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Bible Sunday 2023

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This sermon was written for Bible Sunday 2023 and was preached at our Sunday morning service that day (29th October). In the news recently had been stories of awful atrocities committed in Israel and Gaza with escalations of violence on all sides. My sermon this morning has been a particularly difficult one to write. For me, the weight of everything that’s happening in Israel and Palestine just feels so heavy. I’m sure for you, there’s a similar feeling. It’s a kind of grief, I guess, mourning the senselessness, the cruelty and the seeming hopelessness of it all. There are no easy answers, and there really does not look to be a way out of this situation, save for a multiplying of the violence. Today, we’re supposed to be celebrating Bible Sunday ; a day to come together to celebrate the gift of the scriptures to God’s people. But, for me, at the moment, I cannot help but think about the fact that this book is intricately linked with the soil and the sea of the land we are watching fall...

Some thoughts on the Book of Jonah

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This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service on 7th November 2021. The Old Testament reading was  Jonah 3:1-5,10 . Our readings today are odd readings to have at this time of year. In fact, for those of you whose memories are particularly good, you may well recognise them from back at the end of January. Of course, due to covid, back in January, we were only holding services by Zoom, so only read the Gospel lesson on that particular Sunday. I’m not entirely sure why we’ve got them again today; the lectionary is a strange beast sometimes! But actually, I’m delighted that this morning we had a chance to hear these readings again – mainly for the opportunity that we did not get in January to hear from the book of Jonah for our lesson from the Old Testament this morning. I love the book of Jonah. We all know it of course from Sunday school, with the famous story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale; but there is more to the story. If you’ve never read it, I recommend it....