Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was first given at our Sunday morning service on 9th February 2020. The Gospel reading for that morning was  Matthew 5:13-20 . More years ago than I care to remember I was in a school production of  Godspell . I played Father Abraham as a tiny four-foot-nothing 12-year-old with a Charlton Heston-style American accent. In my head, my voice was deep, mid-west and drawling, but – as my voice really hadn’t broken by then, I probably actually squeaked most of my way through my speech and my song!  It’s very funny how I can still remember all the lyrics and my lines – words I learnt over 25 years’ ago – but if you were to ask me to remember any of the things I was supposed to be learning and storing in my long-term memory at school, I would draw a complete blank! But the words to a musical I was in in 1991? Yup, I’ve still got them down-pat. Word-for-word. Don’t worry though – I won’t subject you to a solo of ‘ Learn your Lessons Well ’ just now...

This sermon was preached at the Sunday morning service on 12th February 2017. The Gospel that morning was Matthew 5:21-27 . So… who’s up for a good, old-fashioned sermon on the evils of adultery and divorce this morning? Jesse Custer, from the Vertigo comic series, Preacher  No? Me neither, to be honest. But… the reading from Matthew’s Gospel is what is allocated for us today as part of our Church’s lectionary, so we’d best get cracking, I suppose! <cough> <nervous silence> I joke, of course. But… today’s Gospel reading is not an easy one, especially not for those of us who like to inhabit the space on the liberal end of the theological spectrum. I like my Jesus to be a religious rule-breaker, non-judgemental and concerned about social justice. I like him to be the man we see in Mark chapter 2 , who rebukes the Pharisees when they complain about his work in breaking heads of corn to eat on the Sabbath day; the man who we see in Joh...

This was an interesting sermon to write. It is based on the Beatitudes, found in  Matthew 5:1-11 .   I knew I needed it to be about how Christ's Beatitudes speech was to do with flipping the established norms, and I even needed to attempt to get across the offensiveness of what Christ said ('Blessed are those who mourn'?!). 'Blessed' has become a religious word, but this is not how it was used originally; it was used of the wealthy and powerful - it carries connotations of luck, and happiness, and wealth. It is striking, then, that Christ's 'blessed' people are those who would never be considered as such. I spent some time re-investigating some of the characters involved in the speech. Three of the more interesting subjects were the 'poor in spirit', the 'meek' and those who hunger after 'righteousness'. Much that I found mentioned how the 'poor in spirit' were those who recognised their spiritual bankruptcy before God...