Sermons
The Third Sunday after Trinity - 21st June 2026
based on Jer. 20; Rom 6 and Matt.20
I will not be here with you next Sunday morning because I will be at the main service of St. James’ Church, baptizing the child of some family friends who worship there every week.
The rite will be a big deal for 3 year old Toby, because for a while he will be the centre of attraction and all eyes will be fixed on him for a ceremony that will only happen to him just once in his life.
Baptism is one of the two principal SACRAMENTS of the Christian Church, the other of course being the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, which we celebrate every week in the main church on Sunday and in the Lady Chapel every Wednesday.
These two rites were directly prescribed by Jesus and so are generally regarded as necessary for salvation, while the other five so-called Lesser Sacraments (viz. Confirmation, Ordination, Holy Matrimony, Confession and Anointing of the sick or dying) are seen as, yes, important, but of secondary significance compared with Baptism and the Eucharist.
Sacraments are defined as outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. Baptism uses water, holy oil, a candle, a white garment and the sign of the Cross to symbolize rebirth, purification and the formal entry and welcome into the fellowship of Christ’s body on earth, which is the universal Church.
The Eucharist uses bread and wine as consecrated signs of the body and blood of Christ, signifying his Real Presence among those gathered to remember his sacrifice on the Cross.
This self-offering by Jesus was the means by which he has won our redemption from the slavery of sin and eternal salvation for all his disciples, ending once and for all our alienation from God that had been brought about by sin.
Whereas we only need ONE baptism to welcome us into the Church as full members of the fellowship of Christ, the weekly or (in some traditions) the daily Eucharist nourishes and renews us from within by the grace of God, who is eternally and powerfully active in all his seven sacraments to affirm, forgive, heal, renew, reform and save.
Thanks be to God in Trinity for his love, his mercy and his empowering of us through the Holy Spirit as Christ’s disciples. Our discipleship calls each of us to grow spiritually in faith, hope and love – love both of God and of our neighbours.
Discipleship also requires us to proclaim our faith in word and action, and yet the very world into which we are called to witness to Christ has always been fallen, imperfect, conflicted and frequently hostile to the gospel message.
The heart of that message are Reconciliation, Love and Peace, cardinal virtues that today run up against the worldly values and materialist ambitions which characterize the public cynicism and contemptuous rejection of our Christian witness.
Similarly Jewish society in the late 7th century BCE was arrogantly dismissive of the warnings to Judah and Israel of the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah.
The prophets pleaded to little effect that the people should amend, put away their idolatry and return to the path of obedience to the commandments of God, if they wanted to avoid conquest and humiliation at the hands of more powerful neighbouring kingdoms.
Our Old Testament reading today from the prophet Jeremiah reminds us of the personal cost of prophetic ministry. He suffers terrible persecution at the hands of those whom he is trying to preserve and so in frustration and rage he assails God with his complaints of being enticed, cruelly tricked and completely overpowered.
Nevertheless he also confesses that God’s word has an irresistible quality compelling him to prophesy as God’s mouthpiece: “within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot”.
Does this not remind you of Jesus’ desperation in the Garden of Gethsemane: “let this cup be taken from me, yet not my will but yours be done”? We see from this plea how Jesus stood in a direct line of descent from the great Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
For all true prophets the cost of obedience to their calling is suffering and sacrifice, rejection and contempt. Like Cassandra they only tell God’s truth, but are condemned not to be believed. And yet Jeremiah for all his bitter complaints retains his unshakeable belief in God’s goodness. We read, “The Lord is with me…. For to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers”.
In our own adversities, though they may never be as harsh as the experiences of the ancient prophets, we are to persevere in faith and continue to trust that God’s love will never abandon us, but work for our good. Also, when things go wrong for us, we can learn from the prophets that it is alright to rail against God, because he can take it without resentment.
As we learn from Romans 6, in our baptism we receive God’s grace in the reception of his Holy Spirit, just as Jesus himself did when he was baptized by John at the beginning of his public ministry.
Paul warns us that such a gift is not a reason or an excuse to sin all the more, but is the exact opposite, namely a call to holiness and humility, for God’s grace transforms our inner life, so that we are forever reconciled to God by the Cross.
In baptism we are given a new identity in Christ, since in Paul’s vivid language we are baptized into his death and we symbolically die with him as we enter the water and then are raised to a new and transformed life, as we emerge again from that same water of baptism to share in Christ’s Resurrection. This is why people speak of baptism as “being born again by water and the Spirit”.
Although Paul’s argument in chapter 6 of his letter to the Romans is dense and difficult to follow, it nevertheless captures the essence of the Christian life, which is a life transformed by God’s grace to enable the baptized to commit themselves to righteousness and the permanent rejection of sin.
In Paul’s reasoning since we are now dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ we must strive to live a life that reflects our faith, a faith that assures us that we have truly been healed, forgiven and permanently reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Christ.
Sin had estranged humanity from God, but our participation in Christ’s suffering and death in the waters of baptism has gained for us liberation from the tyranny of sin and made it possible for us to receive God’s mercy and forgiveness and in that sense to be born again.
At first reading today’s gospel is a real shocker. Do you remember how at Christmas we were celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace, while angelic hosts sang of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men? In Matthew 20, however, Jesus says to his disciples, “Do NOT think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”.
What on earth is Jesus talking about here? Where is our gentle Jesus, meek and mild from our Sunday school class seventy years ago? Let me give you a clue why this passage is in fact a perfect complement to our Old Testament reading about the persecution of the prophets and also a reaffirmation of Paul’s teaching in Romans 6 that full membership and inclusion in the Church of God requires us to be baptized into the DEATH of Christ and then be reborn as a new creation, fit to proclaim the good news of God’s Kingdom boldly to an often hostile and antagonistic world.
In Matthew 20 Jesus is warning his disciples that, because he is bringing good news to the poor and oppressed, to the marginalized and the most needy in society, their discipleship will be seen as radical and threatening to the comfortable complacencies of respectable society.
The gospel will therefore be likely to create conflict even within families, let alone wider society. Therefore as disciples our allegiance to Christ must be unswerving, taking precedence over every other relationship.
In his own life such was his commitment to his own vocation as a servant of God that at one point he refuses to see his mother and siblings who have travelled far to visit him, but rather calls those who are attentive to his teaching his true mother, brother, or sister.
In this passage in Matthew 20 Jesus is steeling his followers not to be intimidated by the inevitable hostility that will confront them when they proclaim the radical message entrusted to them, just as the Old Testament prophets faced suffering and harassment in the execution of their duty to challenge society in God’s name.
“Have no fear,” Jesus exhorts us as his disciples, because we will be emboldened by the spiritual security and confidence that we have in knowing that God’s love for us is unfailing and his care is constant.
We are to persevere in living our faith by demonstrating our identification with Jesus’ suffering, obedience and humility by “taking up our Cross and following” the one who gave up his own life, that we might have life and have it in abundance.
Our own discipleship will almost certainly be costly, but if we prioritize loyalty to Christ and to his gospel, we will receive God’s blessing and experience the joy of his constant presence with us on our journey both in this life and in the next.
To God the blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all glory and honour now and always. Amen.
Fr. Munna Mitra
The First Sunday after Trinity - 7th June 2026
Hosea Cpt 5 v15- Cpt 6 v6. Romans Cpt 4 v13 – 25. Matt Cpt 9 v9-13 and 18-26
A tax collector today is a civil servant and regarded as a member of an honorable profession. At the time of Jesus, since Judea was occupied by the Romans, anyone working for the Romans was regarded as a traitor, a person to be ostracized. Working for the Romans was seen as wrong, it was also seen as sinful.
It was a job which was difficult, it was hard for a man to collect the taxes honestly and fairly if he wished to be a Godfearing Jew. The Romans demanded a certain sum of money from the collector, there was no charge laid down for each person, but since the tax collector had to earn a living, he charged people more than the Romans demanded and I’m sure some tax collectors made a very good living.
Tax collectors were resented and avoided, no law- abiding Jew would visit their homes or invite them to their own house to share a meal with them, yet this is exactly what Jesus did. He doesn’t say to the religious leaders, the Pharisees, that tax collectors have kept the law, he admits that they are sinners in need of help, for he says they are like the sick who need a doctor.
I’m sure some men became tax collectors because they were desperate to support their families. There have always been men and women who have lived on the edge because circumstances make them desperate.
It is possible that the man Jesus ate with was Matthew the apostle, although St Mark’s gospel says it was a man called Levi. Whoever this man was the story is told in order to emphasize that there is a place in Christ’s kingdom for sinners.
The words of Jesus, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, is a quotation from our Old Testament reading. In the book of the prophet Hosea God says to Israel, I desire loyalty or steadfast love, not sacrifice”
Through his personal experience, the unfaithfulness of his wife Gomer, Hosea sees the behaviour of his wife like that of Israel. As a nation they have made a covenant with God, they have committed themselves to be faithful to God, and yet again and again their love is “like the morning mist, like the dew that goes away early”.
In these 14 short chapters the prophet Hosea reflects on his relationship with his wife and sees how similar the relationship was between God and Israel. Hosea puts much of what he says into the mouth of God and we see both the depths of God’s love for Israel, and also the suffering God endures because of Israel’s unfaithfulness, their sinfulness.
All three of our readings today confronts us with the reality of human sinfulness. Israel made a covenant with God, promised to be faithful, but again and again they sinned, thinking that offering sacrifices would be enough to please God. The tax collectors at the time of Jesus made compromises with the occupying power, they neglected the commandments of God. In the letter to the Romans Paul has reminded his readers that “no human being will be justified in God’s sight by obeying the law, since we have all sinned.
So today we are asked to consider what is the Christian understanding of sin. Sin separates us from God. We are all sinners, we cannot divide human being into 2 camps, the good and the bad, although often in practice many people do. We all fail to live as God wants us to. We are not filled with the love of Christ, loving God and our fellow human beings with our whole hearts.
In the First Letter of John we are told “No one who abides in Christ sins, no one who sins has either seen him or known him (Cpt3 v6 ). So what does this mean? We believe God’s Spirit is with us, yet we know we fail every day to live lives without sin.
When John says that those who abide in Christ don’t sin, he knows that Christians are not perfect. We don’t allow Christ to fill our hearts, to completely change our lives, for then, if we did, we would be perfect.
Some of you may know the story of the man speaking to his priest about his own sinfulness. “Father”, he said “It’s always the same sins, my laziness, my forgetfulness, my thoughts and unkind words, I don’t seem to have anything new to say” “Thank God” said the priest, “you are not adding new sins to the weaknesses you have already admitted to”.
In the Letter to the Romans that we heard a part of this morning Paul tells his readers that it is not our actions, that enable us to have a relationship with God. Paul says before the law existed Abraham had faith, he trusted God and this was the basis of that relationship. If we admit we are sinners, that our actions can never be perfect, that they cannot be the basis of a right relationship with God.
Jesus Christ has already made a new way to God, we have the assurance of God’s forgiveness for our sinfulness. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to grow in our love for God and other people. In this world we may go on struggling to live in God’s way, we will sin. As we come together to worship God each week, we need to begin by confessing our sinfulness.
God loves us in our sinful state so we approach God because we know God is perfect love, merciful and patient and will lead us in this life until we have hearts filled with the love of Christ, able to share in God’s eternity.
Rev'd Janet Fulljames
Trinity Sunday - 31st May 2026
based on Isaiah 40, 2 Cor.13 and Matt. 28
For at least 55 years since I was in the Sixth Form at secondary school I have been thinking about, and reading about the nature of God and about the great MYSTERIES of the Christian faith which underlie our worship and our prayers and, I hope, condition the way in which we try to live out our Christian faith.
In 1917 the German theologian and philosopher, Rudolf Otto, wrote an influential book called The Idea of the Holy, in which he coined a term to describe our religious experience as confronting the NUMINOUS, by which he meant encounter with what is divine, transcendent and WHOLLY OTHER, a majestic reality going beyond all human reason.
The great Mystery with which we are called to wrestle today is the Holy Trinity, the perplexing notion that the God whom we worship is TRIUNE, viz. one indivisible being in substance, but paradoxically at the same time also distinct in three separate persons.
These three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are constantly at work RELATIONALLY in the acts of Creation, Redemption and Salvation. They never work separately from one another, but only in harmonious concert, as I hope to show.
However hard I have tried during these last 55 years to make some kind of sense of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, I have sadly struggled to understand this mystery in any meaningful way. I have neither the intellect nor the imagination to get my head around what it really means to be both Three and One. I apprehend parts of this mystery, but cannot comprehend its totality.
I keep trying, however, partly because, while at university, I took comfort from listening to John Freeman’s interview in 1959 on a programme on the BBC called Face to Face with an aged Carl Jung, one of the two most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, who unlike Sigmund Freud, Jung’s former mentor, was at least sympathetic to the notion of God.
At a critical point in the interview Freeman asked Jung whether he believed in God. Jung looked astonished at the question. “Believe, believe?” he replied. “I know”.
Ever since then I have argued with critics that, if faith is good enough for serious thinkers like Jung, or CS Lewis, or John Polkinghorne, or Rowan Williams, or Pope Leo X1V, then it is good enough for me…. and I can’t help it, if my brain hurts. I acknowledge and applaud their more profound grasp of this central mystery of our faith, the Holy Trinity.
Given my admitted puzzlement, what light can I possibly shed for you, most of whom like me are probably equally bewildered by such an important teaching of the Church about the nature and the activity of the God whom we proclaim to be the Creator, Redeemer and Saviour of the world?
The sophisticated writer of the Letter to the Hebrews writes in Cp.11: 1 that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen”. Consider that assertion for a moment. He is telling us that we really do have a solid foundation for the things that we hope for in the divine promises of forgiveness, healing, reconciliation and eternal life that have been given to us by God through his Son in the power of his Holy Spirit.
The atheists and agnostics who reject all religious belief as irrational cannot accept that we Christians live in a spirit of absolute trust in the saving power of what Christ has done for us in his exemplary life, his profound teaching, his sacrificial death on the Cross and in his glorious Resurrection and Ascension.
Since faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit to those who reverence God in Christ and have committed themselves to open their hearts to that Love which enlarges the image of Christ within each of us and daily transforms us towards becoming ever more like the people that God created us to be, we can surely dismiss the sceptics with God’s blessing, for he loves them every bit as much as he loves us in spite of their unbelief.
So what can we say about the Triune God whom we worship? If we think of the Father as the sole Creator of all that is, we are missing the truth that He creates only in combination with the Son and Holy Spirit. In Gen.1: 1 we read that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…..(while) THE SPIRIT of God was hovering over the waters”.
In John 8: 58 Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. This is a clear assertion that Christ the Son pre-exists the Creation and is therefore co-equal with the Father and the Spirit in Creation.
Furthermore, by using the phrase I AM, Jesus is echoing God’s characterization of himself to Moses at Exodus 3:14 as YAHWEH, which means, I AM WHO I AM, viz. God is not A BEING as we are all beings, but rather He is BEING in itself, the source and ground of all being.
Similarly, it would be wrong to see The Son as acting alone in the work of Redemption. In fact Christ is working in the power of the Father and in partnership with the Spirit. Thus we read at Ephesians 1: 7 “ In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with riches of GOD’S GRACE”, which means that the Father and the Spirit are equally involved in bringing about our redemption.
In the same vein the Holy Spirit does not sanctify us by purifying our hearts and intentions unaided. At 1 Corinthians 6: 11 we read, “ you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”.
Not only are the three persons of the Trinity co-equal and consubstantial, they are also co-eternal. “The Lord is the everlasting God, Creator of the ends of the earth,” we read in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 40. The interrelationship of the three persons within the undivided godhead is permanent and pre-exists the creation of the material universe.
There is a harmonious collaboration and a beautiful coherence and unity within the God whom we worship. His agent on earth has commanded us “to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.
The Holy Trinity is our unique Christian model of the perfection and glory of God. If you want a crude analogy for this metaphysical mystery, think about a tube of Signal or Aquafresh toothpaste that you have squeezed onto your toothbrush. All the different colours intertwine and yet remain distinct on your toothbrush.
I have probably committed heresy by making so crass a comparison with what is most holy, most NUMINOUS, so let us hope that the Holy Trinity in mercy will forgive me. We all believe, nay we KNOW, that God is Love, so may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all on this special day and always. Amen.
Fr Munna Mitra
Pentecost - 24th May 2026
Joint Service at Rowbarton Methodist Church.
ACTS 2 v 1-21. JOHN 7 v 37-39.
I have visited the United States of America twice, the first time was in 1995. For part of the visit I stayed with relatives in Upper New York State. One day during the stay we went to the Niagara Falls. All waterfalls are beautiful, spectacular, and demonstrate the power of water. While there we got into a boat and were taken to the foot of the falls, the spray was tremendous, but gentle, refreshing, it was a very different experience from listening to the roar of the water and viewing the falls from dry land.
Today I want to speak about two symbols of the Holy Spirit, fire and water. In John’s Gospel Jesus speaks of streams of living water within those who have received the Holy Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles Luke describes that first Pentecost as a time when flames like tongues of fire rested on each of the apostles. In many ways fire and water are similar, they are powerful, frightening, essential to life, they can also be gentle, as they refresh and warm us.
In our world today we can clearly see the times when both fire and water are powerful, frightening and destructive. In the last year floods have destroyed whole villages. Countries as far apart as Indonesia, Sri Lanka Vietnam, Thailand, South Africa and Kenya were all badly affected by floods. Even the USA was affected, and in Kentucky 11 people died. The floods in the Rift Valley in Kenya affected about 700, 000 people and hundreds of people died. Tens of thousands homes were destroyed, as were the crops of farmers.
Last year also at least 600 people around the world died from fires out of control in extreme weather conditions.
Both floods and fires have been the consequence of global warming. The greatest challenge we face at present as human beings is climate change and how to control it, to prevent the further destruction of the natural world, of animal species, and ultimately the destruction of human life on this planet.
The Holy Spirit whose festival we celebrate today is God’s gift to the world. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world, bringing life to all creation. Our task is to work with the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth.
When the apostles experienced the outpouring of the Spirit in Jerusalem people outside could see how they had changed. We know the apostles were so often living in Jerusalem in hiding, afraid they would be arrested as Jesus had been. Now they are making so much noise in the house where they are staying, the crowd outside thought they were drunk!
Is there much evidence that we have received the Holy Spirit? When I think of occasions when we show excitement or enthusiasm I think of a football match, not many Christian assemblies have that same atmosphere. There are Christians who sing enthusiastically, who may speak in tongues as well, but I don’t think it quite compares with the singing at a football match.
We might respond by saying that the Holy Spirit who dwells within us can be like water, gentle and refreshing. The Spirit quietly transforms us into the people God wants us to be, people who are loving, peaceful, joyful, patient, kind and gentle as St Paul says in his letter to the Galatians (Gal 5 v 22-3.) The presence of God is making us more Christlike. I think this gentle presence suits the English character, on the whole we are not a demonstrative people.
We are so often content to live our Christian lives quietly, acknowledging the presence of the Holy Spirit, in our daily lives doing what we can to love and serve our neighbours. The problem is so often we are not noticed, certainly not in the way the first apostles were noticed 2,000 years ago! 3,000 people in that crowd became followers of Jesus the Messiah that same day.
One person who was noticed by those outside of the Church was John Wesley. Today May 24th is Wesley Day, also celebrated as the feast of John and Charles Wesley in the Church of England. John Wesley saw the desperate needs of poor people, people who would have been uncomfortable entering a parish church, so he went to them. He preached to crowds of people in the open air and so began the Methodist Societies. John Wesley came to Somerset and preached to miners working in the North Somerset coalfield. The Mining Museum at Radstock has a section describing the visits of John Wesley to Somerset. Many in the Church of England did not approve of John Wesley’s methods and some clergy refused to allow those who listened to him to attend their parish churches. Many in the Church of England were unable to accept new ways to share the Good News.
It is a real challenge to all of us today to find those new ways of communicating the good news of the gospel, not expecting people to come to us, but going to where they are.
As our Methodist brothers and sisters I am sure are aware St Andrew’s is in vacancy, without a vicar at present. We have been thinking about the needs of the parish and yesterday reflected together on this.
It is easy to think a young man or woman with children will be able to attract young families to join the church, but so many people now are uncomfortable entering a church building, maybe we need to find new ways of meeting people outside of our church buildings.
We need to remind ourselves that the task of making disciples is the task of every baptized member of the church, and maybe God is just as interested in attracting the over 60’s to the Christian Community!
Each baptised member of the Christian Church has received the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have God’s presence with us to go out and live the good news we have received. We may be called to minister to neighbours, or to provide practical help to those in need, or to speak to friends and family about Jesus. Each one of us has our own particular calling, but each one of us does have a task and we need to discover what God is calling us to do, how we are to share the Good News in Taunton in 2026. It won’t be in the same way that the first apostles did on that first Pentecost. It won’t be in the way John Wesley did nearly 300 years ago. It will be a way that attracts people’s attention, that helps them to see the love of God at work in us, that then enables them to hear what we have to say.
Fire and water, symbols of the Holy Spirit, powerful, and gentle. Never think if God is gentle and the Holy Spirit refreshes and encourages us that this is a tiny flame or falling raindrops. Do not think we need only to be a spark or a trickle of water! God calls us to be flames of fire, torrents of water, visible in the world.
I will end with the words of a prayer used frequently at Morning Prayer in our Common Worship prayer books.
“As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you, now and forever. Amen.”
Rev'd Janet Fulljames
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