Here goes...

A Sermon in a service of Commemoration for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for Richmond Borough Council, at St Mary's Twickenham We gather here today at the end of an extraordinary week. So many words have been said, so many pictures taken, so many comments posted, so many hours spent queuing and waiting for a glimpse of the coffin.  Our reading this evening from the epistle to the Hebrews gives us this advice; “Remember your leaders... Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” I want to take that advice this evening and offer a few brief reflections on the life of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, to discern what we learned from her example as we seek to consider the “outcome of her way of life and imitate her faith.” The first thing we might usefully learn from her is her understanding of leadership as service. She held the highest office in the land and yet she understood that calling not primarily to privilege, to wealth, or power over others, but

Smoke was still rising from the ruins of Grenfell Tower. The day after the fire had been tense, full of shock and bewilderment. A great deal of anger was being directed at the local Council who were had overseen the refurbishment of the Tower, and now, they were felt to be absent. That rising tide of anger threatened to spill over in ugly ways, as a march on the offices of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea turned nasty, with angry protesters storming the building and terrified workers locking themselves in their offices inside.     Various political figures were quick to visit on the day after the fire, but those visits didn't go too well. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Opposition and of course Theresa May, the Prime Minister, all visited. The Prime Minister, in particular, came into came in for criticism, when she visited the day after the fire, and only met the emergency services and officials, avoiding potentially uncomfortable meetin

  The world feels quite a dark place at the moment. New atrocities are revealed daily in a war at the heart of Europe, something that few of us could have foreseen in recent times. Away from the headlines of Ukraine, the worst drought in a decade in Somalia threatens to kill hundreds of thousands of children in that poverty-stricken land. Meanwhile other wars continue, hardly noticed, such as the violence in the Congo which took another 30 lives this week. Add to that the hardship faced by many families in our own country with the cost of living increasing and it's hard to find much hope for the future.  We Christians are not people of optimism but of hope. Optimism is the vague aspiration that things will turn out OK, that we mustn't focus on the darkness, but instead keep our spirits up by positive thinking. Holy Week is when we are forced to look intently into the darkness. On Friday we will gaze again on Jesus on the cross – the realisation that when our Maker came to us, w