One in Christ

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

June 1, 2025

 

 
Galatians 3.1-9, 23-29
 
The Power of Belonging
In recent weeks, we have seen renewed debate in public life
            about identity and belonging,
particularly in light of the Supreme Court's ruling
            that defines 'sex' in legal terms as biological.
 
This ruling, and the discussions surrounding it,
            have caused pain for many in the transgender community,
            as questions of legitimacy, inclusion, and protection
                        are once again placed under scrutiny.
 
For churches like ours, committed to the radical inclusion of all,
            these moments are both challenging and clarifying.
 
They press us to return to the heart of the gospel,
            to ask again what it means to belong,
            and on what grounds that belonging is established.
 
Paul's letter to the Galatians is written
            in the context of just such a crisis of belonging.
 
The Gentile believers in Galatia had received the gospel,
            experienced the Spirit, and begun living lives of freedom in Christ.
 
But now, they were being told that this was not enough.
            That to truly belong, they must also adopt the Jewish law
                        —specifically, circumcision.
 
In other words, they had to become like the insiders
            if they wanted to be fully included.
 
Paul responds with passionate urgency.
 
He begins chapter 3 with a jarring rebuke:
            "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?"
 
His tone may sound harsh, but it is born of deep concern.
            Paul sees what is at stake.
 
If the Galatians accept that their belonging depends on adopting the law,
            they have misunderstood the gospel entirely.
 
The Spirit, Not the Law
Paul begins his argument with an appeal to their own experience.
            "Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law
            or by believing what you heard?" he asks.
 
Of course, they received the Spirit through faith.
            The Spirit came to them not because they had fulfilled certain requirements,
            but because they trusted the good news.
 
Their experience of grace came first.
            And this, for Paul, is crucial.
 
Belonging begins with grace.
            It is not earned. It is not conditional.
 
This matters because the temptation to add conditions to belonging is perennial.
            It is not just a first-century issue. It is a human one.
 
We want to know who is in and who is out.
            We create rules, boundaries, identity markers.
And often, we baptise these divisions with theological language.
 
But Paul will have none of it.
            The gospel is not a system for measuring religious compliance.
 
It is the announcement of a new creation,
            birthed by the Spirit, sustained by grace.
 
To go back to the law
            —to insist on any external marker as the basis for inclusion—
            is to deny the sufficiency of Christ.
 
In the church today, we still struggle with this.
            We may not demand circumcision, but we create other expectations.
 
And it has to be noted in the light of the current debates around transgender inclusion,
            that we often exhibit a decidedly pointed interest
            in the state of a person’s genitalia.
 
We ask whether people believe the right doctrines,
            whether they conform to certain moral standards,
            whether they fit particular categories.
 
We say "all are welcome,"
            but then make that welcome conditional on identity, agreement, or behaviour.
 
Paul reminds us, as he reminded the Galatians, that the Spirit comes first.
            The Spirit is not a reward for performance, but a gift.
 
And if the Spirit is present in someone's life, that is enough.
            That is the sign of God's welcome.
            That is the sign that they are included.
And who are we to add more?
 
The Faith of Abraham – God’s Universal Promise
Having challenged the Galatians to remember how they received the Spirit,
            Paul turns to scripture.
 
And he goes right to the beginning of the story, to Abraham.
            "Just as Abraham 'believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,'
            so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham."
 
This is a bold move.
 
Paul is speaking to Gentile believers,
            people with no ancestral claim on Israel's covenant.
 
And yet he says to them, you are Abraham's children.
            Not because you have taken on the markers of Jewish law,
            but because you have done what Abraham did—you have trusted in God.
 
Abraham becomes for Paul a figure of radical inclusion.
            Long before there was Torah,
                        long before there was circumcision,
            there was a promise.
 
God called Abraham and Sarah,
            not because they had fulfilled a religious system,
but because they were willing to walk into an unknown future in faith.
 
And so the promise came before the law.
            The relationship came before the rulebook.
 
This is what Paul wants the Galatians to see.
            The Gentiles are not second-class citizens in God's household.
They are not latecomers
            who must first become Jewish before they can belong.
 
They are already part of the promise,
            because the promise was always about more than one nation,
            more than one tradition.
 
As Paul says, "All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you."
            The blessing of Abraham was always meant to overflow into the world.
 
The theologian Jin Young Choi draws attention
            to how Paul is reframing the identity of the people of God.
 
Belonging is no longer defined by genealogy or observance;
            it is defined by participation in the promise,
            by trusting the God who creates a new future where none seemed possible.
 
And that is a message we need to hear today.
            Because too often the church has acted as if
            the promise of God is its own private possession.
 
We have guarded it with statements of belief,
            codes of conduct, and criteria for leadership.
 
We have said, sometimes directly
            and sometimes with a quiet shake of the head,
            "you can belong, but only on our terms."
 
But the gospel is not ours to control.
            It was never ours to fence off or to ration out.
 
The promise to Abraham was not a promise to build a wall.
            It was a promise to bless all the families of the earth.
 
And in Christ, Paul says, that promise has now reached its fulfilment.
            The blessing is for all.
 
At Bloomsbury, we have come to see this promise
            as the heart of our calling.
 
We aspire to be a church not for ourselves, but for others.
            A place where people from many nations, many backgrounds, many identities,
            come together not because we are the same,
            but because the Spirit has drawn us into one body.
 
A place where the promise of God
            still calls us forward into a new and more just future.
 
And if we take Abraham as our guide,
            then faith is not about certainty.
 
It is not about having the right answers.
            It is about saying yes to the God who calls, the God who blesses,
            the God who opens a future we could not have imagined.
 
From Prison to Promise – Living in Freedom
Paul now uses a vivid image to describe life under the law.
            "Now before faith came, we were imprisoned
            and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed."
 
For Paul, the law was never meant to be the end of the story.
            It was a kind of holding pattern,
            a protective measure, something provisional.
 
It kept people safe, disciplined, in check,
            but it was not the destination.
 
The language of imprisonment is stark, and it can be unsettling.
            Paul is not saying that the law was evil or oppressive in itself.
He was, after all, raised in that tradition
            and remained deeply shaped by it.
 
But he is saying that to remain under the law, after Christ has come,
            is to live as if the door to freedom has been opened
            and yet to choose to stay inside the cell.
 
This can be difficult for us to grasp,
            especially if we think of law primarily in moral terms,
            as something good that teaches right from wrong.
 
But Paul is thinking here in relational terms.
            The law functioned as a guardian, a disciplinarian,
            something to guide the people of God until maturity arrived.
 
And for Paul, that maturity, that fullness of time,
            has now come in Christ.
 
So to return to law as the basis for belonging
            is to miss the new reality that has dawned.
 
It is to act as though the promise has not yet arrived,
            as though Christ has not broken down the dividing wall.
 
What is at stake here is freedom,
            not freedom as self-expression or licence,
            but freedom as the gift of being fully included,
                        fully known, fully loved.
 
The kind of freedom that allows us to stop striving to prove ourselves,
            and instead to live in the confidence of grace.
 
This is, perhaps, one of the most difficult spiritual lessons for any of us to learn,
            that we are loved, as we are, not as we might become.
 
That we do not have to earn our place at the table.
            That the Spirit of God has already been poured out upon us,
                        not because we have jumped through the right religious hoops,
            but because we are human, and God delights in dwelling with humanity.
 
And yet, we so often return to the old patterns.
            We compare ourselves with others.
            We measure our worth.
 
We wonder whether we are doing enough,
            believing enough, changing enough.
 
We build prisons for ourselves,
            and sometimes we build them for others.
 
But Paul invites us to step into freedom.
            To live not as prisoners or slaves, but as children of the promise.
To know ourselves as already embraced by God,
            already clothed with Christ.
 
This is the spiritual gift of belonging.
            Not something to be achieved, but something to be received.
            Not something to guard, but something to share.
 
And when we receive it, it changes how we see others too.
            No longer as threats or rivals, but as fellow heirs of grace.
 
In Christ, You Are All One – A New Identity, a New Community
And now we arrive at what is, perhaps,
            the most well-known and revolutionary part of this passage.
 
"As many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
 
These are words that have echoed down the centuries,
            shaking the foundations of every human system
            built on hierarchy and division.
 
Paul is not imagining a world without difference,
            but a community where difference no longer determines value.
Where identity is not erased, but transformed.
 
To be baptised into Christ, Paul says,
            is to put on Christ like a garment.
 
To take off the old markers of status and separation,
            and to be clothed with a new identity
            that binds us to one another in love.
 
And the consequences are profound.
            Ethnic distinctions, class divisions, gender binaries,
            these are no longer the terms by which we define belonging.
 
This is not a call to colour-blindness or gender erasure.
            It is not an invitation to pretend we are all the same.
 
It is, instead, a radical reorientation of community life,
            where the labels that have so often been used to exclude or control
            are stripped of their power.
 
It is imagining and living into being a community
            where Christ becomes the common ground, the centre,
            the clothing in which we all stand.
 
And this brings us back to the question we began with.
 
In a society increasingly polarised around questions of gender,
            where court rulings and political campaigns
                        debate who counts as male or female,
            who can enter which spaces,
                        who is protected and who is not,
Paul's words speak with striking urgency.
 
"There is no longer male and female," he writes.
            Not as a denial of embodied difference,
            but as a refusal to let those categories define who belongs.
 
In Christ, the binary is not abolished but transcended.
 
No one is excluded from grace
            on the basis of how their gender is named or perceived.
 
No one is made to feel that their deepest truth
            must be hidden in order to be welcomed.
 
This is the gospel.
 
Not just an abstract promise of salvation,
            but a concrete reshaping of how we live together.
 
A dismantling of the barriers that keep people at the margins.
            A reimagining of community as a space of radical belonging,
            where we see one another not through the lens of fear or judgement,
            but through the eyes of Christ.
 
Here at Bloomsbury, this is more than a theological idea.
            It is a way of life we are committed to embodying.
 
A place where trans people, queer people, migrants,
            those rich and poor, housed and unhoused, educated and uneducated
            —all are not only welcome, but recognised
                        as bearers of divine image and recipients of divine promise.
 
We are not here to gatekeep grace.
            We are here to proclaim that in Christ, the gate is open.
 
This means that when the world tries to reimpose divisions,
            when public discourse tempts us to rank and exclude,
when institutions define people's worth
            by their conformity to narrow norms, we must resist.
 
We must be the community where the walls have come down.
            Where all have been clothed with Christ.
 
Where the Spirit is already at work, stirring among us,
            drawing us into a new humanity.
 
And so we end where we began
            —with the question of belonging.
 
The gospel does not answer that question with conditions or categories.
            It answers it with Christ.
 
In Christ, you belong.
            In Christ, we all belong.

Not because we are the same, but because Christ has gathered us in our difference. 

We are not invited to erase our identities, 
but to discover that none of them can separate us from the love of God, 
nor exclude us from the community of grace. 

If we can live that truth, if we can be that community,
then perhaps others, who have so often been told they do not belong, 
might come to believe that they do.

Thanks be to God.

A Vision of Glory in the Face of Violence

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
4^th May 2025


By Rembrandt - Œuvre appartenant au musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon Public Domain, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15686766
 

Acts 6.7–15; 7.1–2a, 51–60

The story of Stephen is one of the most powerful, and most disturbing, moments in the early chapters of the Book of Acts.

 

It is a moment of radiant faith and horrifying violence.

 

It is a vision of glory that emerges in the midst of injustice.

 

And it is, I believe, a story that continues to speak into the life of the church in every age—especially in times when bearing witness to truth comes at a cost.

 

Stephen, described as full of grace and power, is one of the first deacons chosen by the early church—a group of seven appointed to serve the needs of the community, especially to ensure the fair distribution of food among the widows.

 

But Stephen is more than a functionary or administrator. He becomes a prophetic voice, a preacher of the gospel, and, ultimately, the church’s first martyr.

 

His words are bold, his vision is clear, and his death is chilling.

 

This morning, I want us to linger with Stephen—on the edge of his stoning—not simply to remember a moment of persecution from the distant past, but to allow his witness to search us, challenge us, and invite us into a deeper faithfulness.

 

Because Stephen’s story is not just about what happened to him. It is also about the God who was revealed in his life and death.

 

And it is about the kind of church we are called to be, in the face of powers that resist the liberating truth of the gospel.

 

Accusation and Identity

Our reading begins with accusations.

 

Stephen is dragged before the council, accused of speaking against the temple and the law.

 

The charges sound familiar—they echo the charges brought against Jesus himself: blasphemy, disrespect for tradition, a threat to the religious and social order.

 

And like Jesus, Stephen faces a system that has already made up its mind.

 

It is important to note that Stephen is not guilty of these charges in the way his accusers claim.

 

He has not blasphemed; he has not denied the law; he has not desecrated the temple.

 

But he has spoken a difficult truth—that God is not confined to sacred buildings or to legal systems that serve the powerful.

 

He has pointed to Jesus as the righteous one, rejected and killed, but vindicated by God. And for this, he is deemed dangerous.

 

In every age, those who bear witness to inconvenient truths are often accused of being threats to the status quo.

 

Whether it is prophets denouncing injustice, or whistleblowers revealing corruption, or disciples proclaiming a gospel that challenges systems of oppression—there is always resistance.

 

Stephen stands in a long line of witnesses, from Amos to Jesus, who have been told to keep quiet, to stop rocking the boat, to stay within acceptable bounds.

 

But Stephen does not stay silent.

 

And this is where we begin to glimpse the shape of his faith—a faith that is not merely intellectual assent, not simply religious affiliation, but a living, dangerous allegiance to the God who liberates and transforms.

 

A Confronting Word

In the dramatic speech Stephen gives, which we only hear a portion of in this morning’s reading, he rehearses the story of Israel, reminding his hearers of their own history

 

—the call of Abraham, the leadership of Moses, the wilderness journey, the building of the temple.

 

It is a sweeping narrative, and for a while it seems fairly safe. But then comes the turn.

 

“You stiff-necked people,” he says. “You are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.”

 

This is not a polite sermon. It is not a measured reflection. It is a prophetic indictment. And it gets him killed.

 

Stephen is holding up a mirror, and what he reflects back is not flattering.

 

He is saying, in effect, “You have always resisted the voice of God—when God spoke through Moses, through the prophets, and now through Jesus. And in doing so, you have aligned yourselves with those who persecuted the righteous.”

 

This is dangerous speech. Not because it is hateful, but because it is truthful.

 

It names the pattern of religious power turning away from divine justice. It names the way institutions can become idols.

 

It names the refusal to recognise God in the face of the other, especially when that other is poor, or marginalised, or crucified.

 

The church today must hear this word too. We are not immune.

 

We too are capable of becoming stiff-necked. We too can close our ears to the Spirit, especially when the Spirit speaks through voices we would rather not hear—through those who challenge our comfort, our privilege, our self-understanding.

 

Stephen’s words come to us as a call to repentance, and a call to humility.

 

A Glimpse of Glory

And then, in the midst of this fury, something extraordinary happens.

 

As the council rushes upon him in rage, Stephen looks up and sees a vision. “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

 

It is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus is described as standing at the right hand of God; elsewhere, he is always seated. It is as if Jesus is rising to welcome Stephen, to honour his witness, to be present with him in his suffering.

 

This vision is Stephen’s strength. It is his comfort. It is, in a profound sense, his vindication. Though he is condemned on earth, he is affirmed in heaven. Though the council sees only blasphemy, Stephen sees glory.

 

And this, perhaps, is the heart of his witness. Not just that he speaks truth to power, not just that he dies with courage—but that he sees something greater than the violence around him.

 

He sees Christ. He sees the kingdom. He sees the presence of God breaking into a courtroom of hatred with a vision of mercy.

 

In moments of crisis, what we see matters. Do we only see the threats, the enemies, the dangers?

 

Or do we see Christ, standing with us, standing for us, welcoming us into the company of the faithful?

 

Stephen’s vision invites us to lift our eyes—to see beyond the rage of the mob, to the mercy of the risen Christ.

 

The Echo of Forgiveness

As the stones begin to fall, Stephen echoes the words of Jesus from the cross. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” he prays. And then, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

 

It is breathtaking.

 

Stephen dies as he lived: full of grace. His last words are words of forgiveness.

 

And in that moment, the power of death is broken. Not because the stones stop falling—they don’t. But because violence does not get the final word. Love does.

 

This, too, is part of the gospel. Not only that Christ is risen, but that those who follow Christ are transformed into his likeness.

 

Stephen becomes Christ-like—not only in his suffering, but in his compassion. He does not curse his killers. He prays for them.

 

What kind of church would we be, if we too could learn to forgive like this?

 

What kind of witness might we offer, if our response to hostility was not fear or retaliation, but grace and prayer?

 

This is not easy. It is not sentimental. It is the hard, costly work of love in the face of hatred. But it is the way of Christ.

 

The Seed of the Church

There is one more detail that the narrator gives us, almost in passing, but it changes everything.

 

As Stephen is stoned, we are told, “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”

 

We know what Saul becomes. We know that the one who approved of Stephen’s death becomes the apostle to the Gentiles, the tireless preacher of grace. But in this moment, he is still part of the system of violence.

 

And yet, something is planted. A seed. A memory. A vision.

 

The early church would often say that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

 

Stephen’s death is not the end of the story. It becomes the beginning of something new.

 

His witness does not fall silent. It reverberates through the life of Paul, through the spread of the gospel, through the ongoing courage of disciples in every age who have dared to follow Christ even to the point of death.

 

And so we return to our own time. We are not facing a council with stones in their hands. But there are still forces that resist the truth.

 

There are still powers that suppress the Spirit. There are still prices to pay for standing with the marginalised, for proclaiming justice, for naming sin.

 

And yet there is still a vision. There is still Christ, standing at the right hand of God.

 

There is still the call to bear witness—with our words, with our lives, even with our deaths if it comes to that.

 

And there is still grace—grace to forgive, grace to endure, grace to love.

 

Faithful Witness in a Time of Untruth

If Stephen’s story was only about a holy man dying well, it might move us—but it would not transform us.

 

What makes Stephen’s witness so compelling is that it takes place in a deeply political and theological context.

 

He is not killed in a vacuum. He is executed by a religious system colluding with empire, terrified of losing control, unwilling to be disrupted by the inconvenient truth of the gospel.

 

In this way, Stephen's death exposes not only the violence of empire, but the complicity of religion in perpetuating that violence.

 

We are, I believe, living in a moment with disturbing echoes.

 

Around the world, we are witnessing a resurgence of authoritarian ideologies cloaked in religious language.

 

In the United States, the rise of Trumpism has not only destabilised democratic institutions, it has corrupted large swathes of the Christian church, drawing it into an unholy alliance with power, wealth, and white nationalism.

 

And this is not an isolated phenomenon. Across the globe, from Brazil to Russia, from Israel to India, we are seeing religious rhetoric used to justify oppression, marginalisation, and the silencing of dissent.

 

What does it mean to be a church of Stephen in such a world?

 

It means, first, that we must learn again the courage of confrontation.

 

Stephen does not shrink from naming the truth, even when it costs him everything.

 

And the truth today is that many churches have become more concerned with preserving their influence than proclaiming the gospel.

 

The truth is that nationalism, racism, and misogyny are not just political problems—they are spiritual deformations.

 

And the truth is that when the church fails to stand with the vulnerable, it ceases to be the church.

 

Like Stephen, we must call these things what they are. Not because we enjoy conflict, but because silence is not an option.

 

We are followers of Jesus, who was crucified by empire and betrayed by religion. We are heirs of Stephen, whose face shone like an angel even as the stones fell.

 

Our witness must not be timid. It must be truthful.

 

But the second thing it means is that we must resist the temptation to fight empire on its own terms.

 

Stephen does not meet violence with violence. He does not become bitter or cynical.

 

He bears witness through love, through forgiveness, through a vision of glory that cannot be extinguished by hatred.

 

In a world where outrage is cheap and cruelty is viral, Stephen shows us a different way—a way of resistance rooted in mercy, a way of protest grounded in prayer.

 

This is not weakness. It is power. The kind of power that cannot be legislated against.

 

The kind of power that topples empires, not through force, but through faithfulness.

 

It is the power that sustained Martin Luther King as he faced bombs and bullets with nonviolence.

 

It is the power that animated Oscar Romero as he stood with the poor against the death squads. It is the power of the Lamb who was slain—and yet lives.

 

So let us be a Stephen church.

A church that names injustice and refuses to be silent.

A church that speaks truth even when the world closes its ears.

A church that sees heaven opened and Christ standing beside the oppressed.

A church that forgives even in the face of betrayal.

A church that lives not for safety or success, but for the glory of God revealed in a crucified and risen Christ.

 

This is not the easy way. But it is the faithful way.

And if we choose it, if we take up this calling, then we too might shine like angels.

And the world might just see, even for a moment, the glory of God breaking through the darkness.

Hearts Burning, Bread Broken

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

27 April 2025 

Luke 24.13-35
Genesis 18.1–8

Well, congratulations to those of you who made it to church today.
 
Whether you ran, walked, re-routed, dodged road closures,
            or heroically crossed the marathon barricades
            like modern-day Israelites through the Red Sea—
You’ve made it here.
 
It feels rather appropriate, actually,
            That we find ourselves gathering on Marathon Sunday,
Because our Gospel story today
            is also about a long walk through a crowded city,
A journey undertaken in confusion,
            With heavy feet and heavier hearts.
 
The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus isn’t as long as 26.2 miles—
            But for the two disciples walking it,
            It must have felt like a marathon of the soul.
 
And it’s in that slow, uncertain journey
            That the risen Christ meets them.
 
Not at the finish line,
            But in the walking.
Not with fanfare,
            But with questions.
 
And ultimately, not in spectacle,
            But in the simple breaking of bread.
 
So as London runs its race outside,
            We turn now to a different kind of road—
            The road to Emmaus.
 
And to the One who still meets us there.
 
And, I don’t know about you,
            But one of the things I treasure most in life
Is the simple act of sitting down and sharing a meal with others.
 
I love cooking.
            I love welcoming friends and family to our table.
I love going out for a meal
            —nothing too fancy, just good food and good company.
 
There is something about eating together that connects us.
            It grounds us.
            It brings us into each other’s lives.
 
There is something sacred that happens when we break bread.
            And it’s no accident that one of the most powerful
            resurrection stories in the Gospels
Happens not in the temple,
            Not in the synagogue,
            Not in the upper room—
But at an ordinary table,
            At the end of a dusty road.

And we'll re-join them at their table in a minute, but first the journey...
 
The story of the walk to Emmaus
            is one of the most profound in all of Scripture.
 
Two disciples walking.
            Talking.
            Processing grief.
Trying to make sense of their broken dreams.
 
One of them we know by name—Cleopas.
 
The other goes unnamed,
            Perhaps to leave space for us in the story.
Perhaps it was a spouse,
            Or a friend,
            Or a fellow traveller on life’s long journey.
 
They are heading away from the bustle and hustle of Jerusalem.
            Away from the place of trauma.
            Away from the site of crucifixion.
 
They are retreating—perhaps going home.
            Trying to piece together what’s happened.
 
And then Jesus comes alongside them.
            But they fail to recognise him.
 
This, already, is a sermon in itself.
            How often does Christ walk beside us,
            And we do not see?
 
But keeping with the story,
            We are told that “their eyes were kept from recognising him.”
 
Grief does that.
            Disappointment does that.
            Fear does that.
 
Their hopes had been crucified.
            Their faith shaken.
            Their vision clouded.
 
And Jesus, rather than immediately revealing himself,
            Asks a question:
“What are you discussing as you walk along the road?”
 
It is a question born not of ignorance,
            But of invitation.
He listens.
            He lets them speak.
            He lets them tell their story.
 
And in that storytelling,
            In that vulnerable naming of dashed hopes—
Something begins to shift.
 
David Lose says this is “a story of movement,
            of journey, of transformation.”
 
Jesus doesn’t just tell them the truth
            —he walks it with them.
 
At Bloomsbury, we are a community of many journeys.
            We know what it is to walk through uncertainty.
                        Through grief.
                        Through questions.
 
Our congregation brings together people from different nations,
            different traditions,
            different wounds and longings.
 
We know what it is to walk the road away from certainty.
 
We know what it is to talk along the way,
            Trying to make sense of faith
            when the world has turned upside down.
 
And it is here,
            On the road,
            In motion,
That Christ draws near.
 
Not always in glory,
            But in mystery.
Not in spectacle,
            But in conversation.
 
This is why the road matters.
            This is why the journey matters.
And it’s why our travelling companions matter too.
 
And so here at Bloomsbury we walk with others,
            with people of different faith traditions and none,
with friends from other Christian traditions,
            with Muslim and Jewish people,
            with all people of good faith.
 
And we journey with others not to deliver answers from on high,
            But to be present with people in their real lives.
 
Whether we are advocating for fair housing,
            Just wages,
            Or dignity for refugees—
We are learning to recognise Christ
            In the face of the other.
 
In our partnerships through London Citizens,
            we meet Christ not just in the sanctuary,
            but in the street, if only we have the eyes to see him.
 
And in that walking, that listening, that storytelling,
            We prepare ourselves for the moment of revelation.
 
But back to the story…
            before they get there, Jesus speaks again.
He says, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe.”
 
It’s not an insult.
            It’s a diagnosis.
 
Their eyes are closed because their hearts are slow.
            Their understanding is stuck.
They are trapped in a particular expectation
            of what redemption would look like.
And they can’t see the resurrection happening before their very eyes,
            because it hasn’t met their criteria for hope.
 
Joy J. Moore points out that their spiritual eyes were clouded.
            They had imagined a victorious Messiah.
                        Not a suffering one.
            A conqueror, not a crucified one.
 
But Jesus begins to interpret.
            To reframe.
To read Scripture afresh.
 
To help them understand that glory comes through suffering,
            Life through death,
            Hope through despair.
 
This is true discipleship.
            Not just believing,
            But learning how to read the world differently.
 
Rolf Jacobson calls this “a story about interpretation.”
            It’s not just about seeing Jesus.
            It’s about learning how to see everything in light of Jesus.
 
And friends, this is the work we are called to.
            To learn to read our lives,
            Our politics, our griefs, our communities—
Through the lens of the crucified and risen Christ.
 
Too often the church reads the world through the lens of fear.
            Of decline. Of anxiety. Of control.
 
But the Emmaus story teaches us to read through hope.
            To interpret through presence.
To look for Christ not in certainty,
            But in companionship.
 
And then comes the pivotal moment.
            They reach the village.
 
Jesus walks ahead as if to go on.
            But they urge him: “Stay with us.”
And he does.
 
And around the table, he takes the bread,
            Blesses it, breaks it, and gives it.
And their eyes are opened.
 
He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
 
And maybe this scene at Emmaus,
            With its freshly baked bread and its sudden epiphany,
Brings to mind another moment,
            far earlier in the story of God’s people.
 
The day when Abraham,
            sitting under the oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day,
Saw three strangers approaching.
 
He didn’t know who they were.
            There were no trumpets, no visions, no heavenly voice.
            Just the appearance of three weary travellers.
 
But Abraham ran to meet them.
            He welcomed them in.
He insisted they stay.
            He offered water, rest, and bread.
            He invited them to a feast.
And in doing so—he met God.
 
The pattern is clear, and it stretches from Genesis to Luke:
            God comes as guest.
God arrives in the unexpected visitor.
            God shows up in the shared meal.
 
Abraham, like Cleopas, did not recognise at first who stood before him.
            But something in him responded anyway.
Something in him recognised that this moment mattered.
 
And because he opened his tent,
            Because he set the table,
Because he shared what he had—
            A promise was born.
 
A child would come.
            A future would be named.
            A covenant renewed.
 
And so the road to Emmaus
            isn’t just about two disciples and one strange evening.
 
It is a continuation of God’s long-standing habit
            Of showing up in the company of strangers,
            And turning tables into altars.
 
It is a reminder that our daily acts of hospitality
            May open us to the holy.
 
That the welcome we extend
            may become the means by which we ourselves are transformed.
 
At Bloomsbury, this means something very real.
 
When we welcome here those who are excluded elsewhere,
            When we practise hospitality across difference,
When we share meals with those our world disregards—
            We are not just being kind.
 
We are preparing for revelation.
            We are entertaining angels unaware.
            We are breaking bread with Christ.
 
This is the moment of sacrament.
            The moment of mystery.
 
And it happens in the simplest of settings.
            Not at an altar,
            But at a kitchen table.
Not in front of a congregation,
            But in the intimacy of shared space.
 
Karoline Lewis notes that this is not just about recognition,
            But participation.
 
They don't merely see Jesus—they share life with him.
            They welcome him.
            They feed him.
 
And in that shared act,
            He is revealed.
 
At Bloomsbury, we know this well.
            Each week, we gather as a diverse community—
with our different cultures, different stories, and different identities.
 
Some of us come confident in our faith.
            Some come fragile.
Some come wounded by religion.
            Some come with questions too deep for words.
 
But still we come.
            And we share bread—real or metaphorical.
 
We break open Scripture.
            We offer welcome.
 
We extend grace.
            And in that space,
            Christ is present.
 
And this is why hospitality matters.
            Why inclusion matters.
            Why the theology we preach matters.
 
Because what we say about God
            Shapes what we do with our tables.
 
If we proclaim a God who excludes,
            We will become a people who exclude.
 
If we preach a God of control,
            We will build communities of fear.
 
But if we proclaim a Christ who walks roads,
            Listens to stories,
            and breaks bread with those he calls friends—
Then we will become a people who do the same.
 
In a world of fragmentation,
            We become signs of unity.
 
In a society of suspicion,
            We offer trust.
 
In a culture of commodification,
            We offer presence.
 
The world is full of people walking roads of despair.
            Of asylum seekers turned away.
            Of children growing up in poverty.
            Of political systems that reward cruelty.
 
But if we learn to walk the Emmaus road,
            If we learn to recognise Christ in the stranger,
Then we can begin to tell another story.
            A story of resurrection.
            A story of hope.
 
And perhaps this is the invitation before us at Bloomsbury—
            To become more deeply an Emmaus-shaped church.
 
A community shaped not by certainty,
            But by companionship.
 
Not driven by programmes or prestige,
            But by presence.
 
Not gathered around status or uniformity,
            But around shared bread and sacred story.
 
So much of what we are becoming at Bloomsbury
            Reflects the movement of this text.
 
We are a church that walks together.
            We are unafraid to ask difficult questions.
We honour doubt as much as we celebrate faith.
 
We know that Jesus meets us not always in triumph,
            But often in our moments of confusion, grief, and change.
 
We are learning to speak our stories honestly—
            To say, like Cleopas, “We had hoped...”
 
And we are learning to listen, like Christ,
            with compassion and patience.
 
We are a community that opens our table wide—
            To people of every background,
 
To LGBTQ+ siblings who have been wounded elsewhere,
            To refugees and migrants navigating unjust systems,
To those curious, uncertain,
            returning, or deconstructing.
 
And in doing so,
            We trust that Christ is made known to us
            In the breaking of the bread,
            and in the fellowship we share.
 
Our challenge is to keep recognising him.
            To keep attending to the ways
            resurrection is already moving in our midst—
 
In our worship, yes,
            But also in our organising,
In our weekday conversations,
            In our quiet pastoral care,
In the arts, in activism, in prayer,
            In moments of holy surprise.
 
Emmaus was not a one-time event.
            It is a pattern.
 
And if we are attentive,
            If we keep walking together,
If we keep breaking bread—
            Then we will find our hearts burning,
Our eyes opened,
            And our faith renewed.
 
Not in spectacle,
            But in presence.
Not in power,
            But in love.
Not in dominance,
            But in divine hospitality.
 
And so we get to the end of the story,
            and we discover that the final act
            of the Emmaus story is movement again.
 
“They got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem.”
 
They go back.
            Back to the place of trauma.
            Back to the place of community.
 
But they are changed.
            They return not in grief,
                        But in joy.
            Not in defeat,
                        But in witness.
 
And so must we.
 
Our encounter with Christ is never for us alone.
            It leads us outward.
 
It sends us to speak,
            To serve,
To proclaim that life has the final word.
 
So, friends:
            Let us walk the road.
Let us listen for grace.
            Let us break bread faithfully.
Let us interpret our lives through the story of Christ.
 
Let us resist the lies of power and fear.
            Let us build tables of welcome.
 
And let us tell the world—
            That Christ is risen,
            That Christ is present,
 
And that our hearts still burn
            When we meet him
In the mystery of the everyday.

Amen.
 

He is not here, but has risen

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

20th April 2025 - Easter Sunday

Luke 24.1-12
Isaiah 25.6–9

At early dawn,
            on the first day of the week,
            some women went to a tomb.
 
They were carrying spices -
            carefully prepared,
lovingly chosen,
            perhaps with tears -
and they were expecting to find a dead body.
 
A still form,
            wrapped in linen,
lying in the cold darkness
            of a rock-cut tomb.
 
But what they found instead
            was absence.
 
The stone had been rolled away,
            the body was gone,
            and the tomb stood empty.
 
And this, my friends,
            is where the resurrection begins -
not with singing,
            not with celebration,
not with joy -
            but with confusion.
 
Perplexity.
            Grief intensified by uncertainty.
And, crucially,
            with absence.
 
Luke’s Gospel doesn’t give us
            a resurrection appearance on Easter morning.
 
There’s no Jesus waiting in the garden,
            no scars being shown,
            no voice calling gently by name.
There is only emptiness.
 
And a question:
            “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
And perhaps
            that is where many of us find ourselves
            this Easter morning.
 
Because this story is not merely about something that happened then.
            It is also about what is happening now.
 
It is about us -
            here, today -
trying to make sense
            of a world full of suffering and hope,
of death and life,
            of endings and beginnings.
 
It is about what it means to be faithful
            when God seems absent.
 
It is about how we live
            as resurrection people
            in a Good Friday world.
 
And, crucially,
            it is about what - and whom -
            we choose to remember.

On Friday at our Good Friday service

we explored what it means for us to be eternally remembered by God;

as we reflected on the words of the criminal crucified alongside Jesus,

as he asked Jesus to ‘remember him’.

And today I want us to stay wit this theme of remembering,

and how our remembering of Jesus,

and his remembering of us,

contribute to our experience of resurrection.

 

The angels in the tomb
            do not reveal a new truth to the women.
They do not share a secret
            or deliver a new message.
 
They say: “Remember.”
            “Remember how he told you,
                        while he was still in Galilee,
            that the Son of Man must be handed over…
                        and on the third day rise again.”
 
The resurrection, you see, in Luke’s telling,
            is not something the women are seeing for the first time.
 
It is something they are being called to recall.
            To re-member.
 
And so Luke makes this profoundly theological move:
            memory becomes the first act of resurrection faith.
 
Before seeing,
            before believing,
            before proclaiming -
there is remembering.
 
The preacher Karoline Lewis reminds us
            that remembering is not passive.
It is not merely recalling past events.
 
Rather, it is a form of faith
            that reconstitutes meaning.
 
It makes the past alive in the present.
            It shapes who we are
            and what we do.
 
To remember Jesus’ words
            is to reconnect with the pattern of his life:
his commitment to those on the margins,
            his courage in the face of empire,
his refusal to compromise the gospel
            of God’s reign of justice and peace.
 
To remember Jesus
            is not to recall a lost teacher
but to re-align ourselves
            with the radical call to discipleship he embodied.
 
And so the women remember.
            And that remembering transforms them.
 
They leave the tomb,
            and they become the first apostles.
 
This matters.
 
Because Luke is careful - deliberate, even - to name them:
            Mary Magdalene,
                        Joanna,
            Mary the mother of James,
                        and the other women with them.
 
It is no accident
            that these women are the first to proclaim resurrection.
 
They had followed Jesus in Galilee.
            They had provided for him out of their resources.
They had stood at the cross when others fled.
            They had watched where he was laid.
 
And now they are the first
            to see the signs of resurrection
and the first to tell the story.
 
These women are not incidental to the gospel.
            They are essential to it.
 
But the apostles - when they hear this story - dismiss it.
 
“An idle tale,” is what Luke says they think they are hearing.
            The Greek word is lēros -
            nonsense, delirium, madness.
 
In today’s language we might say “hysteria.”
            A word long used by men
            to discredit the speech of women.
 
And so even here,
            at the dawn of resurrection,
            patriarchal patterns persist.
 
The voices of women are ignored.
            Their witness is not believed.
 
But there is something more
            we need to say this morning.
 
Something that perhaps
            we don’t always say loudly enough on Easter Sunday.
 
And it is this:
            Resurrection is not only a promise to be remembered.
            It is also a protest.
 
Not only consolation -
            but confrontation.
 
Not just comfort for the grieving -
            but resistance to every system
            that deals in death.
 
We sometimes speak of resurrection
            as if it is only about life after we die.
 
As if it is only about going to heaven.
            As if it is a personal reward for private belief.
 
But in Luke’s Gospel,
            resurrection is not just the conclusion of a story.
 
It is an act of divine reversal.
            It is God saying: No -
                        No to the cross,
                        No to the violence,
                        No to the empire that crucified love.
 
And it is God saying: Yes -
            Yes to Jesus’ way of peace,
            Yes to his solidarity with the poor,
            Yes to his challenge to the powers.
 
As Rolf Jacobson puts it,
            the resurrection is the moment
when “the whole story of Scripture
            turns toward hope.”
 
Not escapist hope.
            But grounded, embodied, public hope.
 
Hope that says:
            God is not neutral
                        in the struggle between life and death,
                        between empire and the poor,
                        between domination and dignity.
 
Hope that says:
            the crucified one
            has been raised.
 
And this means something
            for how we live now.
 
The resurrection
            is not the end of Good Friday.
It is God’s response to it.
 
As Joy J. Moore reminds us,
            this isn’t just about a new day.
            It’s about a new way.
 
A way of life that remembers Jesus’ ministry
            as the template for Christian resistance:
 
•          resistance to the silencing of women’s voices
•          resistance to state-sanctioned execution
•          resistance to the abandonment of the vulnerable
•          resistance to every tomb we have sealed to keep the world as it is.
 
The women at the tomb
            are not just first witnesses -
            they are the first resisters.
 
They resist despair
            with memory.
 
They resist fear
            with proclamation.
 
They resist patriarchy
            with persistence.
 
And that resistance is resurrection-shaped.
 
Karoline Lewis calls this
            a “theology of holy disruption.”
 
She reminds us that Luke’s Gospel
            begins with women
proclaiming hope that kings will fall
            and the lowly will be lifted.
 
And it ends with women
            announcing that death itself
            has been overthrown.
 
These are not separate stories.
            They are one story.
 
They speak to the story of a God
            who resists every form of domination
            with the power of love.
 
So when we say, “Christ is risen,”
            we are not making a doctrinal claim alone.
 
We are making:
            a political claim,
                        a prophetic claim,
            a pastoral claim,
                        a communal claim.
 
We are declaring
            that the powers of death
            do not have the last word.
 
Not in Gaza.
            Not in the City of London.
            Not in halls of Westminster.
Not in the prisons.
            Not in our streets.
Not in our own hearts.
 
Resurrection declares that the powers of death
            do not have the last word.
 
And if we need a vision to carry us forward -
            a glimpse of what resurrection hope looks like beyond the tomb -
then let us turn, as Jesus so often did, to the prophets.
 
Isaiah speaks of a day
            when God will prepare a feast for all peoples.
 
A feast of rich food and well-aged wine.
            No one excluded.
            No one forgotten.
 
A table of abundance,
            where there is enough for all.
 
And on that mountain, says Isaiah,
            God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
            the sheet of death that covers all nations.
 
God will swallow up death forever.
 
So can you hear it?
            Can we hear it?
 
The death that crucified Jesus is undone.
            The mourning that weighed down the women is lifted.
The disgrace of empire is rolled away like the stone from the tomb.
 
This is not a private afterlife.
            This is a cosmic reversal.
 
It is a divine protest
            against the domination of death.
 
A table prepared
            in the presence of all nations.
 
Tears wiped away.
            Justice made flesh.
            Grief given over to joy.
 
And when that day comes - says Isaiah - it will be said:
            "This is our God; we have waited for them."
            "Let us be glad and rejoice in their salvation."
 
This is the promise that carries us.
            This is the mountain we are climbing.
 
This is the vision
            that breaks open our tombs
and sends us back into the world
            with trembling hope.
 
To live as Easter people
            is to become people
            of holy resistance.
 
To name what kills
            and to work for what gives life.
 
To remember Jesus’ words -
            and then repeat them with our lives.
 
To carry spices to tombs
            and leave bearing gospel.
 
To be witnesses,
            whether we are believed or not.
 
To say - again and again - with trembling faith and rising courage:
            He is not here.
            He is risen.
 
And perhaps this too
            is part of the resurrection story.
 
Because resurrection is not only about Jesus.
 
It is about what Jesus’ resurrection
            makes possible for us.
 
It is about how resurrection
            creates a new world
            in the shell of the old.
 
A world in which the voiceless speak,
            the lowly are lifted,
            and the dead live.
 
So I wonder, as we gather on Easter Sunday,
            what does resurrection mean for you?
 
It’s tempting
            to reduce Easter to comfort.
 
A soft affirmation
            that everything will be all right in the end.
That death is not the end.
            That there’s life after life.
 
And of course,
            that’s part of the promise.
 
The hope of resurrection
            is that death does not get the final word -
not for Jesus, and not for us.
 
But in Luke,
            resurrection is not simply consolation.
 
It is disruption.
 
It disrupts the finality of death.
            It disrupts the expectations of power.
It disrupts the logic of empire.
            It sends women preaching.
It sends disciples running.
            It sends fearful followers into the streets
            with courage they didn’t know they had.
 
And this is where we come in.
 
Because if resurrection is only a doctrine to believe,
            then it makes little difference to the world.
 
But if resurrection is a story we live,
            a memory we embody,
            a hope we enact -
then it changes everything.
 
It changes how we face death.
            It changes how we challenge injustice.
It changes how we see one another.
            It changes what we dare to hope for.
 
So this morning,
            in the light of resurrection,
let me offer this invitation:
            Do not look for the living
            among the dead.
 
Do not look for Christ
            only in the rituals of religion
            or the certainty of doctrine.
 
Look instead for Christ
            in the struggle for justice,
                        in the sharing of bread,
            in the work of healing and reconciliation.
 
Do not be surprised
            if those who speak most clearly of resurrection
are not always the ones
            with titles, or robes, or platforms.
 
Rather, those who speak of new life
            may be the ones whose voices have been marginalised,
but whose lives testify to grace and courage.
 
And do not be afraid if resurrection begins
            not in joy, but in confusion.
 
If you find yourself
            at an empty tomb,
unsure what to make of it all -
            remember.
 
Remember the words of Jesus.
            Remember the way he lived.
Remember the people he loved.
            Remember the justice he proclaimed.
 
And then - go and live
            as if it is all true.
 
Because it is.
 
Christ is risen.
            He is not here,
            but he is everywhere.
 
In the breaking of bread.
            In the telling of stories.
In the remembering of truth.
            In the work of the Spirit.
In the community of faith.
 
And this is good news.
 
Hallelujah.
Amen.