Sermons And Gubbins

Is it too late to wish you a happy new year?    I’m sure there must be some convention here to follow; a piece of good etiquette that says something along the lines of “new year’s wishes may be conferred upon others up until midday on the Feast of Epiphany, unless there was resting snow on New Year’s Day, in which case – in exceptional circumstances – you may continue to wish someone a happy new year until the first bells of Evensong on the following Sunday”. If that etiquette exists, I must confess my ignorance as to not knowing it, and so I’d like to take this opportunity this morning to wish you a happy new year. May it be kind to you. I think we could do with a kind year, don’t you? The past two years have been hard and cruel. They’ve changed us. None of us are the same people we were this time in 2019; our lives have become smaller and more insular. We’ve lost colleagues, friends and loved ones. Covid has changed our plans and rewritten our rules and – even if we have man...

This talk was first given at our 10:15 service on Sunday 30th December. Our Sunday School was still on leave for Christmas, so I tried to ensure the children were catered for in my talk today! The Gospel was  Luke 2:41-52 , where Jesus stays behind in the temple without his parents. Right! Well, that’s it! Christmas is all done for another year, and now we’ve got some tidying up to do! We need to prepare to go ahead into 2019, and get ready for everything the new year will bring! We’ve got some stuff to do in the church here for that… would anyone like to help me? <children come up> Excellent. Ok. Up here, we’ve got our travelling nativity. Maybe it came to some of your houses over Christmas? Well, now Christmas is done, we need to get it all ready for the new year. Some of the figures probably need a bit of a wash, and maybe a bit of a patch-up here and there. And we need to get a new sign-up sheet sorted don’t we, so we know where it needs to go next year? Ok – you take Mar...

This sermon was first given at our Epiphany service on Sunday 7th January 2018. The gospel was Matthew 2:1-12 . I am quite sure you’ve heard the joke about imagining if, instead of three wise men, there’d have been three wise women in our reading today? They would, of course, have planned their journey well ahead, got directions to the stable instead of to King Herod’s gaff, turned up in time to actually see the child as a baby, rather than – as is currently assumed – roughly two years later, made a casserole, and brought useful gifts, like nappies, baby clothes and a Moses basket. Gold, frankincense & myrrh - the more traditional gifts of the magi...   Things would have all gone that much smoother for the holy family in those early days if that were the case, wouldn’t they? That’s not how the story goes, though. No. Instead of that, we are told about the visit of the magi; mysterious astrologers from a pagan religion (probably Zoroastrianism), with their...