Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was given at our All Souls service on the evening of Sunday 30th October. I hope you enjoy reading it. I’d like to start this evening by reiterating the welcome Huw extended to you at the start of our service this evening. Whilst you may not wish to be here today – because the very fact that you are here tonight means that you are mourning somebody you have loved who is no longer with us on earth, you are welcome here. You are welcome to worship, or to mourn, or to do both, or do neither. You are welcome to join in, and you are welcome simply to sit, and to just be . This year as a nation, we have all taken part in a prescribed period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, and although that period was directed by such public institutions as the Royal Family, the government and the BBC, when it comes to personal mourning, there is no right way to grieve; there is only your way, unique to you.  That may feel an isolating experience sometimes. Grief is often lonely. But to...

This sermon was given on Easter Sunday 2022. The Gospel was John 20:1-18 . Happy Easter to you! I n the beginning , the very beginning, the world was without form, and darkness covered the face of the deep. God spoke something different into that formless void, into the literal chaos. God spoke a word, and the word was light . In naming it, it came into being. On the first morning of the new creation, the world was dark. The sky had turned black on the Friday, and it was still dark when Mary came to the tomb. We expect great new things to start with a fanfare ; with fireworks and a party. They don’t. Things start in the dark. That’s when most births happen – for humans as well as animals – when it is night time and the sky is black. The world may seem a dark place today. It is still Easter; Easter always starts in the dark. The light of Easter  The thing about darkness, is it hides what’s really going on. Mary got to the tomb in the dark, and – although she could see t...

This poem was written for Easter 2020, and released in two parts; Part I on Easter Saturday, and Part II on the morning of Easter Sunday. It was inspired by Matthew 26:31, and, fairly obviously, the current coronavirus situation in which we all find ourselves. Hope you enjoy it! Part I The entrance to the nave is locked  This Easter, none are gathered. The Shepherd and his church are struck  And now the sheep are scattered. The sacraments are locked away, The doors and windows battened. The organ will not, cannot, play, For now the sheep are scattered. And Christ is strung, high on his cross, His body scarred and tattered. But his disciples keep no watch  Not now the sheep are scattered. And I do not know if we can cope, Our mortal lives so shattered. We are dried up; we have no hope  Now the sheep are scattered. Part II But Christ does not stay on his cross  And all I once thought mattered Now all else, I count as loss E'en though the sheep are scattered. For i...

There’s a phrase – five small words – that people utter when they’re trying to empathise with you. People say it with the best of intentions, trying to bridge a gap of grief or loss, attempting to reach out and find some common ground. It’s a phrase that tries to be kind; that tries to be helpful. … I think it’s the most annoying phrase in the English language: “ I know how you fee l”. I’m sure I’ve uttered it before, and I’m thankful I wasn’t met with a swift slap in the face, to be honest. It’s certainly what I’ve felt like doing when people have said it to me. Because, the thing is, standing here in this pulpit tonight, I don’t know how you feel. I’ve not lost a partner or a mother or a father, or a daughter or a son. I’ve not lost a brother or a sister. I have lost other relatives, and my life is unequivocally emptier without good friends I have known who have died in years gone by. I also carry with me the grief of nearly ten years of my wife and I being unable to ...

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 given at our Easter Sunday service - Sunday April 1st 2018. As well as being Easter Sunday, it was April Fool's Day. Oh - hang on a minute. Dons jester’s hat That's better. Alleluia! Christ is risen! RESPONSE:          He is risen indeed! Alleluia! I was half-expecting at least one or two of you to shout back at me, ‘April Fool!’ instead, there. Let’s be honest – there are many people out there this morning making similar jokes, I suspect – ' those foolish Christians, sitting in church, celebrating a god who doesn’t exist dying and rising again. April Fool to them!' And, if you think about it – really think about it – what we believe is foolish. St Paul says so himself in his letter to the church in Corinth. He tells them that, to the world, for the people who do not know Christ, “ the message of the cross is foolishness ” And it is … …imagine it afresh, as if you’d never heard it before ...

It is, admittedly, with some trepidation that I have come to lead us all in Evensong this evening. After the horrific events earlier this week at the 16th century St Etienne’s church in Normandy, there is, unfortunately, a small amount of fear in coming to church, to worship God together, at all. I suspect mine was not the only mind whose thought this crossed tonight. For, as I’m sure we’re are aware, on Tuesday morning, whilst saying mass with a small, faithful congregation in an ancient church, Father Jacques Hamel was murdered, martyred at the altar, by two young men, eager to perpetuate and escalate a religious war. I am very glad to see that you are here with me this evening. I am glad to see that you have, consciously or not, made a decision to not let the main weapon of terrorism – that of fear – win over your desire to congregate and to worship God together. I’d like, this evening, for us to think about Father Jacques, and the reaction of the world to the events...

This sermon was preached on the morning of 5th June 2016. The readings were 1 Kings 17:17-24 , Psalm 30 , Galatians 1:11-24 and Luke 7:11-17 . You’d be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu with today’s Gospel reading. It seems like we’ve heard it before – only minutes earlier, in fact – in our reading from the Old Testament; the story from 1 Kings. In both readings, we hear of a great faith hero – Elijah and Jesus – and their coming into contact with a woman – in both cases a widow, who is mother to an only son, who, in both cases, has died. Again, in both readings, the dead son is raised and is given back to his mother – the same phrase, in fact, is used – by the hero of the faith. Finally, in both readings, there is a recognition that the man is a holy man. This is surely not coincidental. Luke, our Gospel writer, clearly knew of the story of Elijah and the widow, and wanted to refer to it when he gave his account of what happened that day in Nain, when Jesus met tha...