Harvest Festival - 12th October 2025
When I was a toddler, my father took me to church. Mum was busy with my sister, a new baby, who was quite unwell. Hence the urgent need for prayer. Not being one for Prayer Book Mattins at the age of 3, I was sent to Sunday School.
I’m sorry to say this, folks, but I hated it. I sat in a corner and said very little, earning myself the nickname, “Little Jack Horner.”
Then, one day, came the Sunday School party. It was held in quite a posh house not far from where we lived. Once dropped off, I sat at a table heaving with goodies. I spied a sandwich. I thought to myself, “That’s a nice looking sandwich. I think I’ll eat it.” But before I took my first bite I was scolded really quite severely by this blue rinse.
We hadn’t yet said grace… Humiliating, or what?
Like I said… I hated Sunday School.
Now, after an experience like that, I might have been forgiven for dismissing the saying of grace as a mere manifestation of middle class religion; set up especially to catch out little boys like me. We never said grace at home. I was taught good manners, of course, but at three years old, I suppose the job was, as yet, unfinished.
Of course, I know now, that saying grace is a good thing. In fact, it is a God thing. We say thank you for what we have. And we acknowledge that it is by God’s grace we have it. And much else besides.
Food, spirituality and religion have long been connected. This is not surprising. All are related to our need for survival: physically, spiritually, mentally … wholesomely, even, if that’s a word.
There are many connections in Scripture between food and our relationship with God.
It’s earliest manifestation in Adam, Eve and the apple is perhaps unfortunate. But think also of the visit of the Three Men to Abraham and Sarah by which they were promised the unlikely gift of a son; there is the Passover meal which triggers the escape of the Israelites from Pharaoh; and, of course, the Passover of all Passovers that is the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. Throughout Scripture table fellowship is a sign of shared identity, acceptance, love and belonging – much like this celebration of the Eucharist today, which is itself a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet as an image of what Heaven is like, united in feasting around the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Now, we all like to have our food. As I say, it’s about survival. We need it to live, which is why we are so conscious of those in the world who do not have enough food, whether through the vagaries of climate change, or through warfare like the suffering people of Gaza. For us, who by and large do have enough and to spare, it is a source of enjoyment, creativity even, given the large number of cookery programmes on TV. Either way, where there is food, we come together in an atmosphere of sharing and wellbeing. To be adequately fed is to function as the human beings we were created to be. To be underfed is invariably an injustice, a violation upon one’s humanity.
It is the same in the spiritual life. This Holy Communion is about spiritual food and drink. It sustains our souls and brings us closer to God. Similarly, regular prayer and the reading of Scripture is another form of spiritual food. Its absence leads to spiritual starvation and distance from God.
Harvest Thanksgiving is a celebration of food and drink, the essence of life and a source of its quality. That’s why as I speak the team are preparing our harvest lunch for later in the morning. It is a recognition of the sheer generosity of God. The Israelites in the desert under Moses were hungry. So God gave them manna to eat. Read the passage in Exodus and you will see the sheer generosity of God. There is enough for everyone, and some to spare ready for the Sabbath so that it need not be gathered and all may rest. Human need is at the heart of God’s intentions. And it should be at the heart of ours.
In Deuteronomy 26 we heard this morning how Moses instructed people, when they entered the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey – that is, the sheer generosity of God – that they should not forget that it was God who brought them out of their place of need, and, by implication, to remember that in their treatment of others.
As we look around the world today, at the starving millions of the poorest nations, at the fatness of the richest, the desperate need in Gaza and so many other places, and the increasing demands on foodbanks in our own communities in spite of the riches we enjoy, it is not hard to see that it must break God’s heart, for that is not how he set up the world to be. For there is more than enough food in the world to go round if only we would share it.
Starvation and plenty. Our meanness and God’s generosity. Injustice and fairness. How do we engage with all of that? Like climate change, that other frequent Harvest theme, it feels too big to cope with.
I guess each of us must search our hearts and answer that one in their own way. For some it will be that generous gift to charity. For some it will be practical action such as helping to run the local Foodbank. For a few there will be chance to influence the way things are done so that food justice is to be found in the life of our community, our region, our nation, our world.
We will do this, not because we should, but because we must, compelled as we are to make our response of thanksgiving from the bottom of our hearts for all that we enjoy.
As the Psalmist says, “For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his faithfulness endures from age to age.”
Amen.
Revd Preb. Robin Lodge
The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity - 5th October 2025
Last night as supper was ending there came a Beep Beep. It went on. Beep Beep. I switched off the radio, unplugged another connection, tried a third, and wondered if there was some sort of incident happening. Still the Beep Beep continued, close to me, following me. I put my left hand in my jacket pocket and found our phone, the missing handset, which I’d been hunting for. A woman’s voice said to me, Return it to its source which I did. Peace. Our phone had had enough of being removed from its power source, and said so!
That surprise interruption set me thinking. God is our power source. He lives both in each of us and around us. Jesus is/was his full expression on earth and speaks to us, if we would listen. And it is Jesus who sets the pace and style for us to live by. He maps our Christian journey. In different ways I assume we all have committed ourselves to this. We witnessed twelve year old Connor’s baptism not long ago. If we listen to Jesus in scripture and see how he lives in others, then we will grow at the pace he chooses for us. Led and fed by him, everything else in our lives will follow fluently - and gloriously humbly. Not that we won’t meet suffering: he asks us to take up our cross daily, and so follow his taking up of his.
So today’s short reading from Luke (17:5-10) is a brief example of Jesus’ tips or guidelines. Tips about faith and tips about doing what we have to do, at work or at home, and staying humble in the process. These tips follow on from Jesus’ previous tips. Be sure you don’t trip others up or cause them to stumble. Rather than hurt another person, it would be better for you to have a mill-stone tied round you and you be cast into the sea.
Jesus exaggerates hugely at times – on purpose. He has to hold our attention and keep us awake.
Alright, you may say, but how do we keep these tips, how do we journey with the Master? We could have a mental box to put them in. We can’t grow in faith on our own. We need help and to do this with others. We are relational creatures. For today’s reflection, I shared some ideas with a friend and listened to her. Secondly I turned to a commentary – Tom Wright’s Luke for Everyone - and also I have read and re-read to the verses given and listened to them. For the Bible does speak to us. Somehow God’s Spirit speaks to us through it.
The disciples say to Jesus, ‘Give us greater faith’, which is probably what we would want to say to him. He says, If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed and you said to a mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; it would obey you. That is astonishing and nearly impossible. How can a tiny seed’s worth of faith, achieve that? One answer, borrowing from a song, is Impossible until it is not!(See Carrie newcomer’s song).
‘It's not great faith you need, Tom Wright suggests. ‘It is faith in a great God’. Wright also says,’ Imagine you are looking through a window, small or large, ‘what matters is the God that your faith is looking out on. If it is the creator God that we are looking at, the God active in Jesus and the Spirit, ‘then the tiniest peephole of a window will give you access to power like you never dreamed of.’ Repeat. That’s what our faith can become.
A website (Streams in the Desert) which I consulted last night, said Faith is less about what I believe and more about how I live. About being faithful.’ (And we went on to sing a hymn where we praised God with Great is your Faithfulness!
There’s another thread running through these verses in Luke, another tip for our box: being humble. A humble person has a low estimate of her or his importance, so one dictionary tells us; has modest pretentions. Humble comes from humus;,Latin for earth, the ground we walk on.
One person who was humble and grounded was Francis of Assisi, the son of a cloth merchant, who is remembered especially, on October 4th. He had great advantages of birth and background and status but he chose to reject such privilege and good fortune and become a humble Friar, a follower of God, whose role was to turn to the poor, lepers especially, and to serve them. At one public occasion before the Bishop and his father he stripped off his fine clothes and adopted a beggar’s garment.
Francis overflowed with love, love of God, love of all men and women but especially of the poor; and love of God’s creation. He talked to the animals. He talked to the birds. He also said: Do few things but do them well, simple things are holy. He might have added, And keep us humble.
Jesus tells a story of the slave owner who came in one evening and expected his slave who had been working outdoors to cook and feed him before having his own evening meal. Jesus says the slave was only doing what he should, his duty. We are to be like that: get on with what is expected or needed of us and so help others. This is what so many of you do here, in many different ways, for the good of us all.
At Cuddesdon we all had to help with such jobs as the laying and clearing of tables, as well as get on with our studies. I needed to realise that such jobs were something that you did not do to show how marvellous you were but to enable the place to run smoothly. I also found a quiet satisfaction in doing the chores that were expected of me. The place, I found, was teaching me humility. And at the moment I need humility in my caring of Sheila at home.
But perhaps humility comes to us, as Paul wrote to his mentee Timothy, not so much ‘because of anything we have done’ but ‘because of God’s own purpose and grace.’ In that case we can pray for humility and the willingness to serve others.
Jeremy Harvey, Reader
The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity - 28th September 2025
LUKE Chapter 16 v19 – 31
I am sure we are all aware of the terrible sufferings people are enduring in many parts of our world. We watch the news on TV or listen to reports on the radio of places where there is war, where people are hungry, or have suffered from floods or earthquakes. We can feel helpless, and ask ourselves, “What can I do?” We can feel guilty that our lives are so comfortable by comparison, whereas their lives are so dreadful.
Our gospel today tells us we must do something! It should have been obvious to the rich man what he should do. It should have been obvious to the rich people in our OT reading, who were lounging on couches drinking wine with no concern for the poor, or for the future of their nation, when Amos was a prophet in Israel.
The rich man in our gospel story protests to Abraham that he didn’t know what he should have done, and his brothers now need help. The key verse in this story is verse 29, “They have Moses and the prophets let them listen to them”.
The Law and the Prophets, the most important parts of the Hebrew Scriptures that we call the Old Testament is enough, Jesus says in this story. If you know your Scriptures you will know what to do!
It is always helpful to look back to see how the gospel writer has arranged his material, to see what Jesus has been saying earlier in the same chapter. At the beginning of the chapter there is the story of the unjust steward. This man was cheating the owner. Instead of shrugging his shoulders and accepting the loss of his job and reputation when he was found out, he calls in the people who owe money and gets them to cheat as well!
In this story Jesus congratulates the steward, not for what he did, but for the fact that he did something, he put energy into finding a solution to his problems, he acted to ensure that he had a future.
Jesus is fond of telling stories about being active. There is the story of the wise and foolish women, - the foolish women sat down and did nothing while waiting for the bridegroom; and there is the story of the talents. The only person condemned by Jesus in this story, is the man who hides his talent under the bed until his master returns.
In the early days of the Church, when many people expected the return of Christ soon, some Christians gave up their work and sat around waiting. St Paul condemns this behaviour in his letter to the Thessalonians “Anyone who will not work shall not eat. We hear that some of you are idling away their time, we urge such people to work and earn a living” says St Paul.
So, the stories that Jesus told about not being idle, but actively doing good, would have been important for those first Christians to hear.
So what are we to do in response to the various desperate situations we see in our world, when we see needs around us here in Taunton, and in our country? Week after week we pray for places where there is war, a lack of food, drought or floods.
Of course we must pray and we can all do that. But how do we know what to do that will help to bring peace in places of war or conflict? How can we help the people of our world to be more tolerant and co-operate more, both in this country and in our local community?
Jesus says to us in the story of the rich man “Read the Scriptures! Listen to the writings of the Law and the Prophets that were the Scriptures for Jewish people at the time Jesus was teaching. We could say “Read your Bible!” Then we will be better able to respond to the needs around us. Regularly reading the Bible, maybe with the help of Bible notes or together in small study groups is important for all of us if we are to grow as Christians.
We can learn more about the needs of people today by reading a newspaper, describing what is happening, both in this country and around the world. Some people may be called to write to their MP or go on a demonstration to protest about some injustice or to support a campaign. I did this about 20 years ago. You may remember “Make Poverty History” a campaign organized by the churches with a large rally in Cologne in Germany that my husband and I attended.
Some of you may belong to an organization that is working for peace and reconciliation, or one raising money for people in need of food or shelter. Each of us is called by God to respond to need in ways that are possible for us.
This week we have 3 saints we remember in our church calendar.
On Wednesday we remember Anthony Ashley Cooper, social reformer, an MP who improved housing, opened schools for the poor, and improved conditions in factories and mines.
On Friday we remember George Bell, 20th century bishop of Chichester, peacemaker, who spoke out courageously against the bombing of German cities in WW2.
Next Saturday we remember Francis of Assisi, friar. He helped the poor, particularly lepers. He founded a religious community of Franciscans to help with his work. He loved all God’s creation. Next Saturday, St Francis Day, marks the end of a month when Christians have been considering how to better care for God’s creation.
We can’t copy any of these actions, we are not called to do what Anthony Ashley Cooper, or George Bell or Francis of Assisi did.
God calls us to respond to the needs we can see in our world today.
Let me end with 2 stories about people who have responded to needs in today’s world . Some of you may recall a film on TV in the 1960’s “Cathy Come Home”. It had a huge response. And helped to grow a charity founded that same year by a group of men who wanted to change the dreadful housing situation so many people were still living in. I remember doing a sponsored walk of 20 miles for Shelter, the charity they founded. This charity is still working as a housing charity today.
Mary’s Meals was founded by 2 Scottish gentlemen. They began their work by taking aid to Bosnia in 1992. Then they helped to build houses for abandoned children in Romania. In 2002 one of the brothers went to Malawi in Central Africa – one of the poorest countries in the world. He asked a boy there what he dreamed of. He said “To have enough food to eat and to go to school one day”. So these brothers began the project that fed 200 children in Malawi every day, these children could then go to school. (Many children have to walk several miles to get there). Today Mary’s Meals feeds over 2,000,000 children every day somewhere in Africa.
Janet Fulljames
St Matthew the Evangelist - 21st September 2025
Imagine, if you will, a typical Middle Eastern village square some two thousand years ago...
It’s hot and it’s dusty, the sun beating down. It’s also a busy place. All the community is there. Some are buying, some are selling, some are transacting business of all kinds. Some are simply hanging out – usually it’s the men – maybe gathered around the most senior guy there… trying to look big, a person of influence.
It's Palestine in the 1st Century, and the Romans are in charge. So you the occasional pair of soldiers. Maybe they’re on patrol… The crowd almost visibly parts as they walk across the square, as if they are shying away from their presence, hoping to remain invisible. Some for good reason, others simply because they are afraid. The two soldiers are walking and talking like old friends, perhaps sharing the odd joke, not particularly alert. But everyone knows that it’s best to keep them that way.
As we gaze around the scene, it could be that our eyes alight upon a queue, again, mostly of men, though not exclusively. Our eyes follow the line until we reach its focus. For in a corner of the marketplace is a small, wooden booth. Here too, there might be a Roman soldier, standing guard. After all, there is money about. Quite a bit of it. Because the booth is the office of the local tax collector.
It's a busy office, for the taxes, which are collected by the Romans, are charged on all sorts of activities: import duties from merchants and farmers bringing their wares into the area; income taxes, and all manner of other levies. Each one stands at the booths; the books are checked; money changes hands. There is no conversation, just the what is demanded by the occasion. And then they leave.
We look a little more closely at the man sat at the desk. We notice that he is not a Roman solider. In fact, he isn’t a Roman at all. He is a fellow Jew. Maybe he’s a small man, not great in stature, and beginning to age now, though he’s been doing this job for some years. He looks well fed; well-dressed too. Maybe too well dressed, at least compared with most of his compatriots filling the square that morning. It’s hot in that booth, and the sweat pours off his brow. He’s clearly not enjoying his work, but then neither are his fellow countrymen enjoying paying their taxes. And, from their demeanour, it’s clear they’re not enjoying him either. It’s as well that soldier is there.
The man’s name is Matthew. Matthew the Tax Collector. We call him Matthew the Evangelist, but that’s all in the future. Right now, he’s a very small cog in a very big wheel.
As he sits, churning it all out for Governor and Emperor, he looks up to greet his next customer. This man is not like the others, and we don’t see whether he is paying a tax or simply wants a word. He doesn’t look sullen and downcast. He is strangely alive, alert. He meets Matthew’s gaze and holds it. The seated man is clearly put off his stroke. Who is this man, and what does he want?
And Jesus says to him, “Follow me.”
Now, you or I would probably think twice before getting up and following an invitation from a total stranger in that way. It’s just not what we do. But Matthew does exactly that. He gets up, replaces his chair under the table, for he is a tidy man, walks out of the booth, hands his keys to the Roman solider and follows Jesus.
When we read Scripture, if we are alert, we will notice a particular word. It will usually be a particular choice of word, when others may well have done exactly the same job, but, this choice, this word, is absolutely key to what God might be saying in the passage.
The key word here is in the manner of Matthew’s departure from his station. This is where the translator needs to be awake too. For in the New Revised Standard Version we have had read to us, Matthew simply gets up. But you can equally, and certainly more powerfully, translate the phrase with the word, “arose.” Matthew arose and followed him.
For Matthew this is no less than a moment of resurrection.
Matthew had done well for himself in material terms. Well fed and well dressed, he had, barring any silly mistakes, a secure job. But he wasn’t happy. For every customer he met, he could feel the resentment and disapproval of his fellow Jews. He was workjng for the enemy, the oppressor, and that was a betrayal. His social life would have been somewhere in the region of zero, and his own family may well have been uneasy about his role, even if they benefited. On duty, Matthew had a Roman soldier to hand. Off duty, he might have had to be careful where he went when alone.
We don’t know if Matthew had ever met Jesus, though he may well have heard of him. Yet, somehow, this charismatic wandering rabbi caught his imagination. He already knew how to recognise a chance in life. It had led him to that booth. And he was looking at another chance right now. So as a gambler moves all their chips into one square on the roulette board, Matthew took his chance.
We also don’t know where the adventure ended. We know he was the author of the Gospel that stands in his name, drawing partly on his own material, and other sources common to Luke and Mark as well. Tradition has it that he was martyred for his faith, possibly while actually preaching the Gospel, and is remembered on this day throughout the Christian Church.
Another important skill when reading Scripture, especially the Gospels, is to check to see what comes before and after the passage we’re studying.
In Matthew Chapter 9, the story that comes immediately before Matthew’s call is the healing of the paralytic man. Brought to Jesus on his bed, Jesus announces that his sins are forgiven and instructs him to get up and walk. In the background we hear the scribes expressing outrage at his apparent blasphemy, for only God can forgive sins.
The next story is the raising of the little girl, the daughter of an official. And on the way we hear the encounter with the woman who was healed simply by touching his cloak.
It is easy to forget that this is explosive stuff… Sins are forgiven, renegades are called, outcasts are healed and the dead are raised.
Every now and again, God intervenes in a situation and says, “I’m here now. I’m in charge, and from now on, things are going to be different.” The situation is transformed, broken people are made whole, and – crucially – resurrection takes place.
Usually, this happens against a background of a broken system. In Jesus’ time, the Scribes and the Pharisees had a hold over their own people, already oppressed by Roman occupation, by an overbearing interpretation of Jewish Law that lumped together, the lame, tax collectors and outcasts as impure, effectively sinners, beyond the mercy of God.
And God says, “Not so! For I bring healing, reconciliation and new life.”
And when you think of the doctors who fight to treat the sick and wounded people of Gaza, and all the time being in harms way. When you think of the many doctors in the UK and around the world battling with the unspeakable in the Covid wards, in danger themselves yet determined to defeat the virus. And you think, it really is no good being a doctor if all you do is to stay at home.
The trouble with the Scribes and the Pharisees, similarly outraged when Jesus shared table fellowship with the forgiven and restored Matthew, is that they had forgotten that their people need a doctor and not a policeman.
In all these situations, Jesus announces that a new world has come in which so many of our assumptions about life and living, about who is on and who is out, are challenged and upset, but which gives rise to a world where there is a fresh start, new birth and wholeness for all.
The question for us is this…
Dare we embrace this new world in our own lives today, or do we sneak back to the old world where we feel more at home?
Amen.
Revd Preb. Robin Lodge
Holy Cross Day - 14th September 2025
For many years I had a good friend – sadly no longer with us – who, like me, was interested in buses. Every year on April 1st he would write to me with a mixture of news from the industry, some of which was true and some of which was – yes, you’ve guessed it – an April Fool.
One year (it was in the mid-1980s) – he wrote to say that buses in Bristol would soon be painted red, yellow and blue. You may remember that back in those nationalised days the bigger bus companies were allowed to paint their buses any colour they liked as long as it was red or green. A little white stripe was allowed, but only a little one. So this piece of news seemed so improbable at the time that it was bound to be the April Fool. Of course, it actually happened, and very smart it looked too, until various iterations of First Bus blandness took over.
Now every brand needs a logo these days. Not a badge, or a crest, but a logo. And the logo for Bristol City Line was a circle. A red one… I bet some consultant got paid thousands for designing that!
As to whether it worked, we would have to have asked the people of Bristol who were there at the time, but I doubt it was as dynamic as, say, the London Underground bar and circle - a real classic - or the British Rail logo – sometimes rather cruelty dubbed the arrow of indecision! …
If the C1st Christian Church had employed a consultant to market the Gospel I wonder if they would have thought of the cross – and indeed how many denarii they would have charged! Because the cross, as a logo, is surely a classic above all classics. When you see a cross you know exactly what you are dealing with. Anywhere in the world. It works so well that I suspect that few of us could think of anything better.
Initially, the fish was used. Now, the Greek word for fish is “icthus,” which also happened to be the first letter of each word in the phrase, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.” It was, if you like, a kind of creed. And it was also a secret code in times when being a Christian was really quite dangerous. It sort of stuck, and you still see it today – usually as a sticky label on the back of someone’s car.
But in the end the cross stuck more firmly. No need for words. It is an image that, at the same time, speaks for itself and delivers a challenge.
It was also a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. That was the analysis of St Paul writing to the Corinthian church. The cross wrong footed both major cultures of the time. Remember that although the background to the New Testament was the Roman Empire, the prevailing intellectual culture was Greek, as in Ancient Greece.
The cross was a problem to the Jews for a number of reasons.
First, crucifixion was shameful. Moreover, victims were often crucified naked, and nakedness was especially shameful to Jews. Furthermore, the Messiah was supposed to come and take up his throne, not a Roman cross.
It was simila for the Greeks. The gods were supposed to be powerful folk. You didn’t mess with the gods. They had power and they had style, like royalty. Jesus did not fit that picture, and the weakness of the cross certainly didn’t either.
Yet God shows us time and time again that we have got our thinking back to front. We are so easily swayed by the trappings and the apparent glory of human power, authority and status. God remains unimpressed. It is holiness and obedience to his commands that counts. His ways are not our ways and by the reaction to the cross at the time it showed, and goes on showing today.
So, what is the cross really about? What is its central message?
When I was training, I read a book by the German theologian, Professor Jurgen Moltmann. It was called, “The Crucified God,” and it was an attempt to answer that very question. Moltmann reflected on the various ways that theologians tried to explain how the cross took away our sins. I won’t go into all of them now, even if I could remember them all, but then he planted what you might call a theological hand grenade.
He quoted the Old Testament story where Abraham was asked by God to take his son, his only son, and offer him as a sacrifice. It’s a powerful story, charged with tension. Abraham is so obedient that he gets as far as laying Isaac on the altar he has built and reaches out for the knife, when God intervenes and that ram with its horns caught in a thicket gets it instead. And they both get to go home, with Abraham probably whispering in the boy’s ear, “Don’t tell your mother!”
And Moltmann says that the meaning of the cross is quite simply this. That God in Christ does for us what Abraham did not have to do for God. When Jesus was laid upon the cross and the Roman soldier reached out for the hammer, there wasn’t so much as a lamb in sight. Because Jesus was that lamb.
In other words, don’t get into a flap about exactly how the cross works, about who takes the blame for what and how just that might or might not be, know simply this. That the central message of the cross is Love.
(By the way, I did get to meet the great professor once. He came to our college one evening to give a lecture. I was among a small group of students invited to dinner with him at the Principal’s house beforehand. As you can imagine, the conversation with a bunch of keeny ordinands was quite erudite. Not being given to erudition, I can’t have said very much, because eventually, Fr John turned to me and, knowing my special interests said,
“What… what is the latest train the Professor can take back to London tonight?”
And that was the sum total of the exchange I had with perhaps one of the greatest theologians of modern times.)
St John writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Maybe, that is all we need to know.
A final thought.
The great thing about love is that it is never truly fulfilled unless there is a response from the one who is loved. Unrequited love is always sad, and I suspect that the same is true for God.
Have you ever seen the famous painting representing Revelation 3,20, another of St John’s famous texts, which says…
“Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice let him open the door and I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”
The original painting is hung inside the chapel of Keble College, Oxford. I could tell you a story about that painting, involving a cloud of incense and a very angry bishop, but you’ll have to ask me afterwards if you want to know.
For those who might not know the painting, Jesus stands at a wooden door almost overgrown by the vegetation strewn around its frame like an old country cottage. It is nighttime and Jesus is holding a lamp in one hand and knocking on the door with the other. And if you look very carefully at the door in the painting you will see one very important feature.
The handle is on the inside.
Amen.
Revd Preb. Robin Lodge