Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 10th May 2026, the week of the local elections in the UK. The Gospel was John 14:15-21 .   My sermon this morning is not a complicated one. It holds no deep esoteric theology. There is no secret knowledge that I will impart.   Instead, I’m going to look at just a few words from our Gospel reading today. All very simple words. Well, most of them anyway.   “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. These nine words from Jesus at the beginning of our Gospel reading are straight-forward. All but one of them have four letters or less. They’re all easily understood with little context. All but one, maybe.   If you love me, you will keep my commandments.   Those people who don’t know Jesus – who, in not knowing him, don’t yet love him – won’t know what commandments he is talking about here. But for those of us who do, connections will be being made in our heads as we think about this phra...

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 12th April 2026, the second Sunday of Easter. The Gospel was John 20:19-31 .     Let me start by wishing you all a happy Easter! And yes, it is still Easter, though, of course, we are now on the second Sunday of Easter, rather than Easter Sunday itself.   It is, though, my first opportunity to wish you all a happy Easter, as last week – as some of you may know – I was on retreat at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, where I experienced a very different Holy Week than any I have experienced before. It was very special, but I did miss you all, and the Holy Week and Easter we share at St Michael’s. I’m very glad to be back and able to preach for you here today.   A photo I took of Mirfield House of the Resurrection on the morning of Palm Sunday. Our gospel this morning is a very famous passage, and one I’ve preached on a number of times before. That’s one of the things about being a Reader; you...

  This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 15th February 2026. The readings were Exodus 24:12-18 and Matthew 17:1-9 . I hope you enjoy reading it!   I’ve been thinking a lot – for various reasons recently – about Change. I swear I saw some of you almost shudder there. I think, deep down, none of us really like change. The American journalist, Sydney J Harris, once wrote: “ our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time. What we really want is for things to remain the same but get better ”. I can very much relate to that, can you? Wouldn’t it be excellent if things were different? Not the things I like, though…   The master of self-change and reinvention, David Bowie This morning’s readings are all about change. They’re probably the readings about change in the New Testament. This morning, we heard the story of the Transfiguration . And the story of the Transfiguration is a pivotal point in God’s story of how the world changes. ...