Lady Cassandra Vs The Toddler Whom Love Bade Welcome

This sermon was first preached on 26th October 2025 at St Francis of Assisi Hemel Hempsted

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Back in 2005 one of the very early episodes of the New Doctor Who featured Zoe Wannamaker as Lady Cassandra. She was the ultimate example of people who think they are better than anybody else. Claiming to be the “last pure bred human” – after 708 pieces of plastic surgery to make her thinner and more wrinkle free – Cassandra had been reduced to a sheet of skin with a face on it stretched out between a frame – constantly calling on her mutant clone slave to moisturise her. Well – you can’t get thinner than that… (1)

Contrast that with a little toddler. He’s been told off because he has done something wrong – stretches out his arms and goes “Sorry Mummy – I love you”

Which of these more sums up our relationship with God? Are we someone who somehow thinks we are better than anyone else in the world.

“Lord God I thank you that I am not like other people – the self righteous, the arrogant, the super religious or even like that Pharisee in the reading. I am humble (twice a week) and make a big point of not being seen to give any money to the church, just in case people might think I am showing off” (2)

Cassandra - a stretched out piece of skin - is laughable because she somehow thinks she is the most beautiful person in the world – and everyone else just looks at her and [shakes head]. A little toddler on the other hand isn’t anything special but they just know they are loved {stretching out arms} “sorry mummy”.

So we come to the Pharisee and the Tax collector.

The Pharisee like Lady Cassandra somehow thinks he is better than any one else – not "the last true human" but “the last true Jew”.

The Pharisees as a movement began during the Maccabean period a couple of hundred years before Christ – When the Antiochene Oppressors who had conquered Judea were trying to force all Jews to give up the faith, eat Pork and worship the King, The Pharisees responded by doubling down. Not only keeping every law of the Old Testament – but interpreting each one of them in the most extreme possible way. For example – well you are meant to tithe 10% of all your crops to God – well what about the herbs growing on your window sil?

Phariseeism evolved into a faith of the rich because you had to have plenty of sparetime to keep the level of rules and regulations they kept. Compare say a shepherd out on the mountain top looking after his sheep – who know way could do all the ritual cleansing things before he ate his food up there. Or a man doing hard physical labour who would struggle to keep going if he fasted twice a week. And like Lady Cassandra he looked down on those who didn’t manage to do everything that he did.

None of the things the Pharisees did were bad things. Our churches wouldn’t stay open if many of you didn’t give very generously. And those of you who are able to Tithe 10% of your income really help in a huge way. Its all good stuff.

And fasting to is a beautiful spiritual practice – and can draw you closer to God.

But the Pharisee in this parable acts as though somehow God owes him a favour.

Tithing won’t earn you a place in heaven – but neither will being so proud that you are not like those fundamentalists who do silly things like tithing – that won’t earn you a place in heaven. If you can afford to increase your giving – that’s wonderful – and if you can’t: you know what – God loves you just as much!

But then in comes the Tax Collector – “the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13)

A man who has sided with the Roman Occupation – a traitor who has made himself wealthy not just from the pay he gets but from skimming a little extra on the side – now comes in recognising he has made a mess of his life and says “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

{stretching out arms and saying in Toddler’s voice} “I’m sorry mummy – I love you”

At the heart of the Christian faith is Grace – which to use the old Sunday School acronym is G.R.A.C.E. – “God’s riches at Christ’s Expense”

God doesn’t owe any of us a favour and we don’t buy our way into heaven neither by financial giving, nor by prayer practices nor by good deeds. But God loves us. And we are justified not by anything we have done but simply by his love for us.