Sermons

Sermon: The Destruction of the Temple and Safeguarding Sunday (17th Nov, 2024, Year B)

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Reading

Mark 13.1–8 – As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’ Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’

Sermon

As I began preparing for this morning’s sermon, I found myself wondering why this particular passage from Mark’s Gospel appears in the lectionary. The whole of Mark chapter 13 deals with the signs of the end of the age — yet these opening verses seem focused only on the coming destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and a warning to beware of being led astray.

So, let’s pause for a moment and try to capture the scene as it unfolds.

As the disciples leave the Temple in Jerusalem, they can’t help but marvel at it. “Look, Teacher!” they say. “What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” Jesus stops, looks back with them at the splendour of the Temple, and then replies, “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left upon another; every one will be thrown down.”

And, to put it bluntly, the disciples are gobsmacked.

The Temple wasn’t just any building — it was the very foundation of their faith, the centre of Jewish life and worship. This was the place where Jesus himself had been dedicated as a baby, where as a young boy he had discussed the Law with the teachers, and where, throughout his ministry, he had come to pray and to teach.

Now he is saying that it will all be destroyed. How could that be? Surely nothing could bring down those massive walls. Surely this, of all places, was safe — this was God’s place.

Has anyone here ever been to Jerusalem? Today, only the base of that great Temple remains — the Temple Mount, on part of which the Dome of the Rock now stands. Even the base itself is awe-inspiring: vast blocks of stone that tower over the streets below. If the foundation is that impressive, imagine what the Temple must have looked like in its glory days!

The smallest stones in the structure weighed two or three tons. Many weighed fifty tons or more. The largest surviving stone measures some twelve metres long and three metres high — hundreds of tons in weight!

The builders didn’t even use mortar; the stones’ sheer weight held the whole structure together. The Temple walls rose high above the city — in one section, more than 400 feet. Inside those walls lay 45 acres of mountain top, levelled flat, large enough to hold a quarter of a million people at once.

Even now, standing before the remains, you can easily imagine how magnificent it must have been. And yet, Jesus’ prophecy came true. About forty years later, in 70 AD, the Temple and much of Jerusalem were destroyed when the Romans, under Titus, besieged the city.

The people had indeed been led astray — by false hopes, by worldly concerns, by those who promised salvation apart from God.

So what does this passage mean for us today?

For me, it speaks about a new foundation.

In the Old Testament, the Temple was the dwelling place of God, fixed in one location — Jerusalem. But when Jesus came, everything changed. In the New Testament, the presence of God is no longer centred in a single building or city. Instead, there is a new Temple: the dwelling place of God within each believer’s heart.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, and through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God now lives in us.

As that great hymn reminds us,

“The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his new creation, by water and the Word.”

St Paul puts it plainly in his letter to the Corinthians:

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

The focus of the new covenant in Christ is not on buildings — however beautiful they may be — but on God himself, living and active in his people.

If we are God’s temple, what does that mean for the way we live?

We might no longer need the Temple rituals or the ceremonial law, but that doesn’t mean God’s moral or spiritual law no longer matters. Paul urges us,

“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” (Romans 12:1–2)

As Christians today, we can appreciate the beauty and usefulness of our church buildings — after all, we’ve just spent a good deal of money ensuring that this one doesn’t collapse around us! But as we discussed in our recent mission planning meeting, we also recognised that we must spend less time worrying about the fabric of our buildings, and more time nurturing the spiritual health of our people and our community.

This passage from Mark gives us encouragement in that. It isn’t meant to make us anxious about the future, nor to keep us up at night worrying about our buildings. It was originally written to comfort early believers who were struggling to make sense of their world — and it offers that same comfort to us.

Our calling is to remain faithful, to keep our eyes fixed not on worldly events or human institutions, but on Christ himself, our firm foundation and our hope for the future.

Postscript

I’d like to add a brief postscript, because today’s reading — with its themes of buildings, foundations, and misplaced confidence — feels especially relevant this week.

Many of you will have been following the news about the publication of the Makin Report, which exposes the appalling abuse carried out by John Smyth and the Church’s failure to act. I use the word horrific quite deliberately. I’ve read every one of its 253 pages, and it truly is 253 pages of horror. As Bishop Nick wrote recently, there can be no mitigation, no defence, for what has been revealed.

And it is a painful irony that today — long before the report’s publication was scheduled — has been designated Safeguarding Sunday.

The report, and indeed Archbishop Justin Welby’s resignation, affect us all as members of the Church of England. They remind us that the Church must never hide behind failure or defensiveness. Instead, our confidence must rest in our continuing vocation — to worship faithfully, to follow Christ in discipleship, and to serve others with integrity.

Even in the face of such terrible wrongdoing, we are called not to conceal or to pretend, but to bring light into the darkness — to commend what is good and true.

Scripture is clear: Christ’s followers are called to support and protect those who are weak, vulnerable, or wounded. This is how the world will know the truth of our Gospel.

Safeguarding, then, is everyone’s responsibility. It isn’t a bureaucratic burden or a distraction from our mission — it’s a vital expression of what the Church is meant to be: a place of safety, compassion, and truth.

So, just as Jesus called his disciples to look beyond the splendour of the Temple and to place their trust in him, so we too are called to look beyond our buildings and institutions, and to place our trust firmly in Christ — the cornerstone of our faith.

If we do that, then the Church truly can become a safe place for all people, and those who have suffered abuse can know that the light of truth will never again be hidden.

Amen.

Sermon: The Transfiguration and Racial Justice Sunday (11th Feb, 2024, Year B)

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Readings

2 Corinthians 4.3–6 – And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Mark 9.2–9 – Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Sermon

In the passages of Mark’s gospel that I’ve just read aloud here in church, we’ve heard the perhaps familiar story of Jesus’ transfiguration before Peter, James and John on the side of a mountain; a story in which Jesus’ clothes suddenly become a supernatural dazzling white and the disciples – terrified, the passage tells us, with Peter, as he usually does, blurting out the first thing that comes into his head – witnessing Jesus talking to the prophets Elijah and Moses. And as if that isn’t enough to send the disciples scurrying back down the mountain as fast as they can go, we’ve heard that a cloud then appears and overshadows them, and a voice comes from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!” The voice must have spoken with some volume or urgency, because as the Bible has it, that command from the cloud finishes with an exclamation mark, so we had better listen up!

Now that could all seem pretty confusing and overwhelming, couldn’t it? Presumably not least to the disciples, who have just witnessed the latest in an increasingly long line of extraordinary events concerning Jesus, only for him to tell them as they come back down the mountain that they mustn’t tell anyone what they have seen. So, let’s take a cautious and humble step back, shall we, and see if we can make some sense of it all.

What has happened in Mark’s gospel so far, up until this point in the story? Well, Jesus has, metaphorically speaking, led the disciples up a mountainside to give them a new perspective; a clearer view of the work God is doing and what God’s kingdom looks like. As such, they have had their eyes opened so that they can see – for the very first time – the inner reality of God’s kingdom and the central truth that Jesus really is the Messiah. The gospel has told us several times about eyes being opened in several different senses and, every time, it all comes back to Jesus himself, and the Kingdom of God that he is ushering in.

Now, though, as we have heard in our Gospel reading, Jesus has literally taken the disciples up a mountainside (maybe Mount Hermon just north of Caesarea Philippi, maybe Mount Tabor in central Galilee, we aren’t sure). And here, something similar in nature happens, though this time it happens on another, far more profound level; just like a microscope revealing the atomic structure of the smallest matter that makes up the earth beneath us, or a telescope revealing the greatest and largest cosmic realities of the universe that towers above us, the many layers of Jesus’ being are peeled back for Peter, James and John to see, and their eyes are truly opened to the inner reality of Jesus’ work; that is continuing, and then completing, the work of the great prophet, Elijah, and the greatest prophet, Moses.

So, what might this mean to the disciples, or to us today? Well, theologian Tom Wright suggests that the transfiguration isn’t about the revelation of Jesus’ divinity. If this was the meaning behind the event, then it would be implying that Elijah and Moses were some how divine, too. Rather, the transfiguration is a sign of Jesus being entirely caught up with, bathed in, the love, power and Kingdom of God, so that it transforms his whole being with light, in the way perhaps that music transforms the meaning of the words of a song. This is a sign that Jesus isn’t just indulging in nice and benign fantasies, but that he is speaking and doing the truth in a way that will transform the world.

But even this could leave us feeling puzzled, couldn’t it? We don’t generally experience things in our lives as dramatic as this story – as possible as such dramatic things might be. We don’t often try to interpret the details of our lives and times according to a detailed scriptural plot. Though perhaps we should, because I believe that each of us is called to do what the heavenly voice towards the end of our Gospel passage said: listen to Jesus, because he is God’s beloved Son.

Now, as well as being the Sunday Next before Lent – doesn’t that sound exciting! – today is Racial Justice Sunday. Our own Bishop of Huddersfield, Bishop Smitha, who heads up the Church of England’s Anglican Minority Ethnic Network was talking to a group of us clergy about Racial Justice Sunday at Church House in Leeds a couple of weeks ago. She was encouraging us to reflect upon the meaning of the day, engage with it and share it in the communities in which we serve. Indeed, in conversation, she gave me a forceful look as only Bishops can and noted something earlier in the day where I had shared that I was preaching today. “Oh, you’re preaching on Racial Justice Sunday. How opportune!” And yes, just like the voice from the overshadowing cloud that we heard about in Mark’s gospel, I’m pretty sure her sentence ended with an exclamation mark!

“Uh oh”, I hear you say. Where’s Graeme going with this? Is he a fully paid-up member of Suella Braverman’s Guardian-reading, tofu-eating, wokerati?! Well, bear with me for just a minute or two longer, and you can decide for yourselves.

I am in no doubt at all that I am blessed. Blessed, and deeply privileged. I am a white, middle-class, educated, cis-gendered, heterosexual man. I am of the Christian faith, and I am now a member of the clergy serving a largely affluent parish in the Church of England who have welcomed me with open arms. I have a loving family who support me in everything – well, most things – that I do. I do not want for anything much at all, and NONE of these things that I have just mentioned are a barrier to me going about my life. That’s not the case for everyone in the world. It’s certainly not the case for everyone in the UK. It may not even be the case for everyone in Mirfield, though available data suggests that for the majority of people in this town, it is. So what? What does that have to do with you as you sit here in the stunning surrounds of this church in this village and this town? What does that have to do with us here in what we only half-jokingly call God’s own county? And what on earth does it have to do with today’s gospel reading?

One of the first questions so many of you asked me as I came to serve in Mirfield Team Parish was where would Sally and the children – and Val – and I be living. My answer was always the same. Well, the house we were due to move into wasn’t ready in time, so the Diocese moved us to Cleckheaton. But when the house is ready, we’ll be moving to Ravensthorpe and the St. Saviour’s Vicarage. Here’s a selection of just some of the responses that I got and the exchanges that followed:

  1. Ooof. You’re better off staying in Cleckheaton!
  2. Oh no. Ravensthorpe isn’t what it used to be. Oh really? Why’s that? Well, you know. I don’t have to tell you.
  3. You’d better keep your cats in doors once you’ve moved, otherwise they’ll be made into a curry.

Even when people weren’t speaking directly to me, I often overheard, and still overhear, comments about Ravensthorpe when people either don’t know I can hear them, or don’t think there is anything untoward about what they are saying. Some more lived examples from my own personal experience:

  1. You must be mad to even think about living in Ravensthorpe.
  2. Well, the traffic was really busy, and I could either turn back, or turn towards Ravensthorpe. And who in their right mind would want to go to Ravensthorpe.
  3. Use the laundrette in Ravensthorpe? Yeah, right! And get held up at gunpoint and your car nicked for the sake of washing a thirty quid duvet? I’ll just buy a new duvet.
  4. Ravensthorpe is a dunghole. (Spoiler alert for you, my brothers and sisters, “dunghole” may not be the word that was actually used.)

Why do I mention any of this? Well, on this Racial Justice Sunday, that coincides with our hearing of the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, I’d like to prompt us all – myself very much included, I’m not somehow off the hook here because I’m the one speaking from the lectern – to peel back the layers of the world around us, and see as clearly as we can, the reality that we live in.

This reality includes the fact that yes, even here in the Mirfield Team Parish, we say and do things that can be described as racist every day of the week, at the same time as we do the things that are loving and welcoming and Christlike. These two features of our life in this Christian community it turns out, shock horror, are not somehow mutually exclusive. One does not automatically cancel out the other.

As someone who lives there and experiences the place and its people on a daily basis, I can tell you that this reality includes the fact that Ravensthorpe is a community that has its challenges, socially, economically, but is also a place that is full of faithful, loving, hard-working and hopeful people who are let down every time someone a  mile up the road perpetuates myths about the community of Ravensthorpe and the people who live there. It’s not lost on me that when I walk around Ravensthorpe wearing my dog-collar, I am welcomed with open arms there, too. In fact, I am far more likely to receive a smile and a nod, a handshake or end up having a deep and meaningful conversation about God in Ravensthorpe than I am in Mirfield, where the response is more often than not for the passer by to see me, clock the dog collar, and immediately turn their gaze to pavement, walking a little quicker to get away from me as quickly as they can.

This reality includes the fact that this is now a mobile world. People are on the move and places and communities are connected in ways that they never have been before. Everywhere and everything is more accessible than it was 100 years ago, and that isn’t going to change.

Much like the disciples might have been feeling on that mountainside, that sounds like a lot. It sounds overwhelming. So how, as Christians, are we to respond? What, if anything, should we do?

We could start with the Bible and the book of Genesis and its assertion that we are – ALL of us – made in the image of God. We can turn through the pages of the first five books of the Bible and take note of reference after reference after reference telling us how we are to welcome strangers. We can pay attention when Jesus tells us that when we welcome strangers and care for them in their hour of need, we are welcoming and caring for Jesus himself. We can turn to Jesus’ story of the workers in the vineyard and see how all of them are treated fairly, no matter when or how they arrived to do their work.

Ultimately, however, what it ALL boils down to, ALL of it, is that our Christian response should be to love one another. As an ordained Deacon I have the immense privilege of saying several times a week: “Our Lord, Jesus Christ, said: the first commandment is this. Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, is the only Lord; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” I shall go on saying those words at every opportunity that I have. The question is, do I – DO YOU – really believe them?

So the Bible and Christ himself tell us that our Christian response to this reality should be based on mercy, compassion and love: to see the image of God in ALL people. It tells us that our response should be about action, too, and that we are required to take risks: perhaps for us this might be about speaking out, challenging and changing the language that is used to talk about people who live just down the road, or come to our neighbourhoods seeking sanctuary, regardless of the pushback that might follow. Perhaps that is the risk that I am taking this morning. We shall see.

It tells us that we should use the resources we have to help those who flee from persecution, conflict and crisis. These might be our own personal resources, those of our churches or our collective national resources. And the teaching of Jesus tells us that we should do all of this regardless of difference: no partiality.

So perhaps, just as Jesus led his disciples up a mountain and opened their eyes to the truth,  the reality lying behind the layers upon layers upon layers of the world, we as Christians who have come in their wake, might let God in Jesus Christ open our eyes too to the truth that is all around us if only we are prepared to see it. Perhaps, in that way, we too will be blessed, our community will be enriched, our economy and everything else will be given added value. People born in other cultures and other parts of the world have so much to give, so much to bring into our lives together. We miss out on all this if we overlook the Christian imperative that we should love our neighbour as we love ourselves. Perhaps finally, in this loving and hopeful, Christian response, in our witness to the truth of Jesus seen in his transfiguration, we might transfigure ourselves and the contested world in which we live, drawn by hope, not driven by fear; like Christ himself, entirely caught up in, bathed in, the love, power and Kingdom of God. AMEN.

Friday Thought, St. Hild College, 16th September, 2022

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I am in my final year of training for ordination at St. Hild College in Yorkshire. When the college gathers for residential weekends at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, it is traditional that a student offers a “Friday Thought” during the first time of Evening Prayer the college shares together that weekend.

On Friday, 16th September, the college community gathered for it’s first residential weekend of the new academic year and, this time, it was my turn to offer the Friday Thought. The three readings from Scripture that I chose for Evening Prayer were Isaiah 43:1-7, Romans 12:3-8 and Matthew 20:20-28. The text of the thought I shared follows.

Jesus Washes Peter’s Feet by Sieger Köder

“I declare before you all, that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

The words of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, spoken to the nation and to the world on her 21st birthday in 1947. Words that have been shared many times over the course of the Queen’s reign, and of course have been shared many more times in the days since her death at the age of 96. Hers was a long life, as it turned out.

I wonder if the Queen was nervous before giving her speech. Perhaps in the way we might all be feeling some nerves as we join the family of St.Hild for the first time, or embark on our next or final year of study and formation in this place. Even though she was being prepared for public life for much of her life, the Queen’s eventual accession to the throne was unexpectedly swift. I can’t help but feel that even that most steadfast of monarchs must have felt just the odd twinge of anxiousness.

Fortunately for the Queen, and for us as some of the many millions of people she dedicated her life of service to, we know that she had a deep faith in something beyond herself and her own strength. As she publicly professed many times, she had faith in God and saw Jesus Christ as her ultimate guide and inspiration as she sought to live out the life of a servant-leader.

The readings from Scripture that we’ve heard this evening, from Isaiah, Paul’s letter to the Romans, and the Gospel of Matthew, I think all speak to aspects of the Queen’s life and to the life of all of us at St. Hild College as we embark on this new year together.

In Isaiah we hear about how God called the people of Israel by name to their life and vocation as the people of God, and of all that he would do for them as they grew into that vocation. Of course, God didn’t promise that the vocation would be easy, but God did – and still does – promise that even though we walk through fire we shall not be consumed by it.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we hear something pertinent about how to live well in community and relationship with one another, recognising and valuing diversity and the different gifts that we all bring and should share in service of one another as we grow together and help form and be formed by one another. Note to self: We also hear how we should leave our egos at the door and not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.

In Matthew’s Gospel we hear Jesus challenge the ego of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and perhaps their mother, as she asks Jesus to ensure that her sons will sit at his right hand and left in the Kingdom. Jesus draws all three of them back to God with gently worded but profound challenge, before going on to declare that whoever wishes to be great among you, must be your servant, just as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

Whether Royalist or Republican, or any nuanced position in between, I think we might all agree that Queen Elizabeth lived out her faith and her own God-given vocation; that as imperfect as we all are as human beings, and as deeply problematic as the reality of Empire was, the Queen took every opportunity she could to encourage living well together in community and relationship; and that in her public declaration in 1947 and her life beyond it, she certainly lived up to her promise to serve us all, because ultimately, first and foremost, she was serving God. In that way, perhaps, she was and can continue to be an inspiration to us all.

So, as we embark upon this weekend together, our anxiousness and imposter syndrome may be real. Have faith. God has called us all by name. We may be challenged by the things we hear, see and feel as part of this college family. Have faith, diversity and learning to live well together as people called to ministry will be challenging, but a good and healthy thing. We may at times seek reward or greater security on our journey with God. Have faith, let’s all check our egos at the door, for we are all here not to be served, but to serve.

In serving God and one another, may we all have a blessed and fruitful year. Amen.