Month: March 2026

Ezekiel 37.1-14, John 11.1-45

The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 22 March 2026, Austwick, Clapham

Our two remarkable readings today are resurrection stories. They help us to anticipate our Easter celebrations, by prefiguring the resurrection of Jesus himself.

“Can these bones live?” is a question which never goes away.  Can God breathe new life into a devastated people? Ezekiel’s people were the Israelites who had been deported to Babylon in the year 597BC. That year the Babylonians took Israel’s land, which had been God’s gift to them; they smashed Israel’s temple, the sign of God’s presence with them; and they exiled Israel’s king, Zedekiah, and executed his sons, ending the monarchy which traced its line all the way back to David, and trashing the promise that there would always be a king of his line on Israel’s throne. 

‘The fall and destruction of Jerusalem was a catastrophe for Israel’, a sort of communal death, for they found themselves bereft of all which had defined them and sustained them; they were a people whose bones had dried up. Ezekiel envisioned the wilderness his people were in, and yearned, with them, for the dry bones to live again. [2]

I know that you can picture in your mind’s eye places in our world today similarly devastated and displaced by war, their people desperate for peace and security, yearning to rebuild their lives. As we stand witness to the valley of dry bones which is Gaza, as we lament the loss of over 180 children killed in the merciless bombing of their primary school in Minab, Iran, and we say, “Can these bones live?” it is an anguished prayer; it is a cry for help to a God we’re not sure is even there. For how can a loving God allow such suffering? 

Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” We know how she felt; if God had been present then surely we would have avoided this suffering. Where is God when we most need him? Where is God when it hurts?

†

The remarkable thing about the question “Can these bones live?” is that it’s not a question which Ezekiel asked God. It’s a question which God asked Ezekiel. Surveying the scene of dereliction and loss in the valley of dry bones, it is God who gives voice to the question which is in Ezekiel’s heart. “Can these bones live?”

This is the great revelation in this story: that God has not been absent after all – God has been there all along. God has seen the people’s loss, God has heard their cries and felt their pain, and God is longing to help them, just as they are longing to be helped. 

All God needs is for Ezekiel to respond to this question, and he can then set in motion the events which will help, heal, restore, resurrect, the dry bones before them. Ezekiel seems a little lost for words at this point, maybe a little lost for faith, but eventually a brief and halting speech emerges from his mouth. 

He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’

And with that brief exchange God began to breathe new life into the bones before them. Ezekiel’s meagre and tentative expression of faith was sufficient for God to use him as the agent of this astonishing transformation. 

God chose Ezekiel, an exile lamenting his people’s demise, a man who had just about enough faith to recognise that, if anyone could breathe new life into them and restore them, the Spirit of God was the one who could do it. 

God choosing Ezekiel was like God choosing Martha and Mary to trigger the course of events which led to Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Grieving their brother’s sudden death you could imagine them being consumed by the question, “Can these bones live?” The sisters told Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died.” 

And hearing their cries, feeling their pain, and responding tearfully to their loss, Jesus brought their brother back from the dead. At his command the Spirit moved. Breath re-entered his body. The bones of Lazarus took flesh, breathed, rose, and walked again. 

These resurrection stories teach us the wondrous lesson that in situations of devastating loss and despair God is there – crying for us and with us; that indeed God is the first to give voice to our suffering and is ready, willing us to initiate our renewal. If we respond by placing our faith in him, our very trust releases his Spirit to revive, resurrect, and restore. 

This photograph of Gaza portrays a street which looks like a valley of dry bones – a devastated terrain, in which we know, beneath the rubble, lie the lost but unforgotten dead. But it is also a picture of hope: for here are friends, families and neighbours walking together, carrying with them the possessions that they’ve recovered to help them begin to rebuild their lives. In that place, the Spirit is moving. Breath is re-entering these people’s bodies. Injured, yes, and troubled, yet they move forward together in hope.

To Martha and Mary, God healed the hurt in their hearts at the loss of their loved one, and secured a new beginning for them and Lazarus their kin. To anyone bereaved, whose heart is so hurting, just now, that they cannot see a future for themselves, what a hopeful message this is, that there is a life ahead for them to reach towards.

To Ezekiel, God offered an astonishing vision of the restoration of a whole society. To the faithless, broken, angry, hungry, homeless  peoples of our day, what a powerful message this is: that unity and community is still possible for them, and will come, through the loving actions of those who come together to make it happen.

From Martha and Mary to all the bereaved; from the Israelites in exile to all of today’s uprooted peoples, this is God’s promise, pregnant with hope:  ‘O my people. I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live … then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.’

We close with a chant from the Taizé Community which echoes back to us the words Jesus spoke to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

I am sure I shall see the goodness of the Lord 

in the land of the living.

Yes, I shall see the goodness of our God, 

hold firm, trust in the  Lord. [3] 

Notes 

[1] Drawing from my earlier sermons Can these bones live? God’s pregnant promise preached in Austwick, Clapham, Keasden, 2023, Can these bones live? Devon, 2011, and Ezekiel: voice of the exile, Croxteth, 2008

[2] Charles R. Biggs, Book of Ezekiel; Epworth Commentary, xii.

[3] Taizé Community, ‘I am sure I shall see the goodness of the Lord’. From the collection Christe Lux Mundi ℗ Ateliers et Presses de Taizé, 2020.

[4] Gaza, 2025. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

1 Samuel 1.20-28, John 19.25-27

Mothering Sunday, 15 March 2026, Austwick

On Mothering Sunday let us celebrate the life and work of Mary Sumner, the founder of the Mothers’ Union. [2]

Born in 1828, Mary was the daughter of Thomas Haywood, who with his brothers was a partner in the family business, Haywood’s, the Manchester Bank, and a keen antiquarian, founder of The Chetham Society, one of Britain’s earliest-established antiquarian and historical societies. [3]

Like so many businesses of the era, the Haywoods profited from their involvement in the slave trade, but Mary married into the family of the leading slave trade abolitionist William Wilberforce. It was whilst she was travelling in Rome with her mother and sister to complete her musical education, that Mary met her future husband George Sumner. George was an Anglican cleric, who in 1851 received the living of Old Alresford, Hampshire. There, besides raising her three children, Mary also provided music classes and Bible classes for the parishioners. [4] 

Then, in 1876, Mary formed a group to support mothers from all backgrounds in bringing up their children. Delivering a speech in 1885 to the Portsmouth Church Congress, she inspired many women present to go back to their parishes and set up similar groups. 

Mary wanted to create an organisation for women which brought together rich and poor to build a network supporting mothers as they brought up their children in the Christian faith. In her Portsmouth speech Mary Sumner said, ‘Those that rock the cradle rule the world’. She was quoting the William Ross Wallace poem The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is the Hand that Rules the World. These were radical, provocative words then, as they still are today. Mary’s speech was a rallying cry to raise the value of motherhood and for it to be considered as important, if not more so, as the roles of men. [5]

Over time, the groups that met as Mothers’ Union became embedded in their communities, forging strong links with local people and the Anglican Church. They worked to support one another and give a voice to disadvantaged women while addressing wider issues in society. Driven by Mary Sumner’s passion for the role of women in bringing about a better society, the groups proved very popular. 

By 1892, membership had reached 60,000 in 28 dioceses, which was to grow to 169,000 members by the turn of the century. By 1909 The Mothers’ Union had become Britain’s largest voluntary organisation for women, and had also opened many branches overseas.

‘Supporting mothers’ meant The Mothers’ Union campaigning for issues, over the years, such as raising the minimum legal age for marriage, lobbying for post-war houses to include gas and electric appliances and dining kitchens, changing the law to allow Family Allowance to be paid directly to mothers as opposed to men, raising the Widows Allowance earnings limit, and allowing flexible working arrangements for all parents.

The Mothers’ Union has also been involved in international movements for justice for the world’s poorest, such as Make Poverty History and the Jubilee Debt Campaign. 

Today The Mothers’ Union describes itself a “a diverse and inclusive community present in approximately 84 countries around the world, working together for a future where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Our members are not all mothers, or even all women – they are female and male, single and married, parents and grandparents, young adults expressing social conscience and older adults volunteering in their local community.  Mothers’ Union provides a network through which they can serve Christ in their community, through prayer, financial support, and actively working in programmes and projects that meet local needs.” [6]

In rural Rwanda, teenage mothers face heartbreaking challenges. Poverty, hardship and violence in the home can drive girls to seek comfort from unsafe places before they fully understand the risks. Some become pregnant through coercion or abuse. And when that happens, too often their families turn them away, leaving them isolated, stigmatised, and struggling to survive. The Mothers’ Union is helping families in Rwanda to support their daughters to find new confidence and purpose through faith and fellowship. 

One of these daughters is a young woman we’ll call Grace. When Grace became pregnant at 15, her parents rejected her. She had to leave home and school, with no income, no health insurance, and nowhere to go. For months she lived in fear, trying to care for her baby alone. Then she met a woman from a Mothers’ Union ‘Umuryango’ (or ‘Family’) group. This woman prayed with her, helped her find shelter, and welcomed her into their local ‘Umuryango’ support programme. Through that connection, Grace received guidance, faith-based counselling, and practical help. 

Thanks to the business skills she’s learned and the support she’s received, Grace now feeds and clothes her child, and she helps other young mothers in a similar position. Now reconciled with her parents, her younger sister sees Grace as a strong role model. [7]

Meanwhile here in the UK the Mothers’ Union continues its work by providing holidays for low-income families; running programmes to raise awareness of domestic abuse and to support survivors; campaigning around modern slavery; supporting womn in neonatal care; and helping families to keep in contact with a loved one in prison, among many other things.

It has been a long journey from the desk of a dusty old Victorian vicarage to a Rwandan ‘Umuryango’ group. Mary Summer’s legacy is very much alive 150 years after she began this work.

The work of mothering is never over: and it’s something which – regardless of our gender, marital or any other status – we can all give thanks for, support, and embody.

Notes

[1] See also my Dressed for action: Mary Sumner. Whitegate, Little Budworth, 2013

[1] Wikipedia: Mary Sumner

[2] Wikipedia: Thomas Heywood 

[4] Wikipedia: George Henry Sumner

[5] Mandy Bayton, Child-free by choice: Why it can be something to celebrate. Christian Today, 24 September, 2018.

[6] The Mothers’ Union: Our History / Our Vision and Mission.

[7] The Mothers’ Union: Make a Mother’s Day 2006: Grace’s Story.

Exodus 17.1-7, John 4.5-30, 39

8 March 2026, The Third Sunday of Lent, Austwick, Keasden

Jesus’ disciples were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one asked him, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ By then, they knew him better than to do that. They’d come to expect the unexpected from Jesus; they understood they could always learn something from his unconventional actions.

And we understand too, that sometimes it is better to suspend our judgement of a person or a situation, to allow time to reflect on who they really are or what is really happening. Things can look so different after a thoughtful pause.

Take this Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. Over the years she has been often maligned, unfairly judged, by people picking up on her having had five husbands, and now being with her sixth partner. People have quickly assumed that that meant she was a woman of what might be called loose morals, quite likely a serial adulterer. Innumerable sermons have been preached on the assumption that she lived a so-called ‘immoral lifestyle’. 

But let us pause a moment, as Jesus did for many moments at the well, to give this woman a little more careful consideration; after which we might just find compassion to be the better response than condemnation.

Let’s ask ourselves, why would a woman have had five husbands? What many reasons might there have been for this woman’s life to have taken so many twists and turns? and what effect would all of this turmoil have had on her? 

Let’s remember that this was a patriarchal society where a woman had few legal rights. Her identity was subsumed under that of a man: first her father and then her husband. A girl could be engaged in childhood to be married to a man she’d never seen. She could be divorced without her consent, and for practically no reason. Of course, a man could divorce his wife if she had been unfaithful; but he could also dismiss her on the grounds of immorality if she spoiled his dinner, went out with her hair loose or spoke to men in the streets. Divorce was also permitted if she spoke disrespectfully of his parents, or if the neighbours heard her shouting. One rabbi ruled that a man could divorce his wife simply if he found another woman whom he liked better! [1]

But once married a woman could never divorce her husband. However much she might have wanted to, she had no legal power herself to bring the marriage to an end. Moreover, a woman without a husband was vulnerable to a lack of support, thrown onto the mercy of family or neighbours.

There’s nothing in Luke’s gospel account to suggest that this Samaritan woman was a serial adulterer. So what might have happened in her life, and to what effect?

I’ve imagined this scenario: her first marriage, aged fourteen, was arranged; after her first child was stillborn, and then her second, her husband divorced her and a distant cousin took her as his wife. With this good man she had a daughter; but he fell on hard times and left to take work on the ships trading across the Mediterranean. In due course, news came that he’d divorced her, having settled down with another woman in a distant port. 

Her third husband she would always think of as ‘the one’; his wholehearted love for her she reciprocated; they spent their best years together, but he lost his life in an accident on a construction site and the grief she felt stayed with her always. Her late husband’s brother took her as his wife, but he mistreated her, beat her, and eventually abandoned her. A family friend became her fifth husband. It was a marriage of compassion and convenience; he was in poor health when they married, and he died only months later, leaving her once again bereft.

Now, this version of the woman’s story is pure speculation of course, but if we stop to reflect on her life, whatever the specific twists and turns it may have taken, it’s clear that she’d had a lifetime of love and loss, layers upon layers of grief upon grief, and she’d developed a raging thirst for someone or something to give her stability and security.

The Samaritan woman came to the well as always for water; but she warmed immediately to Jesus with his talk of ‘the gift of God’ which was available to her; when he offered her this ‘living water’ she said, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty [again].’

In Jesus this woman found healing. In the midst of a life battered and bruised by circumstance, in Jesus she found a source of peace. 

‘He told me everything I have ever done!’ she exclaimed – for this man had taken time to listen to her story, to come to know her fully, to understand her entirely, to accept her as she was. No wonder she was so transformed that day. No wonder that her story made such an impression on those who heard it; for surely everyone else in the city of Sychar will have had just the same desires and longings as she did. [2]

How they would relate to this woman’s story, and we also relate: for we all share that deep desire to be known, listened to and understood. We all thirst to be accepted and to be loved. 

This is one of the many Bible stories where women are the central characters. Women who discover that in a world where they are usually suppressed by men, God gives them agency. Women who, finding themselves accepted and loved by God, are empowered to be all that they were created to be. 

What a wonderful message this is for today, where around the world countless women are struggling for the right to live free from violence and discrimination, and striving against many obstacles to live the best possible life. 

Jesus’ disciples were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one asked him, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’

By then, they knew him better than to do that. They’d come to expect the unexpected from Jesus; they understood they could always learn something from his unconventional actions.

Things can look so different after a thoughtful pause.

Notes

[1] Elaine Storkey, This is what Jesus said about marriage and divorce. Woman Alive, 3 February 2025.

[2] Drawn from my previous talks, A woman’s world: is this the inspiration she is seeking?, Austwick, Keasden, 2023; “He told me everything I have ever done!”: on being accepted, Somerset, 2017, which is a rewrite of Paul J. Nuechterlein, A Shocking Revelation, 1999, and my version of that, He told me everything I have ever done! Devon, 2011.