Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 27th July. The Gospel was Luke 11:1-13 . I hope you enjoy reading it!   This morning, I want to talk about prayer. In our gospel this morning, Jesus’ disciples heard him praying and they wanted in. “Teach us how to pray”, they asked, and Jesus gave them a formula; a very famous formula, but one that seems a bit different from the Lord’s Prayer we pray today. It’s the TL;DR version, if you like (“too long; didn’t read”).   <at some point during the above, Miriam, my daughter, interrupts to ask for promised sweets>   Oh, I’m sorry Miriam, I did say you could have some sweets during my talk – here you go. You go back and sit down now.   <passes Miriam a sweet>   Absolutely shameless that child!   Anyway, Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord’s Prayer (though not completely as we know it). Luke’s version goes like this:   “ Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom c...

  This talk was written for our Maundy Thursday service on 28th March 2024. I hope you enjoy reading it. I always used to think today was called Maunday Thursday. I was never particularly sure what that meant – what a Maun Day was. I was fairly content with that; after all, the Church often has obscure names for feast days, high days, and holy days, and ember days. Why not a Maun day? Let’s face it – at this time of year, there’s enough confusion about how on earth anyone could name the events that we remember and commemorate tomorrow ‘Good’ to fill all your time during Lent and Easter to not even think about the name that we give to today. But today is not – as I’m sure you all know – Maunday Thursday. It is Maundy Thursday. And that – believe it or not – actually makes all the difference. The word ‘maundy’ comes from (as many things in the Church do) Latin. It’s from the word mandatum , meaning commandment . And that’s what today is all about – the new commandment. “ I give you ...