Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 12th April 2026, the second Sunday of Easter. The Gospel was John 20:19-31 .     Let me start by wishing you all a happy Easter! And yes, it is still Easter, though, of course, we are now on the second Sunday of Easter, rather than Easter Sunday itself.   It is, though, my first opportunity to wish you all a happy Easter, as last week – as some of you may know – I was on retreat at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, where I experienced a very different Holy Week than any I have experienced before. It was very special, but I did miss you all, and the Holy Week and Easter we share at St Michael’s. I’m very glad to be back and able to preach for you here today.   A photo I took of Mirfield House of the Resurrection on the morning of Palm Sunday. Our gospel this morning is a very famous passage, and one I’ve preached on a number of times before. That’s one of the things about being a Reader; you...

  This sermon was written for Remembrance Sunday 2025; eighty years since the end of World War  II. Today we mark eighty years since the end of the Second World War. I remember clearly standing here only six years ago, marking one hundred years since the very first Remembrance  Day. I also gave my first remembrance day sermon 11 years ago, marking one hundred years since the start of the First World War. This is my fifth Remembrance Sunday sermon. Each year that I write these sermons, I realise that fewer and fewer of us remember.  Back in 2014, I remarked that to have met anyone who had died in World War I – that great war to end all wars, you would have needed to be at least 96 years old then. You’d need to be 107 now. There are about 130 people living in the UK who are 107 or older. You would need to be over eighty years old now to have ever met anyone who died in the  Second World Wa.  That’s about 4% of the UK population. Even with that, you’d probabl...

This sermon was given on the morning of Sunday 11th August 2024, after a week of riots and counter-protests in the UK. The New Testament reading was Ephesians 4:25-5:2 . This morning’s Gospel is about bread. When we get to August every third year, we get John’s Gospel, and for about 6 weeks, we go through John Chapter 6, during which we talk a huge amount about bread. If you come to church in August this year without having had your breakfast first, you’re going to get hungry! I’ve actually preached in this slot both times over the last six years. Today marks my third sermon with these same readings. So, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t actually preach on the gospel at all today?  Don’t worry, Caroline is preaching next week, and I’m sure she’ll cover the Gospel – unless she throws in a wild card? Instead then, for today’s sermon, I’d like to turn to our New Testament reading, from the letter to the Ephesians. There’s all sorts of scholarly thought about this letter that I don’t...