Sermons

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Matt. 4:19 Many, many years ago, when I was 18, I went to make my confession at Christmas. After hearing my confession the priest said, “Go and visit the Fathers at St Augustine’s, Penhalonga. You will like them.” I had never heard of them. So […]

Sunday 18th January 2026 – Upper Church CR Epiphany 2 (Week of Prayer for Christian Unity) (Charles Gore) Jn 1.29-42 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. Father, those thought and words which come from you, will you take them and bless them and those thoughts and […]

It can happen to us that we are staying in a strange boarding-house and need to get up in the middle of the night. We fumble our way along the corridor looking for  a light-switch, and fail to find it. But we make our way by the moonlight streaming through the windows. Next day in […]

The Poor have good news preached to them. (Matt 11:5) What is that good news? In this story it is that “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up.” Luke’s version at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in the synagogue in […]

“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power”. ****************************** It is often remarked that many today long for the simplicity, resolve and effectiveness of the strong man, almost whatever the aim and whatever the methods. Christ the King – celebrated for the 100th time this year – puts […]

Luke 20.27-38 Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. His ninth is so stupendous that you couldn’t imagine what could possibly follow it. Imagine someone discovers a long-lost score of his 10th Symphony, and a friend of yours has just been to the first performance. Your friend tries to describe to you what the music is like. The […]

Two men went up to the Temple to pray… In the name of the Father… Two men went up to the Temple to pray, and one prayed badly and one prayed well. Two men went up to the Temple to pray, and one went home justified and the other went home unjustified. Two men went […]

Sermon Proper 24. 2 Timothy 3.14-4.5; Luke 18.1-8; Genesis 32.22-31 “Continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it.” In today’s reading from the Second Letter to Timothy, Paul reminds us that our faith is hereditary. We learned it from someone who learned it from someone, who eventually learned […]

Amos 6:1-7 6Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria,    4Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; 5who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, […]

Luke 16.1-13 This parable of the unrighteous steward is notoriously difficult to make sense of, and so I’m going to start somewhere else and come back to it. I want to think of a painter. The painter makes a few strokes with the brush on the canvas. Then she stands back and looks at it. […]