Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning Eucharist on Sunday 8th August 2021, following a few weeks of relaxation of the UK's covid restrictions. The Gospel was John 6:35,41-51 . Hope you enjoy reading it! Raising children can be repetitive sometimes. Mealtimes especially. Don’t get me wrong, my two are very, very good, but we still have those conversations every parent has: “Come on now, eat up!” “Don’t liiike it!” “You do! This is your favourite!” “Want ice-cream.” “After. Eat up your meat and potatoes first. And you, eat up your bread.” I swear I have these conversations in my sleep sometimes; “Eat up! Eat your bread!”   Eating bread There is – surprisingly – a link here to today’s Gospel. When I read it out earlier, did it feel oddly familiar? A bit repetitive? If you were here last Sunday, or even the Sunday before, you’d be forgiven for thinking that maybe I’d read out last week’s Gospel instead, or maybe that of the week before? “Hear the Gospel of o...

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 12th August. The Gospel reading that morning was  John 6:35,41-51 . Sometimes in church, it’s like we’re experiencing a mass case of deja vu, isn’t it? Week after week, we see the same people, use the same liturgy and pray for the same things. I’m also pretty sure that the other month, we sang the same hymns two weeks in a row, too... that might  have been an actual case of deja vu for me, though... Today, though, I’d like to reassure you that if you felt we’d repeated our Gospel reading from last week, you’re not quite  experiencing deja vu. No; today’s reading is not the same as last week’s, but it is remarkably similar. And there’s a reason for that. For a number of weeks, now - since the end of July - we’ve been working our way through chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. And it really seems that John had a bee in his metaphorical bonnet about one topic in particular. About bread. And, if you read through ...