Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our morning Zoom service on Sunday 29th November, the first Sunday of Advent 2020. It was given in the wake (watch for that word) of the 2020 US Presidential elections and also news of three vaccines to help fight the spread of Coronavirus, but also whilst the whole country was in its second lockdown of 2020, with the threat of re-strengthed tiers of restrictions for much of the country when lockdown ended, with tier 3 for Greater Manchester being very very similar to full lockdown itself. The gospel for this Sunday was Mark 13:24-37 . I think we’re all sick of it now; the waiting. You can tell when you talk to people; when you queue next to them in those queues outside shops that threaten to go on forever (the queues, not the shops), or when you see parents and children winding each other up in the park, or even when you talk to your own family and loved ones; people are getting fractious and snappy. I know I am. Maybe you’re of better temperament tha...

This sermon was given at our Trinity Sunday service on 7th June 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and the blasphemy of Donald Trump using the police to gas peaceful protestors, helpers, and clergy in order to clear a way to stand outside a church and wave a bible in the air. Today is Trinity Sunday. I’m not going to spend this sermon digging into metaphors and similes for what the trinity is like. I’ve given those sermons before, and, if that’s what you’re after, you can find one from five years ago on my blog, or countless others elsewhere on the internet – many of them with good, sound theology (and some with not so much! – I’ll let you decide which into which camp you think my previous sermon falls). I think today, though, calls for something more than sound theology. The world in which we’re living today needs something practical , and not theoretical, and so, for that reason, I’m going to jump straight to the conclusion of what might be a ‘normal’ trinit...