Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on Sunday 21st May, the Seventh Sunday of Easter. The Gospel was John 17:1-11 . I hope you enjoy reading it! Before I start this morning, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge Peter, who is leading our intercessions today. Today is a really hard week to lead the intercessions, because today’s Gospel is basically one long prayer, and so, maybe you can guess what I’m going to be preaching about! Sorry about that, Peter! Don’t change anything in what you’ve written in response to my sermon today though! Don’t worry; I’ll make that clearer later as to why! Who knew the Pope had a holy hotline? All the commentaries I’ve read on today’s Gospel passage talk about it being a model for prayer. And I think there is certainly something in that. In the other three Gospels, the disciples ask Jesus to show them how to pray, and he duly does as he is asked. “ When you pray, ” he says, “ pray like this… ” And then we get the most famous prayer ...

This sermon was written for our Sunday morning service on 22nd January. In the news headlines recently had been much talk of strike action across various industries in the UK . It was also the Sunday within the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity . The previous Sunday, we had had a guest speaker come to talk to us about the Inclusive Church movement. The Gospel that Sunday was Matthew 4:12-23 . I hope you enjoy reading the sermon! If you’ve been paying any attention to the news at all over recent months, you will have heard of strikes across many and various trade unions across our country. There has been worker-led disruption across many industries for the last six months or so; some taking up more headlines than others: transport strikes, barristers, and the postal service; other high profile strikes across our healthcare system; and schools and universities – but there have also been strikes across local government, the refuse industry, the financial conduct authority, and my own ...

There's something a little bit odd about our Gospel reading today. I wonder if you noticed it? Maybe not. After all, 'odd' these days is really rather a relative concept isn't it? A bit like time.  They say that time flies when you're having fun. I think we need a new saying for what time does when you're in lockdown. 'Time melds together in a conglomerate mess when you're staying home, staying safe, and saving lives'. Perhaps I need to work on the catchiness of that.  I remember reading a meme on facebook the other day that renamed the lockdown days of the week. No longer are we subject to the linear confines of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on. Instead, until further notice, the days of the week are now called Thisday, Thatday, Otherday, Someday, Yesterday, Today and Nextday. I say I read it the other day, it might have been two months ago for all I know. I guess that proves the point. (Nextday, by the way, is the mythical day long...

This sermon was first given on Sunday 2nd June, a week after the EU election results were announced. The Gospel that morning was John 17:20-26 . I’ve had a song stuck in my head most of this week. Does that ever happen to you? You’re just sitting there, minding your own business, and a few small seconds of a song pop into your head and keep going on a loop. It’s never enough of the song to actually entertain you, only enough to just make you think you might be starting to go mad, and that you might never think of anything else ever again. It’s called an earworm, which is a weird image when you think about it! They say that one way you can get rid of an earworm is to share the song with others… so, thank you all for the help you’re about to give me this morning! The song is by one of the most famous bands in the world, U2. I suspect you know it; it’s called ‘One’.   The first lines say this: Is it getting better, or do you feel the same? Will it...