Morning Service for Trinity 7 2023
Is God real to you? Have you been introduced to him? That’s a daft question I know – you’re sitting in church aren’t you, how could you have avoided God? Well if you were listening to this morning’s reading form Genesis, from the saga of Jacob, it’s not such a daft question.
Morning Service for Trinity 6 2023
We all know about the parable of the sower don’t we, it’s been a favourite with Sunday schools and school assemblies for a couple of thousand years. Even if we no longer live in an agricultural economy, even though we don’t sow our seed by ‘broadcasting’ it indiscriminately anymore, we can all get the analogy. We all get the point that if you are in the business of sowing seed you’re going to get a few failures – we also get the more disturbing point that the success of the seed depends on the nature of the ground onto which it falls – and in turn we might be the one doing the sowing, or the ground that must nurture the seed and bring it to fruitfulness.
Morning Service for Trinity 5 2023
When the bishop’s ship stopped at a remote island for a day, he determined to use the time as profitably as possible. He strolled along the seashore and came across three fishermen mending their nets. In pidgin English they explained to him that centuries before their village had been converted by missionaries. “We, Christians!” they said, proudly pointing to one another.
Morning Service for Trinity 4 2023
“Take your so, your only son, whom you love…”
The Story of Abraham and Isaac is not very nice – it is certainly not suitable for children. This is not an acceptable story for our times – it does not present a gentle, ‘it’s there if you want it,’ view of faith and God. In our time, an hour on a Sunday morning is too much to sacrifice.
Morning Service for Trinity 3 2023
Hagar – what does she mean to you? Does she mean anything to you?
We saw her this morning – in the dry and empty desert in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. There she was, her precious son Ishmael, dying from thirst, she leaves him in his delirium, not able to watch him die – victims both.
Morning Service for Trinity 2 2023
“Is anything impossible for God?”
Surely that’s the question. Was it impossible for Jesus’ disciples to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons”? Was it impossible for Abraham at over 100 and Sarah in her Nineties to have a son? Is it impossible for us to have the faith that Paul speaks of, a faith that gives us a hope that will not disappoint, a faith that God’s love has really been poured into our hearts, a faith that God has proved his love for us because Christ died for us?
Morning Service for Trinity 1 2023
“The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”
So begins a new chapter in the history of the world. From this point on bible history gets very personal, its concern is with Abraham and his family as we trace the future of this promise, and how all peoples on earth will be blessed through him.
Morning Service for Trinity Sunday for 2023
Someone once famously said, “only connect”. This Sunday, Trinity Sunday, is a day to make connections. Christians often regard the doctrine of the Trinity with some embarrassment; it is so much easier to think in simpler terms of just God, or just Jesus. But that would fail to recognise the unique contribution Christianity has made to the science of God – the understanding that God is not remote, above and beyond all – so far transcendent that he merely sits in judgement, so far apart from us that he can do us no earthly good.
A Service for Pentecost 2023
Words, Words, Words.
Words are confusing but they are the best we have perhaps. Philosophers get very excited about them. The well known twentieth century philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell was said to have problems with numbers larger than two of anything – with two you could say this one is … and that one is the same in these ways but different in those other ways. But with more than two it becomes very complicated. I am told of philosophy university lecture courses which start with chairs. What is a chair? Something you sit on? Then there are lots of people sitting here. Are they sitting on chairs? No! How do you define what a chair is then?
Morning Service for the Seventh Sunday of Easter 2023
Jesus said, “and now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.”
This morning’s Gospel reading was the beginning of the end of Jesus’s farewell discourse to his disciples, his long soliloquy preparing them for his death and for his glorification, and their future. In the speech Jesus deals with his relationship to God and his relationship to the disciples and their relationship to the world. Jesus speaks of him and the father being one, he then, a little later, talks of the disciples being one and then he says that he is one with the disciples, “I in them and you (that’s God) in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that you sent me, and have loved them just as you have loved me.”
May Magazine Letter 2023
Easter has long passed by the time you read this, but the church has not done with it so quickly. The chocolate eggs may be just a sweet memory, but there is an endless amount of thinking that will happen before we stop calling the Sundays after Easter ‘Sundays after Easter’. Death and resurrection are all around us, we so often see the former, but we sometimes need to be reminded of the latter.
Magazine letter April 2023
Holy Week – Easter is not a one off event, it is not like Christmas, it is inseparable from what went before. The services of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are an essential part of what makes Easter so special. Without any one of them the story is incomplete.
Magazine letter for March 2023
The earthquake in Turkey and North Syria has stopped us in our tracks. So many of the worries and concerns we have suddenly seem so small in comparison to the plight of the many people who have lost everything and who just don’t know where to start to bury their dead, let alone begin the process of rebuilding their lives.
Magazine letter for February 2023
I remember little from my school days, which is not surprising, my memory about anything is not that great, but I do remember a story from my Scripture lesson when I was in primary school (who remembers Scripture lessons? Shows my age!). It was the story of the paralysed man whose friends made a hole in the roof of a house in order to lower him, still on his bed, right in front of Jesus (Mark 2.1-12).
Magazine letter for January 2023
After the thrill of candles and cribs, presents and turkeys, the scramble of the sales takes over – the shops rip down the decorations and bargain hunting rules the day. Christmas is well and truly over, and Epiphany is ignored.
December 2022 magazine letter
In December the church traditionally remembers prophets, their words come to us in all those services of Nine Lessons and Carols (6pm Otterbourne 18th Dec). We remember prophets and their words because they are the special mouthpiece of God, his means of communication with the world. Or at least that is how they were understood.
Magazine Letter for November 2022
During daylight hours the churches of this benefice are always open (well, almost always) for prayer and reflection, for people to find their God – or just some peace and quiet.
Morning Service for the Sixth Sunday of Easter 2023
We have just heard part of John’s farewell discourse of Jesus, given at the last supper to his disciples. In the discourse John has in mind not only what happens immediately after the trial and crucifixion but also what happens in the years that follow. The community of Jesus’ followers would not be left bereft, but that Jesus’ presence would be with them in the form of the Paraclete or Advocate – names which give a sense of the Spirit’s function for John’s community – to give words to Christians on trial for their faith, as an advocate in a court hearing.
Morning Service for the Fifth Sunday of Easter 2023
And so the fate of Stephen, the church’s first martyr, was sealed. And what did he do to win this unfortunate honour? Set fire to a holy building? Poison the Emperor? No, he spoke – he uttered words. And were those words such as to call people to arms, to demand a violent struggle? No – but they weren’t tactful, they were challenging and unflinching.
Morning Service for the Fourth Sunday of Easter 2023
Shepherds – today’s mostly about shepherds – but why do we talk about shepherds so close to Easter – what has that particular simile got to do with resurrection.