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 […]
Today’s gospel reading is part of a series on five consecutive Sundays from John 6. Richard began last week with vv1-21, the feeding of the 5,000 and one of the stories of Jesus walking on water. We then skip a couple of verses (22-23), and continue on today. We should have stopped at verse 35, […]
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 […]