Sermons

2022-01-23 (Nehem. 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 1 Cor. 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21)           In this period between Christmas and Lent, it can perhaps seem odd that we have in today’s Gospel reading, Luke’s account of the beginning of Jesus’s ministry after his forty days spent in the wilderness. Would this not be better to hear after Lent? […]

Matthew, Mark and Luke describe the Holy Spirit coming down on Jesus at his baptism. In the New Testament as a whole, the action of the Holy Spirit is an important element in baptism. In the 5 accounts of baptisms in the Acts of the Apostles, the spirit is always comes down, sometimes spontaneously from […]

    John 1.10-18           ‘HE CAME TO HIS OWN,  AND HIS OWN   DID NOT RECEIVE HIM.’ A week ago we celebrated Midnight Mass. After  we had received Holy Communion the priest took the tiny figure of the baby Jesus from the altar and carried it to the crib in the Resurrection Chapel at the east […]

In the calendar of the Western church, the day after Christmas, has been celebrated in honour of the first martyr Stephen. Much has been made of how this feast together with those which follow shed light on the meaning of the Incarnation, something most certainly true but which is due just to happenstance.   The happenstance […]

Luke 3:7-18       John the Baptist tends to get a good press from Christians; he is keen on social justice and puts his life on the line by challenging the morals of loud and shabby ruler and and in two of the gospels he baptises Jesus. as we hear today He announces that there will […]

What are you preparing for? That might, especially at this stage of December, or, for those of use who are ordinands or teachers, seem like a painfully intrusive question! But if it is, it’s nonetheless one that is positively forced on us by the liturgy and readings of the day. On Friday evening I went […]

Fans of the novels of Robert Galbraith (alias JK Rowling) should recognise the cluster of stars known as Messier 54 as a major clue in one of the Cormoran Strike thrillers. It is a globular galaxy some 87,000 LY away (just down the road really. The clue is given to Strike by and Ian Brady […]

Whatever you might think about living under a monarchy, the British monarchy is very odd. We live in an age which is passionate about equality, equal opportunities, controls and checks on people’s performance in their jobs, a dislike of class difference and deference, and so on. We attempt with great commitment to apply these things […]

You might have seen the sketch in Morecambe and Wise in which they do their own version of ‘Singing in the Rain’. Ernie is enjoying himself playing the Gene Kelly role, singing and dancing (and we’re reminded how good those two were at both, having started in music hall), while Eric is a hapless police […]