Sermons And Gubbins

This poem was written for our monthly poetry group. The theme for July was ‘bread’ - hope you enjoy reading it! The Breadaholic We're at a five star restaurant. My menu's still unread. I'm much too full to order; I've eaten all the bread. I don't feel good next morning: Bloated and over-fed. I've cheated on the Atkins Diet, And eaten all the bread. The kids want toast for breakfast. I've got them cereal instead. I said it had all gone mouldy, But I've eaten all the bread. My wife says I've a problem. "You just can't help yourself," she said. Lunch was supposed to be bacon rolls; I've eaten all the bread. Tomorrow morning's Sunday And I've a growing sense of dread. The priest at the Eucharist will blow his top; I've eaten all the bread.

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 ...

This story was written as a response to the Gospel reading on the morning of Sunday 29th July and read out as my sermon on that day. There are probably opportunities to make it interactive, using actual gingerbread man biscuits that can be broken and given to the congregation/children, or perhaps using paperchain people that can be expanded at appropriate points in the story (and then stretched out across the church afterwards). I didn't do that (this time), but if you'd like to nick the idea should you ever want to use the story, please feel free (and let me know how it goes!) The reading was the famous passage from  John 6:1-21  about the feeding of the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. I read a sermon which encouraged us to think of ourselves not as the crowd, or the disciples, or eve n the boy in the story, but the bread. (It's very good... Go read it  here ). This story is my attempt to help people do that, to think of ourselves as bread; gingerbread. Hope you enjo...

This poem was written for our Evensong service on Sunday 22nd April. It is a response to the Old Testament reading for that evening; Exodus 16:4-15 , specifically picking up the theme of bread/manna and the idea of the Israelites complaining to God. If you'd prefer to read a sermon on that passage instead, you might want to look at one I wrote a couple of years ago; The Immigrants and the Bread . Hope you enjoy! You rescued me from the den of my enemies, Brought me out of slavery and into the wilderness, Led me to safety away from my oppressors, And I complained. I have seen miracles: seen seas parted, and fiery cloudy pillars, I have been led on a journey,       travelling to start a new life in a new land filled with milk and honey I have been set free . And I complained. I was wandering in unfamiliar lands, led away from everything I once knew, I was hungry and thirsty, longing to return to my captors,     ...

This story was written for an all-age harvest service, and told on Sunday 9th October 2016. I enjoyed writing it, but it was tricky to ensure it appealed to (and had a message for) the adults and the very young children in the service.I hope I managed to get the balance right, and that you get something out of it too!   O NCE Upon A Time... many years ago; before you could order a takeaway from an app on your smartphone, before battery hens or McDonal d’s cows, back when all fruit and vegetables were organic, and all animals were free-range, back before potatoes were made into chips, before tomatoes were made into ketchup, or before meat was made into sausages, before even supermarkets were invented, there lived a small tribe of desert people. They lived – these desert people – in dusty desert tents, unsurprisingly, out in the hot, dry desert, near a great big mountain, as tall as the sky itself. Now, because supermarkets were not invented yet, this tribe of desert peopl...

This sermon was preached on Sunday 2nd August. The Old Testament reading was  Exodus 16:2-15 Our prime minister, David Cameron, caused something of a stir this week, when he referred to the number of migrants attempting to make the journey from Calais to the UK as a ‘swarm’. This use of language, comparing this group of people to insects – whether meant that way or not – was de-humanising and antagonistic. It was also sad. Perhaps, in his role as prime minister of the UK, he can little afford to show empathy here – his focus in his job, after all, is the country he governs. The same is not true for the rest of us, however. We are called to be empathetic, to put ourselves in the place of the outsider. As Christians especially, we are called to remember that we ourselves are migrants. The New Testament reminds us several times that we are in the world, but not of the world (John 15:18-19, John 17:16) – that we are strangers and exiles upon earth (Hebrews 11:...