Sermon Archive
Archive's of the Rector's previous sermons are available at https://homilia.substack.com/
1 March 2026 Second Sunday of Lent A
John 3:1-17, Romans 4:1-5 13-17.
Charlotte Lait
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
But this is the way we’ve always done it.
Even if it’s not said aloud, we’ve all thought it at least once before in our lives. But this is the way I’ve always done it. It’s a sentiment often voiced or thought in the face of the new and the different. The other. The thing we don’t understand or perhaps don’t see the need for.
I imagine though that many will have said the same when the church authorised services to be said in English, not in Latin. Or when my grandfather, born 1919, was designing the electric lighting for churches like The Priory Church at Bolton Abbey. This is the way we’ve always done it. I suspect that people were afraid of it changing, or even spoiling, their much-loved churches. Why change from the time-honoured combination of daylight and candlelight if they work? I also reckon that after a few weeks, people were starting to get used to it. And may even have experienced that lightbulb moment, if you’ll excuse the pun, of realising that it wasn’t spoiled after all. They could just see better. In fact, I’m sure that many now would argue that having electric lighting in even the most ancient of church spaces makes them more accessible.
In our Gospel this morning, we hear a conversation between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and a well-respected leader in his community. He was well born, enjoyed good standing in society and had a good understanding of his faith. The negative views of the Pharisees tell us that they were very legalistic – concerned with following the rules and doing the right things in order to gain favour with God – but some of the positives were that they were also concerned with taking the practices of their faith outside the temple into their everyday lives and making them more accessible to everyone, not just to the select few from the faith community. They were also political influencers, who wanted to preserve Judaism and protect the identity of God’s people. God’s people at the time being understood as the descendants of Abraham, which is why we heard about him in this morning’s reading.
Nicodemus meeting with Jesus would have been a dangerous thing to do. This conversation in John’s Gospel is presented shortly after Jesus had driven the money changers out of the temple. He’s already been causing huge controversy with the Jewish leaders. If Nicodemus was caught speaking to this radical teacher, his social standing could have been ruined, and he could have found himself shunned from him community. There was a lot at stake. I always thought as a child that Nicodemus’ question to Jesus about re-entering the womb was just plain silly, but of course I’ve learnt since then that there’s no such thing as a silly question, only an unhelpful answer that doesn’t foster understanding. He had the courage to ask a question of Jesus, the courage to challenge what he’d been raised to believe. He had the courage to listen to what Jesus had to say, to engage fully in the conversation and subsequent soul searching, and of course later we know that he’d have the courage to be associated with Jesus in a public forum by helping Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus body to be buried. Why bother to upset the apple cart by doing these things if he was already of good standing, already well born, already one of God’s people? Surely the way he’d always done it was good? Maybe he realised that what he had now, whilst good, wasn’t the best God had for him.
So here’s a question. Do we have the courage of Nicodemus now? Do we dare to ask the right questions of our faith? Ask the right questions of the teaching we hear and the decisions our church makes, right up to the highest level? Its one thing though to ask the questions, but another to dare to listen for the answers, to engage in that soul searching and to make changes when they’re needed. To change our minds in the face of new wisdom. To ask, is what there is now the best God has for us?
The season of Lent enables us to look at our lives and see which of our actions and decisions, as individuals, as communities and a national church, are challenged by the gaze of a loving God. And when we’ve heard the challenge, to pray for the courage shown by Nicodemus, to find out what God’s best for us might be. Amen.
John 3:1-17, Romans 4:1-5 13-17.
Charlotte Lait
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
But this is the way we’ve always done it.
Even if it’s not said aloud, we’ve all thought it at least once before in our lives. But this is the way I’ve always done it. It’s a sentiment often voiced or thought in the face of the new and the different. The other. The thing we don’t understand or perhaps don’t see the need for.
I imagine though that many will have said the same when the church authorised services to be said in English, not in Latin. Or when my grandfather, born 1919, was designing the electric lighting for churches like The Priory Church at Bolton Abbey. This is the way we’ve always done it. I suspect that people were afraid of it changing, or even spoiling, their much-loved churches. Why change from the time-honoured combination of daylight and candlelight if they work? I also reckon that after a few weeks, people were starting to get used to it. And may even have experienced that lightbulb moment, if you’ll excuse the pun, of realising that it wasn’t spoiled after all. They could just see better. In fact, I’m sure that many now would argue that having electric lighting in even the most ancient of church spaces makes them more accessible.
In our Gospel this morning, we hear a conversation between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and a well-respected leader in his community. He was well born, enjoyed good standing in society and had a good understanding of his faith. The negative views of the Pharisees tell us that they were very legalistic – concerned with following the rules and doing the right things in order to gain favour with God – but some of the positives were that they were also concerned with taking the practices of their faith outside the temple into their everyday lives and making them more accessible to everyone, not just to the select few from the faith community. They were also political influencers, who wanted to preserve Judaism and protect the identity of God’s people. God’s people at the time being understood as the descendants of Abraham, which is why we heard about him in this morning’s reading.
Nicodemus meeting with Jesus would have been a dangerous thing to do. This conversation in John’s Gospel is presented shortly after Jesus had driven the money changers out of the temple. He’s already been causing huge controversy with the Jewish leaders. If Nicodemus was caught speaking to this radical teacher, his social standing could have been ruined, and he could have found himself shunned from him community. There was a lot at stake. I always thought as a child that Nicodemus’ question to Jesus about re-entering the womb was just plain silly, but of course I’ve learnt since then that there’s no such thing as a silly question, only an unhelpful answer that doesn’t foster understanding. He had the courage to ask a question of Jesus, the courage to challenge what he’d been raised to believe. He had the courage to listen to what Jesus had to say, to engage fully in the conversation and subsequent soul searching, and of course later we know that he’d have the courage to be associated with Jesus in a public forum by helping Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus body to be buried. Why bother to upset the apple cart by doing these things if he was already of good standing, already well born, already one of God’s people? Surely the way he’d always done it was good? Maybe he realised that what he had now, whilst good, wasn’t the best God had for him.
So here’s a question. Do we have the courage of Nicodemus now? Do we dare to ask the right questions of our faith? Ask the right questions of the teaching we hear and the decisions our church makes, right up to the highest level? Its one thing though to ask the questions, but another to dare to listen for the answers, to engage in that soul searching and to make changes when they’re needed. To change our minds in the face of new wisdom. To ask, is what there is now the best God has for us?
The season of Lent enables us to look at our lives and see which of our actions and decisions, as individuals, as communities and a national church, are challenged by the gaze of a loving God. And when we’ve heard the challenge, to pray for the courage shown by Nicodemus, to find out what God’s best for us might be. Amen.
15 February 2026 – Next before Lent A
Matthew 17.1-9
Charlotte Lait
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
As we approach the season of Lent, many of us will again be reflecting on what we’re each going to give up, take on or generally do to change ourselves for the better. My Mum was a great advocate for giving up what she called the three Cs: chocolate, chips and crisps. And of course, when Easter arrived, they were all back on the menu. Abstaining from certain things as a Lenten fast might be just the spiritual discipline you need each year, but for me, my observance of Lent is more about discerning whether I feel moved to change a habit that doesn’t align with my faith, such as reducing the amount of plastic I use or making a more conscious choice to walk instead of taking the car. During Lent we are invited to spend more time with God in prayer and study, to reflect on our lives of faith and to gently reorientate ourselves to the path God calls us to follow.
As we set our sights on the upcoming season, we are offered the Transfiguration as our Gospel reading today – Matthew’s account of the disciples, Peter, James and John, witnessing the glorious transformation of Jesus in radiant light, seeing Moses and Elijah talking with him, and of hearing the voice of God.
My initial reflections on this reading were three things; that first, they had to walk up the mountain, then that they had to walk down the mountain again, and thirdly that God did not stay on the mountain top.
First, they had to walk up the mountain. They had to toil and sweat, lose the path, stop for breath. They turned around to look at the view from part way up. They will have talked and spent time in amicable silence. They did not walk up the mountain alone.
Afterwards, they had to walk down the mountain and away from the place in which they’d experienced something truly life changing – going back to their daily lives, with all of its everyday demands and decisions – as much as it may have been tempting to try and preserve the moment and stay there.
God did not stay at the top of the mountain. God in the person of Jesus walked alongside them, back into their everyday lives.
The final thought though is the one I think is the most important. When the disciples returned to their lives, they too had been transfigured. Changed forever by their mountain top experience. They will have taken that experience back with them and it will have transformed how they viewed and interacted with the world around them.
Last week, the General Synod of the Church of England met in London to faithfully discuss, debate and make decisions which shape the management of our national church, which in turn shapes our lives of faith in the various diocese of the church and in our parishes. Now that through the wonder of modern technology we are able to watch recordings of the debates of synod, I have been known on occasion to listen in on some of the debates. I must add though that I tend to listen to these discussions sped up, so as to get through some of the business a bit quicker but still consider myself informed. Even if the items being discussed are close to my heart or I consider them to be particularly interesting or controversial, the debates themselves can be a little dry. The work of General Synod is not done on the mountain top, but that does not mean that God isn’t at work in it.
Much of the work we are called to do as churches does not take place at the top of the mountain, but in the valleys, where things grow. And as we all know, growing things takes time and effort.
God is in the workings. Is in the soil being planted. Is in the rays of the sun felt so keenly on the mountain top, but still present in the valley. Is in the more usual liquid sunshine we seem to experience so often here in Cumbria.
God is in the ordinary. The everyday. In our lived experiences. The faces of friends and strangers. In laughter and grief shared. In the beauty of the world around us. God is in our worship, in word, sacrament and fellowship. When we live lives in which we notice the light which lit up Christ’s face, and those of Moses and Elijah, in other people and the world around us, we shine with that same light. Living as the transfigured people of God, doesn’t mean that we all have to give up who we are, our essential natures, but its more about reorientating ourselves to be more perceptive of God’s presence with us and to walk the paths we are called to follow. Yes, on the mountain top, in the glorious and rare experiences of life in which we can see Christ’s light shining brightly, but also in the valley. It’s the same light which can be seen in the ordinary and everyday.
When reflecting on the transfiguration and the presence of God in the everyday, I was reminded of a poem by the late Irish poet Paul Durcan. Which whilst it is slightly longer, I’d like to share with you now.
The 12 O’Clock Mass, Roundstone, County Galway, 28 July 2002
On Sunday 28th of July 2002 –
The summer it rained almost every day –
In rain we strolled down the road
To the church on the hill overlooking the sea.
I had been told to expect “a fast Mass”.
Twenty minutes. A piece of information
Which disconcerted me.
Out onto the altar hurried
A short, plump priest in late middle age
With a horn of silver hair,
In green chasuble billowing
Like a poncho or a caftan over
White surplice and a pair
Of Reeboks – mammoth trainers.
He whizzed along,
Saying the readings himself as well as the Gospel;
Yet he spoke with conviction and with clarity;
His every action an action
Of what looked like effortless concentration;
Like Tiger Woods on top of his form.
His brief homily concluded with a solemn request.
To the congregation he gravely announced:
“I want each of you to pray for a special intention,
A very special intention.
I want each of you – in the sanctity of your souls –
To pray that, in the All-Ireland
Championship hurling quarter-final this afternoon in Croke Park,
Clare will beat Galway.”
The congregation splashed into laughter
And the church became a place of effortless prayer.
He whizzed through the Consecration
As if the Consecration was something
That occurs at every moment of the day and night;
As if betrayal and the overcoming of betrayal
Were an every-minute occurrence.
As if the Consecration were the “now”
In the “now” of the Hail Mary prayer:
“Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
At the Sign of the Peace he again went sombre
As he instructed the congregation:
“I want each of you to turn around and say to each other:
‘You are beautiful.’”
The congregation was flabbergasted, but everyone fluttered
And swung around and uttered that extraordinary phrase:
“You are beautiful.”
I shook hands with at least five strangers,
Two men and three women, to each of them saying:
“You are beautiful.” And they to me:
“You are beautiful.”
At the end of Mass, exactly twenty-one minutes,
The priest advised: “Go now and enjoy yourselves
For that is what God made you to do –
To go out there and enjoy yourselves
And to pray that, in the All-Ireland
Championship hurling quarter-final between Clare and Galway
In Croke Park, Clare will win.”
After Mass, the rain had drained away
Into a tide of sunlight on which we sailed out
To St Macdara’s Island and dipped our sails –
Both of us smiling, radiant sinners.
In a game of pure delight, Clare beat Galway by one point:
Clare 1 goal and 17 points, Galway 19 points.
“Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
Amen.
Matthew 17.1-9
Charlotte Lait
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
As we approach the season of Lent, many of us will again be reflecting on what we’re each going to give up, take on or generally do to change ourselves for the better. My Mum was a great advocate for giving up what she called the three Cs: chocolate, chips and crisps. And of course, when Easter arrived, they were all back on the menu. Abstaining from certain things as a Lenten fast might be just the spiritual discipline you need each year, but for me, my observance of Lent is more about discerning whether I feel moved to change a habit that doesn’t align with my faith, such as reducing the amount of plastic I use or making a more conscious choice to walk instead of taking the car. During Lent we are invited to spend more time with God in prayer and study, to reflect on our lives of faith and to gently reorientate ourselves to the path God calls us to follow.
As we set our sights on the upcoming season, we are offered the Transfiguration as our Gospel reading today – Matthew’s account of the disciples, Peter, James and John, witnessing the glorious transformation of Jesus in radiant light, seeing Moses and Elijah talking with him, and of hearing the voice of God.
My initial reflections on this reading were three things; that first, they had to walk up the mountain, then that they had to walk down the mountain again, and thirdly that God did not stay on the mountain top.
First, they had to walk up the mountain. They had to toil and sweat, lose the path, stop for breath. They turned around to look at the view from part way up. They will have talked and spent time in amicable silence. They did not walk up the mountain alone.
Afterwards, they had to walk down the mountain and away from the place in which they’d experienced something truly life changing – going back to their daily lives, with all of its everyday demands and decisions – as much as it may have been tempting to try and preserve the moment and stay there.
God did not stay at the top of the mountain. God in the person of Jesus walked alongside them, back into their everyday lives.
The final thought though is the one I think is the most important. When the disciples returned to their lives, they too had been transfigured. Changed forever by their mountain top experience. They will have taken that experience back with them and it will have transformed how they viewed and interacted with the world around them.
Last week, the General Synod of the Church of England met in London to faithfully discuss, debate and make decisions which shape the management of our national church, which in turn shapes our lives of faith in the various diocese of the church and in our parishes. Now that through the wonder of modern technology we are able to watch recordings of the debates of synod, I have been known on occasion to listen in on some of the debates. I must add though that I tend to listen to these discussions sped up, so as to get through some of the business a bit quicker but still consider myself informed. Even if the items being discussed are close to my heart or I consider them to be particularly interesting or controversial, the debates themselves can be a little dry. The work of General Synod is not done on the mountain top, but that does not mean that God isn’t at work in it.
Much of the work we are called to do as churches does not take place at the top of the mountain, but in the valleys, where things grow. And as we all know, growing things takes time and effort.
God is in the workings. Is in the soil being planted. Is in the rays of the sun felt so keenly on the mountain top, but still present in the valley. Is in the more usual liquid sunshine we seem to experience so often here in Cumbria.
God is in the ordinary. The everyday. In our lived experiences. The faces of friends and strangers. In laughter and grief shared. In the beauty of the world around us. God is in our worship, in word, sacrament and fellowship. When we live lives in which we notice the light which lit up Christ’s face, and those of Moses and Elijah, in other people and the world around us, we shine with that same light. Living as the transfigured people of God, doesn’t mean that we all have to give up who we are, our essential natures, but its more about reorientating ourselves to be more perceptive of God’s presence with us and to walk the paths we are called to follow. Yes, on the mountain top, in the glorious and rare experiences of life in which we can see Christ’s light shining brightly, but also in the valley. It’s the same light which can be seen in the ordinary and everyday.
When reflecting on the transfiguration and the presence of God in the everyday, I was reminded of a poem by the late Irish poet Paul Durcan. Which whilst it is slightly longer, I’d like to share with you now.
The 12 O’Clock Mass, Roundstone, County Galway, 28 July 2002
On Sunday 28th of July 2002 –
The summer it rained almost every day –
In rain we strolled down the road
To the church on the hill overlooking the sea.
I had been told to expect “a fast Mass”.
Twenty minutes. A piece of information
Which disconcerted me.
Out onto the altar hurried
A short, plump priest in late middle age
With a horn of silver hair,
In green chasuble billowing
Like a poncho or a caftan over
White surplice and a pair
Of Reeboks – mammoth trainers.
He whizzed along,
Saying the readings himself as well as the Gospel;
Yet he spoke with conviction and with clarity;
His every action an action
Of what looked like effortless concentration;
Like Tiger Woods on top of his form.
His brief homily concluded with a solemn request.
To the congregation he gravely announced:
“I want each of you to pray for a special intention,
A very special intention.
I want each of you – in the sanctity of your souls –
To pray that, in the All-Ireland
Championship hurling quarter-final this afternoon in Croke Park,
Clare will beat Galway.”
The congregation splashed into laughter
And the church became a place of effortless prayer.
He whizzed through the Consecration
As if the Consecration was something
That occurs at every moment of the day and night;
As if betrayal and the overcoming of betrayal
Were an every-minute occurrence.
As if the Consecration were the “now”
In the “now” of the Hail Mary prayer:
“Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
At the Sign of the Peace he again went sombre
As he instructed the congregation:
“I want each of you to turn around and say to each other:
‘You are beautiful.’”
The congregation was flabbergasted, but everyone fluttered
And swung around and uttered that extraordinary phrase:
“You are beautiful.”
I shook hands with at least five strangers,
Two men and three women, to each of them saying:
“You are beautiful.” And they to me:
“You are beautiful.”
At the end of Mass, exactly twenty-one minutes,
The priest advised: “Go now and enjoy yourselves
For that is what God made you to do –
To go out there and enjoy yourselves
And to pray that, in the All-Ireland
Championship hurling quarter-final between Clare and Galway
In Croke Park, Clare will win.”
After Mass, the rain had drained away
Into a tide of sunlight on which we sailed out
To St Macdara’s Island and dipped our sails –
Both of us smiling, radiant sinners.
In a game of pure delight, Clare beat Galway by one point:
Clare 1 goal and 17 points, Galway 19 points.
“Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”
Amen.
