Sermons

“Lord, open our hearts to the riches of your grace.” ************************ “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” So the Lord asks those who hear him, all those farmers and fishermen who know just how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky. “Hypocrites”, he says. Their hypocrisy seems to […]

Without you O God my table is empty :   Make haste O Lord, and do not delay.  Amen                            Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also Last Sunday  we had a great sermon from Steven on the parable of the self-satisfied rich man who built bigger barns to store his grain, laying […]

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 46 years ago, the world’s richest woman died in her penthouse apartment in Beverly Hills. Once known as the “Poor Little Rich girl”, Barbara Woolworth Hutton was only 66 at the time of her death and had barely $3500 […]

“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” In the name… Our brothers Nicolas and Charlie have recently been teaching retreat groups how to practise contemplative prayer. They looked to the masters to see how they might go about it, from Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross to Martin Laird and […]

The parable of the good Samaritan is full of twists, full of poignancies. First of all, we read in many places in the Old Testament that the foreigner, the stranger, is to be treated well. Deuteronomy says: God … executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and … loves the stranger, providing them with food […]

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. In the name of the Father… Today we celebrate the dedication of this Church of the Resurrection, this place for which we have so many reasons to be grateful, to be thankful, to celebrate; this place […]

Yesterday I had the privilege of being in the gathering at Wakefield Cathedral for the ordination of new deacons for this Diocese of Leeds – a scene repeated around the nation, and in other dioceses again today. It was joyful, and hot, and a stirring of reminiscences, and a remarkable tying together of lives led […]

Trinity 1.  Gadarene Swine. The story we have just heard is history. It is a story of a real man possessed by evil. He is torn apart by that evil and tears others apart. He is endlessly destructive and lives in a place of death apart from life, and love and compassion and all the […]

(Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5: John 16:12-15) ‘When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.’ For reasons I don’t quite understand at Mirfield, we […]

Until now[…]I have spoken to you in figures… In the name of the Father… Today’s gospel is taken from what has come to be known as the great “High Priestly Prayer” of Jesus at the end of Chapter 17 of St John’s gospel. It comes at the very end of the so-called “Farewell Discourses” of […]