Sermons

Lent 4    26 March 2017    Year A: Healing of the man born blind (John 9)     In a few moments’ time we shall be on our feet declaring our belief that it was ‘for us and for our salvation’ that Jesus Christ ‘came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary […]

Lent 3 (19 March 2017) John 4.5-42 Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well ‘Woman believe me the hour is coming when you will neither, on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father but the hour is coming – and now is – when the true worshippers will worship the Father in […]

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him’ The strap line of the Blood Donor Service is ‘save a life’. It is brilliant: what could be better than to endure just a few moments of discomfort in order to […]

Transfiguration 26 February 2017 I want to begin with something most of you will not have heard before. It is from “ Alice through the Looking Glass”. The White Queen and Alice are having a conversation. The White Queen says to Alice : “Let’s consider your age to begin with. How old are you?”. “I’m seven […]

Has Christ been divided? 22 January, 2017 Here from the novel Shirley is Charlotte Bronte’s portrait of the curate Mr Macarthey: “I am happy to inform you” she writes “with truth, that this gentleman … proved himself … decent, decorous and conscientious … . He laboured faithfully in the parish: the schools, both Sunday and […]

Launch of St Hild College 14 January 2017, Dewsbury Minster Sermon preached at the service to launch St Hild College, formed by the merger of the former Yorkshire Ministry Course and St Barnabas Theological Centre, continuing to operate from its site within the grounds of CR at Mirfield. I am old enough to remember the Beatles. […]

The Baptism of Christ   8 January 2017 Today we keep the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. Because of the quirks of the church’s calendar, in which some festivals are coupled with a specific date like Christmas, others are based on specific Sundays, like this one, so that while we kept the great feast of […]

Naming of Jesus 1 January 2017 Numbers 6.22-27; Gal 4.4-7; Luke 2.15-21 Driving around the country to Ministry Division meetings is not inherently pleasurable but it sometimes brings unexpected benefits, usually courtesy of Radio 4. So it was that on one occasion recently I heard the following tale. In a clearing in the Australian bush […]

Jesus came to… 18 December 2016 – Advent 4 What can anyone say in this run up to the pre-Christian midwinter festival, when Christmas music has been played in bus stations for a month already, coloured lights glimmering from windows, cards arriving; even presents? Who are music, the lights, the presents, for? Are they really […]

Straightness 4 December 2016 – ADVENT 2: Year A Poets, story-tellers and other observers and commentators on the human condition have occasionally pointed out the curious fact that in order to arrive at an intended destination the traveller sometimes has to go by a roundabout and circuitous route. Alice at the beginning of her adventures […]