Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at the Sunday morning service on 12th February 2017. The Gospel that morning was Matthew 5:21-27 . So… who’s up for a good, old-fashioned sermon on the evils of adultery and divorce this morning? Jesse Custer, from the Vertigo comic series, Preacher  No? Me neither, to be honest. But… the reading from Matthew’s Gospel is what is allocated for us today as part of our Church’s lectionary, so we’d best get cracking, I suppose! <cough> <nervous silence> I joke, of course. But… today’s Gospel reading is not an easy one, especially not for those of us who like to inhabit the space on the liberal end of the theological spectrum. I like my Jesus to be a religious rule-breaker, non-judgemental and concerned about social justice. I like him to be the man we see in Mark chapter 2 , who rebukes the Pharisees when they complain about his work in breaking heads of corn to eat on the Sabbath day; the man who we see in Joh...

This sermon was preached at evensong on 5th February 2017. The Old Testament reading was Amos 2:4-end . I am somewhat tempted, this evening, to not give a sermon. I don’t know if you’re inwardly rejoicing at that, or not. Instead of me preaching, we could take 5 minutes of silence, to think, or to pray, or to maybe have a small nap?  My reasoning for this temptation is not – surprisingly enough – down to the fact that I haven’t come up with anything to say (though I did find this evening’s readings difficult to think about what to talk about), but actually because we’ve already had one sermon already. Or at least, we’ve already had the end of one sermon already. Did you hear it? Don’t worry, you didn’t blink and miss an itinerant priest bound up to the pulpit and deliver a pithy and precise homily. No – it was, as you’ve probably guessed, one of our set readings for the evening – our piece from the book of Amos. You wouldn’t know it from tonight’s reading – it wa...

This sermon was preached at Evensong on Sunday 8th January 2017 - when we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany . Today, we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, when the wise men arrived in Bethlehem to worship the new-born Jesus. The magi follow the star Our readings this evening have not mentioned it explicitly – no, you’d have needed to be here this morning to hear the story of the arrival of the magi – but, we have heard references to it, in the verses from Isaiah – “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”, and how the camel-train will “bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord”. You all, I am sure, know the story of the three kings, and don’t need me to retell it. My guess is that you’ve been hearing it for many years. For me, I’ve been a Christian for nearly 25 years now, and in that time, I’ve heard plenty of sermons about those three kings; about how we don’t know that they were kings, and nor ...

This sermon was given at the evening service on 11th December 2016, Advent III. It was born out of contemplation about the meaning of Advent, and personal thoughts about the world we find ourselves living in today. I wonder if you, like me, have not been feeling too festive yet so far this year? Perhaps it is just me. I know the busy-ness of my day-job has not helped – I’m used to things at work starting to wind down for Christmas some time near the end of November, as projects tie up their lose ends for the year, and people start to finally use their holiday hours that they’ve not had chance to take yet. Not so this year – things at work are still in full-swing, and there seems no wind-down in sight!  If I think about it, that’s actually pretty consistent with world-events this year too. The whole year has been a barrage of Very Important News bashing on our doors, hollering for our attention. Normally in the summer, we get a few weeks of respite – known as the Silly ...

This sermon was preached on 30th October 2016, at our evening All Souls service; the service in which we think of, and pray for, those who have died. The Gospel reading was John 14:1-6 , 27 .   Have you ever wondered what Heaven will be like? Whether it’s all ‘flowing white robes’, and sitting on clouds playing harps? Does that sound a bit boring to you? It does to me, to be honest. It’s one of the questions we sometimes ask each other; “What’s heaven for you?”. We recognise that what one person enjoys, another might not, and that each of us has their own idea of paradise. Is this home your idea of paradise?  Jesus was asked the question too – just before our Gospel reading this evening, Peter asked him where he was going, and we heard his reply tonight. Christ, the itinerant preacher, with no place to lay his head , replies, “ I’m going to my Father’s house – a mansion, with many rooms. ” For Christ, who had no home on earth, Heaven was a home, large enough to ...

This story was written for an all-age harvest service, and told on Sunday 9th October 2016. I enjoyed writing it, but it was tricky to ensure it appealed to (and had a message for) the adults and the very young children in the service.I hope I managed to get the balance right, and that you get something out of it too!   O NCE Upon A Time... many years ago; before you could order a takeaway from an app on your smartphone, before battery hens or McDonal d’s cows, back when all fruit and vegetables were organic, and all animals were free-range, back before potatoes were made into chips, before tomatoes were made into ketchup, or before meat was made into sausages, before even supermarkets were invented, there lived a small tribe of desert people. They lived – these desert people – in dusty desert tents, unsurprisingly, out in the hot, dry desert, near a great big mountain, as tall as the sky itself. Now, because supermarkets were not invented yet, this tribe of desert peopl...

This sermon was preached on the morning on 11 September 2016. The gospel that morning was Luke 15:1-10 . It was a tricky sermon to come up with the appropriate take upon; there were several different ways I could go with it, I think, and it was only on the Friday evening that I finally settled on one. I *hope* it was the right sermon for the time, but if not, I hope at least you get something out of it instead! Familiarity breeds contempt – I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase? It’s often used when people have grown apart, or perhaps just need to take a break from each other. It’s not just used about relationships, though. It can apply to anything we do often that once used to be unfamiliar – as a child, for me, pizza was one of the most exciting meals I could have. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy a good pizza, but the increased availability of it – and the regularity in which I eat it – has diminished its excitement somewhat. It applies in our faith, too. Many of us have...