My Sermons

2 June 2024 Second Sunday after Pentecost 1 Samuel 3.1-10 Psalm 139.1-7,15-18 2 Corinthians 4.5-12 Mark 2.23-3.6 I remember once as a small boy staying over at my friend’s house, being asked to help set the table. “Just put this in the centre of the table, Evan”, said my friend’s mum. But it was a crystal bowl, it looked and felt precious, and I - felt so clumsy. I must have looked doubtful, because she said to me, “It’s OK. Just walk slowly.” And I carried it very carefully indeed - the bowl that was so delicate and that caught the light so beautifully. But the bowl and I both survived! It felt like a great trust had been placed in me - and a massive relief to get it safely to the table. After dinner, I stuck to the knives and forks! So today’s lessons are for ordinary, imperfect human beings who know they drop things, and get things wrong, and that they don’t quite measure up to the task of being servants of the light. Ordinary human beings - who respond to God’s calling in ordinar...

  Trinity Sunday Isa 6.1-8 Rom 8.12-17 Mark 1.9-11 So, it’s Trinity Sunday - a day on which traditionally the Church reflects on no less than the nature of God’s own life. On how Jesus as the eternal Word of God is a co-equal person of the Godhead and how the Holy Spirit as the mutual self-gifting love of Father and Son spills over in loving gift to all creation. To spill the beans on all that in a 15 minute sermon without committing any of the enticing but deadly heresies of the ancient Church. I’ve heard it suggested that Trinity Sunday is also the one day of the year on which your hardworking preacher is most likely to call in sick! Well, what if we forget the tricky theological formulas the Church has wrestled with for two millenia and ask ourselves, seriously, how do I personally imagine God? What picture comes to your mind when you think of God?  I remember once asking members of a parish study group to draw something that summed up what God “looked like” to them. Well, ...

Fifth Sunday of Easter 5 May 2024 One of the fables attributed to the 6th century BC Greek philosopher Aesop is about three lazy brothers who inherited a vineyard - along with a note from Dad claiming he had buried a treasure in gold amongst the vines. For years they dug diligently around the roots of the vines - never unearthing any gold but to their surprise producing better and better wine year after year.  Remember from last week? I’m the vine, Jesus tells us, and you are the branches. Your job is to abide in me because through me you have life. You need to hold on, and you need to be fruitful. If you are not being fruitful, then the life of the vine is not flowing through you and you have already separated yourself from the source of life. If you are being fruitful and you want to keep being fruitful - well then you need to submit to being pruned and shaped and disciplined by my love.  This is Jesus in truth-telling mode, it is the hard news of accountability - and it’s s...