Lent 1 – Mark 19-15: Repent It was the festival of St Valentine Day on Wednesday, but also Ash Wednesday. St. Valentinus appears to have had no special connection to romantic love, but Chaucer connected his saint’s day on 14th February with birds mating in Spring, and it all seems to have gone from there. […]
Luke 9:28-36: After university I went to Kenya as a CMS Volunteer, and worked in a technical training school in Nairobi. I met Rachel in Kenya, as she was another CMS (which became known among us as the Church’s Marriage Society, for obvious reasons) Volunteer. Rachel lived in a beautiful spot called Mugumo, just south […]
Easter 2 – John 20:19-29 It was late that Sunday evening. Two days after Good Friday. If the Friday of the crucifixion was Day 1, Day 2 was Saturday, and this was “on the third day” as we have just said in the creed. Jesus appears to the disciples. Today is the second Sunday in […]
Lent 2 – John 31-17 Today’s gospel reading is one of the best known passages in the Bible, which presents a challenge for talking about it. But it is well know because it has so much in it, and is so significant. This is early on in John’s gospel. We have had Jesus’ baptism, […]
Creation 2 – Luke 151-10: Lost Sheep Today’s gospel is two parables, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. It is part of a long run of Jesus’ teaching in Luke, 6 chapters (1322-1927) when Jesus was mainly in the south of the Israel, heading towards Jerusalem for the last time. Loosing sheep is not […]
Trinity 5 – Luke 951-62: Confrontation & Commitment The gospel reading this morning has two, separate sections. One about Jesus travelling being turned away in Samaria, and the other about Jesus turning potential disciples away. In the light of events this week, I am only going to look at the first part, verse 51-55. […]
Last Sunday was Easter, when we emerge from the reflection and mourning of Lent to the celebration of the resurrection. I was down in Cornwall, at the Lookout on the cliffs at Boscastle at 6:30am, which felt like the middle of the night with the clocks having gone forwards. We arrived in complete dark, in […]
Trinity Sunday – John 31-7 Morning Communion, Trinity, 31st May 2015 Who do you pray to? Do you pray to the Father, as Jesus did? Or do you pray directly to Jesus? Or sometimes one, sometimes the other? And do you pray to the Spirit? I suspect that, like me, you may not always be […]
An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walked into a bar, and the barman said, “Is this a joke”.
There are not many jokes in the Bible. You may think that was not one either – one to think about. But there is humour.
Today we are going to be following our reading about the wedding at Cana. It is, in many ways, a rather strange story. We know it well, but there are some odd things here