Sunday Sermon, 7 June 2026
The Second Sunday after Trinity
A reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans
For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
Romans 4.13 to end
A reading from the Gospel According to Matthew
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
[…]
While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.’ And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.’ Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well. When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, ‘Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread throughout that district.
Matthew 9. 9-13, 18-26
Whether we like it or not, the world comes to us through the radio, the television screen and the smart phone. We see the graphic images of bombed-out apartment blocks, rubble-strewn roads, displacement camps with endless rows of tents. I often think, what must it be like to suddenly have no home, or to have to pack up a few possessions and move out – fleeing to who knows where? The feelings of loss, uncertainty and fear must be overwhelming.
Abraham, in the Book of Genesis, finds himself in just such a position; not because of war or famine but because the Lord tells him to leave. This is how chapter 12 of Genesis begins: Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.’ And that is what Abram did. He packed up his tents and possessions, and taking his wife and his nephew with him, he set off on the journey. What an act of faith! What a proof of trust and confidence in the word of the Lord! God did not give him a detailed travel plan, or any indication of how long the journey would be or how easy or difficult. Abram is simply asked to go, and so he leaves behind his tribe and status, becoming vulnerable and unsettled.
Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin in the Fields, says that this might be one of the hardest spiritual lessons to learn: that faith is not about possessing the future, but trusting God enough to take the next step. I suppose we all want certainty and stability; we want our journey through life to be easy and trouble-free. But as we look at the world around us, we can see that life is precarious – we can’t foresee what is around the corner or how we will cope with it, but our trust in God will help us through the most difficult times. We can find some examples of faith in today’s gospel.
Matthew, sitting at the tax booth, could not have predicted that an itinerant preacher, Jesus, would walk up to him and say, ‘follow me’, and what is more, that he, Matthew, would do just that. I would love to know Matthew’s backstory. Was he sickened by his job of extorting taxes from the Jewish people to feed the coffers of the hated Roman Empire? Was he fed-up with being reviled as a traitor by his fellow citizens? Had he heard Jesus preaching, or maybe met him at a friend’s house, and been moved by what Jesus had said? We don’t know. All we are told is that when Jesus said, ‘follow me’, Matthew had sufficient faith to do just that.
In the same Gospel reading we have two more accounts of astonishing faith. The leader of the synagogue knows that his daughter has just died, but he is convinced that Jesus has the power to bring her back to life. Without that faith he would not have approached Jesus, and his daughter would have remained dead. Similarly, the woman who had been ill for twelve years trusted that just by touching Jesus’s cloak she would be healed, and she was.
As Abram travelled onwards, he would pitch his tent, and at various places he built an altar, to worship and invoke the name of the Lord God. He didn’t wait until he reached his destination; he built altars as he went. That regular worship sustained him as he journeyed, just as our regular worship sustains us. And isn’t that what worship is – acknowledging the presence of God, even though the way ahead is uncertain? We need to recharge our spiritual batteries both individually and with others or else we are travelling on empty. Our worship keeps us tuned-in to God and supports us as we travel onwards.
Notice that in the quote from Genesis that I read earlier, God says to Abram, ‘I will bless you … so that you will be a blessing’. The blessing is meant to flow outward into the whole world. By building altars as we go, by praying and worshipping, we in turn can be a blessing to others and contribute to the healing of the world. None of us can know what effect our prayers have, but we keep praying in hope and trust.
Pilgrimage, which was so popular in medieval times, has been making a comeback in recent years. As you will know a pilgrimage is a journey to a special of sacred place and there are now many pilgrimage routes in this country leading to places such as Canterbury, Holy Island, Iona, and many lesser-known sites. There have been several series of a TV programme called ‘Pilgrimage’ in which a group of disparate celebrities of different faiths and backgrounds set out together to walk to a particular destination. As they go, they share the triumphs and discomforts of the journey; they chat and learn about each other and, by the time they reach their goal, most of them feel that they have been changed by the experience. A pilgrimage is really a metaphor for life’s journey; we travel together, we learn from one another and we are changed by our experiences.
Abram’s pilgrimage became a journey away from possession and toward dependence; away from isolation and toward communion.
And perhaps that remains the Church’s calling too…..and each one of us as part of the Church.
To become a pilgrim people.
To travel lightly.
To carry blessing into the world.
To resist becoming obsessed with control, success, or certainty.
To remember that worship matters more than achievement.