There are plenty of people who are better qualified to assess the quality of my father’s sermons than I am. They were always biblical in content, but cover all sorts of other topics. He relied on his vast knowledge of literature, history, music, and sport, and anything else that he felt was relevant to his theme. He had a phenomenal memory for experiences from his own life as well. In particular he was very fond of using the hymns of John and Charles Wesley to highlight points he wanted to make. The sermons are straightforward but nuanced; they provide a challenge but yet are accessible. On every level there was always something to learn. In his last weeks in hospital I remember my father saying that I was very wise. I don’t believe that, though my father certainly was wise. He was meticulous in his preparation of sermons from the writing through to the delivery.
Martin, my brother, was telling me how he was trying to extol the advantages of a computer to father by explaining “cut and paste” to him. Father was totally unimpressed as he rarely crossed out and so was perplexed by this being sold to him as advantageous. The sermons stood the test of time as far as my father was concerned: many of them have a life span of decades. I remember an occasion where he told the congregation that he had already preached the sermon in this chapel something like twenty years ago. He said he thought this would not cause a problem even if there was anyone in the congregation who had already heard it, because its message was of value.
My father preached everywhere and for every occasion. He was at home preaching in the open air, radio broadcast services, in cathedrals, in Roman Catholic churches, in Methodist chapels both large and small. He was brought up experiencing the large mission churches where his father was minister, but once in Durham, I think it was the small chapels, often in deprived areas where he felt he was most needed. If necessary, he would not only take the service but also play the piano for the hymns, or at the very least take an active role in leading the singing. He was always very much appreciated in these chapels, and he returned to many of them year after year. He worshipped with them as equals and in return that was how they saw him, totally stripped of his academic titles. The only thing that distinguished him from the congregation was that he wore a dog collar. By nature, he was a very humble man—some would probably say shy and retiring, but at the same time he was a man with very clear values, with a clear concept of the difference between right and wrong, and he was never ashamed of his principles. I still have much to learn from him.
Penelope Barrett Hyslop
October 15, 2016
C. K. Barrett
Fred Barrett
“THE PURPOSE OF THE BIBLE”—John 20.31
[Preached five times from 10/28/01 at Bishop Auckland to 10/23/05 at Wheatley Hill. Editor’s Note: I have positioned this late sermon first because of its theme, as it helps explain how CKB viewed the task of preaching and how the Bible functioned. This is one of the last new sermons he composed. Hereafter, the sermons will be in canonical order]
John 20.31: “these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in his name.”
I have said before in this church that a Bible Sunday is a paradox. Every Sunday is a Bible Sunday; there are fifty-two (or fifty-three) of them every year. A service in which we do not in some form or other read from Scripture, try to understand it, explain it, expound it, apply it is not a Christian service. We do not all express our beliefs about the Bible in the same way, but we know that it is at the center of our faith. So why a Bible Sunday? Partly because, though we know the truth we are all apt to forget it and need an occasional reminder; partly because the Bible is an old book (yet the simplest person can learn from it, though most of us need a lot of help with it), and partly because it gives us an opportunity of praying for the Bible Society and similar agencies.
Your minister said (not too seriously) that you would probably be getting the New Testament this morning and the Old Testament this evening. Not too far wrong as far as this morning is concerned, though all I say would, with a little bit of thought, be applied to the Old Testament too. Let us ask: What is the Bible—the New Testament—for? What is it intended to do? (John 20.31 is quoted again).
That verse is said specifically of one book, St. John’s Gospel, but it applies to them all. There it is the conclusion of the Gospel, summing up its purpose. Wait a minute you say—conclusion? But there is another chapter—21—to come. True, and this I think will help us on our way. Our text is surely the end of something—the end of the book as John intended it. “There is a lot I have left out but this is the meaning, the sum of what I have put down.”1 But then, perhaps a bit later, he thinks of a few things that really ought to be there, so he adds what we might call an Appendix. In fact, it turns out very helpful to us.
Imagine these situations in the early Church. Jesus has died, has been crucified. “It is a dreadful thing. How did we ourselves who failed him, deserted him, denied him, live through it? But the sorrow and the loneliness and the sense of failure and defeat are gone now, drowned in a shout of triumph for we know that he is alive, and he has commissioned us as his envoys to spread the news of the victory that his redeeming love has won over sin and death. Splendid: he was a Jew, we are Jews, he preached to us, so we will do the same. It’s not too big a task, Judaea is a little country. For the present let’s have a fishing trip.”
Why? Just for pleasure? I doubt it—they (or some of them) were professionals. No; a few good nights and sales in the markets and there would be enough cash in hand to see them through a few weeks of mission. And they were wrong, hopelessly wrong, and the story had to be told to express the blunder. In the first place, they couldn’t catch fish without Jesus, and in the second place the mission would not be over in a fortnight. It would cost not years but millennia, and it would cost lives too. But Jesus was in it with them.
Now a second situation. They get to work, and then find that they, the Church, are in the most dangerous of all situations. We are in it still. The mission ceases to be a mission and becomes an institution. Institutions are indispensable but they are dangerous. They can lead (among other things) to a rivalry which is very different from the love that is the mark of the true Christian family. Now cast your mind back to John 21, and you will hear one group of people saying, “there is only one man fit to be head of the church, and that is Peter. What did the Lord say? On this rock I will build my church. True, he denied Jesus, but he was forgiven for that.” And another group is saying, “No we must have the disciple whom Jesus loved— there is no higher qualification than that.” But you must listen to Jesus saying to these two, and through them to us all, “What business is it of yours what happens to the other man? Follow thou me.” If only we always listened!
This leads straight on to the third situation. A saying was going around the Church—Jesus told Peter2 that he would live until the Lord returned in glory. Peter is getting on in years now; the Lord will be here any time now and all history will come to an end. No, says John, Jesus did not say that. He was only telling them to mind their own business. “If I will that he live until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.” Mind your own business and your business is not to speculate about the end of time, but to follow.
Now I