Sermons And Gubbins

This poem was written for our Evensong service on 7th October, the week of National Poetry Day 2018. The day was given over to our church's Harvest Festival, and I was reflecting on what we - who no longer plough fields or scatter seed - can bring to the creator of everything, who needs nothing from us. Hope you enjoy... I am not a farmer; I can bring no wheat. I am not a butcher; I can bring no meat. I am not a baker; I can offer no fresh batch. Nor am I a fisherman; I can bring no morning catch. I am not a hunter; I can bring no prey. I am not a potter and can bring no refined clay. I am not a gardener; I can bring no fresh produce. And I am not a fruit picker; I cannot bring first fruits. I am not a cow-herd; I can offer you no milk. I am not a weaver; I can bring you no fine silk. I am not a serving cook; I can prepare for you no meal And I am not a blacksmith; I can forge for you no steel. I am not a miner; I cannot bring you coal. N...

This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service on 23rd September 2018. The Gospel that morning was Mark 9:30-37 , and the Old Testament reading was from Proverbs - 31:10-31 . So… I thought this morning, I’d look at our reading from Proverbs , and preach about how to be a great wife. But, then I remembered that I quite like living in my house, and so I decided that it would probably be a good idea to pass on the exciting opportunity to preach on such a reading as that. I hope you’ll agree with me that that was a good decision. And even if you don’t, well… you’re not the one who has to live with the consequences. But actually, we all want to be great, don’t we? A great wife, a great husband, a great parent? A great friend, a great employee or employer? A great sportsperson, or cook, or artist or writer? We want to be great at what we do, and for people to acknowledge that. We don’t all want to be great at everything (well, some of us do), but… for what’s ...

This sermon was preached at our Evensong service on Sunday 16th September. The New Testament reading that day was  Matthew 7:1-14 . We’ve had some interesting juxtaposition in our readings tonight; our  Old Testament reading  which we heard first, covered how Moses set up Israel’s system of Judges, and, then we heard our  New Testament reading , which starts off with Jesus saying “Judge not, so that you may not be judged.” Now, I preached on Moses at Evensong  only the other week , so I don’t propose to preach a sermon on him again so soon. And it was only as recent as last Sunday morning that Rev’d Cath gave us an excellent sermon on judgement based on the readings for that day, so I also don’t propose to re-tread the ground that Cath has already trod – if you want to hear that sermon and you haven’t done so, do get hold of Cath and ask her to share it with you; it was very good! Instead, then, I’d like to continue the theme of prayer I took ...

This sermon was first preached at our Evensong service on Sunday 26th August. The Old Testament reading that night was  Exodus 4:27-5:1 . Both our readings tonight were quite short, weren't they? Recently I’ve been getting used to an Evensong reading that takes longer to read out than my sermon does, but that’s not the case tonight! (Don’t worry – that’s not a hint that my sermon tonight is going to go on for ever!). My guess is our readers this evening thanked their lucky stars when they saw how short tonight’s readings were, and also that there were no difficult names to pronounce (though, there’s always a confusion about the pronunciation of Aaron isn’t there? – “Air-run”? “Arrun”?... I think I prefer the longer 'A' myself.) Anyway. I wonder whether our readers were praying for easy readings tonight? If so, it seems that their prayers worked! So… tonight, I’d like to think about that first Old Testament reading a bit – the reading from Exodus about Moses. Incidentally, w...