John Davies: Notes from a small vicar

Like the one child who said of the emperor, But he hasn't got anything on!", today I invite you to join me in saying, Hosanna! to all who puncture the pomp of kings and rulers, to reveal the hidden truth of their sorry passing powers; Hosanna! to those who illuminate the pitiful deference of their subjects so as to open the people’s eyes to other outlooks. From Banksy's subversive Palestine Separa...

"Mary, this sensitive woman who has just poured her life’s savings on his feet and filled the room with its sweetness, squarely faces reality. She sees the forgiving victim who embodies God’s love and responds with gratitude and devotion. She fills the house with the scent of love. Let us breathe it in on this fifth Sunday of Lent and learn to breathe out its forgiving power." - a sermon written b...

Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day tend to be regarded now as more or less the same thing; though some are still aware of Mothering Sunday being an English institution with religious roots, whilst Mothers’ Day is an American holiday associated with commercialism. Both events focus on the domestic role of women, and tend to sentimentalise motherhood. Interesting then to consider the origins of the v...

In this supposedly secular age people still do talk about God intervening in the world, but it’s often in these sort of terms - God must have let this happen to those people to punish them for something they’ve done . The question is, is that really the God we know? And are these sort of questions really how God wants us to respond to news of other people’s troubles? Victim-blaming and second chan...

Jerusalem is a paradigm of our own social world. Are we happy for that city to continue being a place where different tribes set their faces against each other? And closer to home, will we persist in gathering only in our own tribes, clinging to our own dogmas, huddling behind our own flags - Christians and Muslims, Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians, vegans and meat-eaters, anti-vaxxers and pro-jabber...

The Russian artist Ivan Kramskoi captured the human Jesus, with a tired body and a ‘mind in struggle’. This Jesus may look unattractive to anyone ever tempted to take an easy path of avoidance in challenging times. But those who have embraced struggle and come through stronger may recognise this Jesus as a familiar figure and a source of strength. For he encourages us that in every small being the...

We call it The Transfiguration - and whether it was a cleverly devised myth or an extraordinary event with three disciples as eyewitnesses, The Transfiguration said so much about what the glory of God actually means. Moses and Elijah were great leaders of the people, but they were trapped in the same myth which still directs the decisions and strategies of generals and freedom-fighters and preside...

Although we live in a time and place of comfort and wealth, nevertheless somehow life seems to have got harder for so many, the troubles of life more exacting for both old and young. Whilst Covid may have hastened some of this, it was happening already. How we long to be travelling through calm waters, how we yearn for a place of peace in our life and in our world. What unites today’s two bible pa...

To what shall we compare the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is like a party in full swing, the dance floor full of people moving in tandem in time with the music, and a passer-by outside the window, looking in but unable to hear a sound, so lacking all understanding and appreciation of what is going on. Or as old Fred Nietzsche is alleged to have said, "And those who were seen dancing were tho...

Whilst it was shepherds who took a starring role in the story of his birth, and other aspects of Galilean village life worked their way into his ministry, there’s no doubt that ‘the aphorisms, parables and metaphors, anecdotes, and social network of Jesus are all heavily influenced by the Sea of Galilee and its fish, fishing, fishermen, and fishing-villages.’ (K. C. Hanson). On listening to and le...

What is the experience of people in exile - and how may they find restoration as their exile comes to an end? This is a vital question for today, for we live in a world of exiles, and I suggest, our own recent experiences through this pandemic have made exiles of us all.  Reflecting on the restoration of the exiles of Judah on the return from Babylon, and the life's work of exiled spiritual l...

The miracle at the wedding at Cana in Galilee demonstrates that when God sees people suffering scarcity his response is to renew, restore, replenish, with extraordinary generosity, loving us with just the same intensity of love that a newly-wed couple have for each other. God invites us to respond to this great love by using our resources to live generously towards others. This can sound scary, th...

Like those visitors who followed the star from the East which stopped over the place where the child was, can we make this our prayer today - that we follow the light , the light who moves the heavens, the light who shines into the darkest corners of our hostile world, the light who guides our path in changing and challenging times.... A talk and prayers for The Epiphany, (transferred to) 9 Januar...

“The Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth”. If you truly believe the word that all people are equal under God, then how do you flesh out that belief? Is it possible to apply that truth with grace ? In tribute to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who demonstrated throughout his life how this could be done, this talk asks the question how the Church of England can reconcile...

'You might consider Joseph and Mary’s trip to Bethlehem on that first Christmas as a homecoming, a family reunion. For whilst the couple lived 90 miles away in Nazareth, Joseph’s family came from Bethlehem. When the Roman governor called a census it was time to make plans to visit the folks back home.' This insight from Bob Hartman prompting a reflection on our own homecomings, at this fixed point...

Mary’s prophecy echoes through women’s music of the ages. From the mystical compositions of the 12th Century polymath Hildegard of Bingen to the rallying songs of the Suffragettes; from Billie Holiday pausing for prayer before closing her shows with Strange Fruit to the women of Greenham Common and those at #MeToo vigils uniting across the years in renditions of We Shall Overcome , this song of a...

Churches are good at hosting 'Jacob’s Joins'; elsewhere called ‘Potluck Suppers’ or ‘Faith Suppers’ or ‘Bring-and-Shares’. The thing about a 'Jacob’s Join' is that we all bring something to the table. It's a metaphor for the church. Today, an invitation to celebrate what the John the Baptists bring: the those who are given less to comfortableness and are more driven - the activists, the agitators,...

It's not the high and mighty ones like the emperor or the high priests who 'receive the word of the Lord' in scripture. It's always the outsiders, those whose ‘otherness’ ‘questions our treating our perspective as if it were God’s ’. Like the poet whose words spark fresh ways of seeing life, like the musician whose sounds provoke new sensations in us, like the lover who makes demands on us we neve...

In a world of broken promises, the sure promise of Jesus is that though the signs of the times seem dark, and we may feel the weight of the burden of them, nevertheless he is coming into the world, today , and that means that our ‘redemption is drawing near’, right now . A talk for The First Sunday of Advent, 28 November 2021. Find the text to this and all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks

Jesus never positioned himself as a king, in fact he went out of his way to avoid being seen as one. Look at the way he wriggles through Pilate’s interrogation on this subject. Although the focus of his teaching was the Kingdom of God , he was clear that meant something entirely different from the kingdoms of this world.... A talk for Christ The King, Sunday 21 November 2021. Find the text to this...

Are the agonies we are living through mark the beginning of the end for us; or can we rather see them as the end of the beginning? Are the troubles of today the birth pangs of a better world which we can shape if we engage with the struggle through them, if we act hopefully, create imaginatively, and commit to the earth and each other - all peoples together - in the spirit of those whose fight for...

God was troubled that the people of the great city of Nineveh ‘ did not know their right hand from their left’ . That they were a people - in other words - losing their way, troubled in their ease, psychically impoverished in their wealth. In our climate confusion and shame over the many inequalities and inequities of our situation, are we all Ninevites now?  If so then the Nineveh story offe...

The scenario in which  many people in the crowd had a bite to eat hidden away in the folds of their clothes or their carry bags, but didn’t cough up until after they saw the little boy made his offering and they were moved to follow suit, sharing their provisions with the people standing nearby. I like that because it’s a version of the miracle which replaces a holy conjuring trick with human...

Harvest-time permits us to be wowed by the atoms, to seek oneness with the birds, to take time to look attentively at the least of the flowers in the fields. The way of Harvest can be the way of every day. Living in this way we may find our truer place in nature... A talk for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, 10 October 2021. Find the text to this and all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.

Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Peter Thiel, Bezos are convinced that 'death is a problem that can be solved' and are investing millions into experimental age-reversing technology. Meanwhile the rest of us seek immortality by slapping on Wrinkle Repair Regenerating Cream, overworking to leave our peers and children with something memorable to put on our gravestone. We have traditionally mastered relati...