Sermons And Gubbins

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 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...

This sermon was preached on the morning of 3rd July, when we celebrated the feast of St Thomas. In the news recently had been the EU referendum and the ensuing Tory leadership contest. The Gospel was John 20:24-29 . Today, we celebrate the feast of St Thomas. I have preached on him before, and I will try my best to not repeat myself today! That is difficult, though, because there is only ever one event from the gospels that is read out when we talk about Thomas; the one which gives him his nickname of Doubting Thomas , the familiar story we have heard again today where Thomas refuses to believe Christ has risen until he has seen with his own eyes. I wonder what Thomas himself would make of it? Every year, the same story being told of him, over and over? “ Not this again! ”, he might cry, “ Must they only ever talk about that moment of weakness? I was the first to take the Good News of Christ to India and converted thousands of people there! ”  And then, turning to Ma...