Sermons And Gubbins

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...

This sermon was written for our Sunday morning service on 22nd January. In the news headlines recently had been much talk of strike action across various industries in the UK . It was also the Sunday within the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity . The previous Sunday, we had had a guest speaker come to talk to us about the Inclusive Church movement. The Gospel that Sunday was Matthew 4:12-23 . I hope you enjoy reading the sermon! If you’ve been paying any attention to the news at all over recent months, you will have heard of strikes across many and various trade unions across our country. There has been worker-led disruption across many industries for the last six months or so; some taking up more headlines than others: transport strikes, barristers, and the postal service; other high profile strikes across our healthcare system; and schools and universities – but there have also been strikes across local government, the refuse industry, the financial conduct authority, and my own ...

This sermon was first given on Sunday 2nd June, a week after the EU election results were announced. The Gospel that morning was John 17:20-26 . I’ve had a song stuck in my head most of this week. Does that ever happen to you? You’re just sitting there, minding your own business, and a few small seconds of a song pop into your head and keep going on a loop. It’s never enough of the song to actually entertain you, only enough to just make you think you might be starting to go mad, and that you might never think of anything else ever again. It’s called an earworm, which is a weird image when you think about it! They say that one way you can get rid of an earworm is to share the song with others… so, thank you all for the help you’re about to give me this morning! The song is by one of the most famous bands in the world, U2. I suspect you know it; it’s called ‘One’.   The first lines say this: Is it getting better, or do you feel the same? Will it...