Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 12th April 2026, the second Sunday of Easter. The Gospel was John 20:19-31 .     Let me start by wishing you all a happy Easter! And yes, it is still Easter, though, of course, we are now on the second Sunday of Easter, rather than Easter Sunday itself.   It is, though, my first opportunity to wish you all a happy Easter, as last week – as some of you may know – I was on retreat at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, where I experienced a very different Holy Week than any I have experienced before. It was very special, but I did miss you all, and the Holy Week and Easter we share at St Michael’s. I’m very glad to be back and able to preach for you here today.   A photo I took of Mirfield House of the Resurrection on the morning of Palm Sunday. Our gospel this morning is a very famous passage, and one I’ve preached on a number of times before. That’s one of the things about being a Reader; you...

This sermon was written for our service on April 16th 2023; the second Sunday of Easter. The Gospel was  John 20:19-31 . I hope you enjoy reading it! My little girl, Miriam loves a bedtime story. I think, if we’re honest, we all do, don’t we? Mine - to be honest - are often televised, and Isaac and Jen both have Kindles, which I’m not sure either of them would ever want to live without again. For Miriam, though, it’s a picture book. Two of her favourites are by the same author. When I say her name, many of you will know of her. But, even if you don’t recognise her name, I’m sure you’ll know of her books. The author is  Jill Murphy . She wrote ' The Worst Witch' books, which Miriam is a bit too young for, but I’m sure will love reading in a few years. She also wrote two series of books about animal families; a family of elephants called Large, and a family of bears - called (either unimaginitively, or very cleverly) Mr Bear, Mrs Bear and Baby Bear. Miriam’s favourite books are...

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...

This sermon was given on Easter Sunday 2022. The Gospel was John 20:1-18 . Happy Easter to you! I n the beginning , the very beginning, the world was without form, and darkness covered the face of the deep. God spoke something different into that formless void, into the literal chaos. God spoke a word, and the word was light . In naming it, it came into being. On the first morning of the new creation, the world was dark. The sky had turned black on the Friday, and it was still dark when Mary came to the tomb. We expect great new things to start with a fanfare ; with fireworks and a party. They don’t. Things start in the dark. That’s when most births happen – for humans as well as animals – when it is night time and the sky is black. The world may seem a dark place today. It is still Easter; Easter always starts in the dark. The light of Easter  The thing about darkness, is it hides what’s really going on. Mary got to the tomb in the dark, and – although she could see t...

This poem was written for our Sunday morning service on Sunday 28th April, the second Sunday of Easter. The gospel reading was John 20:19-31 . In the news that week had been the horiffic bombings in Sri Lanka and the murder of Irish journalist, Lyra McKee . The poem was inspired by the idea of resurrection being a process as espoused in this sermon by Michael K. Marsh, especially this quote:   " The facts are just the starting point for the story. The fact of the empty tomb is the starting point for the resurrection story. Whatever facts you woke up to on Easter Monday are simply the starting point for your story of resurrection. Too often, however, we take the facts as the entire story. Isn’t that what we’ve done with St. Thomas?"  I think we certainly do think of Thomas like that - he is the perennial doubter, rather than the saint who brought Christ's message to India, and had grown so much in faith that he was prepared to die for his God. It made me wonder wh...