Tag Archives: oxford

Lamenting suffering while following Jesus

Posted on by symonhill

On Sunday 4th October this year, I had the honour of preaching at St Columba’s United Reformed Church in Oxford. This was the Sunday after the horrific anti-Semitic stabbings at a synagogue in Manchester. Below is the text of my sermon. I am sorry not to have posted it sooner.

To be clear: this is basically the text I wrote beforehand but in practice I deviated from the wording a fair bit and added in a few extra comments. However, the substance is the same. You can watch the service online on St Columba’s URC’s YouTube channel.

The sermon followed three Bible readings:

If you ask people to choose their favourite books in the Bible, I doubt that Lamentations would feature in many people’s answers. But it seems particularly appropriate given some of the horrific things that we have seen in the news this week.

The passage that was read to us earlier was actually part of Lamentations Chapter 1 and part of Lamentations Chapter 3. I dare say the people who compiled the Lectionary didn’t want us to hear Chapter 1 on its own. That’s not surprising. The content of Lamentations can be roughly summed up as follows:

Chapter 1: Everything’s dreadful.
Chapter 2: Everything’s still dreadful.
Chapter 3: Yes, everything’s still dreadful. But there are, possibly, some glimmers of hope.

And so it goes on. Most of the book is lamenting suffering and injustice. It describes how things feel sometimes. How things are sometimes. But as it goes on, glimmers of hope appear. They are never more than glimmers. There is no triumphant finale or happy ending. But this is a book that recognises the reality of suffering while beginning to find hope. 

Written probably around the time of the fall of Jerusalem in the sixth century BCE, Lamentations is a book that records people’s pain, the depth of suffering, the harshness of injustice. Not to glory in such things, not to celebrate them – but to acknowledge them and to show solidarity with those who experience them. I suggest that this is something that as Christians we can all too often fail to do.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news. Some Christians seem keen to preach bad news instead – they’re full of talk of sin and suffering as if they were telling us something new, as if the presence of evil in the world was not pretty obvious already. But on the other hand, there are occasions when Christians are so quick to talk about good news that we forget how shallow our words can sound. When I became a Christian in the 1990s, there was a popular worship chorus that included the line, “In your presence, my problems disappear”. What nonsense. What blasphemy – to present Jesus as an individual problem-solving machine. Telling someone that their problems will be over if they put their faith in Jesus will ring hollow if they are shivering in the cold because they cannot afford both heating or food, or because they are frightened of leaving their house because the far right have been marching in their street.

Those who preach bad news, and those who preach a trite positivity with no depth to it, both make the same mistake. They both overlook the reality and extent of suffering that people are experiencing.

Proclaiming good news does not mean pretending that suffering is not real. It means proclaiming hope – not trite, shallow hope but deep, meaningful hope – in the midst of suffering.

There are times when I want to ignore the bad news. Sometimes I want to pretend that I haven’t heard it – whether it’s global, national or personal news. But of course some of us can ignore bad news more easily than others. You can ignore war – unless you’re in the war zone. You can ignore news of starvation – unless you’re starving. The horrific and heart-stopping news of the anti-Semitic murders in Manchester on Thursday was so vile that we might be tempted simply to shut it out of our minds. And then this morning, we awoke to more bad news of bigotry and violence: there was an attempted arson attack last night on a mosque in Peacehaven in Sussex. But as has been clear in the last few days, ignoring the news of the synagogue attacks is not possible for many British Jews, deeply affected and frightened in a very personal way. Nor is it possible for many Muslims, understandably scared by the opportunistic rhetoric of far-right and Islamophobic commentators who nonsensically blame all Muslims for the actions of the killer.

As Christians, we are not proclaiming bad news. Nor can we ignore the bad news all around us. We must be prepared to recognise the reality of it, to listen to people who are hurting, to allow ourselves to be challenged or confused, to show solidarity perhaps to people under attack – whether that be Jewish worshippers in Manchester, Muslim worshippers in Sussex, refugees scapegoated by the far right around Britain, children bombed in Gaza, or trans people and disabled benefit recipients turned into convenient scapegoats.

Le’ts also recognise our own role in the sins of the world. The world cannot be divided simplistically into goodies and baddies. This week for example I have been very conscious of the times that I have failed to challenge anti-Semitism. Recognising our sins does not mean we should spend time beating ourselves up. Rather it means that we can rejoice in God’s forgiveness, pray for God’s forgiveness for others and ask God to guide us in the present and the future.

Because in the midst of the horrors that we experience, we can cling onto, and gently point others to, the good news that we find in Jesus. This is not a shallow hope that comes only when we’re feeling good. God loves us however we’re feeling. It is not a calculated optimism based on an analysis of probabilities. It is a hope found in Jesus Christ. A hope, a faith, that the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus is ultimately stronger than the all the might and power and violence of the kingdoms and empires and armies of this world.

Earlier we heard a passage from 2nd Timothy. It’s usually described as the Second Letter from Paul to Timothy. A sizeable majority of biblical scholars agree that it is unlikely that Paul actually wrote it, as it bears the marks of being written at a later time than Paul’s lifetime, and it also shows far greater acceptance of social norms and hierarchy than Paul displayed in his authentic letters. However, that is not a reason to write it off! The passage that we heard is encouraging the reader not to be ashamed of sharing in hardships “for the sake of the Gospel” and to remember “the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus”.

This does not mean that we should simply sit back, accept things as they are, and wait for God to intervene in the future. Jesus promised his followers that the Holy Spirit would be with them. The Kingdom of God is both now and not yet, breaking into our mundane and often unjust realities even as we await its total fulfilment in the future. We glimpse the Kingdom of God in small moments of kindness and in global campaigns for justice. The Kingdom of God flashes into our presence when people reach across boundaries and recognise their common humanity. On Thursday we saw the reality of sin with the vile murders at the Manchester synagogue. And we glimpsed the Kingdom of God when people of many faiths and none declared their solidarity with Manchester’s Jews. Working at a university chaplaincy, one of the most memorable moments of the day for me was when a Muslim member of staff used the chaplaincy prayer room to pray for the victims and for British Jews in general. In the midst of horror, let us keep our eyes open for the flashes of light.

Let’s look at that passage we heard from Luke’s Gospel. If we have faith the size of a mustard seed, says Jesus, we could uproot a tree and plant it in the sea. Well, I admit that when I look at that, I think: my faith has never moved any trees. I used to think: does that mean my faith is so weak that it’s not even the size of a mustard seed?

Well, perhaps. But let’s remind ourselves of a few things. Mustard seeds, as seeds, might be pretty small, but the plants they grow into are large and difficult to control – as Jesus and his listeners knew very well. This was an agricultural society, remember. Do we have that sort of faith? And why would we want to uproot a tree? I don’t think forestry management is at the centre of Chrisitan discipleship. But down the centuries, God has given people faith to move all sorts of metaphorical trees. The advances we have now – in medicine, in human rights, in matters such as religious liberty and practices of mutual respect and understanding – have been achieved because our ancestors trusted that such things were possible, often motivated by their faith in a God of love and justice. Their faith moved mountains.

Sometimes they did not see the results of their endeavours. The first people to campaign against the Transatlantic slave trade had died long before it was abolished. The first women to campaign for the vote did not live to cast their votes. Those of us who campaign today for an end to the arms trade may not live to see that campaign succeed – as it one day will. As Oscar Romero put it, we are prophets of a future not our own.

The news in recent weeks and months has been particularly vile. It can be hard to believe that, as Martin Luther King said, “the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice”. The gospel we proclaim is not a naïve or shallow hope that things might get better one day. It is rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, described in 2nd Timothy as “God manifest in the flesh”. The God we worship is not a God who inflicts suffering, but a God who experiences suffering, a God who suffers with us.

Jesus was sentenced to death by the Roman imperial authorities, who thought they could easily get rid of troublemaking Jewish peasant. They were wrong. When God raised Jesus from the dead, the victory of love over evil was assured. The forces of sin, oppression and empire were put on notice that their defeat had begun.

As Christians we are called to recognise the reality of pain, to show our solidarity with people who are suffering and not to judge those who find it hard to believe that good news is possible. We are all broken people in a broken world, and we are compromised by the sins against which we protest. Yet however often we fail, God will not tire of forgiving us. So when our focus weakens or wanders, let’s ask God to keep our concentration on the Kingdom of God, on the Christ whose love and justice are triumphing over the sins and evils that see us divided and mistreating each other. Hatred and injustice will not win. Love will triumph. This is the Gospel we proclaim. And it is good news.  

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My book, The Upside-Down Bible: What Jesus really said about money, sex and violence (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2015) can be bought in paperback or e-book, priced £9.99.

Royalists failed to silence me – but free speech remains in danger

Posted on by symonhill

I wrote the following article for the Morning Star, who published it in today’s issue (11th March 2025).

Two and a half years after throwing me in the back of a police van for opposing the monarchy, Thames Valley Police have admitted that I was wrongfully arrested.

I am pleased and relieved of course. But I am also acutely aware that most people who are unlawfully arrested receive little or no publicity and are not in a position to take legal action against the police.

I was able to do so only because of Liberty, whose excellent lawyers advised and represented me. I was helped, practically and emotionally, by a wide range of friends, comrades and strangers.

But this is not about me. It never was.

It is about the rights of all people to speak out, to express themselves, to challenge the powerful, to refuse to bow down, to assert the dignity and equality of all humans.

Leaving church in September 2022, I found myself amid crowds of people trying to negotiate their way around town despite roads being closed for a ceremony declaring Charles Windsor to be king.

I remained silent as the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire read out expressions of grief for Elizabeth Windsor.

But then he declared Charles to be our king and “rightful liege lord.” I called out “Who elected him?”

A couple of people told me to shut up. I said that a head of state was being imposed without our consent.

I might well have left it there. But three security guards came over and told me to be quiet. With no sense of irony, they stood menacingly right in front of me and said they were asking me “nicely” not to express my views.

When I asserted my right to speak, they began to push me backwards. I briefly feared that I would be knocked over.

The police intervened — not to arrest the security guards for assaulting me, but to arrest me for expressing my views. I was forcibly led away and handcuffed.

I will forever be grateful for two people — complete strangers to me — who followed us down the road. They repeatedly asked the police why I was being arrested. They said they didn’t agree with me but they thought Britain was a “free country.”

The police contradicted themselves several times about which law I had been arrested under.

I was called back for a police interview and told that one of the security guards had alleged that I had assaulted him. This was a reversal of the truth.

Three months after my arrest, I was charged with breaking the Public Order Act 1986 through behaviour likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress.”

Two weeks later, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges, saying there was little prospect of conviction.

On the same day that I was arrested, a 22-year-old woman in Edinburgh — who has preferred to remain anonymous — was arrested while peacefully holding an anti-monarchy placard. Shortly afterwards, Paul Powlesland was threatened with arrest in London if he wrote “not my king” on a piece of paper.

When it came to the coronation, Graham Smith and other staff at Republic were arrested as they arrived to set up for a lawful demonstration. The police used powers that had been rushed into law less than a week earlier.

After my arrest, I was taken aback by the level of media interest. I received hundreds of supportive messages, dozens of abusive messages and a few death threats. Andrew Schraeder, a Conservative councillor in Basildon, tweeted that I should be sent to the Tower of London.

I also heard from many other people who had been wrongly arrested, or otherwise mistreated by the police, who had received far less publicity than me.

Several anti-monarchists were arrested at the royal wedding in 2011. We all know how anti-protest legislation has been used against nonviolent anti-war and climate campaigners. And I have lost count of the number of protests I have attended in which black and Asian people have been the first to be questioned or arrested.

Certain cases of appalling police behaviour at least make the news, such as the vile police assault on a vigil mourning Sarah Everard in 2021. At other times, police behaviour receives little attention. A homeless woman in Oxford told me of how she had been beaten up in the back of a police van. She did not, of course, have the resources to take legal action.

Yet it is rightwingers — including some on the extreme right — who misleadingly present themselves as defenders of free speech.

This claim reached the heights of absurdity when JD Vance criticised Britain for a lack of free speech, with an outrageous lie about people in Scotland being prevented from praying in their homes.

Similar claims about the suppression of free speech are made by Nigel Farage — a far-right multimillionaire who receives excessive media coverage in inverse proportion to the coherence of his arguments.

Far-right types on social media claim to be upholding “free speech” when they want an excuse to peddle racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and other doctrines that demonise their fellow human beings.

Meanwhile, various celebrities claim that they are being “cancelled” when voluntary organisations such as students’ unions decide not to invite them to speak.

Vance, Farage and their gang do not of course mention the arrests of peaceful people resisting war, monarchy or climate change. The excessive prison sentences for Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action campaigners receive no criticism from them.

It is not the rich and powerful whose free speech is threatened. Free speech is under threat in Britain because police are arresting and charging people for nonviolent protest and the expression of opinions. Unlike Vance and Farage, most people have limited power to do much about it.

But as every socialist and trade unionist knows, we all have more power when we act together. Now is a vital time for the left to seize the narrative and take back the cause of free speech from the hatemongers.

In demanding our rights to freedom of speech, we assert the reality that we have equal value to the kings, presidents, generals and billionaires who are so keen to be heard while expecting the rest of us to shut up. Let’s make sure they know that shutting up is the last thing we will be doing.