Sermons And Gubbins

I often see posts on Facebook trying to flood the site with music, or superheroes. There's one doing the rounds at the moment asking people to post 'then' and 'now' photos of their relationship. They're all fun, but I think, at the moment, Facebook in the UK probably needs to be flooded with something different. There's a tide of racism sweeping the country, with some people thinking the Brexit vote legitimises the voicing of torrid, vicious, nasty views. I hope it's just the media publicising these things more widely at the moment. I fear it is not. Even so, if these views are *not* being expressed with more force, volume and frequency at the moment, they *are* still being expressed, and that scares me - *especially* so if this is normal (or the 'new' normal). I believe that staying silent whilst this is happening is to be complicit. If I do not speak out, how can I expect others to do so? If no-one speaks out, then there is no challenge...

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgement comes forth perverted.                                                                                  (Habakkuk 1:2-4) The question has plagued us throughout the ages. Those words, from the book of Habakkuk were written two and a half thousand years ago, and yet, you can imagine them being spoken – you can almost hear the words echo – any night of the week on the news, by people all over the world being interviewed at the scene of the late...

This sermon was preached on the morning of 5th June 2016. The readings were 1 Kings 17:17-24 , Psalm 30 , Galatians 1:11-24 and Luke 7:11-17 . You’d be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu with today’s Gospel reading. It seems like we’ve heard it before – only minutes earlier, in fact – in our reading from the Old Testament; the story from 1 Kings. In both readings, we hear of a great faith hero – Elijah and Jesus – and their coming into contact with a woman – in both cases a widow, who is mother to an only son, who, in both cases, has died. Again, in both readings, the dead son is raised and is given back to his mother – the same phrase, in fact, is used – by the hero of the faith. Finally, in both readings, there is a recognition that the man is a holy man. This is surely not coincidental. Luke, our Gospel writer, clearly knew of the story of Elijah and the widow, and wanted to refer to it when he gave his account of what happened that day in Nain, when Jesus met tha...