From Rev’d Caroline – carolinesymcox@googlemail.com, 01285 712467
Readings for Sunday: Daniel 7.1-3, 15-18; Ephesians 1.11-end; Luke 6.20-31
To hear Caroline’s sermon click on the arrow below.
The following is taken from the Parish Newsletter for Sunday 2nd November 2025.
This Sunday we enter into our November season of remembering, through the special services of All Saints’ (1st November) and All Souls’ (2nd November). The distinction between the two is a fine one, made sharper for us because we’re celebrating them both on the same day; All Saints’ at the 10am, and All Souls’ at our annual Remembering Service at 3pm. At All Saints’ we are celebrating the faithful following of Jesus, and bringing to the forefront of our minds that promise that Jesus gives us – that through that faith we will have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the gift of eternal life. All Souls’ is a more personal, pensive service – we allow ourselves to slow and remember those closer to us, and our celebration of faithful lives is coloured by our own close-held grief. Sorrow and celebration mix at All Souls’.
But in both these ways of remembering we hold before us the promise and call of our Lord Jesus. The promise is a great one, the greatest one, indeed – the pearl beyond price. We are promised that through our faithful following of Jesus, death is no longer something to fear. His resurrection will be ours, and we will have a place at his side in his eternal kingdom.
The call – well that is harder. Because Jesus shows us clearly just how difficult that faithful following might be. As we follow him we are not protected from the dangers of this world – we should expect hunger and tears; and the painful experience of being hated, excluded, reviled and defamed. Our faithfulness – lived out in our strivings to love, to do good, to bless and to pray even and especially for those who hate us – will be misjudged and misunderstood, time and time again. But even in the middle of that we can be, and are, happy – knowing the final joyful end that we move towards.
Those who walk this hard path, well, they are the Saints, hoi hagioi as St Paul calls them in Greek, and they are we. We stand in the middle of a truly great ‘cloud of witnesses’ – 2,000 years of lives lived for Jesus. Some are great and obvious, saints whose names we still hold despite all the time that has passed. Some are small and simple. All are precious, and all are saints – called, blessed and sent into a world that can be truly unwelcoming. Their call is ours. Their promise is ours. Their blessing is ours.
And Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, well that is for us too. May it encourage and ring in your heart through this week:
“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” (Eph 1.17-19)
The road isn’t easy, but then, what thing of true value ever is?
Rev’d Caroline
Updated 3rd November 2025