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Review of Stephen Cherry, Healing Agony: Re-imagining Forgiveness (Continuum, 2012). The second of the shortlist for the Michael Ramsey Prize is Stephen Cherry’s Healing Agony .   This is a profound and hard won meditation on forgiveness.   The origins of the book are in his accompanying of a mother whose child had been murdered.   From this starting point, Cherry approaches a wide range of material on forgiveness.   Some is theological, some political, some psychological.   There are many stories of those who have faced the challenge of forgiveness.   Quite deliberately, Cherry sets out to bridge the experiential and the theoretical.   There are no simple and easy solutions on offer, as Cherry says ‘the truth about forgiveness is darker, more difficult and infinitely more agonizing than the myths about forgiveness which people, not least Christian people, prefer to promulgate’ (p. 179). Through the hard stories of ...

A Sermon for the Mothers' Union Leadership Conference 1 Peter 4.10-11 ; Mark 10.35-37,41-45 It is a great pleasure and a privilege to be here with you today. I am a proud member of the Mothers’ Union , and what convinced me to join was the work you have done on Bye Buy Childhood .   Thank you for that, and for the many different acts of service that you do, individually and collectively.   I would welcome you to the Diocese of Derby, but since most of you are about to go home, let me instead bring you greetings from the Diocese of Derby, where you have been for the past few days, and especially greetings from Derby Cathedral where I serve as Canon Chancellor. Some words from the first reading: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others.”   “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others.”   It is truly wonderful that you have spent this time learning about servant leadership.   ...

Acts 16.16-34 ; John 17.20-26 It was one of those moments when my mouth engaged before my brain.  I was being interviewed for a parish job, and had just been asked what I would do if someone refused to work with the Parish Child Protection policy.  "They can't be allowed to work with children" I said, and almost immediately began to soften it.  "Of course, I would speak with them and try to help them engage with the policy first" and so on.  But knowing what I began to know shortly afterwards, I think it was one of the reasons that I was offered the job. After several days of being followed and spoken about, however accurately, by a slave-girl with a spirit of divination, Paul finally loses his temper.  "Very much annoyed" is how Luke puts this.  He turns round and orders the spirit to leave her.  Those who read Paul's letters carefully might wonder how he managed to last for "many days" without getting cross earlier.  There is, no d...

A sermon for the eve of St Philip and St James Isaiah 40.27-end ; John 12.20-26 “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”.   Perhaps that is the reason that we are here tonight.   We want to see Jesus.   There is no better reason for coming to church than wanting to encounter Jesus.   And here in the readings from Scripture, in the silence, in the music, in the prayers, in the architecture, in one another, perhaps even in the sermon, there are opportunities and pointers to help us to see Jesus.   “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”. This is why we gather for worship. But it is not just here that we see Jesus.   It is not just in church or during acts of worship that we can encounter our risen Lord.   We encounter Jesus throughout our lives, in the people, places and moments that make up our days.   The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, ‘I greet him the days I meet him , and bless when I understand’.   “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” ...

Review of Benigno P. Beltran, Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain: Hope for a Planet in Peril (Orbis, 2012). If all the books on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist are as good as this, then I’m in for a treat!   It is good to have an author on the shortlist who is not from the UK or the US.   Beltran is from the Philippines.   A Roman Catholic priest, and a teacher of theology, Beltran has also been the chaplain to the most notorious rubbish dump in the world – Smokey Mountain in Manilla.   Here around 25 000 people lived as scavengers, and became a symbol of both poverty and the ecological degradation of the world. This is a deceptively short book.   It is both moving and challenging.   It also covers several different genres.   Most obviously, it is autobiographical.   Benigno Beltran was a Pilipino priest who was sent to study in Rome.   He returned to the Philippines to train seminarians.   On h...

A Sermon for Easter 5. Acts 11.1-18 ; John 13.31-35 If you want the Gospel in miniature, then we are offered it this morning.   Jesus says to his disciples ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’   ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’   It really is as simple and as hard as that.   Simple, because that is all that the Gospel is about.   Hard, because loving and being loved is not an easy business.   In the next few minutes, I want to explore the simplicity and difficulty of this, and think a little bit about what we should take with us into our lives. We start with being loved, because that is where Jesus starts.   ‘Just as I have loved you’ he says.   The foundation of Christianity in all of its forms is that we are loved by God.   God loves us.   That is the message of Christianity from beginning to end.   Beware of anyone who tells you that God doesn’t...

--> Review of Ian Cowley, The Contemplative Minister: Learning to Lead from the Still Centre (Bible Reading Fellowship, 2015). This excellent little book is for those ‘who are looking for a better way of serving Christ than the relentless busyness and pressure which has become the norm for so many’ (p. 12).   Ian Cowley, who has experience of ministry in South Africa and is now the Vocations and Spirituality Co-ordinator for the Diocese of Salisbury, calls us to rediscover our still centre in prayer and rooting in God. Ministry that does not have stillness and prayer at its heart is in danger of losing its relationship to God, of warping a vocation, and not having the counter-cultural edge that should be the mark of all Christian ministry.   Cowley calls us back to silence and simplicity as being of the essence and the heart of ministry, not just extras and ideals.   He draws widely on the traditions of the church, from the contemplative to th...

A meditation for Vocations Sunday I heard the call a long time ago.   Not really sure when it began, but I just began to watch, to look out for where I might find him.   Once I realised I was doing it, I started to listen hard.   My name, Simeon, it means the one who listens.   So I would live up to my name.   I listened for God, and I asked him about this calling.   Was it for me? Why on earth me?   What was I to look for? A new prophet or a holy one?   And from somewhere the answer came – ‘I am calling you.   Look for the Messiah!’ I’ve looked for a long time – I wasn’t always this old – carefully checking and testing.   A few have claimed that they were the one.   But they weren’t.   But just sometimes, there was enough doubt in my mind to leave me confused.   This calling has been a challenge.   Not everyone likes me saying, ‘no, not them.’   And it’s puzzled me why I should be s...

--> A sermon for the Eve of the Annunciation Genesis 3.8-15 ; Galatians 4.1-5 “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman”. In the depths of Channel Four’s schedules, there is a programme called Tattoo Fixers .   In this programme people arrive with an array of badly crafted tattoos, and those which are less funny once the owner has sobered up. The programme’s team of tattoo artists then transform the tattoos into more tasteful and more beautiful tattoo by integrating the original design into their new art.   The original tattoo is not erased, but cannot be seen any longer. This evening we celebrate God’s plan for the redemption of the world.   “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” as St Paul puts it.   This plan is announced to Mary by the Angel Gabriel.   It is a plan that is not just for us, but which will have an effect on the whole of creation.   We have sung the M...

Acts 10.34-43 ; John 20.1-18 “We do not know there they have laid him”.   If the stories of Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection have anything in common, then one of the major common factors has to be that they are all surprises.   Mary is surprised by the gardener.   The eleven disciples are surprised to find Jesus inside a locked room.   The two walking to Emmaus are surprised by a biblical interpreted walking with them.   The eleven are again surprised as they go fishing in Galilee.   And St Paul is surprised (to say the least) by Jesus appearing on the road to Damascus.   Jesus turns up where he is not expected, and that seems to be common to all of the stories of his appearances. When Jesus turns up all kinds of things happen.   There is healing of people and relationships; forgiveness and the rebuilding of community; there are lives transformed by love; and hope and confidence is rekindled.   In the Go...

A sermon for Maundy Thursday. Exodus 12.1-14 ; John 13.1-17,31b-35 “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”. Tonight we gather to remember the Passover – the time when God freed his people from slavery in Egypt and led them to freedom in the Promised Land. Tonight we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, given to his disciples at the last supper he shared with them before his death. Tonight we gather to begin our journey through the three days of the Passion of our Lord, his death and resurrection. Tonight we gather to do all these things. But above all these things, tonight we gather to take our shoes off and then to put them on again. So let me ask you now to take off your shoes. Shoes off and shoes on – that is what tonight is all about. Shoes off – shoes on. We find it in the Gospel reading. It is an insight into the very being and nature of God. It is our calling as disciples of Jesus. Shoes off. Shoes on. So let me expla...