University Sermon, Pentecost Sunday 2026

"Words are not properly capable of being holy;
all words are in themselves servants of things; 
and the holiness of a prayer is not at all concerned 
in the manner of its expression, 
but in the spirit of it, that is, 
in the violence of its desires, 
and the innocence of its ends, 
and the continuance of its employment.

Christ’s yoke is like feathers to a bird, 
not loads, but helps to motion. 
Such is the load and captivity of the soul, 
when we are under the government of the Spirit."

--

In the Bible, travellers bring gifts. 
The queen of Sheba brought gifts for Solomon. 
The Magi brought gifts for Jesus. 
I have come as a traveller, 
and I too am bringing a gift. 

At Pentecost, travellers arriving in Jerusalem, 
witnessed a divine gift of words. 
That is the example I am imitating today.
But not a miraculous gift of speaking in diverse tongues, 
as the Spirit gives you utterance. 
At least, I am not expecting that—
though, if the Spirit moves you, please feel free. 
No, I am sharing with you some words from the 17C, 
from an Anglican writer called Jeremy Taylor. 
He has strengthened the faith of many Christians; 
though he is now sadly neglected.

Jeremy Taylor was born in 1613.
He became a scholar of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, 
my Cambridge College and your Dean’s. 
Later he became a Fellow.
He ended his days a Bishop, in Ireland.

I am here to share two reflections of his,
two sentences, both from a Whitsunday sermon. 
I hope they will inspire reflection even in 2026:
because his words are inspired words,
and this is the day of the Pentecost miracle, 
with its message about barriers broken down, 
and bonds forged between different peoples: 
and its promise that the curse of Babel will be undone; 
and our humanity transformed by God – 
as St Peter’s vision is realised, 
and we become “partakers of the divine nature.”

Taylor is a master of English prose. 
He also has a markedly charitable approach to faith. 
He finds God in small and humble things. 
I have chosen carefully from his words; 
but I have indulged my life-long love of words,
with fingers crossed that you will share that love. 

I recently published a new edition and translation 
of two Latin works by the fifth-century African saint, Augustine of Hippo. 
Both those works reflect on the power of words 
as carriers of meaning, and a medium for teaching. 
The first is one which he wrote early, 
soon after becoming a Christian. 
It is a dialogue with his son Adeodatus;
and it explores how we use words to teach things.
Spoiler alert: in The Teacher, Augustine concludes
that no-one teaches anyone anything. 
We have but one teacher, Christ, 
who is our intus magister, our “inner teacher.” 

Words are a means to an end, the end of learning Christ. 
Decades later, Augustine finished a second book, 
a work about teaching the Bible.
He was still grappling with the problem of words. 
This time, he did so with a deeper appreciation 
of the power of scripture, 
and the supreme importance of communicating it. 

But now, he was growing old; and seeing 
the old world of Classical education passing away—
that culture which had taught him to reason, 
to argue and persuade, above all to communicate. 
This time, he realised that Christianity needed Classical culture; 
needed its help to teach the art of learning scripture, 
and the skills of communicating Christian truth.
Once again, words were his tools. 
But he knew their limitations as containers of truth, and vehicles for truth. 

Now the Pentecost sign was like the signs done 
in Jesus’ lifetime, a thing of the passing moment. 
The feeding of the five thousand did not feed all the hungry for all time.
The Pentecost sign did not give the apostles 
a permanent ability to speak in divers tongues. 
Nor did it enable them to transmit that gift to others. 
It was a “sign”, because it pointed to what shall be hereafter.

The world is still divided, miscommunicating. 
Christians go on being divided from each other 
by beliefs, habits, structures – and words. 
This does not mean that Pentecost has no eternal significance for us. 
On the contrary. I would call it a sacrament.
A particular signifying a universal,
pointing beyond itself into the life of the world to come, into eternity.

Augustine knew his Bible. 
He believed in it without hesitation or qualification. 
And yet, in the other work I edited and translated, Teaching Christianity, 
he makes a statement so bold as to be shocking even today (Doctr. 1.43.93):

"A person who relies on faith, hope and love, and who is firmly dependent on them, does not need scripture, except for the purpose of teaching others. This is how many people live by these three virtues alone without any books."

Augustine that he sees into the heart of the thing, 
rather than judging by surface appearance. 
He was a life-long lover of words. 
But just as he knew their power, so too he recognised their limitations.

Now we come to my first gift of words from Jeremy Taylor, my Caian divine. 
Taylor would have agreed wholeheartedly with the man he knew as St Austin. 
Reflecting on Pentecost Sunday, Taylor wrote:

Words are not properly capable of being holy;
all words are in themselves servants of things; 
and the holiness of a prayer is not at all concerned 
in the manner of its expression, 
but in the spirit of it, that is, 
in the violence of its desires, 
and the innocence of its ends, 
and the continuance of its employment.

I would add one small word of explanation to this, 
to show why we invest ourselves so wholeheartedly 
in the exact words of our dearest prayers. 
We resist changes to the words we pray, 
because those words have done their work in us, 
they have helped to make God precious to us. 
And yet, the preciousness of God leaks out, like liquid from a porous vessel.
It saturates the words themselves, which are the vessels containing the gift;
it saturates them with value which, properly speaking, is not theirs but God’s. 

We want others to experience, as we have, 
the power of those precious words 
to make known the one Word, who is Jesus Christ. 
But we do better to remember how infinite 
is the distance between medium and message.

My second text from Taylor’s Whitsun sermon 
touches on a different enthusiasm of mine. 
It is not a matter of interpretation, but simply a figure: 
a form of rhetoric called simile, 
which helps us to see deeper into one reality 
by comparing it to another. 
In this case, Taylor takes an example from nature, 
and uses it to make visible the unseen truth of our condition as Christians. 

I’ve said how I’ve loved words from my youth up.
I have likewise always delighted in watching birds. 
And I imagine Taylor must have too, to come up with an observation like this:

Christ’s yoke is like feathers to a bird,
not loads, but helps to motion.

Christ’s yoke, says Taylor, is no burden. 
It is not like the load which weighed down Christian 
in the Pilgrim’s Progress, slowing his journey,
causing him to struggle and stumble. 
Christ’s yoke is like the feathers on a bird: 
without any effect of weight or burden, 
it makes movement possible, and not just movement but even flight; 
it frees humankind, which otherwise is fast bound, 
in misery and iron, to the earth.
According to Taylor’s image,
without that yoke of Christ we can never fly
free of the trammels that bind us to the earth. 

If I may draw a truth from Taylor’s image, 
the supreme icon of the Holy Spirit 
is not the one which marks Pentecost. 
It is not the divided tongue of fire. 
The supreme icon of the Holy Spirit is a bird, 
a dove: it signals peace and hope under the Old Covenant; 
and under the New Covenant, 
God’s abiding in all who are called by his name.

Taylor’s words, like Augustine’s, can be beautiful. 
Sometimes they move me to tears. 
But they are always the medium. 
They are neither message nor messenger. 
The message and the messenger are both Christ. 

God makes concessions to our human weakness 
by creating words and speech as his catalysts. 
But they are only the shadows of divine reality. 
Augustine puts this perfectly:

Good speaking means using speech to bring about a result: 
…making plain what used to be obscure. 
Once we have acquired it, 
we delight in feeding on truth itself, 
for it is a mark of distinction in people whose nature 
is good to love the truth in words, 
not the words themselves. After all, what use is a golden key if it cannot open what we want it to? 
And what is wrong with a wooden one, if it can? (Doctr. 4.26.72-3)

Our loveliest words of faith are like a golden key.
We treasure them.
But if our golden key fails to open up God’s truth 
to all those who seek it, it is not really a key at all.

Think about it: a key has only two purposes:

1) to open and set free;
2) to close and keep safe.

We can know that the gospel is doing its work in us, 
because we recognise the key, & the door, & the freedom, & the safety;
and they are all One: 
and that One is Jesus Christ our Lord;
risen. Ascended. Glorified.
And still God-With-Us.