Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 26th October 2025; Bible Sunday. The gospel reading was Luke 4:16-24 . I hope you enjoy reading it!   Today, churches around the world are celebrating Bible Sunday . This is a day set aside for us to think about this book that we read from here at St Michael’s every time we meet together to worship God. I’m sure you’ve all got one – at least one – at home too. Maybe an ancient one you were given as a confirmation present? Maybe one bought as a student to aid with studying? Maybe you are in possession of a treasured family Bible, passed down from parents and grandparents, and now safely stored away in a cupboard or the loft? It probably won’t surprise you to know that – at home – we have at least twelve physical copies of the Bible, most of which are different translations. I have to be honest – this one here  is one of my personal favourites! It’s probably not that useful for when we do the readings in church, however…...

This poem was written for our church monthly poetry group. The theme was either ‘Jesus’ or ‘Crime’. For this one, I chose both I hope you enjoy reading it! What (crime) Would Jesus Do? Would Jesus rob an international bank  and give the money to the poor? Would Jesus chain himself to a tank,  if it meant that he could stop a war? Would Jesus steal a loaf of bread to feed a hungry child?  Would Jesus break into a testing lab to free animals into the wild?  Would Jesus smuggle Bibles  into states where they are banned? Would Jesus help families  flee from war to other lands?  Would Jesus help someone die to ease their suffering? Would Jesus protest human-rights abusers’ state-visits to the king? Would Jesus face a nazi and punch him squarely on the jaw? Would Jesus follow nations’ rules? Would Jesus break the law?

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 preached at our Sunday morning service on 27th July. The Gospel was Luke 11:1-13 . I hope you enjoy reading it!   This morning, I want to talk about prayer. In our gospel this morning, Jesus’ disciples heard him praying and they wanted in. “Teach us how to pray”, they asked, and Jesus gave them a formula; a very famous formula, but one that seems a bit different from the Lord’s Prayer we pray today. It’s the TL;DR version, if you like (“too long; didn’t read”).   <at some point during the above, Miriam, my daughter, interrupts to ask for promised sweets>   Oh, I’m sorry Miriam, I did say you could have some sweets during my talk – here you go. You go back and sit down now.   <passes Miriam a sweet>   Absolutely shameless that child!   Anyway, Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord’s Prayer (though not completely as we know it). Luke’s version goes like this:   “ Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom c...