Where's Jesus?

Sermon for a Baptist Communion Service

King's College London, Strand Chapel,

27 November 2024

Exodus 16.13-21

1 Corinthians 10.14-17

For our sermon today I’m going to offer some reflections
          on what makes a Baptist-style communion service distinctive,
what is might be that is particularly ‘Baptist-ish’
          about the way Baptists such as myself structure a communion service,
and particularly the way we share bread and wine
          in obedience to the command of Jesus.
 
As a guiding idea for this, I want offer simple question,
          and it’s this: ‘Where’s Jesus?’
 
If we were in a Catholic church, you might point to the crucifix.
          If we were in a high Anglican church you might point to the reserved host.
As we’re in a College Chapel, you might point
          to the bread and wine on the table over there.
 
And all of these are good, ecumenically valid answers.
          But they aren’t the answer that a Baptist would give.
 
I’ll come back to that.
          But first, I need to give you a little bit of Baptist history.
 
The Baptists came into being in the very early 17^th century,
          and it was really all an argument about religious liberty.
 
At that point, in England, it was basically illegal
          to be anything other than CofE.
However a group who became known as ‘dissenters’
          came to believe that religion should be a matter of choice,
          not state imposition.
 
One key thing they wanted was freedom to worship
          in their own congregations, rather than in the local parish church.
 
Quite a few of these dissenters were actually Anglican priests themselves,
          but that’s a story for another day.
 
In search of religious liberty, they took themselves to Amsterdam
          where, then as now, things were a bit more liberal.
 
And it was whilst they were there
          that they came to some important conclusions.
 
Firstly, they concluded that each Christian believer
          could read scripture and pray directly to God in the name of Jesus;
          no-one needed a priest to do it for them.
 
And secondly, they said that baptism
          administered to a child at birth wasn’t valid,
          because it denied that child freedom of choice;
rather they said that baptism should be freely chosen,
          and administered upon a person’s profession of faith.
 
In these conclusions you can see the influence
          of individualistic enlightenment thinking,
and also the rising availability of the Bible in languages other than Latin.
 
Anyway, whilst in Amsterdam in 1609,
          the two founders of the English Baptists,
                   John Smyth and Thomas Helwys,
          baptised each other in the river,
having come to the rather startling conclusion
          that the true church had died out in all the world,
          and that it was their responsibility to re-start it.
 
Smyth died in Amsterdam,
          but Helwys came back to England a couple of years later,
          and wrote to King James.
 
What he wrote has come to be regarded
          as the first plea for religious liberty in the English language,
because he argued for freedom not only for himself,
          but also for the Jew, the Muslim, and the atheist.
 
His conviction that freedom for one must be freedom for all
          is of course echoed in the theology
          of that great Baptist preacher of the 20^th century, Martin Luther King Jr,
who said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
          Incidentally, Martin Luther King Jr preached his first sermon in the UK
          at my own church on Shaftesbury Avenue in 1961.
 
But what has all this to do with Communion,
          you may be wondering…
 
Well, several things.
 
Firstly, if the church is gathered rather than geographical,
          if it is made up of those who have chosen baptism and discipleship,
          rather than those who live in a parish,
then the meal that sustains the church is not, in fact, for everyone.
 
The early Baptists therefore had communion
          as a separate service to their main worship service.
 
They would meet for singing, praying, and preaching,
          and then close the service.
All the non-baptised would be asked to leave,
          and only the baptised would stay
          for breaking of bread and sharing of wine.
 
In these days of ecumenical respect and trust,
          most Baptists no longer exclude from communion
          those who have been baptised in other traditions
– and certainly in my church all are welcome to the Lord’s Table.
 
In fact, Bloomsbury Baptist was founded
          as an ‘open communion’ church in 1848
          – something that was quite unusual in those days.
 
But there is still an echo of the two services model in Baptist practice.
 
We only celebrate communion once a month,
          on the first Sunday of each month,
and when we do the service is about 15 minutes longer,
          with communion tagged on the end.
 
This pattern takes us right back to those early years
          when the un-baptised would be asked to leave.
 
Actually, my church did take a decision
          to exclude people from the Communion service
                   just a few years after it was founded,
          but not on the basis of their baptism.
 
It was 1851, the year of Prince Albert’s great exhibition in London,
          and lots of American Baptists were coming to London.
 
The church took an advert in the Times
          welcoming visiting Americans to the church,
but then stating that if any visitors were supportive of the Fugitive Slave Law,
          they would be denied access to the Lord’s table.
 
This was a law that returned enslaved people
          who had escaped to the free north
          back to their masters in the south.
 
So, within three years of opening,
          my church was excommunicating fellow Baptists
          on an issue of racist exclusion.
 
But let’s come back now to the question of where Jesus is to be found
          in a Baptist communion service.
 
If he’s not in the bread and wine, where is he?
          And what’s the point of the bread and wine?
 
The theology of being a gathered church is important again here.
 
Because for Baptists, the central idea of communion
          isn’t the presence of the body Christ
          in the elements of the bread and wine
 
Rather, it’s the recognition that Jesus is present in the community itself
          —the gathered people of God who share in the meal.
 
As we heard earlier, in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, Paul writes:
"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?
Because there is one bread,
          we who are many are one body,
          for we all partake of the one bread."
 
Notice that Paul doesn’t focus here
          on the physical properties of the bread or wine
          but on their symbolic function within the body of believers.
 
The bread we break and the cup we share
          are outward signs of our shared participation in Christ
          and our unity as one body.
 
For Baptists, this means that communion
          is less about encountering Christ in the elements
          and more about encountering Christ in one another.
 
This is why we are served the bread and wine our places,
          because Christ comes to us as we are, where we are.

Incidentally, if you're wondering about the use of the little shot glasses,

         these came into common use during the 'Flu Pandemic of 1918;

and the move to non-alcoholic wine came before this,

         under the influence of the temperance movement.
 
As we break bread and share wine together,
          we acknowledge the presence of Jesus
                   in the relationships we share, in our collective witness,
          and in our mutual commitment to love and serve the world in his name.
 
This is why the Baptist tradition
          places such a strong emphasis on the gathered church.
 
Communion isn’t something that happens
          in isolation or mediated through a priest.
 
It happens when the people of God come together
          —each person equal before God, part of a priesthood of all believers,
                    each voice part of the song of praise,
                             each life a testimony to God’s grace.
 
In this sense, the bread and wine
          function as signs pointing us to Jesus,
          but they don’t contain him.
 
Instead, they remind us of his ongoing presence
          with us through the Spirit
and his call for us to be his body in the world.
 
The bread and wine, like the manna in the wilderness from Exodus 16,
          are gifts of sustenance for the journey.
 
They feed us because they nourish our faith
          and remind us that Christ is the one who unites and sustains us.
 
So, where’s Jesus in a Baptist communion service?
 
He’s here in the gathered community
          —where two or three are met in his name,
          where the bread is broken, the cup is shared,
          and the people of God are sent out to live and love in his name.
 
This understanding doesn’t deny the significance of the elements;
          it transforms it.
 
The bread and wine are holy because of what they represent:
          Christ’s sacrifice, our unity,
          and God’s abundant provision for the life of the church.
 
But their holiness points us beyond themselves
          to the deeper reality of Christ’s presence among us,
          in the body of believers, empowered by the Spirit.
 
And this is what makes a Baptist communion service distinctive.
 
When we gather at the Lord’s table in obedience to Christ’s command,
          the risen Christ is sacramentally present with us, and among us.
As we remember him,
          we are re-membered into the body of Christ which is the church.
 
The Baptist communion service
          is therefore a celebration of the church gathered
          and a commissioning of the church sent out.
 
When we leave the table, we carry Christ with us
          —not in our hands, or our stomachs, but in our hearts,
          as we live out the gospel in our daily lives.
 
So, as we gather around the table today,
          let us give thanks for the bread and wine,
for the Spirit who draws us together,
          and for the presence of Jesus in the midst of his people.
Amen.
 

An ecological reading of Jonah

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

10 November 2024

Jonah 3.10 – 4.11 
Matthew 6.25-34 

The relationship between humanity and the natural world
            has been one of hardship and toil
                        since humans first emerged from the great rift valley,
                        to go forth and multiply upon the earth.
The struggle for survival is as old as our species,
            and we have battled on many fronts over the millennia.
From early competition with other hominids,
            to struggles to adapt to hostile environments;
from diseases and disasters,
            to famine and crop failure.
 
Humans have been at war with planet earth
            in a battle for survival since the very beginning.
Our current fights about fossil fuels, global warming, and climate change
            are simply the latest skirmishes in a war that has claimed more lives,
            and done more damage, than any other conflict in the history of humanity.
 
So it is no surprise that the Old Testament,
            or the Hebrew Bible as it’s sometimes called,
            reflects this struggle for survival in many of its narratives.
Those who told these stories down the generations,
            passing the wisdom of the Israelite tradition from parent to child,
knew first hand what it was to do battle with the earth;
            and in their stories they reflected before God
            on what it might mean to be human.
 
And what we find in their traditions
            are a range of responses to the question
            of how humans might exist in relation to nature.
 
The Genesis creation narrative, for example,
            starts by affirming the goodness of all things:
                        from the heavens above, to the depths of the ocean,
                        and everything in between;
            and it locates humans as part of this God-inspired created order.
 
However, it goes on to describe
            the fracturing of the relationship between humanity and nature,
                        pointing the finger firmly at the sinfulness
                        of the representative humans of Adam and Eve
                                    as the originators of the battle for survival.
 
If we fast forward to their sons Cain and Abel,
            we meet the battle between the hunter-gatherer and agrarian lifestyles.
Agriculture first developed in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East,
            where Israel is located,
            sometime around 10,000 years ago,
and we have an echo of this in the deadly conflict
            between Cain the cultivator of land,
                        and Abel the herdsman.
 
The suggestion of this story is that God is more pleased
            with Abel’s animal
            than with Cain’s grain,
but of course it’s ultimately Abel who dies at Cain’s hand,
            and it’s Cain and his descendants who survive
            to continue planting the land and reaping the harvest.
 
And then we come to the story of Noah and the flood,
            with God washing his hands of the whole created order,
                        and ordering a total wipeout and reboot,
            with just Noah and his family and a selection of animals surviving.
 
According to the Noah story,
            human sinfulness had so spoiled nature
                        that the whole thing was ruined beyond salvation,
            and just needed to be destroyed and re-created from scratch.
 
And I could go on, and on, through the wisdom tradition and the prophets,
            through the books of history and monarchy,
                        describing the battles for land, the times of famine,
                        all the stories of plague, pestilence, and hardship that humanity has faced.
 
And in all of these, the Hebrew way
            has been to try to reflect before God
            on the relationship between humans and the natural order.
 
So we come to the book of Jonah, which is many things,
            including, I want to suggest, an ecological parable
            in the tradition of the Hebrew wisdom literature.
 
I believe that it has something profound to say to us
            about the relationship between humans and the natural order.[1]
 
The clue comes right at the end of the book:
            did you spot it??
 
Listen again to verse 11. God says:
 
“And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city,
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"
 
It’s always worth paying attention to the way biblical stories end,
            and this one ends with many animals.
Once we’ve spotted this, when we start to read back into the story,
            we find that the natural world
            plays an especially prominent role in the book of Jonah.
 
Bear with me a moment, and we’ll go back over it…
 
The book starts with Jonah being called to go and preach a message
            of repentance to the great city of Nineveh,
            but deciding to do a runner in the opposite direction, and jumping a ship.
 
At this point, the forces of nature start to move in against him.
            We’re told in the 4^th verse of the first chapter that
            “the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea,
                        and such a mighty storm came upon the sea
                        that the ship threatened to break up.”
 
As soon as Jonah puts himself where he shouldn’t be,
            he finds himself at war with natural forces way beyond his control.
 
When the sailors on the boat ask Jonah what’s going on,
            he realises that there’s a link between his own disobedience to God
            and the disturbance in the natural order.
 
So he says to them that he’s a Hebrew,
            a worshipper of the God who made the sea and the dry land (1.9).
 
He goes on to tell the sailors that if they pick him up and throw him into the sea,
            the great storm will quiet down and their lives will be spared (1.12),
                        and this is, of course, what happens.
 
The link between Jonah and God and the natural order
            moves at this point from the theoretical to the practical,
            as Jonah’s actions are seen to have a clear effect on the forces of nature.
 
But then they take a turn from the practical to the surreal,
            as instead of drowning in the sea of chaos,
                        Jonah find himself in the belly of a fish,
                        and not just any fish, but a fish provided by God to rescue him.
 
The story is at pains to tell us that this isn’t some random act of luck
            – rather, God is at work in the natural world
            to bring Jonah back to where he should be in the order of things.
 
Eventually, Jonah is spewed up onto dry land,
            as he escapes the clutches of the sea,
            and makes his way to Nineveh to preach his message of repentance.
 
And the response he gets is astonishing, and actually quite funny
            – not only do the people repent, not only does the king repent,
                        but so do the animals!
 
The king even issues a decree,
            demanding that both humans and animals together must fast,
                        and put on sackcloth;
            with human and animal voices together crying to God for mercy. (3.7-8).
 
Of course, what Jonah knew would happen does happen,
            and God lets the wicked city of Nineveh off.
No judgment, no fire from heaven, no punishment,
            just mercy and compassion.
 
This doesn’t suit Jonah at all, and so in disgust that justice has not been done,
            he wanders off to sit under a shelter and sulk.
The sun beats down on him, relentlessly baking him into submission,
            but then God appoints a bush to grow up by him,
                        giving him some shade from the sun,
                        and for a little while he seems to lift out of his bad mood.
 
But then God appoints a little worm to come and destroy the tree,
            and then God sends a sultry wind and more sun,
            and Jonah decides that he’s had enough of these games and that he wants to die.
 
God has been merciful to the wretched Ninevites
            with their comedy cows in sackcloth,
but seems to be setting the whole of nature systematically against Jonah.
 
Of course, it’s all a matter of perspective,
            and so with the set-up complete, Jonah and God have their big argument.
 
Jonah said, "It is better for me to die than to live." 
⁹ But God said to Jonah,
            "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?"
And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 
¹⁰ Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush,
            for which you did not labor and which you did not grow;
            it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 
¹¹ Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city,
            in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
            who do not know their right hand from their left,
            and also many animals?" (4.8-11) The End.
 
Jonah pitied the plant, but did not want God to pity Nineveh.
            The irony is inescapable, and the inconsistency of his position becomes obvious.
 
God is not the God that Jonah thought and hoped he was.
            God does not judge as Jonah judged,
                        and Jonah had set himself above God,
                        and at odds with nature,
            in his attempt to create God in his own image.
 
And those of us reading Jonah’s story are invited to join him
            in reflecting on our own place within the natural order.
 
The recurring theme in all of this is that whilst Jonah is disobedient to God,
            the natural world acts not only in obedience to God,
            but also to bring Jonah back to a right relationship with both God and nature.
 
And here’s the parable.
            Jonah represents humanity.
            He represents all of us.
            We are Jonah.
 
And the lesson of the parable is that when we humans, like Jonah,
            put themselves at war with God and God’s world,
            the consequences are catastrophic.
 
But the hopeful message of the Book of Jonah
            is that God is also at work through the natural order
            to bring humans back to a place of repentance and restoration.
 
We humans have consistently created a philosophical and practical division
            between ourselves and the rest of the natural world.
 
I don’t think we can entirely blame Descartes,
            but his famous dictum ‘I think therefore I am’
            is probably the best summary of this approach.
 
We who ‘think’ have come to view animals as automatons incapable of consciousness,
            and so we have taken permission to treat animals as, in effect, machines,
            which exist as a means rather than for their own sake.
 
In all this, of course, we are acting entirely against the wisdom of Genesis
            which declares that all of creation is good;
but nonetheless we consistently choose to see nature as a tool to exploit,
            and animals as a means to an end.
 
We have built our civilisations on a human-centred view of the world,
            which regards nature as a commodity available exclusively for our benefit.
 
Our unfettered and rampant exploitation of nature
            is challenged by the story of Jonah,
who consistently discovers what we must also learn;
            that when we place ourselves over and against nature, there is hell to pay.
 
We are a part of the natural order, not separate to it.
            And we can no more run from our place in God’s creation
            than Jonah could run from the presence of God.
 
We humans keep placing ourselves at the centre of our own story,
            we place our own desires above our responsibility to the planet,
            and so we create a situation where we are at war with nature
                        in a struggle for survival.
 
It’s the story of Adam and Eve’s rebellion
            told over-and-over again in each generation,
            as we somehow convince ourselves that we’re right and God must be wrong.
 
Yet the story of Jonah is that in God’s world,
            it is compassion that lies at the heart of the story.
God’s mercy in Jonah’s story is extended to all creation.
            God has compassion on the just and the unjust,
                        on animals, plants and planet.
 
In the story of Jonah we find our human-centred view of creation challenged.
            We, like Jonah, have to learn that God is not just ‘our’ God,
                        but is rather the God of the entire earth,
                        from animals to plants to the elements to Nineveh itself.
 
Nature is not there to be exploited by humans,
            as if the two were somehow separable;
but rather humans are a part of the natural world,
            and all exist together and continue to co-exist because, and only because,
                        of God’s compassion.
 
Creation itself suffers because of human greed and idolatry,
            and the voices of the animals are crying out in our time for mercy,
            every bit as much as the animals in Nineveh cried out for compassion.
Humans and the natural world will rise and fall together,
            and the wilful human destruction of ecologies
            is a sin against the nature of God.
 
So, what to do…?
 
Well, there’s an interesting comparison to be drawn
            between the story of Jonah and the Whale,
            and the story of Noah and the flood.
 
Both stories begin with a threat of destruction
            against wicked people for their sinfulness.
Both stories involve a perilous sea journey.
            Both stories involve animals.
 
And, interestingly, both stories also involve a dove.
            You see, Jonah means ‘dove’,
                        and in both stories, it is the dove which flies off and eventually returns,
                        bringing the hope of salvation.
 
In Noah’s story the dove brings the olive branch
            which marks the end of the flood.
And in Jonah’s story,
            Jonah is the dove that brings the message of repentance.
 
However, there are important differences.
            In Noah’s story, God destroys the wicked people
                        along with almost all of the natural order,
                        with only Noah’s family and a few select animals
                                    surviving to repopulate the earth.
 
            In Jonah’s story, God is merciful to the wicked city;
                        and the natural world, represented by the animals of Nineveh,
                                    is spared.
 
In many ways, Jonah’s story is a reversal of Noah’s,
            and offers a hopeful glimpse of God at work in the natural world,
            calling humans to discover ways of living in peace with creation.
 
So what might this mean for us tomorrow?
            Should we re-think our addiction to meat, for example?
There is no doubt that there are far more sustainable ways
            of feeding humanity than feeding cows, pigs, and sheep
                        and then shooting them and eating them.
 
This may or may not mean that we fully embrace vegetarianism,
            but it should certainly challenge our relationship
            to the animals on which we are dependent for our ongoing existence.
 
We might want to think carefully about issues
            of animal experimentation, exploitation, and genetic modification.
 
We could well ask ourselves at what cost are we at odds
            with the natural world in our own time.
There certainly is a cost, but whether we are counting it or not is far from certain.
 
Maybe GM crops do hold the future for feeding humanity,
            but if so, where does that leave our battery chicken farms,
                        and our herdsmen industries.
 
If we are not careful, the conflict between Cain and Abel
            could easily resurface in contemporary guise
            to haunt a globally warmed world which is struggling with mass starvation.
 
These are issues that Christians cannot and should not turn away from.
            We cannot afford to hide our heads in the sand
                        and eat ostrich instead of beef.
 
Rather, we need to keep ourselves educated and informed,
            and to take informed and educated decisions together
            as to how we will partner with God in the care of this world
                        that has been entrusted to us.
 
The message of Jonah is that God has not given up on creation,
            and that neither has creation given up on humanity.
 
We are part of nature, we are part of God’s good creation,
            and we are called to repent of our wickedness,
                        of our exploitation, of our destructive patterns of living.
 
And the invitation is that if we find ways together of existing in harmony with nature,
            we are opening ourselves up, with the inhabitants of Nineveh,
            to the compassion and mercy of God.
 
We are called to repent of our acquisitiveness,
            to turn away from our obsessions with possessions,
            and to discover together what it means to live as children of this earth.
 
Or, as Jesus put it:
 
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
            what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body,
            what you will wear.
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 
²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
            and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they? 
²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 
²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing?
            Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 
²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 
³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field,
            which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,
            will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? 
³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?'
            or 'What will we wear?' 
³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things;
            and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 
³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
            and all these things will be given to you as well. 
³⁴ "So do not worry about tomorrow,
            for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.
Today's trouble is enough for today.

---

[1] I have been helped in the preparation of this sermon by reading Yael Shemesh, ‘“And Many Beasts” (Jonah 4:11); The Function and Status of Animals in the Book of Jonah’, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Volume 10, Article 6.

God's Universal Embrace

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

27 October 2024

First Readings: 1 Kings 5.1-5; 8.27-30, 41-43 
Second Readings: Isaiah 2.1-3; Revelation 21.1-3, 22-26

Today’s scripture passage from 1 Kings is from our autumn lectionary series,
            as we journey through the Hebrew Bible on our way to Advent and Christmas;
and it brings us to a significant moment in the history of Israel
            as we encounter King Solomon dedicating the newly completed Temple in Jerusalem,
            as a structure meant to be the centre of worship for the people of Israel.
 
It was a (literally) monumental achievement,
            representing the fulfilment of a long-awaited promise
            that David, Solomon’s father, had yearned for.
 
However, in his prayer of dedication,
            Solomon offers a remarkable theological insight
            that stretches far beyond the walls of the Temple:
 
He says:
            “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?
            Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you,
            much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).
 
This acknowledgment
            —that God cannot be confined to a physical structure—
sets the tone for a conversation that transcends boundaries,
            both literal and metaphorical.
 
Solomon, standing in the newly constructed Temple in Jerusalem,
            the building envisaged as God’s house on earth,
astonishingly suggests that God’s presence is not, in fact, restricted
            to any one building, people, or nation.
 
Instead, he proclaims that the God of Israel, is also the God of all creation,
            an insight that lays the foundation for what follows in verses 41-43,
where Solomon explicitly prays for the foreigner,
            for the person who is not part of the Israelite community,
            but who seeks to worship and know the same God.
 
For a congregation like ours,
            situated in the heart of a diverse and bustling city like London,
            this message could not be more relevant.
 
In a time where divisions based on nationality, race, religion, and identity
            seem to grow deeper,
Solomon’s prayer reminds us
            that God’s love and grace extend to all people.
 
The Temple, built by Israelites and for Israelites,
            was also, according to 1 Kings,
always intended to be a house of prayer for all nations
            —a space where inclusivity and openness are central to its very purpose.
 
In Solomon’s time, the Temple stood as a symbol
            of Israel’s unique relationship with God.
 
But Solomon's prayer shifts the focus from exclusivity
            to a broader, more inclusive understanding
            of who belongs in the presence of God.
 
It’s not just the chosen people who are invited to encounter the Divine;
            it is rather anyone—any foreigner, any outsider—
            who finds themselves drawn to the worship of God.
 
This radical openness is echoed throughout the scriptures,
            and it presents a powerful challenge to us today.
 
We live in a world that increasingly seeks to define
            who is “in” and who is “out,”
            who belongs and who doesn’t.
 
Whether it’s through the lens of national borders,
            religious affiliation, or even political ideology,
the temptation to limit grace and favour to a select group is strong.
 
Yet, Solomon’s prayer speaks against this exclusivity.
            The presence of God cannot be contained by walls,
            and neither can the love of God be restricted by human categories.
 
Solomon’s vision invites us to imagine a different kind of community,
            one where everyone, regardless of background, identity, or status,
            is welcomed into the embrace of God.
 
In this moment, Solomon’s prayer
            not only dedicates the Temple as a place for Israel
            but opens the door for all humanity.
 
This inclusivity mirrors God’s universal mission,
            seen from the promise to Abraham
                        that all nations will be blessed through his descendants (Genesis 12:3)
            to the prophetic visions of a time when all nations
                        will stream to God’s holy mountain (Isaiah 2:2-4),
            to the vision of the book of Revelation,
                        that the nations will walk by the light of the New Jerusalem.
 
This thread of universality is woven throughout the biblical narrative,
            pointing us toward a future where the distinctions we sometimes hold so tightly
            fade in the light of God’s all-encompassing love.
 
For us today, the challenge is clear:
            how do we, as a community of faith,
            reflect this expansive, inclusive vision of God’s love in our own lives?
 
How do we build spaces—both physical and spiritual—
            where all people can encounter God without fear of exclusion or rejection?
 
In a world increasingly divided by nationalism, racism,
            homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia,
we are called to be a living testament
            to the God who cannot be confined:
we are to be a people who open wide the doors of welcome.
 
Whether it’s through our acts of hospitality, or advocacy for the marginalized,
            or simply the way we greet one another on a Sunday morning,
we have the opportunity to reflect God’s universal embrace.
 
This passage calls us to more than just tolerance
            —it calls us to radical inclusivity,
to the kind of love that breaks down barriers and builds bridges.
 
Just as Solomon’s Temple was a symbol of God’s presence among the people,
            so too can we be living symbols of God’s love in the world,
extending grace and welcome to all who seek it,
            no matter where they come from or who they are.
 
It’s in this context that I want to turn to the issue of nationalism,
            and particularly the phenomena known as Christian Nationalism.
 
In the current global landscape, nationalism is on the rise in many places.
 
Donald Trump’s current campaign for the presidency
            has adopted a nationalist agenda which focuses on "America First,"
            opposing immigration, and trade deals perceived to harm U.S. interests.
 
But he’s far from an outlier, rather he’s part of a global trend,
            with leaders such as Narendra Modi in India pursuing policies
            which emphasize national pride, economic self-reliance, and social conservatism,
            particularly with regards to religious and cultural identity.
 
Or Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who takes hard-line nationalist and populist stances,
            particularly on issues such as immigration and the European Union.
 
Or Marine Le Pen in France emphasizing French identity,
            anti-immigration, and Euroscepticism.
 
All of these nationalist agendas create the possibility
            for a dangerous intersection with faith,
where Christian nationalism
            —the belief that a country’s identity is uniquely tied to Christianity—
threatens to distort the gospel’s inclusive message.
 
Christian nationalism often promotes the idea
            that a specific nation, race, or culture is divinely favoured,
                        usually at the expense of others.
 
It has its origins in the fusion of Christianity and the Roman Empire,
            which took place under the emperor Constantine in the 4^th Century;
and whilst Christendom as a defined religious and political entity may have passed,
            its legacy lingers on much of the ideology that continues to shape our world.
 
But this stands in stark opposition to the message of 1 Kings 8:41-43,
            where Solomon prays for the foreigner
            and acknowledges God’s concern for all nations.
 
Christian nationalism, as a worldview,
            blends patriotism with an exclusionary version of Christianity.
 
This leads to an “us vs. them” mentality
            that sees outsiders, whether immigrants, people of different religions,
                        or those from different backgrounds,
            as threats to a “Christian” identity.
 
By fusing a person’s religious faith with their national identity,
            it narrows the gospel’s expansive vision of love, justice, and inclusion
                        into a political agenda that seeks power and control
                        rather than service and compassion.
 
Solomon’s prayer, however, paints a different picture of God’s kingdom.
 
In his vision, the Temple, built in the heart of Israel,
            was not just for the Israelites.
 
It was meant to be a place where even those from other nations
            could come, worship, and be heard by God.
 
This universal vision directly confronts the idea
            that any one nation, people, or group
            has an exclusive claim to God’s favour.
 
God’s love knows no national borders.
 
In modern times, Christian nationalism often leads to policies and rhetoric
            that marginalize and oppress those considered “other.”
 
Whether it’s the rejection of refugees, the demonization of immigrants,
            or the insistence that certain groups must conform
            to specific national or religious identities to belong,
this ideology contradicts the gospel’s message.
 
Jesus himself consistently reached out to those on the margins
            —Samaritans, Gentiles, and other outsiders—
demonstrating that God’s kingdom is far more inclusive than we often allow.
 
Solomon’s prayer for the foreigner
            speaks powerfully against the temptations of Christian nationalism.
 
We will be exploring this topic further in our online group this week,
            and I do hope you will be able to join us for this on Weds evening.
 
In a context such as ours, where many people come
            from different countries, cultures, and faith backgrounds,
our calling is to embody the inclusivity of God’s kingdom.
 
We are called to resist the narrative
            that Christianity and national identity are intertwined,
and instead embrace a faith that welcomes all people.
 
As Christians, our primary allegiance is not to any nation or political ideology
            but to the global and inclusive kingdom of God.
 
We are called to challenge systems and ideologies
            that seek to restrict God’s grace to any one people or place.
 
Solomon’s prayer reminds us that God hears the prayers
            of the foreigner, the outsider, and the marginalized.
 
Our role is to create spaces—both in our hearts and in our churches—
            where all are welcome to encounter the love of God,
            no matter where they come from.
 
Let us be a community that resists exclusion
            and instead reflects God’s radical love for all nations and all people.
 
This means cultivating a culture where all voices are included in the conversation
            —whether that be people of different nationalities, races,
            genders, sexual orientations, or faith perspectives.
 
Our congregation can be a model of what it looks like
            to be a faith community that welcomes diversity
            not as an obstacle but as a gift.
 
In practical terms,
            this might mean ensuring that our worship
            reflects the cultural and linguistic diversity of our congregation.
 
It could involve intentional efforts to partner with organizations
            that serve marginalized communities,
            whether they be refugees, the homeless, or those who are differently-abled.
 
It also means cultivating spaces for interfaith dialogue and cooperation,
            recognizing that in our diverse city,
            we share common concerns with people of other faiths
—whether it’s caring for the environment, advocating for social justice,
            or working for peace.
 
All of these are part of who we are as a church,
            and my challenge is for more of us to become involved.
Turning up at things is the first step to being part of them,
            and we have some amazing opportunities here at Bloomsbury
            to turn our beliefs into action.
 
We also have a responsibility to engage in advocacy.
 
Solomon’s prayer for the foreigner challenges us to think
            about how we, as a community, can speak out
            against exclusionary policies and practices in society.
 
Whether it’s advocating for more just immigration policies,
            standing against racial injustice,
            or supporting the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals,
our call is to be a prophetic voice for inclusivity
            in a world that often seeks to divide.
 
Solomon’s prayer reflects a vision of God’s temple
            as a place where all people can come to experience God’s presence.
 
For us, this means creating a church
            that is not just for people who are like us,
but for everyone who seeks spiritual connection, healing, and justice.
 
It is about living out the gospel in a way that makes room
            for all people to find their place at the table.
 
In conclusion, this passage invites us to examine our own hearts
            and practices as a congregation.
 
Are we truly living out the inclusive love of God?
            Are we creating spaces where all are welcome,
or are there barriers—whether visible or invisible—
            that prevent people from fully participating in the life of our church?
 
Solomon’s prayer calls us to be a community
            that reflects the boundless love of God,
embracing all people with open arms,
            and working for justice in a world that desperately needs it.
 
 

Women Speaking Justice

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 

October 13th 2024

1 Samuel 1.9-11, 19-20; 2.1-10

Sometimes, when calling for social justice,
            the most effective voice is the most vulnerable voice.
 
Martin Luther King may have been the great orator,
            but it took Rosa Parks to strategically sit in the wrong seat
before she, and the Alabama bus boycott she triggered,
            became national symbols for change in the civil rights movement.
 
Similarly, we might ask why it is,
            that the most effective international voice in recent years
            in the fight against fossil fuels is Greta Thunburg,
                        who came to prominence as young schoolgirl in Sweden,
                        and who is incredibly still just 21 years old.
 
Similarly, one of the strongest voices calling for gender equality in education in Pakistan,
            has been Malala Yousafzai,
who was shot in the head by the Taliban as a teenager
            and recovered to win the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17.
 
Similarly, if we head back in time a century,
            the right for everyone to vote in elections in the UK
was won by the steadfast witness and courage of the suffragettes,
            including Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Wilding Davison.
 
And the modern feminist movement found its origins
            in the writings of Simone de Beauvoir.
 
And I could go on, for the entirety of this sermon,
            naming people like Claudia Jones,
                        the Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist
                                    deported from the USA for becoming a Black feminist leader
                                    in the American Communist Party.
 
And then of course there is Mary the mother of Jesus,
            whose song of justice in Luke’s gospel, often known as the Magnificat,
            heralded the birth of Jesus.
 
And all these women, the named and the unnamed,
            who have opened their mouths
            and sung or spoken the songs and poems of justice,
are the spiritual descendants of Hannah,
            who we meet in our Bible reading for this morning.
 
And Hannah is truly a remarkable woman,
            not least because we actually know her name.
 
You may have heard of the Bechdel Test,
            which is a simple measure to evaluate the representation of women
            in films, books, and other forms of media.
 
To pass the test, a work must meet three criteria:
1.     It features at least two named women.
2.     These women talk to each other.
3.     They discuss something other than a man.
 
Wel, it won’t surprise you to know that the Bible consistently fails the test!
 
Most of the women in the Old Testament are unnamed,
            known only as the ‘wife of’ or ‘daughter of’ a named man.
 
Additionally, it is equally rare in the Old Testament
            for a woman to be heard speaking.
 
This is where our reading for today is so unusual,
            as Hannah is both named, and speaks,
            which makes her a rarity within the biblical narrative.
 
But even more unusual is that fact that this woman,
            whose name we know and whose words we hear,
            is, in social terms, a nobody.
 
She’s not married to someone significant,
            and she’s not done anything to establish her reputation.
 
She’s just an ordinary married woman with no children,
            which in the world of the Old Testament
            was about as insignificant as you could get.
 
These days, we are used to women having some control over reproduction,
            from effective contraception to IVF treatment.
 
But there are still plenty of women in our world
            who long for children but can’t have them,
            and who hear the desires of their own hearts in Hannah’s prayer for a child.
 
And although the focus of our sermon this morning is not on issues of childlessness,
            we do well to recognise that a story where a woman prays for a child
                        and then immediately gets one
            is a difficult story for some women to hear.
 
Just as we need to remember that when we bring children to church for dedication,
            there will be those present who find such services profoundly painful.
 
So let’s return for a moment to the social world the Old Testament,
            where barrenness was often regarded as a curse from God;
and parents who got to old age without children,
            were not just at risk economically, with no-one to look after them,
            but they were also outcast socially,
                        stigmatised as having not been blessed by God.
 
Within the ancient Israelite context in which this story was written,
            motherhood was considered an essential part of a woman’s identity,
and being without children
            carried significant social and emotional consequences.
 
A woman’s worth and well-being were thus closely tied to her ability to bear children,
            and it was commonly believed that infertility was the woman’s burden,
            often overlooking other causes.
 
And it was believed that God controlled fertility,
            granting or withholding it according to the divine will.
 
Culturally therefore, in the Ancient Near East,
            the pressure to have children was overwhelming,
and Hannah’s request for a male child
            would have echoed the desire of most women.
 
Female children, at that time, were a liability that cost you money;
            whereas male children could work and bring money into the family.
If you could only have one child, you wanted a boy,
            so that was what you prayed for first.
 
Even down to our world today,
            there are still some cultures that prefer sons to daughters,
            and female infanticide is one of the tragedies of human history.
 
When we were in China recently,
            our local guide told us that he was born during the one-child policy,
            and that he was a third child, with two older sisters.
 
The one child law said that if you had a male child, you couldn’t have any more,
            but if you had a female child, to avoid the risks of infanticide,
            you could try for a second child to see if it was a boy.
 
But if you had two girls, you had to stop there.
 
However, our guide’s parents tried for a third,
            and had the son they wanted.
But his mother had to go from the city to the country to give birth in secret,
            and then brought him back a couple of years later,
            telling everyone that he was her nephew who they were caring for.
 
And so, in an ancient culture with similar desires for a male child,
            this makes what Hannah says next to the Lord so remarkable:
She says that if she is granted a male child,
            she will dedicate that child to God.
 
This child won’t be the answer to her security in old age,
            because he will have been dedicated as a Nazirite,
            offered in lifelong service to God alone.
 
And here we get our first glimpse
            that the significance of Hannah’s story
            is bigger than her personal concerns or desires.
 
She starts with her personal traumatic experience of childlessness,
            but then moves beyond this
                        to a recognition that how God responds to her,
                                    in her time of powerlessness,
                        is in fact a profound revelation of who God is;
            and that this in turn places a call on her
                        to respond to that revelation of God’s nature.
 
In other words, if God is the kind of God
            who looks with favour on a powerless, childless woman,
then God is also a God who looks with favour on all those
            who live with poverty, injustice, and oppression.
 
But Hannah also realises
            that God’s response to those afflicted
                        is not through a simplistic answering of prayer,
                        or the granting of heartfelt desires.
 
The blessings that God gives to the world
            are not to be taken individually
            nor horded personally;
they are for the common good,
            because God is working for the good of all people.
 
And so Hannah prays for a son,
            but as she does so
            she promises that son back to God.
 
Her own decisions about Samuel
            reflect her understanding of how God works in human affairs.
 
For Hannah, God is not some localised, family-centric deity;
            God is not some household-god to whom you bring your personal concerns;
God’s blessings are not for the fortunate favoured few;
            Rather, God blesses the world,
            and does so by remembering the vulnerable and the oppressed.
 
So then Hannah prays this remarkable prayer,
            and in doing so, she herself becomes a prophet of God,
            proclaiming God’s nature into being in the world.
 
Extrapolating from her own experience,
            Hannah realises that God is not on the side of the strong and the powerful,
                        but is rather on the side of the weak and the powerless.
 
            She realises that God’s blessings are not found in fine food or abundant living,
                        but in the feeding of the hungry and the care of the dispossessed.
 
            She realises that many children are not, in fact a sign of God’s favour,
                        and that life is a gift given for the blessing of many.
 
            She realises that God is not a local, tribal, or regional deity,
                        who pours goodness upon those who worship faithfully;
            but is rather the God of all people near and far,
                        and moreover a God who longs to raise up the poor and lift up the needy.
 
As Hannah puts it,
            ‘For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's,
            and on them God has set the world.’
 
Her son, of course, will be the great prophet Samuel,
            who anoints the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David.
 
But her greatest legacy was not her son,
            it was the vision of God that she articulated.
 
Hannah’s action, in defiance of religious authority,
            to make her prayer in the sanctuary
            and subsequently to dedicate Samuel to Nazirite service,
sets a powerful tone for the books of Samuel
            insofar as Samuel her son grows into a key figure in the Jewish story.
 
It will be Samuel who transitions Israel
            from the violent chaos of the period of the Judges
            to the relative stability (but still with flaws) of the monarchy under Saul and David.
 
And indeed Hannah and Samuel
            present a stark contrast as a parent/child pair
to the subsequent story of Eli and his faithless sons
            which follows in the next chapter.
 
Hannah’s prayer has often been considered a theological key
            for interpreting the books of Samuel
insofar as it introduces the themes of God bringing down the mighty (i.e. Saul)
            and raising up the lowly (i.e. David),
though the ways in which these events unfold
            are presented as complex, fraught, and full of human decisions,
            deeply flawed as they often are;
the bringing down the mighty and the raising up of those who are downtrodden
            is never a straightforward story.
 
But the theme, later echoed in the song of Mary (Luke 1:46–55),
            that God will bring down the powerful and raise up the powerless
            is not limited to the books of Samuel.
 
Rather, it can be traced throughout the whole Bible,
            including the stories of the life of Jesus and those who follow him.
 
As in Samuel, throughout the Bible God works to do this
            not by fiat, but through the messy, flawed, halting lives of human beings.
 
And so Hannah’s song echoes down the millennia,
            to the song of Mary,
who similarly proclaimed the overthrow of the dominant social order
            when she sang with joy at the imminent birth of her son Jesus.
 
Within the Christian tradition, the vision of Hannah’s song
            finds its fulfilment in the revelation of God
                        that comes into being through Mary;
            another insignificant woman
                        who dared to respond with faith.
 
And it continues to find its fulfilment in our world
            as women speak out from the truth of their experience
            to challenge oppression and highlight injustice.
 
From the courage of those
            who have told their stories as part of the #metoo movement,
to the women who have blessed our Baptist family
            through their gifts of ministry, leadership, and preaching,
            despite those voices that have tried to deny their right to do this.
 
The insights of those who have been disempowered
            by society, patriarchy, and misogyny,
can still speak truth to power
            just as Hannah’s voice three millennia ago
            revealed the bias of God towards the poor and the vulnerable.
 
This is not, however, to fetishize the voices of the abused,
            or to excuse their treatment,
as if we somehow need those who have been oppressed
            in order to hear God speak.
 
Rather, it is a recognition that when human failings
            create structural oppression,
whether on the grounds of gender,
            ethnicity, sexuality, or social status;
God is always at work with and within
            those who live with disempowerment,
and God’s nature is always
            to bring justice to those facing injustice.
 
So can we hear the gospel of Hannah?
            Can we rejoice that God raises up the poor,
                        and empowers the weak?
            And can we, with her, learn to dedicate to God
                        the deepest desires of our own hearts,
            as we catch a glimpse of God
                        as one who is above all, in all, and through all.
 
‘For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's,
            and on them God has set the world.’