Ruth Greenaway-Robbins

Those at the Edge of the Picture

August 16, 2026

Isaiah 56.1, 6–8; Matthew 15.21–28

Christ as a Child in the Temple in Jerusalem, teaching. St. Andrew’s Church N16 Stamford Hill

In the last couple of weeks here at St. Andrew’s, we have had new lighting installed, and subsequently I have been able to see our remarkable wall paintings differently. These wall paintings are unique to the Church given by parish members at the turn of the last century, and they depict the life of Christ from the Cradle to his glorious Resurrection.

When I first arrived in the Parish in early autumn last year I found it was difficult to make out many the details of the paintings because the church was so dark and we only had a few of the lights working. We could see the main figures and the broad outline of each scene, but many of the smaller characters remained hidden.

During Holy Week this year, as we walked the way of Christ through those paintings, we illuminated each scene with a torch – it was quite dramatic in the darkness and stillness of that Great Week to have this moment in Christ’s life illuminated like this. Suddenly, people began to emerge from the darkness for me in a new way: figures standing at the edges of the scene, faces in the crowd, people who had been there all along but whom I had never properly noticed. They were part of the story, but had become almost invisible, background characters, hidden by the lack of light.

And it reminded me that even our own patron, St Andrew, is something of a background character in the Gospels.

Andrew is rarely at the centre of the action. But he has a particular gift for noticing people whom others might overlook and bringing them to Jesus.

When a great crowd gathers around Jesus and needs to be fed, it is Andrew who notices the boy carrying five loaves and two fish. The boy is just one person among thousands. He is not named and appears to have very little to offer. Yet Andrew sees him and brings him forward, and through that overlooked child and his small offering, Christ feeds the multitude.

Today’s Gospel also asks us to notice someone standing at the edge of the picture.

Jesus has travelled into the region of Tyre and Sidon, beyond the familiar boundaries of Israel. A Canaanite woman comes to him, crying out:

“Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

We do not know her name. We know her only by her gender and ethnicity. As far as the disciples and Christ were concerned, she is a foreigner, a woman and a member of a people historically regarded with suspicion and hostility.

Yet she recognises Jesus.

She calls him “Lord” and “Son of David”. She sees something in him that many others, including some of the religious authorities, have failed to see.

In the verses immediately before this encounter, Jesus has been arguing with the Pharisees about purity and defilement. They are the religious insiders. They know the traditions and understand the rules. Yet they repeatedly fail to recognise who Jesus really is.

Now a foreign woman appears, and she knows him.

She knows who he is, and she refuses to let go of what she knows.

But the response she receives is deeply uncomfortable.

At first, Jesus does not answer her at all.

The disciples become irritated by her shouting and say, “Send her away.” They do not see a distressed mother or a suffering daughter. They see an inconvenience. They want the noise to stop and the troublesome woman to disappear back into the background.

Jesus then says that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Still, she does not leave.

She comes closer, kneels before him and says simply, “Lord, help me.”

And then come some of the most difficult words we hear Jesus speak:

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

We should not rush past the discomfort of those words or try to make them harmless. However we interpret them, the woman is placed outside the household and away from the table.

Some scholars suggest that Jesus is testing her faith. Others believe that he is exposing the prejudice already present in the disciples and the wider culture. Others wonder whether, in the fullness of his humanity, this encounter draws out the widening scope of Christ’s mission.

Perhaps this is one of those passages of Scripture we must wrestle with rather than neatly resolve.

But whatever else is happening, Matthew leaves us in no doubt about the woman.

She will not allow herself or her daughter to be dismissed. She takes the image she has been given and opens it up:

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

It is an astonishing reply. It’s a gutsy reply. She has flipped the parable-style encounter back at him.

She is not asking for the children to go hungry or for anyone else to be denied bread. She is saying that there must be enough mercy for her daughter too.

She knows that grace is not scarce. Another person receiving mercy does not leave less mercy for everybody else. She believes that even a crumb falling from this table contains enough of God’s goodness to bring healing and life.

And Jesus answers:

“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

The person who began at the edge of the picture now stands at its centre.

The woman whom the disciples wanted to send away is the person Jesus holds up as an example of great faith. The supposed outsider perceives something about him that the insiders have missed.

Perhaps this Gospel asks us to look again at the picture, to allow God to change the light and reveal the people we have failed to notice.

Who today is being told, directly or indirectly, that the bread is not for them?

Who enters our churches but never quite feels that the table is theirs?

Who remains in the background because we have become accustomed to seeing some people as central and others as peripheral?

Who is treated as an inconvenience rather than a person carrying pain?

And who might understand something about the mercy of God that the rest of us still need to learn?

Those questions feel especially urgent this week as we mourn the death of Professor Jason Arday. Jason was a Black academic who became Cambridge University’s youngest Black professor. In recent weeks, questions had been raised about aspects of his academic work. Those questions needed to be examined properly. But what followed was not simply careful scrutiny: it became an intense and deeply personal public hounding. His family have spoken of the sustained abuse and misinformation to which he had been subjected, and of the unbearable toll it took upon him. This led to the ending of his precious life.

There is a difference between accountability and humiliation. There is a difference between seeking truth and pursuing a person until we can no longer see their humanity. We must ask whether Jason was afforded the grace, care and proportion that others might have received, or whether, as a Black man occupying a place in which some believed he did not belong, every mistake became evidence that he was an impostor and every part of his life was placed on trial.

Jason was not merely a public figure or the subject of a controversy. He was a father, partner, son, brother and friend: a human being, made in the image of God. May he rest in peace, and may those who loved him be held in God’s mercy.

Because true welcome is more than permitting someone to enter the building while expecting them to remain quietly at the edges.

It is learning to see the people who have been standing in the picture all along. It is listening when someone at the edge speaks about God’s mercy. It is recognising that they may see something in Christ that those of us nearer the centre have missed. It is allowing their presence, questions and even their challenge to change what the whole Church can see.

Depiction of Mark 10: 14 Suffer the Children … St. Andrew’s Church N16, Stamford Hill

And I think it is important to say that I know many churches are noticing, and do welcome, and they do see. But these are questions we should always be asking, but also be asking of the wider Church of which we are part. We cannot be complacent in this … ever!

We also heard today from the prophet Isaiah; he imagines God gathering those who have previously been excluded and bringing them to God’s holy mountain:

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Not simply for the familiar people.

Not only for those who know the customs, speak the language or understand when to stand and sit.

Not merely for those who have always felt at home around the table.

A house of prayer for all peoples.

Every week, we gather around this altar and receive what appears to be so little: a small piece of bread placed into our open hands.

Yet we believe that Christ gives us not merely a crumb of himself, but his whole self. The smallest fragment carries the fullness of the gift. Here, Christ does not offer us the leftovers of his love. He offers himself: his life, mercy, healing and grace.

The household of God becomes more fully itself as those who were hidden, overlooked or excluded are brought into the light.

The Canaanite woman refuses to believe that God’s mercy ends at the boundaries other people have drawn.

Like that woman, may we have the courage to hold fast to the abundance of God’s mercy.

Like St Andrew, may we notice those whom others overlook and bring their gifts into the centre.

And may Christ change the light, open our eyes, and help us see those who have been present among us all along.

Amen.

Luke 7: 36 St. Andrew’s Church N16, Stamford HIll
Great Is Thy Faithfulness: Even When Ours Falters

August 9, 2026

Matthew 14.22–33; Romans 10.5–15

Around eighteen months ago, I was looking through the jobs page of the Church Times.

I was coming towards the end of my curacy and beginning to look for what might come next. I knew some of the things I felt called to, and a big city was definitely one of them. So London was very much in the mix, but I was trying to remain open.

And then I saw it.

An advertisement for a priest in Stamford Hill, North London. It was Anglo-Catholic, had a focus on community organising and believed deeply in community engagement. There was talk of partnership, working as part of a team, and perhaps doing something new with music.

It seemed to have neon lights flashing around it.

It looked remarkably “Ruth-shaped.”

So, I applied. To my delight, I was shortlisted. I came to visit and, as my children would say, the vibes were great.

And so, one evening in late February, I found myself with our daughter in a Premier Inn in central London, the night before my interview.

As the evening progressed, my anxiety rapidly began to rise.

All those interior, critical voices started becoming louder:

“You’re not good enough.”

“You haven’t prepared enough.”

“You’re not ready for this.”

By the time I went to bed, I was a bag of nerves. Eventually, I drifted into a restless sleep.

Then, sometime during the night, I awoke.

The hotel room seemed to be filled with a beautiful, warm and brilliant light. At first, I was confused and thought it must be morning. But when I glanced outside, it was still dark. It was the dead of night, and our daughter was deeply asleep beside me.

And then I heard music.

I can only tell you what I experienced. It was as though a host of angels were singing in the deepest, richest harmony. And what were they singing?

“Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father.”

Obviously, besides wondering whether I was losing my mind, I felt a great sense of calm.

In that moment, I was reminded that, however much I might want to run away from God’s call, God was there.

“There is no shadow of turning with thee.”

My deepest fears were all about whether I was enough.

But God was reminding me that I did not have to do any of this in my own strength.

“Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not;
as thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.”

Through all the things I have faced in my life, what has been the one constant?

God.

The faithful, compassionate and unchanging love of God, revealed in Jesus Christ.

“Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness,
morning by morning new mercies I see.”

It was such a clear reminder that I had not been called to be a priest in my own strength, but through the strength and grace of the God who had called me.

“All I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”

And this night was no different. If this was where God was calling me, God would provide what I needed.

Then, as suddenly as the light and music had begun, they ended.

A deep peace settled upon me, and I fell into a restorative sleep.

Of course, I still woke the next morning feeling nervous. Faith does not mean that we never feel anxious or afraid. But that experience had changed something within me. Whatever happened, I knew that I was held.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

Here I am, eighteen months later, serving the wonderful and remarkable people of Stamford Hill as their priest.

That night has stayed with me throughout my first year here. Whenever I find myself trying to be their priest entirely in my own power, worrying about things beyond my control, I remember that encounter in the hotel room.

I remember that the ministry to which I am called does not depend upon my strength alone.

It belongs to the one who called me, who called all of us, and who called the countless generations before us.

Great is thy faithfulness.

My memory of that evening was rekindled at our weekly Bible study last Monday morning, as we reflected upon the faith of St Peter in all its deep imperfection.

The disciples are in the middle of a storm. They are battered by the waves and terrified. Then they see Jesus coming towards them across the water, and their fear grows even greater. They think they are seeing a ghost.

But Jesus says:

“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

And then there is Peter.

Truth be told, I have an enormous soft spot for Peter because I find him so relatable. He tends to jump in with both feet. He speaks with great enthusiasm before he has fully thought things through, and consequently he often gets things wrong.

He is impulsive, but he is faithful.

His faith is real, but it is also messy, imperfect and prone to wobbling.

Peter says:

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus says:

“Come.”

So Peter steps out of the boat.

We often focus on the fact that Peter eventually sinks. But before he sinks, he steps out. Among that entire boatful of terrified disciples, Peter is the one willing to risk placing his weight upon the word of Jesus.

That is an extraordinary act of faith.

Then Peter notices the strength of the wind. Fear takes over. He begins to sink and cries out:

“Lord, save me!”

And what does Jesus do?

Immediately, Jesus reaches out his hand and catches him.

He does not leave Peter struggling in the water to teach him a lesson. He does not frighten him a little longer to ensure that he never tries anything so impulsive again.

Immediately, Jesus reaches out.

Jesus does say, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” But I cannot help imagining this being said with the wry smile Jesus must often have worn when dealing with Peter.

Not, “You are a hopeless failure.”

But, “Peter, why did you doubt? I had you. I was always here.”

The Navicella, or St. Peter walking on the Sea of Galilee. Giotto St. Peter’s Basilica

In our reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he tells us that God’s word is not impossibly distant from us: it is near us, on our lips and in our hearts.

St Paul then writes:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

That is precisely what Peter does.

His faith is not proved by never sinking. His faith is revealed when, sinking, he knows whose name to call.

And this is the man whom Jesus will call to help lead the Church.

Faithful? Yes.

But also impulsive, messy, frightened and imperfect.

If Jesus can call Peter, Jesus can certainly call each of us.

Jesus is revealed in the mess, in the imperfection, and in faith that doubts and wobbles. Not because doubt does not matter, but because doubt does not place us beyond the reach of God.

Faith is not always walking serenely above the waves, never afraid and never uncertain.

Faith is knowing whose name to call when the water rises.

Faith is trusting that, even when our confidence fails, Christ’s faithfulness does not.

I found myself thinking again this week about what it means to be called as a Christian, in whatever capacity that might be. There will inevitably be times when we feel as though we are sinking.

We may wobble, but God’s faithfulness never does. God has us.

We are called to bring the faith we have, even when it is small, messy and wobbling, and place it in the one whose faithfulness never changes.

Peter’s grip may have failed.

Christ’s did not.

So, as I think back to that night some eighteen months ago, I know that, of course, I will have wobbles as a priest. I will panic and think that I have to do it all alone. As a Christian, I will forget that I am not called to do any of this in my own strength.

But when I do, and whenever any of us feels ourselves sinking, the same hand is stretched towards us, and the same voice speaks:

“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Amen.
Enough – and More Than Enough

August 5, 2026

Ninth Sunday after Trinity | Isaiah 55.1–5; Matthew 14.13–21

There are moments when the needs of the world before us simply feel too great.

We look at what is being asked of us personally, as a Church and as a society, and then at what we have in our hands, and the gap between the two seems impossible.

I suspect that is something of what the disciples feel in today’s Gospel.

The day is drawing to an end. They are in a deserted place, a long way from anywhere. A huge crowd has gathered around Jesus, and the people are tired and hungry.

So, the disciples make a perfectly sensible suggestion:

“Send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

There is nothing particularly uncaring about their response. They have noticed the problem. They are simply being realistic.

We cannot feed all these people.
We do not have the resources.
Send them somewhere else.

But Jesus replies:

“They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

And suddenly the problem is placed back into their hands.

It is worth noticing where this story begins. Jesus has withdrawn after hearing that John the Baptist has been brutally killed.

Jesus has come away carrying grief. Perhaps he wants silence and time to pray and mourn. Yet when he comes ashore, the crowd is already there.

And Matthew tells us that when Jesus sees them, “he has compassion for them.”

This does not mean that grief and exhaustion do not matter. This passage should never be used to suggest that faithful people must ignore their limits or meet every demand placed upon them. Jesus himself sought space to withdraw.

But it tells us something profound about God.

Jesus does not minister as one untouched by pain. He looks upon this wounded and hungry crowd while carrying his own wound, and he is moved with compassion. As evening falls, he refuses to send them away.

Here our Gospel meets the invitation of Isaiah:

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat.”

Come without money.
Come without price.
Come because you are hungry.
Come because God’s goodness is gift.

Isaiah imagines God’s kingdom as a great feast at which the hungry are welcomed and fed. Nobody must prove that they deserve a place. God’s generosity is not reserved for those who can pay, achieve or make themselves worthy.

Come, says God.

There is enough.

And there is more than enough.

But that is not what the disciples can see.

When Jesus tells them to feed the crowd, they reply:

“We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”

Nothing here but…

It is such a human response. In the face of such enormous need, what they have is barely worth mentioning.

But Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.”

He does not ask them to produce what they do not have or shame them for the smallness of their offering. He asks them to place what they have into his hands.

Perhaps this is where the miracle begins: with the willingness to bring what seems hopelessly inadequate to Jesus.

Jesus takes the bread. He looks up to heaven. He blesses it. He breaks it. And he gives it to the disciples to place before the crowd.

Takes.
Blesses.
Breaks.
Gives.

The actions point us towards this table, to the Eucharist in which Christ takes the ordinary gifts of the earth and gives himself to us.

Panel of clear and coloured glass with painted details. Depicting Christ Feeding the Five Thousand. From Troyes, France, 12th and 13th centuries. On display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

But the setting matters too.

Jesus feeds the people in the wilderness, the place where Israel’s ancestors had journeyed out of slavery and where God had fed them with manna from heaven.

As we have been exploring in our book group through Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, there was a hope that when God’s saving work was renewed, the gift of manna would be renewed too.

So, when Jesus feeds the people with miraculous bread in the wilderness, he is doing more than satisfying their immediate hunger. He is revealing who he is.

Here is the one who feeds God’s people in the wilderness.
Here is the bread of the new exodus.
Here is a foretaste of God’s promised banquet.

And when the fragments are gathered, there are twelve baskets remaining, one for every tribe of Israel. In Jesus, God is feeding and gathering his people once again.

Yet the disciples are not merely spectators. The bread passes from Christ’s hands into theirs and from their hands into the hands of the crowd.

“You give them something to eat.”

Jesus draws them into his work of compassion. What they have is not enough by itself, but offered to Christ and shared at his command, it becomes part of God’s abundance.

We know something about that here at St Andrew’s. And many churches are like us.

Food has become an important part of community life together. Here at St. Andrews through the Foodbank, Community Cooking, the Conversation Café, the Community Meal we have once a month on a Sunday and the many occasions when we gather around tables.

These things are not optional extras alongside the “spiritual” work of the Church. They are signs of God’s kingdom.

Whenever food is offered freely; whenever strangers become neighbours; whenever somebody who is hungry is fed or someone who is lonely finds companionship, the kingdom draws near.

But we must not romanticise hunger. Hunger is not a metaphor to those who genuinely do not have enough to eat. The fact that Foodbanks are needed in one of the wealthiest countries in the world should trouble us deeply.

Isaiah asks:

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?”

That is a question not only for individuals, but for our society.

Why do we accept systems in which some have far more than they need while others cannot afford to eat? Why is there always money for some things, but never enough to feed and house people, care for them or protect their dignity?

God’s kingdom is not a marketplace in which everything has a price, and only those with money may eat. It is a banquet to which God calls everyone who thirsts:

“Come, buy and eat…without money and without price.”

Yet there are other kinds of hunger too.

We can have plenty to eat and still hunger for love.
We can be surrounded by people and still hunger for companionship.
We can fill every hour and still hunger for meaning.
We can consume more and more and remain unsatisfied.

And into all those hungers, God says: Come.

Come, not because you have earned it.
Come, not because your faith is perfect.
Come because you are hungry.
Come because Christ is here.

At the end of the Gospel, everyone eats and is satisfied. And still twelve baskets remain.

Not just enough, but more than enough.

That does not mean every problem will disappear if only we have enough faith. Nor does it mean that our human resources are limitless. The Church still needs wisdom, rest, boundaries, generosity and justice.

But we should be cautious about deciding, on God’s behalf, that there cannot possibly be enough.

Perhaps the question is not, “Do we have enough?”

Perhaps it is, “What do we have that we can bring to Jesus?”

None of us can meet every need, and no one person is being asked to do so, and I have to admit this has been one of the hardest lessons as an adult, that I/we can’t fix every need before me/us. But together we can place what we have into the hands of Christ and allow him to use it.

Each week we gather at the altar, and we will come to this table with our own hungers.

We come with empty hands, and Christ places into them the gift of himself.

We come thinking there is not enough, not enough faith, strength, hope, perhaps not enough of us.

But Christ says, “Bring them here to me.”

For in the hands of Christ, what is small is not despised, what is broken is not discarded, and those who hunger are not sent away.

All eat.
All are satisfied.
And still, there is more than enough.

Amen.
A Hiraeth for the Kingdom

July 29, 2026

A sermon preached at the Anglican Eucharist National Network of Pastoral Musicians 2026 Conference | One Heart, One Voice | Highgate House | Sunday 26th July 2026

Matthew 13.31–33, 44–52; Romans 8.26–end

I wonder, if I were to ask you, “What, or where, is home?” what your answer might be?

Until this time last year, I was living and ministering in Wales. And in Welsh there is a word: hiraeth.

It is difficult to translate. It can mean a longing for home, but it is more than homesickness. It is a deep yearning for a place, a people, or even a time in which we feel that we truly belong.

Sometimes it is a longing for a home we once knew; sometimes for a home which may never have existed quite as perfectly as we remember it.

But perhaps hiraeth can also describe a longing for a home we have not yet known: a sense, deep within us, that the world is not yet as it should be; that there must be another way of living, in which we, and the whole of creation, can finally be at home.

And perhaps that is something like our longing for the Kingdom of God.

A wise priest once said to me, “Surely the hiraeth you are searching for is the Kingdom of God.”

Annoyingly, I think they might have been right.

Because home is a complicated question for me, as it can be for many of us. I have never lived anywhere for more than nine years. I was born in Lincoln, brought up in the Black Country, and have lived in Birmingham, Cornwall, Vancouver, across South Wales, including Cardiff, and now in Hackney, North London.

Home, for me, is fluid.

Although, if you ask me which nation I support in the rugby, I can give you a completely unambiguous answer: Wales. Most definitely Wales.

But perhaps beneath all our different experiences of home lies a deeper hiraeth: a longing for the place where we are fully known, fully loved and fully able to belong.

In my parish, back in North London, we begin each working week with Morning Prayer, followed by Bible study on the readings for the coming Sunday. It is one of the ways in which I hear how the people I serve are seeing and experiencing God, and their wisdom inevitably finds its way into my preaching.

St Andrew’s is a Black-majority congregation, situated in the midst of one of the UK’s largest Haredi Jewish communities. For many in our neighbourhood, the question of home is complicated.

Home may mean where we live now;
where our family came from;
the place we had to leave;
the place to which we cannot return;
or the place where we are still struggling to be fully accepted.

It can also mean being part of many interweaving communities.

And over these past few weeks, as we have journeyed through Matthew’s Gospel together, we have repeatedly returned to Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God.

What is this Kingdom for which we long?
What does it look like?
And how will we recognise it when we glimpse it?

These questions matter because every government and political movement right now offers us its own vision of home: a story about who belongs, what matters, and what a flourishing society should look like.

Jesus also offers us a vision, but his is radically different.

He offers us the Kingdom of God.

And perhaps the Kingdom is God’s answer to our deepest hiraeth: our longing for that place, that people, that way of being, in which we, and the whole of creation, are finally at home.

Yet Jesus does not give us a manifesto or a neatly drawn map. He gives us images: a mustard seed, yeast, treasure, a pearl and a net.

The Kingdom is like a mustard seed: tiny and easily overlooked, yet alive with possibility.

The Kingdom begins when somebody is welcomed; when the forgotten person is remembered; when someone who has always wondered whether the Church has room for them discovers that, yes, there is a branch here on which they too may rest.

The Kingdom is like yeast mixed into flour: small, hidden, apparently insignificant, yet quietly transforming everything around it.

Sometimes the Kingdom is hidden in a conversation, a prayer, a piece of music or an act of forgiveness. It works from within, gently and persistently, until what seemed flat and lifeless begins to rise.

The Kingdom is like treasure found in a field, or a pearl of extraordinary value. It awakens such joy that everything else is reordered around it. The people in these parables do not reluctantly give things up; they act from joy because they have discovered something worth building their whole life around.

Because the Kingdom is not another burden placed upon us. It is the discovery that, beneath all our searching, we are already sought, known and loved by God.

And the Kingdom is like a net cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind.

Every kind.

The Church does not create the Kingdom by deciding who is worthy to be gathered. The net is cast wide. The sorting belongs to God, not to us. Our calling is not to narrow the net, but to participate in God’s great work of gathering.

So, what might this mean for those of us gathered here after a weekend immersed in music and liturgy?

Perhaps our calling is to awaken this holy hiraeth.

At their best, worship and music give us a glimpse of home, not because everything is polished or perfect, but because through ordinary things the Kingdom draws near:

A mustard seed of Scripture.
Yeast hidden within prayer.
Treasure carried in inherited words.
A pearl glimpsed in the beauty of music.
A net cast wide in the invitation to the table.

Music and liturgy train us to recognise the Kingdom. They teach us to notice holiness hidden in the ordinary and to hear, beneath the noise of the world, the song of God’s love.

We have thought a great deal this weekend about “One Heart, One Voice”. But this does not mean uniformity. A choir does not become one by every person singing the same note all of the time; it’s not about competing solos. Harmony in all its richness depends upon difference: Our own distinct and unique voices listening to one another, breathing together and being held within something larger than any one voice could create alone.

That, too, is an image of the Kingdom: not the silencing of difference, but our many voices gathered into the love of God.

Jesus ends by speaking of the scribe who brings out of the treasure house what is new and what is old.

That is our liturgical vocation too: not preserving the old simply because it is old, nor embracing the new simply because it is new, but drawing deeply from the treasure house so that every generation may encounter the living Christ.

And we can continue this work with hope because, as Saint Paul reminds us, it does not finally depend upon us.

When our words fail, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

When our voices falter, God’s song continues within us. We need to remember this, for this can also feel like a heavy vocation if tried to be done in our own strength – God’s got this!

And then Saint Paul gives us perhaps the most important truth about our journey towards the Kingdom:

“For I am convinced,” he writes, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come … nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is our true home.

Not a home from which we can be exiled.
Not a home reserved for the successful, the certain or the respectable.
Not a nostalgic return to an imagined past.

Our home is the love of God in Christ Jesus, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from it.

Perhaps this is the deepest hiraeth of the human heart: not simply to return to somewhere we have been, but to be drawn towards the home for which we were created, a Kingdom in which every voice is heard, every person belongs, all creation flourishes, and all things are gathered into the inseparable love of God.

This is our hiraeth, this is our hope, and this is the Kingdom drawing us home.

Amen.
When Fragility Becomes Holy Ground

June 7, 2026

Matthew 9.9–13, 18–26 & Romans 4.13–25

We live in a culture that appears to admire strength.

We celebrate confidence, success, resilience, and independence. We are encouraged to put our best selves forward, to project competence, to keep going no matter what. And while there is much that is good in courage and perseverance, it can leave us with the impression that weakness is something to hide.

When we experience illness, grief, anxiety, exhaustion, uncertainty, or doubt, it can feel as though we have somehow failed. We may even imagine that these things make us less faithful.

But the Gospel we have heard today tells a very different story.

Because at the heart of this Gospel are people who are fragile.

Matthew the tax collector is not a model citizen. He is an outsider, distrusted by his neighbours and looked down upon by the religious authorities. The woman with the haemorrhage has lived with illness for twelve long years. The ruler comes carrying the grief and fear of a dying daughter. And the little girl herself is utterly helpless.

None of them appear strong.

None of them have everything together.

Yet each of them encounters the transforming presence of Christ.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful things about these stories is that Jesus does not seem remotely put off by human fragility.

In fact, he seems drawn towards it.

Take Matthew.

Jesus walks past the tax booth and sees a man whom others have already judged. The Pharisees see a sinner. A collaborator. Someone to avoid.

Jesus sees a disciple.

And with two simple words, “Follow me,” Matthew’s life changes forever.

Jesus does not wait for Matthew to improve himself first. He does not ask him to prove his worthiness. He does not demand that he sort his life out before becoming a disciple.

He simply calls him.

And Matthew responds.

Then Jesus sits down to eat with tax collectors and sinners, provoking outrage from the religious leaders.

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

It is a revealing question.

Because they assume holiness means keeping your distance from broken people.

Jesus reveals that holiness means moving towards them.

“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Again and again, throughout the Gospels, we find Jesus crossing boundaries that others are unwilling to cross.

And nowhere is that clearer than in the two healing stories that follow.

The woman who approaches Jesus has been suffering for twelve years. Twelve years of pain. Twelve years of disappointment. Twelve years of living with a condition that, according to the religious customs of the time, rendered her ritually unclean.

That word “unclean” can sound strange to modern ears, but its consequences were very real. Her condition would have affected her participation in worship and community life. She lived not only with illness but with exclusion.

And notice how she approaches Jesus.

She does not come boldly.

She does not stand before him and make a great declaration of faith.

She slips quietly through the crowd.

She reaches out and touches the fringe of his cloak.

There is something deeply human about that moment.

Because her faith does not look triumphant.

It looks fragile.

Tentative.

Almost hidden.

And yet Jesus honours it.

“Daughter, take heart; your faith has made you well.”

Christ heals the bleeding woman, as depicted in the Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter.

I think we often misunderstand faith.

We imagine faith means certainty. We imagine faith means never doubting, never questioning, never struggling.

But that is not what we see here.

The woman’s faith is mixed with fear.

The ruler’s faith is mixed with grief.

Abraham’s faith, which Paul celebrates in Romans, was mixed with years of waiting and wondering how God’s promises could possibly come true.

Faith is not the absence of fragility.

Faith is what survives within fragility.

Faith is not always a confident declaration.

Sometimes it is simply reaching out a trembling hand.

And perhaps that is good news for many of us.

Because most of us know what it means to be fragile.

Some of us carry physical illness.

Some of us carry grief.

Some of us live with anxiety or depression.

Some of us are exhausted by caring responsibilities.

Some of us are worried about money, family, relationships, or the future.

Some of us carry doubts they scarcely dare speak aloud.

And if we are honest, most of us spend at least part of our lives feeling more like the woman reaching through the crowd than a spiritual giant.

The good news of this Gospel is that Jesus does not demand perfect faith.

He receives the faith we have.

However small.

However fragile.

However uncertain.

And there is the remarkable detail that both these stories involve people whom others would have avoided.

The woman’s condition made her ritually unclean.

The little girl is dead.

According to the customs of the time, touching either would make someone unclean.

The assumption was that uncleanness spreads.

Yet when Jesus enters the story, something extraordinary happens.

The direction is reversed.

The woman touches Jesus.

Jesus takes the little girl by the hand.

But their uncleanness does not flow into him.

His life flows into them.

His healing flows into them.

His wholeness flows into them.

Jesus crosses the boundary.

He moves towards suffering rather than away from it.

Towards grief rather than away from it.

Towards fragility rather than away from it.

And perhaps that tells us something profound about God.

So often we fear that our weakness somehow pushes God away.

We may imagine we must present our strongest selves before God can use us or love us.

Yet the Gospel tells another story.

The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not frightened by our wounds.

Not frightened by our doubts.

Not frightened by our illness.

Not frightened by our grief.

Not frightened by our fragility.

Indeed, these are often the very places where we discover God’s presence most deeply.

Not because suffering is good.

Not because illness is holy.

But because God does not abandon us there.

Paul captures this beautifully in Romans when he speaks of Abraham trusting in the God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

That is exactly what we see in today’s Gospel.

Jesus sees a disciple where others see a sinner.

He sees hope where others see only illness.

He sees life where others see death.

Again and again, Christ brings life from places that seem exhausted, broken, or beyond repair.

And he continues to do so today.

So perhaps the invitation of this Gospel is not to become stronger.

Perhaps it is not to have more certainty.

Perhaps it is simply to bring ourselves honestly before God.

To bring our doubts, our fears, our questions, our hopes.

To reach out, however tentatively, towards Christ.

For our salvation does not depend upon the strength of our faith, but upon the faithfulness of God.

And so we need not fear our fragility.

For the Christ who called Matthew, who welcomed the woman, and who took the little girl by the hand, still comes to us today.

Not demanding perfection.

Not waiting for certainty.

But meeting us with mercy, and bringing his life into all those places we feared were beyond hope.

For he has never been afraid of human weakness.

Indeed, he meets us there.

And having met us there, he does not leave us unchanged.

Amen.
Christ Beyond Sight

May 17, 2026

Sermon for Ascension Sunday, Acts 1:1-11, Luke 24:44-end

I remember as a child struggling a little with the Ascension.

I did not naturally pick up on “the great joy” that the disciples seemed to experience after Jesus ascended into heaven.

What I noticed instead was the absence.

Jesus goes.
The disciples are left behind.
And if we take the story only at the surface level, it can feel a little like abandonment.

Almost as though the story reaches this extraordinary climax in Easter, only for Christ then to disappear again.

And perhaps if we are honest, that feeling is not entirely unfamiliar to us.

Because it is very easy, especially when life becomes difficult, when prayers seem unanswered, when suffering comes close, when the world feels uncertain or frightening, to slip into that deeply human fear:
“Have we been left alone?”

Particularly in moments of challenge.

Particularly when God feels silent.

Particularly when the world does not look much like the Kingdom of God we pray for.

Last week, I reflected about how Jesus had been preparing the disciples for precisely this moment.

Again and again in John’s Gospel, he tells them:
“I will not leave you orphaned.”
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
“Peace I leave with you.”

He prepares them because he knows how strong the fear of abandonment can be.

And if we are honest, even knowing the resurrection does not entirely remove that struggle.

There are still moments when God can feel distant.
Moments where heaven seems quiet.
Moments where we wonder where Christ is in the middle of grief or exhaustion or conflict or fear.

But I think the Ascension asks us to see something deeper than physical absence.

Because we know the rest of the story.

We know that Ascension is not Christ disappearing from the world.
It is Christ filling all things.

We know that what follows Ascension is Pentecost.

What appears at first to be absence becomes presence in an entirely new way through the Holy Spirit.

And perhaps this is part of why the disciples can return to Jerusalem with great joy.

Not because they fully understand everything.
Not because fear has vanished overnight.
Not because life has suddenly become easy.

But because somewhere, somehow, they trust that this is not the ending.

That God is still acting.
That Christ is still present.
That the story is still unfolding.

And we, unlike the disciples in that moment, know what is coming next.

We know that the Holy Spirit will descend upon frightened disciples and turn them into courageous witnesses.

We know that the Church will be born.

We know that the Gospel will travel across languages and nations and centuries.

We know that Christ’s presence will no longer be limited to one body standing in one place before them, but that through the Holy Spirit Christ will dwell within his people.

Not only beside them,
but within them.

Not simply leading them from the front,
but empowering them from within.

And that changes the meaning of Ascension entirely.

Because the Ascension is not about Jesus abandoning the world.

It is about Christ no longer being bound by the limitations of earthly presence.

No longer confined to Galilee or Jerusalem.

No longer accessible only to those physically near him.

But reigning over all things,
holding all things,
drawing all things toward the Kingdom of God.

The Ascension of Christ: Salvador Dali 1958

And that matters.

Because the Ascension is not simply about where Jesus is.

It is about what Jesus is now doing.

In the Ascension, Christ is enthroned.

The crucified and risen Christ reigns.

Not Caesar.
Not empire.
Not violence.
Not fear.
Not death.

Christ reigns.

And yet, if we are honest, the world does not fully look like that yet, does it?

Which is why the days between Ascension and Pentecost matter so much.

Because the disciples find themselves living in this strange in-between space.

Christ has ascended.
The Spirit has not yet come.
The Kingdom has begun, but is not yet complete.

And so what do they do?

They pray.

They gather together.
They wait together.
They hope together.

And so we are encouraged as the Church between Ascension and Pentecost to live more than ever into what it means to be a praying Church.

And this is what we find oursleves doing as a parish right now.

Between Ascension Day until Pentecost we are intentionally praying for our parish, street by street, neighbour by neighbour, for all of our community.

Because these days are understood as days of praying for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

We follow the example of the disciples waiting for the fulfilment of Christ’s promise.

And while they waited, they prayed.

Not passively.
Not because prayer is all they could do.
But because prayer is participation in the Kingdom that is coming.

Prayer becomes an act of hope.

And so, every time we pray:
“Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,”
we are praying an Ascension prayer.

We are praying that the reign of Christ may become visible here.

In our streets.
In our homes.
In our schools.
In our local businesses.
Among neighbours.
Within families.
Within the Church.
Across nations.

We are praying for justice where there is injustice.
Peace where there is division.
Healing where there is pain.
Hope where people feel forgotten.

Because Ascension tells us that heaven and earth are no longer separate realities.

In Christ, heaven has opened toward the world.

And now the Church waits and prays for the Spirit who empowers us to live as signs of that Kingdom.

And perhaps this is also why the angels ask the disciples:
“Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

It is a great question, or rebuke!

Because Christianity is never meant to become an escape from the world.

It is a reminder to us and them.

The disciples cannot remain standing still, staring upwards forever.

Instead, they are sent back into Jerusalem.
Back into community.
Back into prayer.
And soon,
back into mission.

The Ascension does not remove them from the world.
It sends them more deeply into it.

And perhaps that is true for us too.

The Ascension calls us not to withdraw from the pain of the world, but to live within it differently.

To become people shaped by the Kingdom of God.

People who pray.
People who hope.
People who trust that Christ remains present even when we cannot always see clearly.

And perhaps this is where I have slowly come to love the Ascension more deeply than I did as a child.

Because now I no longer hear it primarily as a story of Jesus leaving.

I hear it as the story of Christ drawing humanity into the life of God.

I hear it as the promise that the risen Christ reigns over all things.

I hear it as the beginning of the Church learning to live by faith, hope, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And perhaps most importantly:
I hear it as the reminder that absence is not the same as abandonment.

Christ has not left his Church alone.

The Spirit is coming.

The Kingdom is unfolding.

And so, in these days between Ascension and Pentecost, we pray.

We pray with expectation.
We pray with longing.
We pray for all people in our parishes.
We pray for our communities.
We pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

And we trust that even now, often quietly, often slowly, the Holy Spirit is already moving among us.

Amen.
Held, Not Abandoned

May 10, 2026

Sixth Sunday of Easter – John 14:15–21

I wonder if you’ve ever been asked that question, perhaps by a well-meaning Christian on a street corner, or in a conversation that suddenly takes a turn:

“Do you have a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ?”

It’s a question I sometimes find difficult to hear. Not because the intention behind it is wrong, but because I’m never quite sure what is meant by it.

Of course I do.

And yet … it’s also more than that.

Because a relationship with Jesus is never just private, never simply individual, never something that exists in isolation. It is something we are drawn into together. It takes shape in community. It is formed and sustained in the life of the Church, where we learn, slowly and imperfectly, how to love one another.

Yes, you can live a Christian life outside the Church. But the Church is where that life is nurtured, stretched, deepened, where our relationship with Christ becomes caught up in our relationships with one another.

And that begins to open up something of what Jesus is saying in John chapter 14.

These are Jesus’ farewell words to his disciples. Beneath the surface of the passage there is anxiety, fear, uncertainty. What happens when Jesus is no longer physically with them? What happens when the one they have followed, leaned on, trusted, goes?

And into that fear, Jesus speaks these words:

“I will not leave you orphaned.”

It’s such a striking phrase.

Not: I will not leave you confused.

Not: I will not leave you without instructions.

But: I will not leave you orphaned.

Because what the disciples are feeling is not simply uncertainty. It is the fear of abandonment.

Perhaps we know something of that feeling too.

I wonder if you have ever experienced separation anxiety? Or perhaps you saw the other side as a parent, grandparent, or godparent. Perhaps dropping a child off at nursery or school, where they cling to you convinced that this is the moment everything will fall apart.

Or perhaps with a pet, who watches you leave as if the world is ending. My dogs definetly give me those looks.

That moment at the doorway can feel enormous. To the one being left, it can feel as though everything is being lost.

And yet we know something they do not yet know.

That five minutes later they are playing happily. That the relationship has not ended. That love has not disappeared.

And more than that: we carry them with us. We think of them. We hold them in mind. We long for their flourishing.

In therapy there’s a phrase for this – holding in mind – sometimes called object constancy. It describes the capacity to know that someone continues to love you and hold you in relationship, even when you cannot see them or feel their physical presence.

I wonder if that is something like what Jesus is giving to his disciples here.

Because he is preparing them for a kind of absence, but not abandonment.

“I will not leave you orphaned.”

“I am coming to you.”

“You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

This is the promise of the Holy Spirit – the Advocate, the one who comes alongside.

Not as a replacement for Jesus, but as the continuation of his presence.

God does not step away and disappear.

God remains.

In the mystery of the Trinity, God holds us, draws us in, keeps us within that life of love.

Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet, Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893), Tate Gallery, London

And so when we speak about a “personal relationship with Jesus,” perhaps this is what we mean.

Not simply a private feeling. Not simply an individual belief. But a relationship in which we are held. A relationship that continues even when we cannot see. A relationship sustained by the Spirit and lived out in community.

Because notice what Jesus says:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

And this week, those words land with particular weight.

We have watched elections unfold. We have heard rhetoric online, on our televisions, and in our newspapers shaped by an “us and them” narrative.

We are seeing again the rise of division. Racism in its many forms finding voice. The far right seeking to shape a story of fear and distrust.

And perhaps most painfully, we even see those who profess Christian faith caught up in that same language; peddling suspicion, hostility, and division.

And we must be clear: this is so far from the commandment of Christ.

“If you love me, keep my commandments.”

And what is that commandment?

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

Not: love those who are like you.

Not: love those who agree with you.

Not: love those who are easy to love.

But:

Love one another as I have loved you.

And suddenly that can feel very far off.

Because loving like that is costly.

It asks something of us.

It asks us to resist easy narratives of “us and them.” It asks us to see the image of God even in those we struggle with. It asks us to remain in relationship even when it is uncomfortable, complex, or difficult.

And this is why community matters so deeply.

This is why the Church matters.

Because this kind of love is not something we generate on our own. It is something we learn together. Something we practise, often imperfectly. Something formed in us over time.

Deepening our life together, and our engagement with the wider community, is not an optional extra. It is at the heart of what it means to follow Christ.

It is the work of resisting division.

It is the work of love.

And that is nothing less than living out the commandment of Jesus.

So perhaps the question is not simply:

“Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?”

But:

Do you know, truly know, that you are held by God?

Do you trust that Christ does not abandon you, even in absence, uncertainty, or fear?

And if you are held in that love, how is that love taking shape in the way you hold others?

Because we are not left alone.

We are not abandoned.

We are held in the life of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And in that holding, we are given to one another.
Good Friday: Give Me Only Your Love and Your Grace

April 3, 2026

John 18–19 | Psalm 22:1–11 | Hebrews 10:16–25 | Romans 8:31-39

Today is not an easy day.

Good Friday confronts us with the rawest edges of human experience:
grief, abandonment, brutality, injustice.
We have just heard it in the Passion according to St John,
betrayal, denial, violence, humiliation, death.

It is stark.
It is uncomfortable.
It hurts.

And perhaps that is part of the truth of today:
that we are not meant to rush past it.

Psalm 22 gives us words for this moment:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This is not distant suffering.
This is not theoretical pain.
This is the cry of one who feels utterly alone.

And if we are honest, it is a cry many of us recognise.

Because Good Friday does not just tell us about Jesus’ suffering,
it brings us face-to-face with our own.

The grief we carry for those we have lost.
The relationships that have broken or never healed.
The quiet burdens of shame or regret.
The exhaustion of living in a world where injustice feels relentless.

All of it comes close to us today.

And yet,
and this is where it becomes almost too much to comprehend,
this same moment, this same cross,
is also the place where love is most fully revealed.

It feels incongruous.

How can it be
that in the midst of such brutality
we encounter the deepest, most profound love?

And yet we do.

We see it even within the Passion itself.

In the midst of agony,
Jesus looks down from the cross
and sees his mother,
and the disciple whom he loved.

And he says:
“Woman, here is your son.”
“Here is your mother.”

Even now.
Even here.
Even as everything is falling apart,

love breaks through.

Relationship is formed.
Care is given.
A new family is created.

This is not love as sentiment.
This is love as self-giving, costly, unrelenting presence.

And this is the love that the cross reveals.

There is a prayer that many of you will have been praying this Lent if you use the daily prayer app/podcast Pray As You Go.

It is a prayer from St. Ignatius of Loyola, often called the Suscipe:

You have given all to me
To you, Lord, I return it
Everything is Yours
Do with it what You will
Give me only Your love and Your grace
That is enough for me

It is a simple prayer.
But it is also a radical one.

Because it is a prayer of surrender.
A prayer of letting go.
A prayer of trust.

And today, on Good Friday,
we begin to see why such a prayer is possible.

Because before we are ever asked to give anything to God,
God has already given everything to us.

That is what the cross shows us.

Christ holds nothing back.
Not his dignity.
Not his safety.
Not even his life.

“You have given all to me…”

Good Friday tells us: yes.
God has.

The Rood at St. Andrew N16

But here is where it becomes deeply personal.

Because the cross is not only something we look at.
It is something we are invited into.

The letter to the Hebrews tells us that through Christ,
a new and living way has been opened.
That we can draw near with full assurance of faith.

Draw near.

Not stand at a distance.
Not watch from afar.
But come close.

And in a few moments, we will do exactly that.

We will come forward to venerate the cross.

Some of us may bow.
Some may genuflect.
Some may kneel or even prostrate.
Some may kiss the feet of Christ.

And it is important to say:
we are not worshipping the wood of the cross.

We are responding to what it represents
the love of Christ,
the sacrifice of Christ,
the offering of Christ.

FOR THE LOVE.

But veneration is only part of what is happening.

Because the cross is not only a place of recognition
it is a place of release.

And this is where the Suscipe prayer becomes real for us.

“You have given all to me
To you, Lord, I return it…”

As we come to the cross,
we are invited not only to honour Christ’s offering
but to bring our own.

To lay down
that which we have been carrying.

The grief.
The shame.
The guilt.
The pain.
The injustice.
The exhaustion.

All those things that weigh us down
and quietly separate us from the life God longs for us to have.

Because carrying these things endlessly
is not what Christ asks of us.

The cross is not just where Christ suffers for us,
it is where we are invited to place our suffering with him.

To let it be held.
To let it be transformed.
To let it be redeemed.

There is a moment in the anointing of the sick where these words are spoken:

“As you are outwardly anointed with oil,
so may our heavenly Father grant you the inward anointing of the Holy Spirit. Of his great mercy may he forgive you your sins
and release you from suffering.”

Release you from suffering.

That is what the cross is about.

Not that suffering magically disappears
but that it no longer defines us.
No longer traps us.
No longer separates us from love.

Because at the cross,
love is stronger than suffering.

And this is why St Paul can say with such boldness:

that nothing, nothing,
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Nothing.

Not death.
Not life.
Not angels or rulers.
Not things present or things to come.

Literally Nothing.

And we might wonder – how can he be so sure?

Because of this day.

Because of the cross.

Because here we see that there is nowhere we can go,
no depth we can fall to,
no pain we can carry,
that Christ has not already entered into.

And if Christ is there
then love is there too.

So today, as we come to venerate the cross,
I invite you to do so with honesty.

Come as you are.

And as you come,
hold before God whatever it is you carry.

And perhaps, quietly, in your heart,
pray the words of that ancient prayer:

You have given all to me
To you, Lord, I return it

Return to God your grief.
Return to God your shame.
Return to God your fear.
Return to God the burdens you were never meant to carry alone.

Everything is Yours
Do with it what You will

Trust, perhaps just a little
that God can hold it.
That God can transform it.
That God can redeem it.

Give me only Your love and Your grace
That is enough for me

Because in the end,
that is what Good Friday reveals.

That love is given, completely,
costly,
without reserve.

And that love is for us.

For each of us.

More than we can imagine.

And as we leave this place today,
we do not leave pretending everything is resolved.

Good Friday does not rush to Easter.

We leave still in the shadow of the cross.

But we leave knowing this:

that we are loved,
that we are forgiven,
that we are held.

And that as we are released from what we carry,
we are made free.

free to love,
free to forgive,
free to live differently in the world.

A world that so desperately needs
people who know this love.

So, come.

Come to the cross.

Come with all that you are.

And lay it down.

For Christ has given all to you.

And his love
his grace

is enough.

You have given all to me
To you, Lord, I return it
Everything is Yours
Do with it what You will
Give me only Your love and Your grace
That is enough for me.
Maundy Thursday Eat | Pray | Love

April 2, 2026

Tonight, we begin something we do not finish.

Or perhaps more truthfully, tonight, we are drawn into something that has no end.

The liturgy of this night does not conclude with a blessing or a dismissal. It simply… continues. Into darkness. Into silence. Into watchfulness. For tonight begins a liturgy that last 3 days, it is the beginning of the Triduum, which simply means 3 days.

And so tonight is not just a service.
It is an invitation to a journey.

And it begins with an invitation to Eat. Pray. Love.

Some of you may know the film Eat Pray Love, based on the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. It tells the story of a woman who, despite a life that appears successful and stable, finds herself deeply unsettled, searching for meaning, for healing, for something more. And so, she sets out on a journey: to Italy, where she learns again how to eat and delight in life; to India, where she learns to pray, often through discipline and struggle; and to Bali, where she learns to love, and to receive love without fear. It is, at its heart, a story of longing, transformation, and the slow rediscovery of what it means to be fully alive.

And tonight, we too begin a journey.

Not across continents, but into the heart of God. A story to of longing, transformation, allowing us to be fully alive.

Eat

We begin, as Jesus does, at the table.

“On the night he was betrayed, he took bread…”

These are not just familiar words. They are the heart of everything.

Jesus gathers his friends, knowing what is coming. Knowing betrayal is already in motion. Knowing suffering is close at hand.

And what does he do?

He gives them a meal.

He gives them himself.

Not a lecture. Not a strategy. Not a plan for survival.

Bread. Wine. Body. Blood.

“Do this in remembrance of me.”

And we have been doing it ever since.

Not simply remembering, but participating. Being drawn into the life of Christ again and again.

In the film, Gilbert travels to Italy to rediscover joy in eating, to receive food as gift, not burden.

And here, tonight, we are invited into something deeper still.

To receive, not just food, but Christ himself.

To come not because we are worthy, but because we are hungry.
To come not because we understand, but because we are invited.

This table is not about perfection.
It is about grace.

It is the place where Christ gives himself to us, again and again, so that we might become what we receive.

The Eucharist is not an add-on to our faith.

It is its beating heart.

Pray

And yet, tonight does not remain at the table.

After the meal, we move.

From the upper room to the garden.

From feasting to watching.

From receiving to waiting.

“Could you not watch with me one hour?”

In the film, Gilbert travels to India to learn how to pray; to sit, to be still, to listen.

And it is not easy.

Prayer is not always peaceful or poetic. It can be restless, distracting, frustrating.

And in Gethsemane, we see that even more clearly.

Jesus prays in anguish.

He is overwhelmed. Troubled. Sorrowful unto death.

And still, he prays.

“Abba, Father… not what I want, but what you want.”

And the disciples?

They fall asleep.

Again and again.

And if we are honest, we know that place too.

We want to pray.
We mean to pray.
And yet we grow tired. Distracted. Absent.

But tonight, the invitation is not to get prayer “right.”

The invitation is simply to stay.

To watch.
To be present.
To keep company with Christ.

Because prayer, at its deepest, is not about saying the right words.

It is about relationship.

It is about remaining.

Tonight, as the altar is stripped, as the lights dim, as we move into silence, we are invited into that place of watching.

Not to fix. Not to solve.

But to be.

Love

And yet, if tonight were only about eating and praying, we would miss its deepest truth.

Because tonight is, above all, about love.

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

And then, he kneels.

The Lord of all creation.
The one through whom all things were made.

Kneels.

And washes feet.

Dusty, worn, human feet.

Peter protests, of course.

Because this is not how power works.

This is not how God is supposed to be.

And yet Jesus says:

“If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

This is the commandment we remember tonight, the mandatum.

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

Not sentiment.
Not abstraction.
But embodied, costly, self-giving love.

In the final part of Gilbert’s journey, she learns to love again, to risk her heart, to receive love without fear.

But here, tonight, we are taken even further.

Because this is not just about learning to love.

This is about being loved first.

Loved to the end.
Loved to the cross.
Loved beyond death itself.

And then, being sent to love in the same way.

To kneel.
To serve.
To give ourselves for others.

This is not easy love.

This is cruciform love.

The Journey

Eat. Pray. Love.

It sounds simple.

But tonight, we see that it is anything but.

Because this is not a journey to comfort or self-discovery.

This is a journey into the heart of God.

A journey that takes us from the table –
to the garden –
to the cross.

We do not travel to Italy or India or Bali.

We travel with Christ through Jerusalem.

Through intimacy and betrayal.
Through prayer and abandonment.
Through love poured out to the very end.

And the invitation is not to observe this journey from a distance.

It is to enter it.

To eat.
To pray.
To love.

Again and again.

Invitation

So tonight, come to the table.

Receive what is given.

Stay in the garden.

Watch, even if you grow tired.

And allow yourself to be loved.

Because this night is not ultimately about what we do.

It is about what Christ does.

He feeds us.
He prays for us.
He loves us.

And he invites us; gently, persistently, to follow.

To become people who eat with gratitude,
who pray with honesty,
and who love with courage.

And as we move now into the silence…

As the altar is stripped, and the church is laid bare…

May we not rush away.

May we remain.

For this is only the beginning.

Amen.
When Crowds Gather: Palm Sunday and Protest

March 29, 2026

Yesterday, I stood in central London with hundreds of thousands of others, alongside folk from my neighbourhood in Stamford Hill.

Around half a million people gathered to say no to racism. It was powerful. It was hope-filled. And, because there were so many of us, it was long, a happy problem to have. There was something deeply moving about walking together, voices raised, bodies present, choosing to stand for justice.

It felt, in a way I hadn’t expected, like a threshold moment.

Because today, the Church begins Holy Week.

And we begin with a procession.

On Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, met by a crowd full of expectation and energy. They lay down cloaks and branches. They shout their praise: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

It is a moment that feels not unlike a march, a gathering of people, a movement through the streets, a shared cry for something better. A hope that God’s kingdom might be breaking in.

And yet we know how the story turns.

The same crowd who cry “Hosanna” will, within days, cry “Crucify.”

Which leaves us with an uncomfortable question:

What do we do with crowds?

Because London knows crowds well. Marches are not unusual here. Not long ago, a much smaller march processed through the city with very different intentions, claiming to “unite the kingdom,” but carrying a very different spirit.

Crowds can be powerful. They can be hopeful. They can also be dangerous.

Palm Sunday doesn’t ask us to avoid crowds, but it does ask us to examine them.

To examine ourselves within them.

What are we shouting?
What are we standing for?
What kind of kingdom are we marching towards?

The hymn puts it beautifully:

All glory, laud, and honour
to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring.

But what hosannas are we singing?

Yesterday, half a million people took to the streets of our capital to say;

That justice matters.

That dignity matters.

That racism has no place in the world we are called to build.

There was something deeply aligned, I think, with the cry of the Gospel in that.

Because the kingdom Jesus rides in to proclaim is not built on power or exclusion, but on justice, peace, and mercy.

And Holy Week will show us the cost of that.

It will show us what happens when love confronts injustice.

When truth stands against power.

When God refuses to turn away from human suffering.

The journey from Palm Sunday to the cross is not a change of direction, it is a deepening of it.

The same Jesus who is welcomed with palms will walk steadily towards the place where justice and mercy meet in the most costly way imaginable.

So perhaps Palm Sunday invites us not just to wave branches, but to choose our allegiance, and to walk the road.

Because not every crowd cries the truth.
Not every march leads to life.
And not every “Hosanna” is faithful.

The question is not whether we will join a crowd
but which kingdom we belong to.

The kingdom of God is not shaped by popularity, fear, or power.
It stands, again and again, on the side of justice, of mercy, of truth – no matter the cost.

And Holy Week shows us exactly where that leads.

To a table, where love kneels to serve.
To a cross, where love refuses to turn away.
To a silence, where hope waits in the dark.

This is not a change of direction from Palm Sunday,
it is the deepening of it.

So if we cry “Hosanna” today,
we are invited to keep walking.

To walk into the intimacy of Maundy Thursday.
To stand in the stark truth of Good Friday.
To wait in the great silence of Holy Saturday.

And to discover, in God’s time,
the life that breaks through on Easter morning.

So come and walk this week.

You can walk it in your own home, or in a church.

But come, not because you must,
but because Christ walks this path with us.

Enter into the story.

A story of justice and mercy,
of love that does not turn back,
and of a kingdom that is even now breaking into the world.

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