Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our Harvest Festival service on Sunday 9th October 2022. The Gospel was John 6:25-35 . I hope you enjoy reading it. Preaching at our Harvest festival is getting to be a regular thing for me! I think this is my third occasion to speak on this subject in the last six years. My first harvest sermon was on this exact date in 2016, when I told a story about the desert folk and their god who lived up a mountain, and my last time before today was this time last year – the 10th October in fact. It’s getting to the point where I’m in danger of running out of things to say! We might need to ensure Harvest doesn’t fall on my rota’d week for preaching in 2023, or I might have to get you all to do my sermon for me instead! But… who am I kidding? You know me, and you can ask my family – I never run out of things to say… And the first thing I want to say this morning is thank you, from all in the ministry team here at St Michael’s for the offerings you have brought today. ...

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning Eucharist on Sunday 8th August 2021, following a few weeks of relaxation of the UK's covid restrictions. The Gospel was John 6:35,41-51 . Hope you enjoy reading it! Raising children can be repetitive sometimes. Mealtimes especially. Don’t get me wrong, my two are very, very good, but we still have those conversations every parent has: “Come on now, eat up!” “Don’t liiike it!” “You do! This is your favourite!” “Want ice-cream.” “After. Eat up your meat and potatoes first. And you, eat up your bread.” I swear I have these conversations in my sleep sometimes; “Eat up! Eat your bread!”   Eating bread There is – surprisingly – a link here to today’s Gospel. When I read it out earlier, did it feel oddly familiar? A bit repetitive? If you were here last Sunday, or even the Sunday before, you’d be forgiven for thinking that maybe I’d read out last week’s Gospel instead, or maybe that of the week before? “Hear the Gospel of o...

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 12th August. The Gospel reading that morning was  John 6:35,41-51 . Sometimes in church, it’s like we’re experiencing a mass case of deja vu, isn’t it? Week after week, we see the same people, use the same liturgy and pray for the same things. I’m also pretty sure that the other month, we sang the same hymns two weeks in a row, too... that might  have been an actual case of deja vu for me, though... Today, though, I’d like to reassure you that if you felt we’d repeated our Gospel reading from last week, you’re not quite  experiencing deja vu. No; today’s reading is not the same as last week’s, but it is remarkably similar. And there’s a reason for that. For a number of weeks, now - since the end of July - we’ve been working our way through chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. And it really seems that John had a bee in his metaphorical bonnet about one topic in particular. About bread. And, if you read through ...

This story was written as a response to the Gospel reading on the morning of Sunday 29th July and read out as my sermon on that day. There are probably opportunities to make it interactive, using actual gingerbread man biscuits that can be broken and given to the congregation/children, or perhaps using paperchain people that can be expanded at appropriate points in the story (and then stretched out across the church afterwards). I didn't do that (this time), but if you'd like to nick the idea should you ever want to use the story, please feel free (and let me know how it goes!) The reading was the famous passage from  John 6:1-21  about the feeding of the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. I read a sermon which encouraged us to think of ourselves not as the crowd, or the disciples, or eve n the boy in the story, but the bread. (It's very good... Go read it  here ). This story is my attempt to help people do that, to think of ourselves as bread; gingerbread. Hope you enjo...