Walking on Water
Trinity 9, 9th August 2020 Jesus must have been extraordinary. This week I was reading, not today’s passage, but one from Luke (7:36-50) about the woman who came to Jesus when he was eating at a pharisee’s house. She wept at his feet, wiping them with her hair and putting precious ointment on them. The […]
A masterclass in prayer – Jacob wrestles at Peniel
August 2nd 2020, Trinity 8 I wonder if you have found the last few months a struggle in any way? Struggled with the lockdown, with loneliness perhaps, illness, uncertainty, loss, or struggled with faith? What about struggled with God? This morning we come to one of the most unusual stories of the entire Bible […]
Sermon Sunday 26 July 2020
I want to consider Jesus’ parables in our gospel today, with a passing reference to that wonderful passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans. I’ve never found the idea of process very easy. By that I mean that I struggle sometimes with the idea that things take time. On the whole I’m more interested in […]
A Timely Parable – Sunday 19th July 2020
Background Just when I thought this week that I could hear no more tales of misery and grief from poor, wretched, starving, bombed and disease-wracked Yemen – where cholera is rampant and Covid 19 claims the lives of a quarter of all those that contract it, I did. Incredibly, this year already some one […]
Homily from Sunday 12th July
Homily offered at the first service in the church building after lockdown on Sunday 12 July 2020 at 4.00pm. Only those members unable to join in morning zoomed worship had been invited. We followed Common Worship Evening Prayer Luke 19.41-20.8 ‘As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it’ In the weeks […]
The Parable of the Sower
This week’s gospel gives us perhaps the most famous parable of all time. I recall it being the first reading I ever had to preach on as a curate. My heart fell: what more could you possibly say that hadn’t been said before about the sower! Sometimes, though, perhaps all a preacher needs to do […]
Welcoming – Matthew 10:40-42: Trinity 3, 28th June 2020
We have been looking at Matthew 10 for a few weeks now. It is Jesus’ commission to the twelve disciples before he sent them out. He tells them to preach that the kingdom of heaven is near, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to drive out demons. It quite some apprenticeship and, I […]
Love Actually – June 21st, 2020, Trinity 2
Matthew 10:24-39 ‘Love, actually’ We are living through tumultuous and difficult times. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, racial justice protests gripping the world, poverty, the climate emergency, and just in the last 24 hours, here in Reading, 3 people killed while they enjoyed an afternoon sitting with friends in the sun. Suddenly Reading […]
Results of Justification
Sermon for Zoom Church, June 14, 2020, St John and St Stephen, Reading. Romans 5:1-8 5Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not […]
Sermon for Pentecost: St John and St Stephen’s Zoom Church May 31 2020.
AND so we come to Pentecost – the Feast that the Jews kept to celebrate the final coming in of the harvest. In the book of Acts Luke writes that the disciples were gathered in one place awaiting the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s doubtful they even had an inkling of what to expect […]