Epiphany 6/1/19 Good morning! Where were we… Hope you all enjoyed your New Year celebrations. And have a feast of New year’s resolutions? Did you know today women are scattered hither and thither across Ireland celebrating “Nollaig na mBan”? They will be passing off house work to the men and saying goodbye to the Christmas […]
Mark 131-8, Daniel 121-3: End Times Kingdom 3, 18th November 2018 Would you like to know the future? Could be handy if you could place bets on horse races knowing the result in advance; though perhaps not entirely honest. When you first think about it, it sounds interesting, and you can think of lots of […]
16th September 2018, Creation 3 Proverbs 1:20-23, Mark 8:27-end The lectionary – and this is important stuff, so listen up – the lectionary is a book with readings in from the bible for every day of the year. All Anglican and RC churches use this, and some other churches do as well, and it’s […]
Introduction I wonder if there are some common phrases or words of wisdom that you or your parents often use? Here are some that might be familiar to you: Pride comes before a fall The early bird catches the worm Practice makes perfect Or you may know this more modern one: ‘With great power comes […]
I recently watched the film ‘A Quiet Place’… a story about ‘post-apocalyptic’ survivors fending themselves from alien creatures who hunted by sound alone.. The family we focused on could not make any sound because of the mortal danger.. and so resorted to living in total silence. Inside the clever premise was a deeper story about […]
John 6 v35, 41-51 A man was grumbling, he was sick and tired of going to work every day while his wife stayed at home. He wanted her to see what he went through each day, so he prayed: – “Dear Lord, I go to work every day and put in 8 hours of hard […]
I was 18, a medical student at a party in London, glass of wine in hand, and the student pastor Greg sidled up to me and asked, “ How is your theology Ali?” I was studying medicine, not theology and I suspect what he really wanted to know was how was my relationship with God, […]
Mark 8:31-38, Genesis 17:1-7 , 15-16 Lent is the season which is all about denial of the self and the mystery of God. When it comes to the mystery in this challenging text I’m reminded of Mark Twain who said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it […]
Advent 2 – Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8 John the Baptist John the Baptist bursts blazing onto the scene as recorded in the first few verses of the gospel of Mark. ‘A shout goes up in the desert: Make way for the Lord! Clear a straight path for him!’ (v3). He’s like an old-time fire-and-brimstone revivalist, […]
Micah 3:5-12, Matthew 24:1-14 Due to a mix-up too dull to go into, I got hold of last week’s lectionary readings for today. By the time I noticed, it was too late so the gospel reading from last week – that for Remembrance Sunday – is the one I worked with. With its prophecy of […]