Reverend Andrew's Sermons

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A sermon preached at St. James, Lower Jemseg, on the Feast of St. James - July 2026

Have a look, if you will, at the grave, mysterious figure held within the east window. It is myself, St. James, and I would like to say a few words.

I have been dead a long, long time, and should be long forgotten. But I am famous. My bones – if you are interested in bones – are revered by the church as holy relics, powerful, charged with the glory of God. They now rest inside a silver box, which is kept on display in the crypt, deep beneath the high altar of the Cathedral that bears my name, in the city that also bears my name, in northern Spain. Santiago.

How many millions have visited my bones over the last thousand years? Countless. You might as well try to number the steps you take as you walk through life, or count the stars that light the sky while you sleep. Yet I tell you plain that my bones have never held the meaning of the journey. So long as we human beings remain creatures of earth, bound by gravity and sin, yet always dreaming of escape, the journey itself must always be the purpose of the journey.

We do what we are. We human beings are restless creatures. God has created us to seek, to learn, to suffer insufficiency, to find somewhere beyond this earth our ultimate home. We were made to move, and so we do. If my bones – kept in a silver box beneath the high altar of my cathedral - should serve as pretext for the necessary journey, then I am content. Also, a little amused.

For a thousand years I have watched the pilgrims journeying to me. At first it was just the locals, peasants and craftsmen and housewives. They came bearing their superstitions and prayers, for they had heard the story: my bones, the bones of Saint James, the third disciple of Jesus, had been found buried in a nearby field. A shrine was built to house my bones, and a story built to be worthy of the shrine. There was talk of angels and voices and strange lights in the sky. They called the place “Campus Stellae, the Field of Stars.”

And yes, the miracles happened: the healings and the answered prayers. And yes, I played my part in them, for heaven is not so far from earth, and I have some influence. But the stories grew with each new telling, beyond my control, and spread beyond the mountains. Pilgrims came from ever further away and in greater numbers, speaking strange languages. The passing of their feet, millions and millions of feet, coming and going, wore a groove into the earth. The groove became a path, and then a trail, and finally a road: the French Road: the Camino.

In time my shrine was replaced by a modest stone church, not unlike this one in Jemseg, and that was the home I loved best, a place of quiet shadows and stone arches, round and earthbound. I liked it there, but it proved too small. Since then my home has been rebuilt and expanded many times, to accommodate the growing crowds and the changing ideas of what a holy place ought to look like. And now it seems, for most people, I have become the building. I am a cathedral, a tourist destination. I am Romanesque and Gothic and Baroque, a story held in stone. I have been dead a long, long time, and should be long forgotten. But the pilgrims keep coming. I am, it seems, still needed.

In EngIish-speaking countries I am known as James. In France, I am Jacque. In Mexico, Diego. In Spain, the land that adopted me, I am Iago: Saint Iago. But I began my life as Jakov, and I was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way. My brother and I were sitting in our boat, late one afternoon, drifting off-shore. It had been a long day. We had caught our fish and cleaned them, and now we were mending the nets, when we noticed a man walking towards us: Jesus, the rabbi from Nazareth. We had heard the stories about him, which we did not believe. And now we saw him standing knee-deep in the water between us and the shore. “Come,” he said. “Follow me.” Then he turned and walked away.

I cannot explain what happened next. Without a word my brother and I stepped out of the boat into the water. We pulled it on shore and folded our nets on top of the fish, knowing that Zebedee, our father, would take care of them. Then we started to walk, to follow him.

That’s how it began, with a short walk up the beach, leading we knew not where. For three years we followed him: my fisherman’s hands growing soft, my feet growing hard. For three years we walked with Jesus through the hills of Galilee, collecting alms, distributing food, watching and learning. Occasionally my brother and I would return home, to help our father with the fishing. But we knew, as he knew, that we had found a new home, a new life.

I often think that, before I met Jesus, I had never truly noticed the world.

But Jesus gave me new eyes. “What is the Kingdom of Heaven?” he would ask. Then, with a laugh, he would point at a bird, or a flower, or a tree; and I would truly see them, as if for the first time. I was like the man who had been born blind, whose eyes Jesus opened. The Kingdom of God, I learned, was all around me, and always had been. There were parables everywhere: a sower and his seed, a man building a house, a woman and her lost coin, a shepherd calling his lost sheep. Even my own life, Jesus said, was a parable. “You have been fishing for fish,” he said. “But now you will start fishing for people.”

I will not tell you everything that Jesus said or did for those three years. If you are curious, I commend to you the work of my colleagues: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But I was with him in the beginning. I followed Jesus to the top of a mountain and saw him transfigured by the glory of God. I knelt by the bed of a young girl, the daughter of Jairus, and watched Jesus restore her life. I followed him into the Garden of Gethsemane. I saw him arrested, tortured, and crucified.

I was in the upper room two days later when the women burst in, shouting that they had seen him alive. I was there the same evening when Jesus himself came among us from the dead, bearing his scars, yet more fully alive than any human being has ever been.

Forty days later he appeared for the last time, telling us to go to the ends of the earth, to proclaim all that he had taught. And so we went, all of us. Myself, I went west, as far as I could. I followed the setting sun to the end of the world, to the place you now call Spain: Hispania, Galicia, Finisterre.

I was not a successful evangelist. I admit it freely. It is possible that I converted no-one to faith in Jesus. But though I was not always believed, I was loved, and I learned to love the people of Spain in return. In this, the gospel was fulfilled. Finally, after many years, at the end of my strength, I returned to Galilee, and discovered that faith in Jesus had grown, becoming both popular and dangerous. As always, the poor understood Him best, while the powerful were quick to condemn. I myself was condemned for preaching how, in Christ, God’s love is offered to all people, in all times, in all places. For this crime I was beheaded at the command of King Herod. The sword fell. My earthly life ended, my heavenly life began.

In Jesus I found peace, but not idleness. Even in death my body remained in motion. My body was interred for a year, and then my bones were laid in a box, and the box loaded onto a small boat, not unlike those I used to sail on the Sea of Galilee. Two of my friends piloted the boat west, across the Mediterranean and beyond Gibraltar. Without benefit of sails or oars, the Spirit carried us over the waters, until we reached the port of Padron. From there my bones were carried inland, and buried in the soil of my beloved Spain. And I slept for 700 years.

This is my story. Do you find it hard to believe? Perhaps you do not like miracles? But I tell you plain: all of life is a miracle. Your life, my life, the life of Jesus; the earth, the moon, and the stars beyond: it is all dust, but dust sustained by the breath of God. I say it again: all of life is a miracle, if we could only see it.

After seven centuries my bones were discovered, and a shrine built to my honour, as I have already told you. Then a church was built to replace the shrine, and finally a great cathedral, which still stands, and which you are welcome to visit. Today there are perhaps 5000 churches, in a hundred countries, named after me - I have lost count. But this church, here in Jemseg, is one of my favourites: solid, quiet, strong with prayer. And it rests comfortably in this place. The walls are built of sandstone gathered from the shore of nearby Dykeman Lake. All the wood - the beams, floors, pews and panelling - were milled from trees cut nearby. Local, too, were the men and women who transformed these elements into this House of God. And what has been my contribution? I continue to offer something of my spirit, and of course my name, St. James.

The stained glass windows are lovely, but the best of them – I say it with all humility – is mine, the window from which I am now speaking. Have a look at me if you like. I have nothing to hide. You can tell at a glance that I am a traveller, a pilgrim, footsore, but strong. I wear a red cloak, red for the blood of the martyrs. In my right hand I hold a staff, to keep my balance on rocky trails, and to fend off the angry dogs of Spain; and from the top there hangs a hollow gourd, my water bottle. I wear a broad-brimmed hat, protection against the sun and rain, and upon its brim is a scallop shell, taken from the sea at Finisterre: the badge of pilgrimage in every age and in every land. And about my head still shine the stars that led to the discovery of my bones on that strange night 1300 years ago.

There are two inaccuracies in the window that I must point out. First, my left hand holds a Bible. This, I’m afraid, is pure invention. I am, you remember, a 1st century Galilean peasant. No one in my family has ever learned to read or write. Second, my feet are bare. Truly, I wish the artist had given me sandals. As every pilgrim knows, it is essential that you care for your feet.

Still, it is a good likeness. My face is sun-burned. I need a shave and a haircut - but you know how hard it is to stay well-groomed when you are on the road. And I am, I think, neither smiling nor frowning. I am tired, clearly, from the many miles that lay behind me, and the thought of the miles that lay ahead. But I am content – even, perhaps, resolute. They have a word for this in Spanish. “Ultreya,” they say.” It means “Keep going.” And so I do. And as I go, I keep this thought in mind: that by travelling faithfully, we have, in a sense, already arrived.

You are welcome to visit this Church of St. James any time you want. The door is unlocked - indeed, you might notice that the lock is broken. The key was lost many years ago, and will not be replaced. Only one thing I ask: when you come to this place, you do not look at me; but look through me, for I am a window. I bear only the light that Christ is pleased to shine through me. I have no virtues of my own, only those that He still inspires and sustains. I am no one’s destination, but like you, I am a pilgrim. Still, if you would seek Christ and His Kingdom, then perhaps you and I might walk together for a while.

July 25th, 2026,

The Feast of St. James.

A sermon from December 2025

Joseph’s Dream

“An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Joseph sat at the edge of a large pile of stones that he had, the week before, carried up from the lakeshore. Nearby, stood the solid, level platform that he had begun to build with those stones. He had set the largest stones deep into the earth and then patiently, carefully, fit successive layers of stones on top of them until the top of the platform was solid, square and level, six inches above the ground. This, he had hoped, would be the foundation of the house he would share with Mary, the house in which they would raise their children. But he did not believe now that the house would ever be finished.

Joseph himself sat like a stone, his head in his hands, his mind spinning with the same inexplicable set of facts: that Mary was with child, that the child was not his. and that she had, apparently, lied to him. She had told him an unbelievable story: that an angel had visited her and promised that she would bear a child, a son of God who would be fathered by the Holy Spirit. She told Joseph that she had said “Yes” to the angel. She had said “Yes” to God. She said all this with tears in her eyes, but also with that quiet conviction he had always admired in her.

Joseph had not known what to say. It seemed impossible that the story was true, and equally impossible that Mary would make up such a story. And so, after she had finished speaking, Joseph simply stood and walked away. He had not spoken to her since, but he had seen her. It was clear that her pregnancy was real.

Near the pile of rocks where Joseph sat, there was a grove of olive trees, and from among them he could hear birdsong, two doves calling to each other. Joseph had often seen them flying into the trees carrying bits of straw. They were building a nest. Already he had begun to think of them as his neighbours. He had imagined that he and Mary might one day give them names, and that they, birds and people, would watch each other’s families grow.

But now, none of that would happen. Joseph knew what he must do: he would break off the engagement, say good-bye to Mary, and move away from Nazareth. He would go to Bethlehem, the city of his ancestor David. He would do this soon. But now, for just a little while, he would do nothing. He would sit, grieving the empty strength of his hands that now had no proper work to do.

So his friend Levi found him that afternoon. “I thought I would find you here,” he called.

Joseph, recognising his friend’s voice, did not look up. With his head in his hands, he shouted back, “And I thought you might come and find me.”

Levi sat down. “I know all about it,” he said. “What will you do?”

“I will leave.”

“If you leave,” Levi said, “Mary will have no husband, and the child will have no father.”

“I will kill the man who did this to her.“

“Yes,” Levi answered quietly. “I suppose you could strangle him - if you can find him. And then you will go to court. And then you will go to jail. And Mary will still have no husband, and the child no father. That sounds like a good plan.”

“What would you have me do? Pretend it did not happen?”

“Have you talked to Mary?” Levi asked.

“There’s no need to talk. She is with child. And the child is not mine.”

“You still need to talk to her,” Levi insisted.

“Only to say goodbye.”

So the two friends talked through the afternoon - which is to say that Levi talked while Joseph sat, sometimes staring at his hands, and sometimes at his unfinished house. And when at last Levi asked if perhaps Mary’s story might be true, Joseph stood, and turned to face his friend.

“Listen,” he said, “You’re good with words. You work with words. You teach at the synagogue. But I work with stone and wood. I work with what makes sense. A strong foundation. Solid walls. A floor of cedar cut into planks. A stone lintel above every window, every door. A sloped roof, with tiles to shed the rain. This I understand. But angels? I know nothing about angels.”

“Nobody knows about angels,” Levi said. “And yet they are real.”

“This is real,” Joseph insisted, pointing to the pile of stones at his feet. “A pile of rubble. A house that will never be built.”

“All right,” Levi answered, and then he also stood. “Let me tell you something.” He picked up a large, flat rock and put it in Joseph’s hands. “You showed this to me once. Do you remember? How to build a house. You put one stone on top of two stones, to cover the gap between them. Or you put two stones on one, so that the gap between the two stones sits in the middle of the stone beneath. You use small, flat stones to keep everything level. In this way your house will be strong. You build your walls wide at the base, two or three stones wide, but narrower as it gets higher. And you never know exactly where you will find the one stone you need, to fill the empty space you are working with. But you have to trust that the stone you need will be in the pile somewhere. You have to trust that all the random stones will fit together and make a house. Am I right, Joseph?”

“Yes. You are right,” Joseph said, and despite his grief he smiled, pleased that his learned friend, with his soft hands, remembered that lesson from long ago.

“Yes. I am right,” Levi said. “And this is your faith, Joseph: that if you are patient and careful, you will always find what you need in order to build what must be built.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

I’m telling you that your life is a pile of stones that you must somehow fit together. So there is Mary: she is one stone. There is the angel, for another. And then there is the child: a third stone. And then there is you, Joseph. You are the most stubborn, most awkward stone of all. But strong.”

“And,” Levi shouted, to stop his friend from interrupting, “there is prophecy. Long, long ago, God spoke to us about a child, a son of David and a son of God, who will be born of a young woman and of the Holy Spirit. And this, Joseph, is the cornerstone: God promised that one day He would come among his people as a human being. He will be Emmanuel. He will be “God with us.”

“What has that got to do with me?” Joseph asked.

“What indeed,” Levi yelled. “You, Joseph, are a son of David. And Mary is a young woman, strong and full of courage. And God has to start somewhere. Why not with you two? Why not?”

A cold silence hung between the two friends. They stared at each other almost in anger. “These are the stones you have to work with,” Levi continued quietly, “and you must trust that they will fit together. And now, Joseph, I am going home, for I am hungry. And this has been a lot of words, even for me. Will you come with me?”

“I will not go into town,” Joseph answered. “The town is full of gossip. The town is full of whispering. About Mary. About me.”

“Fine. Then I will bring you something to eat. And some water. And where will you sleep tonight?”

“I will sleep here.” Joseph said.

“All right. I will bring a blanket also. And you can use a stone for your pillow, as our ancestor Jacob did. And may God visit you as you sleep, as he visited Jacob, and give you a good dream.”

The night was warm, and though Joseph had done no work that day, he found that he was very tired. He lay wrapped in his blanket on the stone foundation he had laid. He looked at the stars. He heard the doves in the olive grove saying goodnight to each other. And he slept. And he dreamed.

Or did he? It seemed to Joseph that two birds came and visited him as he slept. They were beautiful, their wings brown and grey, and their voices soft. And in his dream, if it was a dream, Joseph said to the two winged creatures, “I don’t believe in angels.” And they - birds or angels or whatever they were - said nothing. But one of them brushed Joseph’s face with the tip of a wing, as if blessing him, and flew away.

Early next morning, Joseph rose and walked to Mary’s house. She met him with silence and sadness, but she did not look away.

“I am a stubborn man,” Joseph said to her. “There are many things I don’t understand. And I’m not sure I believe in angels. But I believe in you, Mary. I do not think you would lie to me.”

Then Mary ran to him. But Joseph raised his hand and said, “No - at least, not yet. But walk with me for a while, Mary. I want you to show you what I have been building. And I want you to meet two friends of mine. They came to me last night, I think. They came on wings. They came from the sky. I would like you to meet them. Can we walk together for a while?”

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