Sermons And Gubbins

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 30th August. The Gospel was Matthew 16:21-28 , and the New Testament reading was Romans 12:9-21 .  In writing this sermon, I was reminded of a hymn I wrote a few years ago. I nearly quoted it in the sermon, but removed it in the end. It's here  if you wish to read it.   Last week, Huw talked to us about when Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, and then how difficult the disciples must have found it when Jesus instructed them to keep quiet about it. I have been thinking about that this week. And I’ve also been wondering about Jesus’ motivation. To tell you the truth, I have never understood why Jesus wanted his heavenly identity to be kept so under wraps. Well, this week, we finally find out why.   Poor Peter. I’ve never known someone get it so spectacularly right, and then so catastrophically wrong within such a short space of time. Last week , he was top of his game. Jesus asked his disciples w...

This sermon was preached on Remembrance Sunday 2022. The Gospel was  Luke 21:5-19 . I hope you enjoy reading it. Our gospel this morning is a jarring one for Remembrance Sunday. Here we are this morning – joining thousands of people across our country – coming together to contemplate the horrors of war and recommitting ourselves to work for peace in our world, and – instead of a gospel message about the coming Kingdom of God, where there will be no more war, and no more pain, and no more tears, we get this : Wars and insurrections? These things must happen, says Christ. Nations will fight nations, and kingdoms will fight kingdoms. Earthquakes, and famines and plagues. All will be thrown down. I don’t know about you, but I was expecting something else; something about Heaven, and peace, and love. I wanted to hear the passage from Isaiah about beating ploughshares into swords, and spears into pruning hooks and nations not learning war anymore. But instead, Christ tells his disciples ...

This is a  version of a sermon  I first preached in March 2016, updated for Sunday 12th March 2022. Consuming our thoughts was the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Gospel that morning was  Luke 13:31-35 . We love an underdog, don’t we? Whilst we are all – rightly and obviously – appalled and horrified by the ongoing war in Ukraine, I think we all have to admit that one of the major reasons this inv asion by Putin has caught our attention in the way his previous war crimes have not, is down to the canniness of Ukraine’s president Zelensky. Zelensky’s cabinet have outright stated that  social media is part of their war-effort , and it is clear that the Ukrainian people are winning the war of hearts and minds of the world in the virtual realm, even if they are suffering immense losses on the very physical ground. The Ukrainian people, and to a major extent, their president too, have been portrayed exactly as that underdog we all love; they are a besieged nation, and Zelensk...

  This homily was given at our Remembrance Sunday service on 8th November 2020. Apart from being the first ever lock-down Remembrance Day, it was also the day after Joe Biden was eventually named as the President elect of the United States of America. The gospel was John 15:9-17 . I'm not going to preach for long today. Today's service has more than enough in it without a lengthy sermon from me too. And I think that's right, because some things are more important than words. Today is an auspicious day. There has never been a Remembrance Day like this before. In over one hundred years, the day has been about taking part in an act of public remembrance. That cannot happen today, for obvious reasons. Some people have even been unable to buy a poppy this year. No; today cannot be about a public show. Instead then, let us make it a private resolution. And I mean that word not in the sense we use it at New Year; an objective to be tried and given up as a failure within a few ...