transformation –
the promise and power of hope.

Two and a half millennia later, a descendant of Ezekiel’s tradition,
a rabbi in the horrors of the Holocaust concentration camps;
humanity degraded, starvation rations.
As Hannukah, the Jewish festival of lights, approaches,
the rabbi defies his place of death.
The daily ration is bread and a little fat or grease to spread upon it.
Forgoing his own food, bartering, hoarding,
he garners enough to fashion a crude candle, lit at the appropriate hour.
Amazed at the hardship endured, the rabbi is asked:
“How in this place can you live without food?”
His reply: “Without food I can live a few days; without hope, I would not survive one.”

The Lord set Ezekiel down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
He led me all round them… asking: “Mortal, can these bones live?”

Ezekiel answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
Where are the bone-filled valleys of our own time and place?
Where all hope seems lost?

Recent days have marked twenty years since Allied forces went into Iraq,
ostensibly in the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
and to depose Saddam Hussein.
The unforeseen consequences of that action continue to reverberate,
long after the departure of our troops.
The collateral damage is unimaginable –
the cost borne primarily by the people of Iraq, an uncountable loss of civilian life.
Listening to the account of one who lived through it,
the breakdown of society in the aftermath of the war,
she summed up: It was the abyss.
Aleppo/Mariupol – graveyards of other names and nations –
and plenty we don’t even know the names of.

Nearer to home – less newsworthy – there are the daily battles fought or endured,
Graveyards, real or imagined.
Illness, bereavement, relationship breakdown at work or in the home.
An addiction. A truancy. A taking of life because of despair.
Seemingly, so many places short on hope.

If we are honest to acknowledge the reality,
“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”
Can we endure long enough also to detect the whisper/promise of God’s breath?
I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves,
I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…

A friend reflected on his recent experience of Lent.
In basic terms, despite good intentions, he has completely ignored it.
It has coincided with a period of over-work and loneliness,
leaving him stressed and angry.
Yet he also reflected that amid these generally negative days
he has experienced unexpected moments:
assistance with a flat tyre, a surprise invitation to share a meal,
a message from his church community,
digging in his garden, leaving him exhausted but able to sleep well.

He summed up: “Today, I feel refreshed and renewed.
While I failed to notice, Lent was happening all around me.
While I am in this story, I am not the story. The story is about others…
It concerns their small acts of kindness, openness, humanity, and community.”

When I asked a primary school pupil if they had ever had an experience of being without hope, I was given the answer:
“When I was recovering from a big operation.
I was so uncomfortable; it was awful. I could only sleep an hour at a time.”

What helped?
“TV. And nice messages from family.”

“This resurrection is a process that begins every morning, every night, every day.
We are called on a journey of resurrection
to do the work of God,
to bring love into our families, our communities and the world.”

Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John, J Vannier

Market town of Velyka Novosilka. BBC correspondent, Quentin Somerville:
Before the war, the town had a modern school,
a tidy fire station and a three-storey kindergarten.
Now, it stands forlorn and battered.
Some 10,000 people used to live here - now there are fewer than 200.
An escorting soldier joked:
“Only mice, cats and dogs thrive here now and they also hide from the shelling.”

At one of the shelters, Iryna Babkina, the local piano teacher
tries to hold together the remaining threads of her town.
With blazing red hair, she is quietly determined to remain there.

Before leaving, Iryna Babkina took the journalist through the town's school.
Its lilac-painted corridors are scattered with debris, its windows blown in.
Children's jackets still hang on coat pegs
and homemade Christmas decorations stand uncollected on a shelf.
On a wall above a pale blue radiator,
a group picture shows the kids football team celebrating a win.
Outside the window, the same pitch is cratered,
and the nearby climbing frames mangled by shelling.
The tail fin of an unexploded Russian rocket
sticks out from the playground asphalt.

A piano stands in the corridor and Iryna sits down to play.
But no tune comes, the piano is too badly damaged.
She has no music to play and no children to teach.
The last of them were forcibly evacuated from the town by police last month
and taken to somewhere safer.
Her own daughter was among them.

“There's only the sounds of shells,” she says.
“The school is smashed, instruments are ruined,
but it is fine –
we will rebuild it, and the music will sound again –
along with the children's laughter.”

He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”

Sermons - February 2023

5th February 2023

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 5th FEBRUARY 2023, 11.00am,
5th SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
… let your light shine before others,
so that they may see your good works
and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew
5:13, 14 & 16

As a child I was used to a breakfast routine
where Dad would make a slow, deliberate progress round the breakfast table,
armed with his bowl of porridge.
As he passed, chatting and enjoying the nourishment of his national dish,
he would touch the heads of his children;
a sort of morning greeting/blessing;
bestowed, shiny, surly or sleepy.
As Scots growing up in the north of England,
there was no debate about porridge.
there was but one way. [There can be only one!]
Salt on porridge was our identity;
sugar on porridge was an abomination, its proponents to be pitied!

Two weeks ago, in a south London crematorium,
a funeral tribute offered an alternative take on the theme of porridge-stirred identity.
The funeral, was for a lady who had left Glasgow aged eighteen,
and lived in London into her eighties.
Her son, celebrating her roots, recounted:
“Mum insisted that porridge was only ever made with water – NEVER milk!
But - then she smothered it with sugar to give it taste!”

“Salt of the earth; light of the world.” Matthew 5:13,14
The ancients believed that salt would ward off evil spirits.
Religious covenants were often, sealed with salt.
Medically, it disinfected wounds and checked bleeding.
Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt - hence our English word, “salary.”
Brides and grooms rubbed salt on their bodies to enhance fertility.
And before refrigeration,
salt was essential for food preservation.
“From the beginning of civilization, until about one hundred years ago,
salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history.”

(Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History)

On a mountainside, Jesus sits down and begins to teach the disciples.
Beyond, the inner circle, the crowds.
Matthew has sequenced events and painted context in the previous chapter:
The adult Jesus driven into the wilderness for a time of testing;
when news breaks of John the Baptist’s incarceration by Herod Antipas,
Jesus takes up the cause – his public ministry begins.

Next, the lakeside call of the first disciples (two weeks ago.)
Then the campaign trail – “teaching in synagogues,
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom,
and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
News about him spread all over Syria,
and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases,
those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed,
those having seizures and the paralysed;
and he healed them.
Large crowds - from Galilee, the Ten Cities,
Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan – followed him.

Sure they did! For some who encountered Jesus it sounds like being C1st lotto winners.

This is the audience who have gathered,
A great sea of those in need, or longing for hope.
These are the recipients of the Sermon on the Mount,
whether they sought it, heard it, or appreciated it.
A song of solidarity, a poem of blessing, scattered like seed,
for the walking wounded, scars evident or hidden.

Having shared the beatitudes - the oh so strange list of promises
to those who seem unlikely candidates –
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Startlingly, Jesus now tells them: “You are the salt of the earth.”
You are priceless commodity.
Treasured - those who perhaps never felt valuable before.
“You are the salt of the earth.”
Part vote of confidence; part command.

Salt and light – our Christian identity?
If so, how do we go about being salt and light?
Isaiah’s words to Israel spell out God’s priorities -
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
Isaiah 58:6-8

This week’s newsletter carries photos and description
of last Sunday’s Night Shelter Burns Supper:
“It has become a very special evening for those of us involved for a number of years
and felt great to be back
celebrating and sharing our culture with the Glassdoor guests.
The evening was received incredibly well by the guests,
they participated in Bruce’s “To a Haggis”,
they filmed the poetry and pipes and they all tried Sarah’s fabulous Burns Supper.
Angela from Glassdoor commented how wonderful to see the guests participate and enjoy.”

Isaiah also encourages:
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
Isaiah 58:12

From the BBC Radio 4 programme, Soul Music,
I was very struck by the episode based on the song, Into my arms,
by Australian singer, songwriter, Nick Cave.
In the series, each episode gathers stories and reflections
from a wide variety of sources
based on a particular piece of music –
why it means so much to individuals,
significant moments it has become the soundtrack to.

In the “Into your arms” programme, Revd Jonathan Walker
recounted something of his son, also Jonathan, who died prematurely in his ‘30’s.
Devoted father to two children, son, brother, 1st class degree. Gifted musician.
Founded the Keep Streets Live foundation
against the criminalisation of homelessness and street culture.

A busker himself, son Jonathan described buskers in this way:
“Buskers act as civic lighthouses.
We give directions, we break up fights,
we call the police when we spot trouble,
we talk to the lonely,
we create moments of enjoyment between strangers,
and contribute to the social and cultural enrichment of shared urban spaces.
We are an integral part of the ecology of the street.”

… … …
“I hope to create spaces for people to think, relax, laugh,
and feel freer to express who they are.
One of my favourite things is to watch children dance in the streets,
unhindered by expectations of what's appropriate or allowed.
It's even more wonderful when their mums and dads join in.”

One evening, in June 2016, Johnnie’s dad, Reverend Walker
bumped into his son in an area of Leeds,
now known as Johnnie’s Pitch.
Johnnie was due to pack up, and whilst he was getting his car,
his Dad looked after his gear.
During this time, a devout Muslim gentleman – called Ramair -
approached and asked if he could put his prayer mat
on the spot where Johnnie had been singing,
so that he might undertake one of his prayer times.
Afterwards, Ramair invited father and son to break his Ramadan fast at sunset.
Jonathan commented about the privilege of having these type of encounters
and it being one of the main reasons why he did what he did.

After Ramair left them, Johnnie sang and videoed Nick Cave’s song,
“Into my arms, O Lord”
A song he described it as “a hymn for the non-religious.”
It was raining and Jonathan’s pitch was pretty much deserted.
As Reverend Walker says: “In fact, I was really just an audience of one.”
In the light of Johnnie’s premature death two years later,
that shared, unexpected moment is a treasured,
poignant, precious, parental memory.

In an interview given to the Church Times in August 2015,
Johnnie the street musician reflected:.
“I grew up with an ever-present sense of God
mediated through the faith of my parents
and my full immersion in the life of the church.

He went on to say:
“As I grew older, I questioned my faith very deeply,
and lost it at one point.
I describe the journey since then, as a faith
that runs towards the questions,
instead of running away from them.
God is mainly mediated through my relationships with the people I encounter.”

“… you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.”
Isaiah 58:12

Nick Cave, the songwriter, has also lived through the death of two sons –
one aged fifteen, the other dying in his thirties.
This month he was asked:
“What is joy? Where is it? Where is love in this world that is such an evil mess.”

In reply, he spoke of this hallowed and harrowed world,
where joy exists both in the worst of the world and within the best.
[Joy, flighty, jumpy, startling thing that it is,]
Joy…sings small, bright songs in the dark -
these moments, so easily disregarded, so quickly dismissed,
are the radiant points of light that pierce the gloom
to give validation to the world.
That’s how the light gets in …
Joy exists as a bright, insistent spasm of defiance
within the darkness of the world.
Seek it. It is there.”

[Let your light shine before others,
so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

12th February 2023

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 12th FEBRUARY 2023, 6th SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

“This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
Now choose life, so that you and your children may live…”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20a

“Am I really alive?”
The words of a nineteen-year-old woman
pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in Antakya.
Her rescue, the result of extraordinary efforts by those searching for survivors,
following the devastating earthquake across Turkey and Syria this week.
“Am I really alive?”
On one hand, an incomprehensible death toll (28,000),
on the other, individual miraculous moments.
From the town of Afrin in war-torn Syria,
a baby girl found on Monday with the umbilical cord still attached,
apparently born in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
Pulled clear by neighbours who cut the cord and handed her to medical teams.
The rest of her large family are all dead. (Mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya; father, Abdullah.)

It is not a Sunday of easy answers – as if any Sunday ever is.
There is a Russian proverb: Every day is a messenger of God.
What is the message of this day for us?
Where do these crossroad words - a choice for life or death – lead us?

This week I met with a man who knows he is dying.
Not a member of this congregation – so no confidences betrayed, I trust.
Brother, husband, father – articulate, creative, thoughtful.
Twelve months ago, he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer (gliobastoma) –
given a matter of months to live.

It would appear, that after the initial shock,
he took the decision, backed by his family, to live positively –
open to the gift of his remaining days.
Not in a sort of frantic bucket list - I must sky-dive into the Grand Canyon sort of response
but in modestly appreciating what his life already contains.

Much of what seemed previously important has been stripped away.
It seems to have left more time and space for what is important.
As those who know the man best have commented,
he is “love-bombing the world!”
If that sounds too much, I would simply say,
that even as we discussed plans for his funeral –
he, making sure that I was fully aware of his atheism –
to be in the company of him and his wife
felt like a moment of blessing,
I was another lucky recipient of his “love bombing”;
witness to the choice of life over death.

Moses too is facing his mortality; knows he is about to die.
The Israelites are at the Jordan river, about to enter the promised land.
Moses offers a final exhortation;
wanting to tell his people, one last time, the secret to a good life.
“You have a choice – live towards your God, or live away from God;
life or death, blessing or curse.”

Live in ways that bring life to those around you –
in so doing, you will find life for yourself.
Or live in ways that deaden those around you –
and it will slowly be your own death.

Choose life - that both you and your children may live.
Recognise the seriousness of your choices.
Choose carefully - how we live now, reaches well beyond our horizons.

What does it mean to us, individually/collectively:
…to choose life, so that you and your children may live,
Or when Jesus declares:
I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10).
Or the apostle Paul makes the appeal to wealthy Christians:
Take hold of the life that is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:19).

Today is designated Racial Justice Sunday
and this year is the 30th Anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
On 22 April 1993 the teenager was murdered on the streets of London
while waiting for a bus.
He was a young man hoping to fulfil his dream of becoming an architect.
He was murdered simply because he was black.

The murder was to have a seismic effect on society
and its reverberations were felt across the four nations of Britain and Ireland.
It revealed the ugliness of racism;
it was compounded by the systemic failures of the police
to bring Stephen’s murderers to justice.
Following a public inquiry, the Macpherson Report of 1999
brought to wider attention the concept of “Institutional Racism”,
racism that is deeply embedded in society or in institutions.
In many respects, Racial Justice Sunday
is one of the legacies of Stephen Lawrence’s life.
Churches Together in Britain & Ireland:
“…in marking Racial Justice Sunday, churches are remembering a young man
who in life aspired to be an architect,
but whose legacy has seen him become
an architect for justice, equality, dignity and unity.”

In the extensive material prepared by CTiBI,
Rev Kumar Rajagopalan a Baptist minister in London asks,
to what extent has the UK changed for the better
with respect to racist prejudice and discrimination in all walks of life?

“Back in 1993, my wife and I moved to a town and county outside London,
which had a small number of ethnic minorities
and a reputation of being unwelcoming towards outsiders.
The boy next door mimicked an Indian accent,
our car was vandalised,
and I often felt conspicuous, particularly on my commute to and from London.
My worst experience was being aggressively chased by plainclothes police officers.
in an unmarked vehicle for allegedly making an ‘unusual’ three point turn!

When I moved to multi-ethnic South Norwood to study for Baptist ministry,
I discovered that racism was alive and well within our churches and Christian institutions.
At my college interview I was informed that churches would bin my CV
because of my ethnicity,
and I was asked by a member of staff
when I would be returning to my own country to begin ministry!
I always rue the fact that I didn’t retort,
“Do you mean Wembley?”

He continued: “In the years following Stephen Lawrence’s murder
and entering the 21st century,
overt racism receded slightly,
to be replaced by Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11,
but it never disappeared.
While the racially motivated murder of 18-year-old Anthony Walker in 2005 in Liverpool stands out, there have been countless others.
In 2012 the Institute of Race Relations said that almost 100 racially motivated murders
had taken place since the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
The 2016 Brexit vote saw a 16% rise in hate crime,
and 2019 figures from the Home Office
revealed that hate crimes in England and Wales
had doubled in five years,
with the majority being racially motivated.”

What do we do with this? Does it seem pretty remote?
Do we have any responsibility/inclination towards it?
In 2018, a documentary was aired, entitled, Stephen: The Murder that Changed a Nation.
Directed by someone with connections to this place. (James Rogan)
Would a first step be to invite him to speak to us?
Maybe amongst us there are other ideas?

The same film director has worked with Stephen Lawrence’s brother, Stuart.
Stuart promotes the work of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust
and works with schools.
To the young people he works with he says:

“As a final message I would like to leave you with this...
Where you are right now; this city, this country,
this world is yours to discover and explore,
go out and Live Your Best Life.
Because tomorrow is not promised to anyone and life is short.
The secret to life?
TIME and LOVE.”

“If poets wrote obituaries,
then we would be reminded that we can either choose or refuse life.”
This day I set before you life and death, blessings and curse.
Am I/are we, really alive?

19th February 2023

26th February 2023

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 26th FEBRUARY 2023, 11.00am,
1st SUNDAY of LENT ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4

For forty days, following the example of his kinsman, John the Baptist,
Jesus retreats to the wilderness;
there, to prepare himself for his proclamation:
that the kingdom of God is near.
So, out beyond the public gaze, the scene is set for Satan’s show-down:
our Gospel reading this morning.
A contemporary poem/meditation, entitled Temptations offers insight:

Creature comforts
And why not?
All you have to do is
Give up a few rocks.
These sun-baked stones
That burn your hands and cut your feet
Could soon become a desert treat!
Stop being so hard on yourself!

Fame
All yours for the taking
All you have to do is
Leave this lonely wilderness
Head right to the centre of the noisy crowd
Drop in your branding clear and loud
Start showing what you've got!

Power
Not as easy, but well within your reach
All you have to do is
Want it more than anything
Make it your top priority
Your one and only deity
Instead of your strange, silly God
Of Suffering
Solitude
And Silence

(Brother Eckhart, Order of Saint Benedict, Community of Saint John Cassian.)

However, we visualise this prize fight in the desert,
the scene stands in a central place in Matthew’s gospel –
between baptism and the beginning of ministry,
At the river Jordan, Jesus is given the truth about who he is.
“This is my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”
An epiphany, and a covenant.

Then, almost immediately, the assault on that truth.
As the memory of his Father’s voice fades,
Jesus must learn to be God’s beloved,
in the crucible of experience, in a lonely wasteland,
when all signs of the Deity have seemingly departed.

Biblically, the wilderness is regularly a place of significant encounter
and forty a number of sacred significance.
The Genesis flood lasted forty days and forty nights.
Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
Moses spent forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai.
Jonah preached to Nineveh for forty days.
Jesus spent forty days in the desert fasting – time to listen in.

For Jesus, this deliberate drawing aside;
not a hiding place – rather, a place of fierce self-examination.
If I am God’s beloved – what choices and decisions will follow?
If I am the messiahwhat sort of Messiah will I be?

Once in the ring, the combatants circling warily.
We know the Tempter’s punches; we know Jesus’ parries.
Stones and bread, towers and tumbles, kingdoms and loyalties –
feed; dazzle, dominate –
just a little use of power for your own ends,
just a little compromising of your loyalties.

In the garden of Eden (also read this morning.)
The Serpent poses the question to the earthlings:
“Can you be like God?”
Now, to the exhausted Son of God, Satan insinuates a shrewd inversion:
“Can you be like humans?
The Tempter does not dispute Jesus’ identity;
Instead, entices with upgrades and short cuts,
that will fatally distance him from humanity,
“Sure, it was noble, to join the line,
step down into the baptismal waters of the Jordan, along with everybody else -
but, enough is enough:
Why abdicate power, exercise restraint, settle for obscurity?
You could achieve so much more with the choices I offer.”

Why not be bullet-proof, lofted on a throne?
Why be mortal – vulnerable, human, humane?
Why not a Crown, without a Cross: Easter, without Good Friday.

At the outset of Lent, as we take the first, tentative steps towards the Cross:
We are reminded of Christ’s choices:
Deprivation over ease. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honour.
Apparently, Jesus withstands temptation,
because his love for us is greater than his earthly desire.

Earlier this week, a remark:
“Looking ahead – I would hate to have a funeral
where no one knew anything about me.”

The context – a funeral where there is no next of kin,
and precious little information about a life, despite its many decades.
Even if we are not fully embracing the age of the selfie,
the fear of obscurity, of becoming invisible, unknown or unloved –
is perhaps within us all.

Soon, we will hear from our Lent Appeal – Sounding Out.
Their context, in and around prisons,
is deeply engaged with the barely visible –
the often forgotten or intentionally overlooked.
Yet in exactly such places, far from public gaze,
the desire to bring forth creativity,
to restore/honour original human worth.

The nineteenth century author, George Eliot is famously quoted:
“…the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts;
…that things are not so ill with you and me…
is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life,
and rest in unvisited tombs.”

The unseen, the unspectacular,
what is sometimes unsuccessful – in the eyes of the world –
is surely part of what today’s Gospel is about –
part of that “strange, silly God, of Suffering, Solitude and Silence.”
So, I finish with one further echo of that confounding messiah:
It comes from the pen of the First World War chaplain,
Revd Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy – “Woodbine Wullie.”

In a poem entitled High & Lifted Up
he contrasts two images/understandings of God:
There is high and lifted up, revered, but remote:
“Seated on the throne of power with a sceptre in Thine hand,
While a host of eager angels ready for Thy Service stand.”

But from the perspective/horror of the trenches,
the serving chaplain declares:
“God, I hate this splendid vision…”
The poet vents the anger and questioning
that emerges from terrible suffering:
“Praise to God in Heaven’s highest and in all the depths be praise,
Who in all His works is brutal, like a beast in all His ways.”

The revered and remote God - the God high and lifted up –
turning stones to bread, swan-diving spectacularly from Temple heights,
taking the crowns of the world by refuting his Father –
has nothing to offer.
Yet the poem concludes:
“In the life of one an outcast and a vagabond on earth,
In the common things He valued, and proclaimed of priceless worth,
And above all in the horror of the cruel death He died,
Thou hast bid us seek Thy glory, in a criminal crucified.

… … …
On my knees I fall and worship that great Cross that shines above,
For the very God of Heaven is not Power, but Power of Love.”

Sermons - January 2023

1st January

8th January

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 8th JANUARY 2023, 11.00am,
1 st SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, BAPTISM OF CHRIST

Suddenly, heavens opened, Spirit descending, that Voice:
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17

Two groups, two gatherings –
drawn by different identities,
but both careful/considerate, about the welcomes they give.

On Saturday, Parkrun in Fulham’s, Bishop’s Park.
Scanning the crowd, in excess of 500 runners –
many sporting what looked like Christmas-gift lycra –
the host organiser explained:
“First run of the new year – numbers are always up, New Year resolutions etc.
Take it easy.”
Wise words.
Then, the Parkrun ritual - an identification of, and welcome to, “newbies.”
“Any first timers?”
For a raised hand, a round of applause.
Then: “Anyone doing their tenth Parkrun?”
More hands, more applause.
“50 th , 100 th , 300 th ? ” – big applause for such a landmark.

Earlier in the week, smaller numbers.
Everybody in the room introducing themselves;
naming themselves with the identifier –
“I’m Jack. I’m an alcoholic. I’m Mary. I’m an alcoholic.”
Here too, a particular welcome to any attending for the first time.
Each time, the group gently chorusing, “Hi Jack. Hi Mary.”

Sometimes the speaker will say the length of time,
that they have been following the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) programme.
Sometimes there is an admiring recognition of thirty odd years
often accompanied by gratitude that groups
such as the ones that meet here,
have helped sustain the recovery that is never complete.
But my sense was that the group offered its most enthusiastic endorsement,
to speakers who said they were on Day 5 or 6 or 7of recovery
namely, right at the start/restart of their journey.
They were the biggest recipients of nods and smiles –
mutual recognition - of the courage it takes to be there,
and a gladness at a first step undertaken.

Two groups, two gatherings –
drawn by different identities,
but both careful/considerate, about the welcomes they give.

After thirty years of anonymity and obscurity,
Jesus leaves his family,
and joins the movement of his passionate cousin John. 
Where John's father has been part of the religious establishment,
a priest in the Jerusalem temple,
John swaps the comforts and corruptions of the city,
for the loneliness of the desert.
Living on the margins of society,
he preaches “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Contrary perhaps to logic, or expectation,
John’s frugal lifestyle and austere message
actually, attract the crowds – plenty of them.

John, himself not the light, but come to bear witness, to the light,
Declares himself: “Not worthy to carry his sandals.
The one to come, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire; 
a winnowing-fork is in his hand.

John clearly anticipates some hard times, hard truths a-coming.
“… the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

It turns out, so differently.
“Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan,
to be baptised by him.”

The long-awaited one, waits in line.
The heralded one, requests the herald,
to continue as the main man – a little longer.
In an explicit role reversal, Jesus asks John to baptise him.
John, who predicted to be baptised with fire, by the Messiah,
finds himself asked to do the oft repeated thing –
to baptise the Messiah, with water.
When John queries, Jesus assures: “Let it be so.” 
Echoing the radical consent of his mother, Mary to the angel Gabriel.

What is going on? Why does Jesus submit and submerge?
Does he need to repent of his own sins? 
At the outset of his public life,
Jesus identifies with humanity;
“the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.”
Identifies with all the brokenness and beauty of real life;
faults and failures, aches and pains, hopes and dreams.
As the prophet Isaiah envisioned:
“… a bruised reed he will not break,
a dimly burning wick he will not quench.”

Very soon, the religious leaders will deride Jesus as
a “friend of gluttons and sinners.” Exactly.

As Jesus identifies with us,
his own identity is made clear.
Scriptural pyrotechnics –
torn open heavens, parted waters, dove-descending Spirit,
resounding confirmation: “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

There at Jordan’s edge, that place of history,
before Jesus has done anything –
miracles, healings, table turning, resurrections –
before he is anything, he is loved.
That is his foremost and deepest identity.
From that being loved, comes everything.
That is what, even with our tiny Sunday, font-side sprinklings
we try to convey - to newbie or veteran;
as baptised Christians – washed and welcomed,
we are deeply loved,
potentially, deeply loving.

“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Any first timers?

The late Frederick Buechner, American novelist, writer and Presbyterian minister (d.2022)
Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary: wrote about AA:
“They acknowledge that addiction to alcohol is ruining their lives.
Their purpose in coming together is to give it up and to help others do the same.
They realise they can’t pull this off by themselves.
They believe they need each other,
and they believe they need God/Higher Power.

Apart from their ritual introductions and welcomes
they have no ritual, no hierarchy, no dues or budget.
They do not advertise or proselytise;
have no buildings of their own; they meet wherever they can.

Nobody lectures them, and they do not lecture each other.
They simply tell their own stories,
with the candour that anonymity makes possible.
They tell where they went wrong,
and how day by day they are trying to go right.
They tell where they find the strength, understanding and hope,
to keep trying.
Sometimes one of them will take special responsibility for another –
to be available at any hour of the day or night, if the need arises.

No matter what far place alcoholics end I up in,
in their own country or overseas,
they know that there will be an AA meeting nearby to go to
and that at that meeting they will find strangers,
who are not strangers, to help and to heal,
listen to the truth and to tell it.

“There’s not much more to it than that, and it seems to be enough.
Healing happens, miracles are made.
You can’t help thinking that something like this
is what the Church, the Body of Christ, the fellowship of the Beloved,
is meant to be.

15th January

22nd January

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 22nd JANUARY 2023, 11.00am,
3rd SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Jesus said: “Follow me … Matthew 4: 19

Two prayers to pray; two wayside cairns to mark our way;
two telegraph poles, set that gospel words
might hum and vibrate between the two.
Comfort and challenge - two “opposites” to attract;
or two halves to make a whole?

First the comfort - sometimes known as The Prayer of Good Courage:
O Lord God,
who has called your servants to ventures
of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown:
give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us,
your love is supporting us,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

(Eric Milner-White, Daily Prayer, p. 14. Originally published: Oxford University Press, 1941.)

The second attributed to Jo Seramane of South Africa, from ‘Prayers Encircling the World’:
You asked for my hands
that you might use them for your purpose.
I gave them for a moment and then withdrew them
for the work was hard.

You asked for my mouth
to speak out against injustice
I gave you a whisper that I might not be accused.

You asked for my eyes,
to see the pain of poverty.
I closed them for I did not want to see.

You asked for my life
that you might work through me.
I gave a small part that I might not get too involved.

Lord forgive my calculated efforts to serve you,
only when it is convenient to do so,
only with those who make it easy to do so.
Father forgive me, renew me,
send me out as a usable instrument
that I might take seriously the meaning of your cross.

Ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden…
Calculated efforts only when it is easy/convenient to do so?

Last Sunday, Jesus’ words – “Come and see”; this morning: “Follow me…

When the empire of Herod Antipas,
with its rule of brute force and capricious power,
strikes God’s messenger and silences the Baptist,
Jesus’ public work begins.
Jesus withdraws to Galilee, but he has not gone into hiding.
Capernaum, fishing village by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, visitable to this day
is in the heartland of Herod’s rule.
Jesus is raising the beheaded herald’s fallen standard.
The song/message Jesus remains the same: Repent.
Turn around. Change direction.
Reorder priorities; awake from auto-pilot, don’t settle for same old, same old.
For the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.
Not some far off moment, but now.
Now, this day, be ready for life.

Nazareth to Capernaum is a minor geographical detail,
But Matthew is making a major theological point.
This is fulfilment; fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah,
In the former time, he brought into contempt
the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali…

a place overrun by foreign domination, both in the time of Isaiah and Jesus.
Associated with the hellishness of war and its aftermath;
but in the latter time, he will make glorious the way of the sea,
the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Unlikely territory for an emergent messiah:
Nathanael: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Galilee of the gentiles looked upon by the heartland people with suspicion.

In the midst of this unlikely place,
Jesus gives call to his first disciples.
Both Matthew and Mark depict/dramatise this encounter with urgency and conviction:
At once, Peter and Andrew left their nets and followed him.”
Then, James and John about their business of fishing, likewise,
immediately left the boat and their father and followed him."
Later, speaking for the twelve, Peter will remind, perhaps even accuse Jesus:
We have left everything to follow you!” (Mark 10:28).

Wouldn’t it be more sensible,
to calmly weigh the pros and cons at home with the family?
Why burn your bridges when you could hedge your bets?” (Dan Clendenin, Journey with Jesus.)

There is no explanation behind these first responders,
just as there is no explanation of why they were first asked/chosen.
No listing of special qualities - for Peter, Andrew, James and John.
In fact, as the gospel progresses, we will become only too aware of their frailties.
Apparently, the only ability that matters, is availability.

So, no real explanation of why them
no explanation of what really will be involved –
neither the joys, nor the costs.

Just, Follow me.
Perhaps, as people only discover who they are as parents,
in the raising of children,
discipleship is only learnt by being a disciple -
persevering in that faltering, fearsome,
sometimes wondrous, sometimes dispiriting journey.
All one can do is set out;
propelled beyond our known world,
beyond the existing understanding of who we are and what we shall be.

Follow me. Be part of things whose fruition may only come, after we have gone,
Follow me, loyal to future, as yet unseen.
“Prophets of a future not our own” (Oscar Romero)

Someone who records a powerful summons to follow –
honest about his own reluctant response –
is Rhidian Brook - familiar to some;
a regular voice on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, for over twenty years.
He spoke here some years ago.

A few years ago, he was contacted by the Salvation Army
to write a book about the global AIDS pandemic
and the work/response of the Salvation Army, in the wake of its devastation.

Initially, Brook was very reluctant to take on the task.
Although a man of faith, he doubted he could do much, or make a difference.
He had no particular knowledge of the field, he was no expert.
To which he was told: “The world of HIV/AIDS has enough experts.
We don’t want a statistician or a specialist.

Go expecting to learn, and you will find the story.”
But my family?
“Take them too – where you are going it will help you.”

One by one, his objections were whittled away.
Eventually, the question: “Can you think of a good reason why you wouldn’t do it?”
(More Than Eyes Can See pp23)

So began a nine-month journey to some of the world’s most unfortunate places –
to an outsider, truly the lands of contempt –
Kenya, Rwanda, China, the USA –
all places reeling, in varying degree,
from a cocktail of poverty, illness, violence, hopelessness and indifference.

In rural Kenya Brook and his family joined a small group of volunteers
in a Local Response Team.
They had almost no resources with which to treat those with HIV/AIDS.
Instead, most of their work lay in visiting the sick.
Often walking miles during the day, they would visit as a group.
Perhaps to share food, to talk, to offer some practical support, to pray –
above all to show the visited one that they were not forgotten or shunned.
The stigma of the disease remains one of the greatest barriers
to its acknowledgement and therefore its treatment.

All this the writer observed.
At first, he felt it didn’t make much sense.
Why not concentrate on the bringing of medicine?
Why not split up into smaller groups?
Why waste the day walking to see somebody who was going to die anyway?

“But going the extra mile was partly the point.
I was slow to spot it really –
focused as I was on the empirical ways of measuring success –
but it was these small acts of kindness that were holding things together here.
They weren’t the added extra, the bonus; they were it.
These people hadn’t brought anything
because they had nothing to bring but (except) themselves
and maybe, in some way, that was enough.
After a while I stopped trying to measure the efficiency of these visits
and see them for what they were; self-giving sweaty acts of love.”
More Than Eyes Can
See pp75-76

In one scene of unutterable squalor,
he meets the Madams and some of the young women in a Mumbai brothel.
The sight of one of their children being cradled by its mother,
between clients, reduces him to tears.
It is there that he recalls the advice given to him
by one of his experienced Salvation Army associates:
“Don’t think you have anything to take into these situations.
Remember, God is already there, at work;
you just have to walk into the activity of the kingdom.”
Ibid pp83

Two prayers to pray; two wayside cairns to mark our way;
A comfort or a challenge - two “opposites” to attract;
or two halves to make a whole?
You asked for my life
that you might work through me.
I gave a small part that I might not get too involved.

Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us, your love is supporting us,

“Follow me…” “Can we think of a good reason why we wouldn’t do it?”

29th January

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 26th FEBRUARY 2023, 11.00am,
1st SUNDAY of LENT ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4

For forty days, following the example of his kinsman, John the Baptist,
Jesus retreats to the wilderness;
there, to prepare himself for his proclamation:
that the kingdom of God is near.
So, out beyond the public gaze, the scene is set for Satan’s show-down:
our Gospel reading this morning.
A contemporary poem/meditation, entitled Temptations offers insight:

Creature comforts
And why not?
All you have to do is
Give up a few rocks.
These sun-baked stones
That burn your hands and cut your feet
Could soon become a desert treat!
Stop being so hard on yourself!

Fame
All yours for the taking
All you have to do is
Leave this lonely wilderness
Head right to the centre of the noisy crowd
Drop in your branding clear and loud
Start showing what you've got!

Power
Not as easy, but well within your reach
All you have to do is
Want it more than anything
Make it your top priority
Your one and only deity
Instead of your strange, silly God
Of Suffering
Solitude
And Silence

(Brother Eckhart, Order of Saint Benedict, Community of Saint John Cassian.)

However, we visualise this prize fight in the desert,
the scene stands in a central place in Matthew’s gospel –
between baptism and the beginning of ministry,
At the river Jordan, Jesus is given the truth about who he is.
“This is my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”
An epiphany, and a covenant.

Then, almost immediately, the assault on that truth.
As the memory of his Father’s voice fades,
Jesus must learn to be God’s beloved,
in the crucible of experience, in a lonely wasteland,
when all signs of the Deity have seemingly departed.

Biblically, the wilderness is regularly a place of significant encounter
and forty a number of sacred significance.
The Genesis flood lasted forty days and forty nights.
Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
Moses spent forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai.
Jonah preached to Nineveh for forty days.
Jesus spent forty days in the desert fasting – time to listen in.

For Jesus, this deliberate drawing aside;
not a hiding place – rather, a place of fierce self-examination.
If I am God’s beloved – what choices and decisions will follow?
If I am the messiahwhat sort of Messiah will I be?

Once in the ring, the combatants circling warily.
We know the Tempter’s punches; we know Jesus’ parries.
Stones and bread, towers and tumbles, kingdoms and loyalties –
feed; dazzle, dominate –
just a little use of power for your own ends,
just a little compromising of your loyalties.

In the garden of Eden (also read this morning.)
The Serpent poses the question to the earthlings:
“Can you be like God?”
Now, to the exhausted Son of God, Satan insinuates a shrewd inversion:
“Can you be like humans?
The Tempter does not dispute Jesus’ identity;
Instead, entices with upgrades and short cuts,
that will fatally distance him from humanity,
“Sure, it was noble, to join the line,
step down into the baptismal waters of the Jordan, along with everybody else -
but, enough is enough:
Why abdicate power, exercise restraint, settle for obscurity?
You could achieve so much more with the choices I offer.”

Why not be bullet-proof, lofted on a throne?
Why be mortal – vulnerable, human, humane?
Why not a Crown, without a Cross: Easter, without Good Friday.

At the outset of Lent, as we take the first, tentative steps towards the Cross:
We are reminded of Christ’s choices:
Deprivation over ease. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honour.
Apparently, Jesus withstands temptation,
because his love for us is greater than his earthly desire.

Earlier this week, a remark:
“Looking ahead – I would hate to have a funeral
where no one knew anything about me.”

The context – a funeral where there is no next of kin,
and precious little information about a life, despite its many decades.
Even if we are not fully embracing the age of the selfie,
the fear of obscurity, of becoming invisible, unknown or unloved –
is perhaps within us all.

Soon, we will hear from our Lent Appeal – Sounding Out.
Their context, in and around prisons,
is deeply engaged with the barely visible –
the often forgotten or intentionally overlooked.
Yet in exactly such places, far from public gaze,
the desire to bring forth creativity,
to restore/honour original human worth.

The nineteenth century author, George Eliot is famously quoted:
“…the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts;
…that things are not so ill with you and me…
is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life,
and rest in unvisited tombs.”

The unseen, the unspectacular,
what is sometimes unsuccessful – in the eyes of the world –
is surely part of what today’s Gospel is about –
part of that “strange, silly God, of Suffering, Solitude and Silence.”
So, I finish with one further echo of that confounding messiah:
It comes from the pen of the First World War chaplain,
Revd Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy – “Woodbine Wullie.”

In a poem entitled High & Lifted Up
he contrasts two images/understandings of God:
There is high and lifted up, revered, but remote:
“Seated on the throne of power with a sceptre in Thine hand,
While a host of eager angels ready for Thy Service stand.”

But from the perspective/horror of the trenches,
the serving chaplain declares:
“God, I hate this splendid vision…”
The poet vents the anger and questioning
that emerges from terrible suffering:
“Praise to God in Heaven’s highest and in all the depths be praise,
Who in all His works is brutal, like a beast in all His ways.”

The revered and remote God - the God high and lifted up –
turning stones to bread, swan-diving spectacularly from Temple heights,
taking the crowns of the world by refuting his Father –
has nothing to offer.
Yet the poem concludes:
“In the life of one an outcast and a vagabond on earth,
In the common things He valued, and proclaimed of priceless worth,
And above all in the horror of the cruel death He died,
Thou hast bid us seek Thy glory, in a criminal crucified.

… … …
On my knees I fall and worship that great Cross that shines above,
For the very God of Heaven is not Power, but Power of Love.”

Opening Hours

The office is open from
9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m,
Monday to Friday.

There is a 24-hour answering machine service.

Connect with us

Find us

St Columba’s is located on Pont Street in Knightsbridge in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The Church is within easy reach of three London Underground stations – Knightsbridge (Piccadilly Line), South Kensington (Piccadilly, Circle and District Lines) and Sloane Square (Circle and District Lines).

St. Columba's
Pont Street
London SW1X 0BD
+44 (0)20-7584-2321
office@stcolumbas.org.uk

Getting here by tube

Knightsbridge Station

Take the Harrods exit if open (front car if coming from the East, rear car if coming from the West). Come up the stairs to street level, carry on keeping Harrods on your right. Turn right into Basil Street. Carry straight on into Walton Place with St Saviour’s Church on your left. At the traffic lights, St Columba’s is to your left across the street. If the Harrods exit is closed, take the Sloane Street exit, turn right into Basil Street. Carry straight on past Harrods with the shop on your right, into Walton Place as before.

South Kensington Station

Come up the stairs out of the station and turn left into the shopping arcade. Turn left again into Pelham Street. At the traffic lights at the end of Pelham Street cross Brompton Road, turn left then immediately right into the narrow street of Draycott Avenue. After just a few yards turn left into Walton Street. Carry on walking up Walton Street until the traffic lights at the corner of Pont Street. Turn right and after a few steps you will be at St Columba’s!

Sloane Square Station

Cross over the square into Sloane Street. Walk along Sloane Street until the traffic lights at the corner of Pont Street. Turn left into Pont Street. St Columba’s will then be in sight.

We use cookies to maintain login sessions, analytics and to improve your experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies and Privacy Policy.