St Giles Day 2026 by Fr Jack

The First Book of the Kings 17.2-6
The First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians 2.10b-end
St Luke’s Gospel 4.31-37

It is a great privilege and delight to be together. All of us, I am thrilled to see each and every one of you hear. Thank you for being here.

And amongst us all, how wonderful to be with Pastor Roland Wicher, of Mariendorf, our link church in Berlin. Pfarrer Roland will give the final blessing today.

Francis Richardson, Churchwarden of Christchurch Meaford in Canada, our link parish. Francis will lead the intercessions.

Welcome Canon Kate of Coventry, who brings us our membership of the Community of the Cross of Nails. A Community of reconciliation arising from the ruins of bombed out Coventry Cathedral, today we join a worldwide fellowship (inc Pastor Roland and our link parish in Berlin) in being dedicated to reconciliation and forgiveness.

Welcome dear civic and Livery friends and friends from other parochial institutions. Friends from other churches, our ecumenical family here in this parish, and St Paul’s, our big sister next-door.

Thank you so much for being here- your presence is a blessing and sign of friendship and reconciliation that is a sermon in itself. Thank you for the time and expense of being here.

On Sunday our Eucharist was themed ‘Looking back’. We used historic music and liturgy and celebrated how far God has brought us. From the shores of lake Galilee, with Jesus and His fishermen friends (where today’s Gospel sets him in the midst of his earthly ministry). From the table of the Last Supper. From Blessed Mary and St John by the cross, and St Mary Magdalene rushing from the empty tomb. From St Giles in his hermit life in Provence in the 7th Century. To today, St Giles Day itself, our Festal Eucharist tonight is themed ‘looking forward’.

Our liturgy and music is modern, and our disposition is hope.

St Paul writing to the Corinthians in the epistle is trying to form a disposition in them. To form in the fledgling Church a way of discerning the things of God in the midst of life. To see that God is not over there, or in a little box we get out at Christmas, or when we run out of other ideas, but the source, sustainer and destination of everything, everyone, always. God is the heart of everything.

That conviction is what took St Giles - who’s feast we keep tonight - into the woods of Provence 1300 years ago. That’s what gave our forebears here the courage to reroof and restore this church for worship, because the call of Jesus and the heartbeat of prayer were not luxuries or decoration, but the very substance of life itself.

And with our feet firmly planted in this posture, then we find ourselves in the way of hope. Archbishop Sarah has spoken a lot in recent years of how hope is not the same as optimism. This ‘mind of Christ’ that St Paul writes about today is not naive or speculative. Hope is an act of trust-building. Hope fosters ‘dignity’ and ‘honesty’ in others. Hope is a choice and a way of attending to the world that is inherently revolutionary. Hope is (as Archbishop Sarah has said) ‘locally and globally… rolling up our sleeves’ and ‘joining in where God is already at work’… ‘For Christian hope is the confidence that God is still at work among us. And because God is faithful, we need not act from fear. We need not act from anxiety.’

To look forward with this disposition of hope as people, as a parish neighbourhood, as church and society, and the whole human family is an urgent and wonderful invitation. It is the wisest and best course for us as we look forward from the ruins (be they of past wars or present difficulties).

John Wesley’s grandfather was vicar here, amongst many other great names over the years (it goes without saying that the quality of incumbents of St Giles’ Cripplegate has radically declined in the last four or so years). Anyway, John Wesley lived and ministered in this parish, here he encountered and preached God’s goodness and love. Here he shared the gift of Holy Scripture with its power to transform lives, he administered Holy Communion knowing that Jesus’ own life is given to us hidden in simple Bread and humble Wine, that is really the food of angels. This has not changed in three centuries, not in thirteen centuries, not in twenty centuries, as we look backwards with gratitude and forwards with hope.

Anyway, John Wesley’s last words are reported to be this: ‘the best of all, is that God is with us’. And it is as true a promise and invitation for you and me today, as it was for those Galilee fishermen, for Giles of Provence, for those who restored this church, and us who fill it now. ‘the best of all, is that God is with us’. How will you be with God and find hope for you, for us, and for the world this St Gilestide?