Roger's Sermon, 5th July 2026, given by Frankie

Roger was prevented from getting to St George's by the massive wildfire between here and Perpignan. We're really grateful to Frankie for stepping in to lead the service that day.

‘Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him. Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.’ No, I haven’t accidentally switched to the wrong service. Those words are from the Book of Common Prayer’s introduction to Holy Communion. They’re a slightly different translation of a sentence from the Gospel reading today. What a lovely way to put it, ‘comfortable words’. They’re words that give comfort because they speak of something that’s at the heart of the Christian faith, about the things we do that we shouldn’t do, or the things we don’t do that we should do. In other words our sins. The comforting thing is that Jesus died for us to take away those sins, to relieve us of this dreadful burden. As Paul puts it in today’s second reading, ‘I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do’ and so on. But, as he puts it, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord for his act of grace and love: our Old Testament reading today can be seen as a prophecy about it.

Jesus dying on the Cross was a oneoff thing, but we face joys and sorrows, challenges and our burdens time and time again. I don’t need to tell you that life can be hard as well as easy. Being a Christian is like being on a journey. We’re the same people, and God’s the same too, as we progress on that journey. But we’re always having to renew our faith in Jesus as our Saviour. Just like on a long walk, things change: the scenery, the weather, the easiness or difficulty of the path, the burdens we carry, they all change constantly. Just to be different I’m going to compare the Christian life with a day walk from a village in the hills in Corsica called Quenza, a real walk that we’ve done. You might think it’s got nothing to do with our readings for today, but I think it has.

We begin our walk in a mountain village, with friendly people who say “hello” to you as you pass by. You buy bread and fruit for lunch in one of the only two shops. That’s like the support you get from all sorts of people as you begin your Christian journey with baptism – parents, godparents, friends, church members. Start to climb out of the village on a little road that borders a stream. Cross the stream on a new bridge, past a disused watermill, and you start to climb through the chestnut trees on a very steep donkey trail. It’s hard and hot work and you start to wonder why you’re doing this at all. But you’re not walking alone, you’re with a very good friend. It’s important to give each other support on the Christian journey. Then you hear a cuckoo; never heard one of those in Corsica before! Excellent! By the side of the path it looks as if wild boar have been digging for roots. The spirits lift !

Eventually you cross a forest trail and a tiny metalled road and start to climb through what they call maquis and we call garigue. It’s very like a huge wild rockery garden, with shrubs, plants and herbs, and the smells are truly delicious. That climb really was worth it; and look, now you’re out in the open with views of ten or twenty miles, of beautiful mountainous countryside, covered in maquis. You can really get to some high points of revelation in the Christian life, of wonder and joy in God’s creation. Then, suddenly, the path comes out onto a dirt road. There are a couple of houses and you can hire horses to ride. And, incongruously, here are three people riding horses, dressed in motorbike gear a bit like Hell’s Angels! They’ve ridden up here on their bikes to go horse riding, but they do look strange on horseback in their leather and ‘Harley Davidson’ stickers. It’s a good thing for Christians to have a sense of humour; Jesus himself told jokes. Then we walk down the road for a little way before striking off back into the maquis, this time going down. After half an hour or so we arrive at one of my favourite places, a clear mountain stream tumbling over rocks. We take off our packs and eat our packed lunch. It feels like the quotation we started with, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It’s a well-earned rest, with some of the wonders of the journey over but much more to look forward to.

Rest is important in the Christian life, time for quiet contemplation, just to ponder the journey so far and anticipate the good things God has in store for us in the journey to come. We climb out of the valley after lunch. Which way do we go now? On a walk like this you’re constantly making choices about which way to go. But there are little signs if you know where to look for them, just like making the right choices in life. That path over there might look really interesting, but it’s the wrong one! It’s a hot and exposed part of the walk now, quite hard and there’s not much to see close at hand, but the views are always tremendous. Sometimes our Christian life is like that, when things don’t seem too exciting, when God is seen as far off. But that’s only because we’ve stopped noticing him. Eventually we reach quite a large village, where we don’t see many people. It can be lonely sometimes being a Christian, even when there are people around. After that village we get to another river, where we walk on a path alongside it for a while; it’s easy walking and very pleasant there. It’s like that sometimes, when everything is going well and you feel really close to God. Then it’s quite a hard slog back to the starting village, uphill. By the side of the path are more wild flowers, rockroses, gorse, broom and lavender. They lighten the journey, as does the friendly donkey in a paddock when you’re nearly back at the village.

​So there we are, back where we started from, a whole day’s walk, like a whole life lived as a Christian. There are ups and downs, hard bits, easy bits, times when you feel great about the journey, times when you wish you were lazing somewhere on a beach. But the hard work is all worth it. You’ve seen wonderful things and enjoyed the journey; “God is gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.” At the end of the journey is a cool drink in a pleasant garden. “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.