Category: ‘Sermon’ like material

  • Welsh Poppies for a Bright Future

    Welsh Poppies for a Bright Future

    There is a lovely book by Palestinian Melchite Priest Elias Chacour.  It documents his struggle to live in the occupied territories of Palestine.  It is titled, ‘We belong to the Land’.  He writes about the passage you have just heard from Matthew’s Gospel: Blessed are those… Gwyn eu Byd y rhai…  This phrase in English…

  • Lament and Rejoice

    All Saints is a time To Lament and to Rejoice. How empty stands the winter tree, once with a canopy full of leaves. How bare you are without adornments, No green covering to shade and protect. You wept bitterly in the early autumn sun, As golden leaves turned from the sky and fell to earth.…

  • with a little knowledge

    with a little knowledge

    Today is Bible Sunday.  I wonder in what condition yours is in?  Perhaps the beautiful leather bound variety, kept in a case and on a special shelf.  So important it should not be touched by grubby fingers.  Or perhaps the paperback losing its pages and held together with tape because its pages have been so…

  • At the end of the line

    At the end of the line

    First shall be last and the last shall be first.  A Bishop always walks last in procession, though that is not quite true, as the Bishop’s chaplain follows  on behind as servant to the servant of all.  Donald Trump who suggested that his secret spy name should be ‘humble.’ Though he once arrived in Scotland…

  • A Harvest Inquisition

    Is what we are doing life giving? Now this might seem a bit like the Spanish Inquisition, well I hope not a real one but perhaps a Monty Python one. Of course no-body expects the spanish inquisition, especially in a sermon, but their chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear, are their two chief weapons…

  • Seasoning the Spirit

    Seasoning the Spirit

    Sunday 27th September 2015 I remember someone recalling a conversation with their builder.  It went something like this: ‘Could I trouble you for a cup of water?’ ‘But of course.’ ‘Thanks very much.  I wonder, would it be possible to have hot water?’ ‘Yes, of course, not a problem.’ ‘That’s really kind, thanks.’  ‘Um, I…

  • Where is the Love?

    Where is the Love?

    So, where is the Love?  Bart Simpson once said: “If you don’t watch the violence you won’t get desensitised to it.”  An ironic jibe from a cartoon which often portrays in a cartoon within a cartoon the ‘Itchy and Scratchy show’ A cartoon mouse finds ever more inventive ways of destroying the cat.  There is…

  • open mouth, insert foot

    Oh Peter: Open mouth, insert foot. One might be inclined never to preach again listening to the reading from the letter of James and perhaps after this experience that might be welcome. I’ve always been quite taken with the Quakers and search out a meeting from time to time when possible. Real silence is impossible…

  • peace on our feet

    peace on our feet

    How comfortable are we right now?  I’ve never been particularly comfortable in a church – building or otherwise.  That has little to do with the fact that I’ve not yet found a pew comfortable for more than five minutes at a time.  But perhaps that is good.  We can become too comfortable in church.  We…

  • Jesus the Migrant King

    Jesus the Migrant King

    Jesus is the Migrant King. Tonight at 5pm on BBC1 Songs of Praise will be broadcast featuring the makeshift Church at Calais on the migrant camp. Occasionally someone will do a radical thing. The usual accepted ‘British’ policy is to reign them in quickly until they cave in and conform. Alternatively, if you read the…