Sermons And Gubbins

This story was written for our Sunday morning service on 21st September, St Matthew's day. The gospel was Matthew 9:9-13 (I would post a Bible Gateway link, but it seems that site has become an unintended victim of the UK's Online Safety Act). I hope you enjoy reading the story! St Matthew from Rembrandt's St Matthew and the Angel  We never liked him. Sitting there, in his little tax booth all day. Watching the rest of us work, while he simply wrote in his ledger. “That’s a fine catch!”, he would call out, as we struggled to get the nets out of the boat. And then, as we got to the hard and dirty work of gutting and cleaning the fish, he’d saunter along, his coin purse jangling at his side. We’d try to tell him many times, how can we pay tax on earnings we’ve not yet made? But his answer was always the same. “The fish you have already caught belong to Caesar, so you need to pay your share now”. Funnily enough, he never wanted fish themselves as payment. We might have underst...

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 29th June - St Peter & St Paul's Day. The Gospel was Matthew 16:13-19 . I hope you enjoy reading it.   In our gospel today, Jesus asks his disciples a question. Well, he asks them two questions actually, but I’ll stick to the first one for now. Jesus takes his disciples out of of their Jewish homeland, and into  Caesarea Philippi  – a place named after the Roman governor of the area, where the Greek god Pan was worshipped prominently, and there was a temple dedicated to Caesar himself, and Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him. “Who do they say I am?”, he asks, surrounded by all the trappings of empire, and pagan gods. Who does the world, scrabbling to hold onto the power it has, fighting political and religious wars, say Jesus is?     Today, the Church celebrates the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. We call today Petertide.  Two little dickie birds, sitting on a wall....

This sermon was given at our morning service on Sunday 10th September. The Gospel was Matthew 18:15-20 . I hope you enjoy reading it!   Are you listening? No, but are you listening? That’s what Jesus is asking us this morning. Listen – there’s that word again – listen to his words from our Gospel again and see how often that word comes up:   “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.”   So – are you listening? Not necessarily to me prattling on up here on a Sunday morning. I’m not particularly bothered about...

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on Sunday 9th July. The Gospel was Matthew 11:16-19,25-30 . I hope you enjoy reading it! The other week, Miriam had a play date with one of her friends from nursery. They were both so excited beforehand and really looking forward to playing together, and it gave Jen and I the opportunity to sit and talk to another couple about grown-up things rather than Fireman Sam, Ninjago or unicorn-riding mermaids. Now, any of you who have been parents to small children, or been small children yourselves will not be surprised to learn things did not go exactly to plan! Whilst Jen and I and the other couple were happily taking about work, or cars, or the situation in Ukraine (...actually, come to think of it, children might  be better at choosing conversation topics than adults after all), we heard wailing from two different corners of the house. Duly, I investigated. The problem, as it turned out, was down to the choice of game. Miriam want...