Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on August 25th. It was my first Sunday back after my paternity leave. The sermon borrows heavily from one I gave in Oldham three years earlier , but I think that's ok! The gospel this morning was Luke 13:10-17 . Hope you enjoy... It’s lovely to be back up here in the pulpit this morning. It’s been quite a long time since I last preached, and I’m really thankful that Huw, Alex, Cath, Fi and Vaughan have picked up the extra services and sermons whilst I’ve been off on paternity leave. Thank you all! The ministry team here are fortunate to have the freedom of being in a large team that allows one of us time off when needed. Even with that, however, the time has still gone pretty quickly, though! My last sermon before Miriam was born was right at the beginning of June, and I wasn’t on the rota to do anything then until after she was born. She was 6-weeks-old on Friday, and this is my first time back in the pulpit sinc...

This sermon was my first as a guest-preacher, preached on Sunday 21st August; I was invited to preach at St Agnes and then at St Thomas in Oldham. The gospel that morning was Luke 13:10-17 . (As an aside, ignore the heading on the biblegateway link; headings (like chapters and verses) in the Bible are not original and are added by editors to help seperate the sections. Hopefully you'll see (as you read through the sermon) why I don't think the heading is the most helpful!) I’d like to start my sermon this morning with a confession, I hope you won’t hold it against me; I’m not a sports fan.   I don’t follow any football team – and that’s tricky as it’s always one of the first questions I get asked whenever people hear that I live in Manchester – are you City or United? There’s always a sense of disappointment when I answer ‘neither’, the person I’ve met has just had their conversation-starter stopped in its tracks and needs to try to think of something else to talk about. ...

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgement comes forth perverted.                                                                                  (Habakkuk 1:2-4) The question has plagued us throughout the ages. Those words, from the book of Habakkuk were written two and a half thousand years ago, and yet, you can imagine them being spoken – you can almost hear the words echo – any night of the week on the news, by people all over the world being interviewed at the scene of the late...