• “God swipes right” – a sermon for Lent 4, 2026

    In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

    From time to time, every couple of years or so, someone decides that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good cathedral, must be in want of a man.

    Now, I am not in principle opposed to this idea. Though the practicalities of making such a thing happen have always eluded me.

    “Ah” they say with some enthusiasm, “what apps are you on?” And they proceed to list a bewildering number of apps that I could download onto my phone in order to seal the deal.

    I am not on any apps, I explain. I’ve never been convinced that they would work for me.

    “Oh no!” they cry, “you need to be on an app. That’s how it works for everyone these days, even people like you.”

    Reader, I have never been brave enough to enquire what, “people like you” actually means.

    But we go through the whole pantomime again. They show me some app on their phone and get me to download one to mine. “Put a smile on your face” they say as they take my picture. A few dozen intrusive questions later and lo and behold, it is serving me up other people’s profiles.

    And I look. And I am encouraged to swipe. Right for any possibles. Left for any impossibles.

    And it tends to be left, left, left, left. And then I get fed up and very quickly delete the app and proclaim this will never work for me.

    I heard an interesting statistic recently – it was that someone had measured one of the apps and the

    average time that people took to reject someone was 3.2 seconds. On the other hand, if they were interested in someone they tended to linger for about two and a half minutes thinking about it before swiping right.

    Let us turn our thoughts to our first reading this morning. Where we find the Lord our God in an interesting mood.

    Saul the king has died. In the end, the project of making him the King of Israel hadn’t ended well. Samuel the prophet grieves the way it all ended, no doubt carrying the despair of the people with him.

    Come on says the Lord. Put a smile on your face and let’s be going. You need to find a new man. A new man to anoint as King. And off they go to the home of Jesse the Bethlehemite to assess the possibilities.

    And I’ve always thought that this passage is one of those in the bible that has inherent comedy written right into it. The whole process is genuinely funny.

    Along comes the first candidate. He’s a maybe thinks Samuel but the Lord has better ideas. No, swipe left on that one he says. He’s not the one.

    We’re looking for someone who is lovely on the inside remember, not just someone who looks good.

    And along comes another son. No, says the Lord. I don’t fancy this one’s chances. And tells to swipe left and dismiss him.

    And so it goes on. One after another, a parade of possibilities. But none cut the mustard.

    But there’s just one left. The youngest. Who just happens to be ruddy and handsome and has beautiful eyes.

    Hey ho, says the Lord and lingers, I’m sure of it for 2.5 minutes before telling Samuel that this one, this must be the one. And the choice is made.

    What are the qualities that we look for in someone, either as a partner or as a leader.

    It seems to me that that question of what we are looking for in our leaders is central to a series of overlapping crises that beset our modern life.

    For what it is worth, I think we are capable of getting into incredible muddles when trying to choose religious leaders. But the kind of person and the kind of leadership we want in our common political life is simply something we no longer agree on.

    I want someone with integrity, who tells the truth and who looks out for those who need to be looked out for. I want leaders who hear the call of peace more clearly than the siren voices who cry out for war and vengeance. I want those who govern and guide to be wise, knowledgeable and in it for the common good and not individual gain.

    In both politics and religion I have met many such people. But I have come to the reluctant conclusion that those values are less shared universally than they have ever been in my lifetime.

    And this is partly what has led us into a world where oligarchs and autocrats (religious and secular) hold sway. And war seems an inevitable consequence of broken systems and human greed.

    As it happens, I am not a pacifist. I think that some things are worth fighting for. However, it is probably worth saying publicly that the most prominent war we hear of in these days seems to have neither legal basis nor any moral justification. It is war for war’s sake. A tool of chaos where no-one knows the long term consequences.

    Those of us who life in democracies who wish for something different have much to think about and much of it will bring us no comfort.

    Peace, it seems, must be built.

    Decency must be argued for and cannot be assumed.

    And I want leaders who talk about the wellbeing of all rather than the enrichment of the few.

    I come to those views from a religious perspective. But I think I have common cause with many others.

    My faith gives me hope in a time where hope seems scarce.

    My faith gives me hope because my conviction is very deep that God cares not only for the few, nor even for the many but for all.

    Notwithstanding the comic story that we read of God (through a strangely confident Samuel) rejecting one person after another until he got to the most handsome one… notwithstanding the exitance of that story. I believe without any doubt at all that everyone is included in the love of God, everyone deserves the

    peace of God and everyone should expect nothing less than all the blessings of God.

    For God swipes right on everyone. God choses each of us.

    Whatever our profile looks like.

    In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

53 responses to “Fencing the Table”

  1. Brother David Avatar
    Brother David

    “The church is radically inclusive and baptism is the means by which people are included. Communion is the celebration of that inclusion, not its means.”
    The Revd Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG

    Tobias said it better than I can, but this is what I believe. An understanding of the theology of baptism lends to then understanding the theology of the eucharist. To offer eucharist prior to baptism is to enter into the celebration of what has not yet occurred, mainly, having become the body of Christ.

  2. Paul Barlow Avatar

    On the one hand I agree with Brother David, that is a norm which has its roots in Christian tradition. But life is messy and God is generous. I would rather people came to the Table because they felt drawn, than stayed away because they weren’t sure whether they belonged. Having come from a situation where the question of Holy Communion before confirmation wasn’t able to be resolved I nearly wept on my first Sunday here when two youngsters held out their hands for the host. We are about to start using a new service booklet and I have borrowed a phrase from our diocesan cathedral: “Wherever you have come from you are welcome at the Lord’s Table.”
    None of us might deserve grace, but we all need it.

  3. Eric Stoddart Avatar
    Eric Stoddart

    I assume there’s just one Eucharist in which we all participate across time and space. That means there are all sorts of people having rreceived / receiving / will receive Christ, many of whom would never believe that we today are even Christians. Goodness knows who’ll be receiving Him and where in a thousand year’s time. It means that any concept of unity can’t be defined in culturally specific terms but solely in Him.
    On those grounds, we welcome all. Many of us would have been excluded 500 years ago. I don’t want to exclude someone today from a category who 500 years from now will be looking back in despair at our exclusivity in 2012. Substitute whatever length of time you want and it remains salutary.
    If the Church is still celebrating Eucharist in 5 million years who knows what evolution will have brought to sentience and communion. But that’s another issue altogether.

  4. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    I am interested in Andrew’s comment that because there is nothing inherently different in the bread and wine, understanding is needed to transform it. It does make sense from that perspective, though I guess I then ask myself what harm can be done by those who have no belief taking Wharburtons and Madeira. But you see, I believe that there is something special, very special, about the bread and wine, and I trust the Lord who graciously got himself in there, to exercise good sense and good discretion in the ways he most appropriately leaves – though given the prodigal way he lived, there is always the fear he may be just as reckless today.

    The concerns I have are over the importance of somehow and somewhere communicating to people that actually following that Lord will take all you can offer – but then I turn round and think that none of us knows that at the start, and it takes us a lifetime to grow into the knowledge, and that if I do not really know it after – oh, 45 years – how the heck do I expect any baptismal candidate to know it either. All we can do is model the call.

  5. Marion Avatar
    Marion

    I went over to the Iona with my school to the youth camp for a week. At the service on the Sunday, we all took Communion. The wine was given first, then we were all given a piece of bread and told to go and find someone we didn’t know and to break that bread with them.

    From what I’ve been studying, the early Orthodox Christians were not baptised until just before they died. So they would have taken Communion without Baptism.

  6. Robert McLean Avatar
    Robert McLean

    Could anyone who supports the ‘open table’ view please explain what meaning they attach to Baptism.

    1. kelvin Avatar

      Sure thing, Robert.

      How about this prayer that we use in Scotland over the water of baptism. I think it sums it up rather well. (Though it was once dismissed by “more of that Scotch mist liturgy” by and English priest that I was very fond of.

      Holy God, well-spring of life,
      in your love and justice,
      you use the gift of water to declare your saving power.
      In the beginning your Spirit moved over the face of the waters.
      By the gentle dew, the steady rain,
      you nourish and give increase to all that grows;
      you make the desert a watered garden.
      You command the wildness of the waves;
      when the storm rages you calm our fear;
      in the stillness you lead us to a deeper faith.
      In the life-giving rivers and the rainbow
      Israel discerned your mercy.
      You divided the Red Sea
      to let them pass from slavery in Egypt
      to freedom in the Promised Land.
      In the waters of Jordan
      penitents found forgiveness in the baptism of John.
      There, Jesus your beloved child
      was anointed with the Holy Spirit,
      that he might bring us
      to the glorious liberty of the children of God.
      Send upon this water and upon your people [or upon N.)
      your holy, life-giving Spirit.
      All Bring those who are baptised in this water
      with Christ through the waters of death,
      to be one with him in his resurrection.
      Sustain your people by your Spirit
      to be hope and strength to the world.
      Through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
      to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
      be honour and glory, now and for ever.
      All Amen.

      [Note, no mention of communion].

      1. MadPriest Avatar

        In the gospels, baptism is linked firmly to repentance – it is the washing away of sin. It is not an initiation ceremony and conferred no special status in the Jewish religion on those baptised. Those baptised would mostly have been life-long members of the Jewish religion before their baptism. It wasn’t until after Christ’s ascension that gentiles started to be baptised. Jesus did not mention the need to repent before remembering him let alone the need to be baptised.

        If we restrict sharing the communion until after baptism or confirmation we restrict the power of the communion experience to lead people to repentance. So, perhaps we are putting the cart before the horse when we do so.

      2. Robert McLean Avatar
        Robert McLean

        No mention of communion noted, though in context of the SEC Canons someone mentioned earlier somewhere, it seems it isn’t necessary as Baptism then Communion is regarded as normal.

        Very nice prayer, I reckon.

  7. Brother David Avatar
    Brother David

    The oldest writings that we have concerning both baptism and eucharist are from Paul, perhaps as soon as 25 years following Jesus’ ministry. Paul links both to the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul links baptism with repentance and as an initiation into the realm of God. Paul emphasizes only partaking of eucharist in a worthy manner and only after repentance, so as not to bring damnation upon oneself by partaking unworthily.

    The earliest Christian writings regarding both after Paul are by the second century where it is clear that for the 2nd century church baptism precedes eucharist. I will remain part of the church that emphasizes this tradition that we have received from those earliest spiritual ancestors.

    1. MadPriest Avatar

      But that’s a repeated repentance, not baptismal repentance. Unless you are saying that you haven’t sinned once since you were christened or that we should be rebaptised before every communion. You’re joining the dots in Paul to create the picture that fits best with your view of tradition. Best just to say such and such is what you like and leave God out of it. There’s nothing wrong with preferring a particular way of doing things but justifying your own preferences in such a didactic fashion is a bit dodgy.

      1. Brother David Avatar
        Brother David

        I don’t believe that its dodgy to point out that Paul emphasized repentance as a major part of both rituals. No, nowhere does a writing of Paul state emphatically that baptism precedes eucharist and I don’t believe that I have inferred that such a dictum exists. But from Paul one understands that for him and the communities that he ministered with, baptism was the gateway into the body of Christ and eucharist was the sustenance of the body of Christ. By baptism one participated in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and became reborn and a member of the spiritual body of Christ on the earth. That by partaking of the meal, for the body of Christ, one was still partaking of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. To me, its logical that one be a member of the body of Christ before one participates in the meal of that body and we find that that is exactly what the church is teaching in the 2nd century, in the oldest writings still available to us.

        1. kelvin Avatar

          I think those I baptise belong to Christ long before I get my hands on them.

      2. Brother David Avatar
        Brother David

        If that were truly the case, why baptize them?

        1. kelvin Avatar

          Because Jesus told us to.

          “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

  8. MadPriest Avatar

    Jesus didn’t found the church. Therefore “the baptism of Christ” wasn’t originally intended as a gateway to the church, it was a rite of repentance. Like the eucharist is a visible sign of an idea. We can add stuff to that idea if we want to, but we can’t claim any authority to do so other than our own.

  9. Grandmère Mimi Avatar

    Of what sins are infants cleansed at baptism? Original sin? Then tell me what original sin means. As a child (oh so very long ago!), I was taught it was the sin of Adam and Eve that we all inherit, but that story is no longer credible.

    What Kelvin says.

    “I think those I baptise belong to Christ long before I get my hands on them.”

  10. Robert McLean Avatar
    Robert McLean

    @MadPriest: Whilst it may be true that Brother David is “joining the dots in Paul to create the picture that fits best with [his] view of tradition”, isn’t it fair to say that this is what the Anglican Church has done – till now at least, and though it isn’t the only way to regard Baptism and its relationship to the Eucharist, it is the Anglican way to regard it.

    To me it parallels the Anglican understanding of who may celebrate a Eucharist. Theologically I think it is fair to say that all Christians believe that none of us is worthy to celebrate the Eucharist, yet in obedience to Christ’s command we have come up with different understandings so that the Eucharist can be celebrated. For example, Anglicans believe that only those in priest’s orders can preside, whereas other denominations have found other answers to that. Though we all have the same theology we have different ideological solutions.

    So I think that this is a matter of Church order. And, as it stands, isn’t it fair to say that the Anglican view is one of Baptism first?

    1. MadPriest Avatar

      That’s what I’ve been saying all along. It is our choice.

      1. Robert McLean Avatar
        Robert McLean

        @MadPriest: If by ‘our choice’ you mean ‘our Church’s choice’ then I agree with you. As a loyal Anglican I feel I ought to support what the Church has decided. Otherwise I might as well be a Congregationalist. That’s why, despite being a catholicly-minded Anglican I have no time for the type of Anglo-catholic who carries on about the ordination of women to the priesthood or the episcopate. One cannot talk, as the catholics do, about the authority of the Church then ignore it and still claim to be Anglican, or indeed catholic, imho.

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