Have you ever had a love bite?! No, I’m not talking about the hickey variety…

Below is last Sunday’s sermon from St Mark’s Battersea Rise as part of their series ‘Love Justice’. After so long in lockdown, it was lovely to be back preaching in the flesh. Have a listen, it’s challenging stuff:

Here are some quotes that I shared:

Anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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Edmund Burke: “All that it takes for evil to prosper is for good people to do nothing.”

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The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp: “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak out because I was not a labor leader.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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A harried vicar was too busy to help a homeless lady needing help. He fobbed her off with a promise to pray for her. She subsequently wrote the following poem and gave it to a local Shelter officer:

“I was hungry,
And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.
I was imprisoned,
And you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.
I was naked,
And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick,
And you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless,
And you preached a sermon on the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely,
And you left me alone to pray for me.
You seem so holy, so close to God
But I am still very hungry – and lonely – and cold.”

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Food for thought…

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