Sermons

2024-01-07 (Baptism of Christ) (Gen. 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11)           This weekend must be confusing for any visitors from the East, by which I don’t mean any from as far east as where the Wise Men were from, but for those visitors from the Eastern Church, this weekend in the Western Church’s calendar must […]

SERMON: ADVENT 4 YEAR B: (Christmas Eve) Readings: Ps. 89: 1-4, 19-26; Romans 16: 25-27; Lk. 1: 26-38 May I speak to you in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN The Mystery of the Incarnation  “How can this be”? This is the question posed by Mary in today’s gospel, Luke’s narrative […]

Who are you? In the name of the Father… What is the big deal with John the Baptist? Here we are at the business end of the season of Advent, diligently preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ, and yet, for the second Sunday in a row now, we find our attention directed not toward […]

Mark 1.1-8 and 2 Peter 3.8-15a:  Patient waiting Upper Church, Community of the Resurrection 2nd Advent Sunday, 10th of December 2023   The Revd Dorothea H. Bertschmann May I speak in the name of the living God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen “But in accordance with his promise, we wait for new […]

Advent 1 Year B Isaiah 64:1-9;  1 Corinthians 1: 3-9;  Mark 13: 24 -37 “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” *********** Welcome to the Year of Mark, and we’re in with a bang. It is the Passover week and Jesus takes his seat on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem. […]

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” In the name of the Father… How weary Jesus must have been of that word “greatest”. “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob?” “The disciples disputed among themselves as to which one of them was the greatest.” Time […]

(1 Thess. 1:1-10, Matt 22:15-22)           I had a dream – this week. Not at all like Dr Martin Luther King’s, or anything like Joseph’s in the Book of Genesis. I had looked at the readings for today earlier in the week, and then another day during my morning meditation, I’m afraid I nodded off. […]

“Many are called but few are chosen.” Matthew 22: 14 The parable we have just heard is one of the oddest parables in the Gospel. You do not need to be very clever to see the problems. First, we have a king whom we naturally assume must represent God. But this king is not a […]

Matthew 21.23-32         The Priests and elders who encounter Jesus in the temple can’t bring themselves to say John the Baptist is not from God. That’s because they are afraid of the crowd. They think he is clearly from God. Why does the crowd see things differently? The simple thing is that they get it. They […]

Syro-Phoenician woman – Trinity 11 2023 The story we have just heard would make a powerful scene in a film. Jesus has gone out of his home territory into an alien area. A woman appears and starts shouting, going on about her daughter. In the actual Greek of the gospel story, she shouts what we […]