Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached on Remembrance Sunday 2022. The Gospel was  Luke 21:5-19 . I hope you enjoy reading it. Our gospel this morning is a jarring one for Remembrance Sunday. Here we are this morning – joining thousands of people across our country – coming together to contemplate the horrors of war and recommitting ourselves to work for peace in our world, and – instead of a gospel message about the coming Kingdom of God, where there will be no more war, and no more pain, and no more tears, we get this : Wars and insurrections? These things must happen, says Christ. Nations will fight nations, and kingdoms will fight kingdoms. Earthquakes, and famines and plagues. All will be thrown down. I don’t know about you, but I was expecting something else; something about Heaven, and peace, and love. I wanted to hear the passage from Isaiah about beating ploughshares into swords, and spears into pruning hooks and nations not learning war anymore. But instead, Christ tells his disciples ...

This sermon was given at our All Souls service on the evening of Sunday 30th October. I hope you enjoy reading it. I’d like to start this evening by reiterating the welcome Huw extended to you at the start of our service this evening. Whilst you may not wish to be here today – because the very fact that you are here tonight means that you are mourning somebody you have loved who is no longer with us on earth, you are welcome here. You are welcome to worship, or to mourn, or to do both, or do neither. You are welcome to join in, and you are welcome simply to sit, and to just be . This year as a nation, we have all taken part in a prescribed period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, and although that period was directed by such public institutions as the Royal Family, the government and the BBC, when it comes to personal mourning, there is no right way to grieve; there is only your way, unique to you.  That may feel an isolating experience sometimes. Grief is often lonely. But to...

This sermon was given at our Harvest Festival service on Sunday 9th October 2022. The Gospel was John 6:25-35 . I hope you enjoy reading it. Preaching at our Harvest festival is getting to be a regular thing for me! I think this is my third occasion to speak on this subject in the last six years. My first harvest sermon was on this exact date in 2016, when I told a story about the desert folk and their god who lived up a mountain, and my last time before today was this time last year – the 10th October in fact. It’s getting to the point where I’m in danger of running out of things to say! We might need to ensure Harvest doesn’t fall on my rota’d week for preaching in 2023, or I might have to get you all to do my sermon for me instead! But… who am I kidding? You know me, and you can ask my family – I never run out of things to say… And the first thing I want to say this morning is thank you, from all in the ministry team here at St Michael’s for the offerings you have brought today. ...

This sermon was first given at St Michael's Church, Middleton , and then at All Saints, Rhodes, where I was invited to preach to both congregations on Sunday 28th August. The parish has been following a theme of Community Living, as taught by St Benedict in a recent sermon series. The Gospel that morning was Luke 14:1,7-14 . I hope you enjoy reading it! I’d like to start this morning by offering my thanks for inviting me to preach to you all today. Jenni tells me that you’re nearing the end of a series of sermons drawing upon the teachings of St Benedict on community living, in preparation for your away-day in just a few weeks’ time, and then following that, that you have a meeting on 22 nd September to discuss the idea of being a ‘mission community’. I hope my sermon this morning plays its part amongst the rest of the preparation you’ve been doing to generate some thoughts and ideas as together you plan this next exciting stage that God has in store for you all. I also hope ...

This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service on 10th July, following a week of political turmoil in the UK, triggered by the resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Health Secretary, which eventually led (a few days later) to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The Gospel was a particularly famous passage, known as The Good Samaritan, and can be found in Luke 10:25-37 . I hope you enjoy reading it. It’s a cliché, but it’s very, very true: a week is a long time in politics. I don’t normally preach two weeks running, but I think it’s fair to say that more has changed in the world of politics since I last stood in this pulpit seven days ago than in the whole time since I preached before that, which was as far back as Easter Sunday!   No-one would have ever predicted this time a week ago that our government would have imploded to the extent that it has. I think roughly 40 ministerial positions have changed...

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 3rd July, when we celebrated the feast day of St Thomas. The Gospel that morning was John 20:24-29 . One of the things that makes humans so special is our ability to spot patterns. It’s one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of creation, and has allowed us to become creative beings ourselves. It’s a blessing, because it opens up the worlds of mathematics and science, and also of art and poetry. But, it’s also a curse, because we are prone to seeing patterns that are not actually there, and whilst sometimes, these can be benign – the face of Jesus in a slice of toast, for example – at other times, our incorrect joining of the dots can lead us to jump to very false conclusions. I don’t know if I’m jumping to false conclusions or not, but the pattern I’ve been seeing in the news this week is one of the stories of women. From the overturning of the Roe vs Wade abortion laws in the US last Friday, to the very different d...