Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service on 10th July, following a week of political turmoil in the UK, triggered by the resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Health Secretary, which eventually led (a few days later) to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The Gospel was a particularly famous passage, known as The Good Samaritan, and can be found in Luke 10:25-37 . I hope you enjoy reading it. It’s a cliché, but it’s very, very true: a week is a long time in politics. I don’t normally preach two weeks running, but I think it’s fair to say that more has changed in the world of politics since I last stood in this pulpit seven days ago than in the whole time since I preached before that, which was as far back as Easter Sunday!   No-one would have ever predicted this time a week ago that our government would have imploded to the extent that it has. I think roughly 40 ministerial positions have changed...

This sermon was written for our Zoom service on Sunday 5th July, the day after lockdown restrictions were eased in the UK, allowing visits to pubs, bars and restaurants for the first time in over three months. The Gospel was Matthew 11:16-19,25-30 . I’ve read and re-read today’s Gospel many times in the past few weeks. You have to when you’re called to preach on a passage, but, perhaps even more so than normal, this week, I’ve been stuck for what aspect of this passage on which to focus. I think it’s because it seems such a mish-mash. The more I read our Gospel today, the less I see how it all ties together. It reads more like a collection of sayings than a process of thought – and, even allowing for the fact that the gospel-writer may well have brought these separate sayings together to form one speech, it’s hard to see what point either Christ, or Matthew (as the writer) is trying to make, especially now 2000 years later. Let me start by paraphrasing the gospel: it star...