Sermons

 

 

 

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity - 9th August 2026

1 Kings 19 v9-18, Romans 10 v5-15, Matt 14 v22-33

One of the most popular Christian saints is St Francis of Assisi, and this year we mark the 800th anniversary of his death. So, there will be many special activities around the world to celebrate this. (We usually celebrate the death of a saint rather than their birth because this marks their entry in heaven). Here in England one of the big national events is a pilgrimage, which began on 17th July in the NE of England and ends in London on October 2nd. Pilgrims will be walking through Somerset from 5th- 8th September. Unfortunately, they are not coming to Taunton, but there is a special eucharist in Wells on Saturday 5th where the bishop of Southwark will preach. The pilgrims will pass through Street and Queen Camel, among other places, and then spend time at Hilfield Priory in Dorset, the home of Anglican Franciscans in this country. 

Why am I telling you all this this morning? My sermon is about people and saints who have received a special experience of the presence of God, sometimes special words are spoken or a vision is seen, and St Francis is one of those people I want to speak about.

There are many stories told about St Francis, from stripping naked in front of his father to show him he wanted no more to do with his business nor to have his money, to giving his clothes to beggars outside of St Peter’s in Rome. He also touched and ministered to lepers. 

In the church of St Damian just outside Assisi Francis was praying in front of an icon of the crucified Christ when Jesus clearly said to him “Francis, Francis, go and repair my church which you can see is in ruins” So Francis took this revelation seriously. 

He left the church which was in a ruinous state, he collected stones and gradually rebuilt it. Other men joined him and so the Franciscan brothers formed a community. They travelled from place to place sharing the gospel, and so the church was renewed. 

Our Old Testament story today Is about Elijah. Elijah has fled for his life,  Queen Jezebel has threatened to kill him. So he prays that he might die in the wilderness. He enters a cave and then God speaks to him. “What are you doing here Elijah?”  Then he has a very special revelation of the presence of God, experienced as “A still small voice”. 

God spoke to Elijah again. “Go” says God “Anoint Hazael as King of Syria and Jehu as king of Isreal. Elisha you shall anoint to be a prophet in your place”. 
                                             
God spoke to Francis and to Elijah, these very special experiences of the presence of God were for a purpose, in both cases the message from God changes the life of each person. Both men are called to a new task, a new mission. There are other examples in the Bible and in the lives of the saints where a revelation from God, and hearing the voice of God has changed lives dramatically. Think of Moses. He was living in the desert, he had married and had children, then God spoke to him, revealed to Moses he must go back to Egypt where the Pharaoh had wanted to kill him. God says to him “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people out of Egypt”. 

Or think of St Paul, on his way to Damascus to arrest members of the Christian community in that city. While on the road he suddenly saw a flashing light, so bright that it blinded him. Jesus said to him “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Rise and enter the city and you will be told what to do” Saul became a Christian, this meeting with Jesus totally changed his life, he became THE great missionary of the Early Church.

In case you begin to think that God is revealed in such special ways only to men , remember that the Bible was probably written largely by men in a patriarchal society. There are many stories of saints who have had such special visions, some of them women or children. One of the most popular saints of the last hundred years is Bernadette, a 14 year old girl who lived in Lourdes in southern France. She grew up in a poor family and was often ill as a child. She had a series of visions or apparitions at Lourdes which began when she was collecting firewood near a cave. The appearance was  not of Jesus, the voice was the voice of a lady, the Virgin Mary who told Bernadette to build a chapel in the cave. Today this chapel is a centre of pilgrimage attracting over 5 million pilgrims every year. It is a great place of prayer and healing. When asked why she was the one to receive the visions she said “The Virgin used me as a broom to remove the dust”.

Last Thursday was the Feast of the Transfiguration when Jesus appeared in glory on the mountain with Moses and Elijah. What a lovely stained glass window we have in the south aisle which depicts this event. Like all the appearances I have described, it was a special moment for a particular purpose. Jesus had spoken to his disciples about his need to go to Jerusalem where he would be arrested and put to death. The disciples were puzzled, perhaps they were thinking how could he establish a kingdom if he died? They were confused, who was this man they were following? Jesus is seen talking with Moses and Elijah about going to Jerusalem, they are approving of the future actions of Jesus. The disciples hear God saying “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”

Our Gospel reading today is a special appearance of Jesus to his disciples as he walks across the lake. At first they think they are seeing a ghost before they realize it is Jesus. Some Biblical scholars think this may be a post resurrection appearance, but we were not there so don’t know that this is so! It is an appearance that has a purpose like the earlier appearances I have described. The disciples response to Jesus is “Truly you are the Son of God”. 

This incident follows soon after the death of John the Baptist which must have affected the disciples who realised not all the religious leaders welcomed Jesus’ ministry. So Jesus encourages the disciples by his presence on the lake.

 All special appearances of God, of Jesus, of angels, of the Virgin Mary, have a purpose. Sometimes there is a special message but not always. Sometimes such visions are just a special revelation for the building up of the faith of that individual, who often then shares such revelations with others. These Christians are not necessarily holier than other Christians, they have been given such special revelations for a reason. Christians who have never experienced such moments, they are not second class Christians, less worthy to have such moments, it is simply that God has no life changing task for them to do at present. 

I want to end with a story about Joan of Arc one of the patron saints of France. She is not a popular saint in England, probably because the English burnt her at the stake during the Hundred Years War between England and France in the 15th century. I think she illustrates how difficult it can be for other people to interpret visions or revelations that saints have had. She claimed to have a vision of St Michael the archangel, St Margaret and St Catherine. They told her to assist the king of France and make Charles the Dauphin the king. To us an unusual example of a saint, she was tried and sentenced to death by the English for being a witch, and for wearing men’s clothes! 
 
Joan had her first vision when she was 13 years old, and she fought in the French army with the men at the age of 17! There are many famous sayings recorded, here are just 2 of them
“I am not afraid, I was born to do this”.
“I am the drum on which God is beating out his message”.

 

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity - 2nd August 2026

If you had never seen me, but heard my voice speaking to you on the telephone, do you think that you would realise that I have a brown skin?  I doubt it, because, let’s face it, I am dead posh and have always spoken as I do, even though my formative years were spent growing up in Birmingham.   

Every day my sister and I would turn right out of our front door to catch the bus to school in Edgbaston, whereas my two brothers would turn left to catch their bus to Solihull School.  My sister and I speak in much the same way, while our brothers both have a Brummie edge to their accents.   ODD, isn’t it?  Siblings with rather different accents! 

In the 1920s an English journalist called William Ewer, quipped, “How ODD of God/To choose the Jews”.  Though some people think that this couplet sounds antisemitic, it was never intended to be anything of the sort, but rather a bemused comment on the extraordinarily turbulent and often tragic history of the Jewish people over nearly 4,000 years.   

Periodically down the centuries Jews have been demonized, scapegoated and persecuted by their enemies, not least by the English.  In 1290 all Jews were expelled from this kingdom by Edward 1st, so he could get his greedy hands on their property and cash to finance his spendthrift regime. 

It was not until 1655 that Jews were allowed to return here by Oliver Cromwell.  Even as recently as the 1930s Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts were attacking Jews in East London in imitation of what Hitler was doing in Germany.  Sadly today we observe a nasty recrudescence of Jew-hatred on the Far Right both here and on the Continent. 

It is all too easy, alas, to conflate the Israeli government with the Israeli people.  What Netanyahu and his bigoted cabinet are doing to the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank may be unconscionable, but one cannot fairly tar the entire Israeli people with the atrocities committed by their national Defence Forces.   

The IDF is acting under government orders clearly in retaliation for the horrors perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists on more than 1,200 young Israeli music festival goers on October 7th 2023, not to forget the 254 hostages that were kidnapped to Gaza. 

It is ODD to me that the likes of Mssrs. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, the most militant members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, choose to ignore the savage irony of their genocidal attack on the Palestinians during the last three years, given the experience of Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s.   

It was to a similarly crushed and defeated people condemned to exile in Babylon far from their homeland in the 6th century BCE that the prophet Isaiah spoke the words which we heard in our first reading today.   

To Jews feeling abandoned and rejected by their God because of their own disobedience and idolatry the prophet proclaims that God’s blessings are freely given and not earned by human effort: “You that have no money, come, buy and eat.  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” 

Instead of chasing false gods and illusory benefits, “Listen carefully to me, listen so you may live,” says Isaiah.  Attending to God’s word and following his commands are what lead to true satisfaction and a fulfilled life.  God had made promises to Abraham about his descendants and later He had made a covenant with King David. 

Unlike His chosen people God remains faithful in keeping His promises and in abiding by His sacred covenant.  Now, says Isaiah, He will make a new and everlasting covenant with His people because of His enduring love of David.   

In this way God will guarantee continuity for even this rebellious generation with the historic past.  But even more than that: “Nations that do not know you shall run to you, because the Holy One of Israel has glorified you”.  There will not only be redemption for Israel, but this tiny nation is destined to be a Light to the nations, bringing distant strangers within the scope of God’s saving grace.   

How very ODD, and yet as Fr. Gerard Hughes, a Jesuit theologian and university chaplain, pointed out in a much loved book back in 1985, the God whom Isaiah and all of us worship is a “God of SURPRISES”.   

How mad to make a small country of no geopolitical importance a Light to the nations.  How crazy to be incarnate in the son of a peasant carpenter in an unremarkable small town in northern Israel.  How bonkers to make a mere woman, Mary Magdalen, and she of questionable respectability, the first witness of the Resurrection.  How weird to make a savage persecutor of the early church, Paul, the greatest Apostle successfully to carry the new faith to the whole Greek world.   

That is the nature of our God – not some terrifying avenger bent on cleansing the earth of his enemies - but a convict hanging humiliated on a Roman cross, an object of contempt to onlookers and a source of despair to his followers on Good Friday.  How very ODD.   

And then came Easter and a chance meeting on the Road to Emmaus, the overturning of everything that we thought that we knew about the finality of death.  Christ is risen and that is God too: mysterious, paradoxical, transcendent and glorious all at the same time.       

600 years after Isaiah had revived the hearts and hopes of God’s chosen people in exile Paul in our reading from Romans 9 finds himself agonizing over the rejection of the gospel by his fellow Israelites.  And yet at the same time he acknowledges the privileged status of Israel as the chosen vehicle of divine revelation to the pre-Christian world.   

Most importantly the Christ, God’s Messiah, Jesus Son of God and the Saviour of the world, had emerged from this same religious tradition to fulfil God’s age-old promises to humanity, embodied in the life, death and Resurrection of our Lord.  Through Jesus’ willing self-giving we have been reconciled permanently to the Father and given the perfect example of what it means to live a good and faithful life, focused on service to others.   

The generosity, faithfulness and consistency of God are manifested in the Jewish heritage.  The implication is clear.  Christians are called to exhibit love and concern for those who have not yet embraced the salvation which the gospels offer to all who are prepared to listen and respond to God’s word under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

Today’s gospel passage from Mathew 14 is the very ODD story of the feeding of the 5,000.  It is ODD in the same way as any of the accounts of miracles performed by Jesus, or by his Apostles and disciples.  We are SURPRISED by what seems to be an unexpected infraction of the regularities determined by the laws of physics. 

We want God to be consistent, so that we can better understand how the physical universe operates.  We know that the sun will rise in the East.  We know that Absolute zero is  -273 degrees centigrade.  We know that the moon is not made of cheese, whatever Wallis and Gromit tell us.  We know that we are born eventually to die, because the laws of Thermodynamics teach us that all complex and orderly physical systems run down over time towards disorder and dissolution.   

This is called entropy and we cannot avoid it, so should we be disconcerted by events which seem to challenge our understanding of how nature works by breaking a basic principle of physics, as miracle stories clearly suggest?   

Let me offer you a way of understanding better how we might address  the biblical accounts of miraculous events, especially the Creation, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, let alone the Feeding of the 5,000 without doubting the regularities of nature and the laws of physics.  

God made and sustains this universe.  In a sense He also is responsible for the laws of nature by which the universe is ordinarily governed.  The laws of physics are perfectly adequate to describe how the world works 99.99% of the time, but God the Creator exists outside the universe.   

The laws of physics are fine, just like Newton’s laws are for the most part fine in describing how the physical world ordinarily works, but the moment you begin to investigate the mysterious world of sub-atomic particles, Newton is no help at all.  You need Quantum Mechanics, a whole new science, to describe events in world of very small particles.   

This does not mean that Newton is wrong.  He is right for the most part.  So also we should not be flummoxed by the biblical accounts of miracles, but accept them in a spirit of wonder, awe and thanksgiving, because God has acted to show us His power, His love, His care and His compassion for suffering humanity.  Biblical miracles are not the random acts of a capricious and inconsistent God, but they always have a particular religious purpose and achieve a particular end.  

The miracle recounted in our gospel reading from Matthew 14 shows us Jesus’ compassion for the people, whom he not only miraculously feeds, but also heals in his commitment to, and care for them.  His disciples are taught by his actions to trust in God’s provision and to act in faith, even when resources seem limited. 

We ourselves see how God’s provision far exceeds all human expectations, as symbolized by the 12 baskets of leftovers that are collected after the picnic is finished and all are more than satisfied.   

When we reach out our hands to receive the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist, do we acknowledge that God is giving us of himself to nourish us both physically and spiritually, just as Jesus met the physical and spiritual needs of those who came to learn from him on that hillside? 

Have we learned from this episode to trust God to provide for us what we need, especially when resources seem inadequate, when our wells have run dry and our future looks dark and menacing?  And above all, have we learned that as followers of Jesus we must respond without a second thought to those who are needy, those who are desperate and those who have been abandoned?  Let us pray.     

Father, increase our faith, our trust and our gratitude for all the blessings that we enjoy, enlarge the image of Christ within us, that we may serve others gladly for the sake of your Kingdom.  Amen.   

Rev'd Munna Mitra

 

 

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