Sermons

Are you somebody who is motivated by a carrot or a stick? If you're faced with a choice, are you more motivated to make the right choice by the appeal of the right one, or the fear of what may go wrong if you take the wrong choice?

At work, what incentivises you to put in that little bit of extra effort? Is it the idea that you might be noticed and so rewarded, or the fear that your career could be harmed if you just work to rule?

How about with Jesus? Is his appeal one of carrot or stick?

Well, school reports are not what they used to be. In the old days, you used to get a little paragraph of text from each teacher, describing personalised words as to how each child is doing. In the modern day and age, you just get categories: you're either doing better, worse, or as expected — and not a lot more feedback than that.

Well, I'd like to introduce you to myself, aged 10 years and 2 months, and I've just completed the Easter term at school. I was in class 4G. Okay, here is French:

Why don't you come with me? We love a warm invitation to join in something special. Come with me to the concert at the open-air theatre. Come with me on our holiday. Maybe even, for some of you, the reason you're here this morning in church is because someone who comes here regularly said to you, "I'm going to church on Sunday – come with me."

Being insecure is a terrible thing, and there is a lot of insecurity around today. People are insecure in their relationships: this relationship that I'm in, how long will it last? Does the person I love and I'm invested in love me, and will they continue to do so, or are things somehow a little fragile?

It helps to get some feedback that your actions in life are having the desired effect. When you order something online, you get a message on the screen that says, "Thank you for your order," and within two minutes an email arrives in your inbox to tell you that your order has been received.

We haven't had one for a while, but I do love watching a royal wedding. When you have a royal wedding, usually you have one member of the royal family marrying somebody else who is also rich and famous—possibly a member of a royal family of another country, or just somebody with substantially good upbringing.

Part of the reason why it's fun to watch a royal wedding is that it is not about you. You are watching how the other half live, and you are watching a ceremony that you know would never be yours. But there's something magical about it.

Have you ever missed out on something that you were really looking forward to happening? I think back to when we were coming out of the various Covid lockdowns and where you were allowed to meet up with friends and family from all over the country, provided everybody was in a perfect state of health, and I can think of more than one occasion when we had something planned to meet up with various branches of the extended family, and then at the last minute someone had some symptoms or a test and we were not able to go to whatever it was that the rest of the family would be gathering at.

Can you think of the last time you felt homesick? I imagine most people in this room have known that experience at some time or another—whether it was your first time spending a night away from your home, or if you had to spend an extended period of time away for some reason.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have done something that has left a bad impression on somebody else, and then later you needed the help of that same person, and you had to go back with your tail between your legs to ask for help, knowing they will remember? I asked our young people before the service if they had any recall of this, and there were quite a few nods around the room, and quite a few hands went up when I asked if anybody had a story along those lines they would like to share. Well, these were stories people preferred to keep quiet. It's embarrassing.

When you apply for a job, as I did years ago before coming here, one of the questions they ask you is to list your hobbies and interests. Here's what I put. I can’t remember if it's on the application form for this job or not: the best quality coffee in the world, hiking and running, the books of John Le Carré, and the films of Laurel and Hardy.