Sermons And Gubbins

This story was written as a response to the Gospel reading on the morning of Sunday 29th July and read out as my sermon on that day. There are probably opportunities to make it interactive, using actual gingerbread man biscuits that can be broken and given to the congregation/children, or perhaps using paperchain people that can be expanded at appropriate points in the story (and then stretched out across the church afterwards). I didn't do that (this time), but if you'd like to nick the idea should you ever want to use the story, please feel free (and let me know how it goes!) The reading was the famous passage from  John 6:1-21  about the feeding of the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. I read a sermon which encouraged us to think of ourselves not as the crowd, or the disciples, or eve n the boy in the story, but the bread. (It's very good... Go read it  here ). This story is my attempt to help people do that, to think of ourselves as bread; gingerbread. Hope you enjo...

This sermon was given at our Evensong service on Sunday 24th June 2018. There had been much in the news that week about the US's policy of child-detention camps. The Old Testament reading that evening was Jeremiah 10:1-16 . Our Old Testament reading tonight is taken from the Book of Jeremiah. I don’t often go into historical detail about our readings, but I think – tonight – a brief overview would be helpful. The Book of Jeremiah was written somewhere around 625-585 BC, so roughly about 2600 years ago. It was written mainly in Hebrew, and was written when the Jewish people in Judah were a subject state, being ruled over by the Egyptians, and then – after a war between Egypt and Babylon – by the Babylonians.  Judah rebelled several times against Babylonian rule, but was, each time, defeated, until finally, Babylon crushed Judah, destroying Jerusalem and its temple, and sent the Jewish people into their famous Babylonian exile. Given that background, our reading seems som...

This poem was written for our Evensong service on Sunday 22nd April. It is a response to the Old Testament reading for that evening; Exodus 16:4-15 , specifically picking up the theme of bread/manna and the idea of the Israelites complaining to God. If you'd prefer to read a sermon on that passage instead, you might want to look at one I wrote a couple of years ago; The Immigrants and the Bread . Hope you enjoy! You rescued me from the den of my enemies, Brought me out of slavery and into the wilderness, Led me to safety away from my oppressors, And I complained. I have seen miracles: seen seas parted, and fiery cloudy pillars, I have been led on a journey,       travelling to start a new life in a new land filled with milk and honey I have been set free . And I complained. I was wandering in unfamiliar lands, led away from everything I once knew, I was hungry and thirsty, longing to return to my captors,     ...

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 ...

This meditation was written for our Good Friday Last Hour at the Cross service - Friday 30th March 2018. The service included five music tracks that fit the theme of Good Friday, focussing on death, and the cross. You can find a list of them at the bottom of the meditation. So, this is it. The Last Hour. I remember when I was small, an hour would last a lifetime;  boring car-journeys that went on for miles bending the laws of time and space;  dull maths lessons that stretched out over eons, as far into the future as I could imagine.  Now? Now, those sixty minutes can pass by in the blinking of an eye.  I can sit down for ten seconds only to find an afternoon has been spent. I look at your cross. I wonder how long that Last Hour lasted for you.  Did it feel like eternity to you? Was it eternity to you?  Is it eternal? To you, outside of time, it must surely have been both –  the blinking of an eye, and the life...

This sermon was given at our evensong service on Sunday 18th March. The New Testament reading was  Romans 5:12-21   During the week leading up to the service, both  Ken Dodd  and  Stephen Hawking  passed away. Whenever I prepare to preach a sermon, I look at the readings, and first of all try to find something that strikes me as odd or unusual to preach on. Sometimes, I’ll find that when I’m looking at the readings, that there’s one which is hard to understand, or I need to read several times and do quite a bit of research on to really get what is being said. When that happens, I know that that is what I should be preaching on – if I find it hard to understand, then others might too, and spending my sermon unpacking that difficult reading could be really helpful to at least some of the people who are listening (I hope!). And so, you can imagine how thrilled I was – the sheer joy of the inner voice in my head when I saw that today’s New Testament readi...

This sermon was preached at our Evensong service on the first Sunday of Lent 2018 (Sunday 18th February). The Old Testament reading was taken from the book of Genesis, chapters 2:15-17 and 3:1-7 . Today is the first Sunday in Lent; the start of our solemn journey with Christ towards his cross. During these forty days, we might choose to fast, or devote more time to prayer and Bible study. Perhaps you might have started a book of Lenten devotions? We probably should also be using this period of time to look at our lives, calling to mind the exhortation of Wednesday just gone – “ Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin, and be faithful to Christ. ” It’s appropriate, then, that, as we contemplate our failings, and turn away from sin, we at this point turn the pages of our Bible to contemplate the first sin. It’s appropriate that here, at the  start  of Lent, we have heard a story from the start of  time .  It’s ...