Sermons
Favouritism? Partiality? Nope, not here.
Favouritism, partiality, no matter what you call it, NO ONE likes it. Even when the deck is stacked in our favour there is still a little something that we don’t like about it. When someone else gets ahead because of favouritism being directed to them then there isn’t a little something we don’t like about it but a BIG something. So why would I be writing about this on this…
Presents and a New Year!
It is a new year, or I suppose it should be written New Year, but capital letters or not it is very much a new year. Two thousand and fourteen, twenty-fourteen, 2014, no matter how I write it, it just seems weird. I’m not sure why 2014 seems weird in a way that 2013 didn’t but there is nothing to say for the vagaries of the human mind, especially mine….
Christmas!
Christmas is one of the more evocative words in the English language. I don’t want to suggest that everyone’s immediate response to the word is warm and fuzzy but I’m pretty sure there aren’t too many people who don’t feel something when they hear it. For me, the word is a very pleasant one with overtones of laughter and conversation, eating and gifts. As I have gotten older, “gifts” have…
Another word that is more than we might think
This Sunday is the third Sunday in Advent, the Sunday of Joy. Joy is another one of those words that can be kind of tricky. As I mention in at least one of the sermons, it is one of those words that we understand at at trivial level “joy = happiness; happiness = joy” until we take a careful look at the word. Joy and happiness differ primarily in the…
Peaceful and peace are not the same thing. Really.
The juxtaposition of this Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent’s theme is Peace, with the death of Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a few days ago was almost painful. I found the outpouring of grief and the sense of loss mixed with triumph absolutely extraordinary. I am pretty sure this is unprecedented for a, primarily, political figure, even as it is richly deserved. If you have been following this…
Happy New Year! Wait! What?
Happy New Year! No, I am not crazy, or at least no more than usual. This is the beginning of a new Church year. The liturgical calendar begins with the first Sunday of Advent and that is today, so Happy New Year! The four Sundays of Advent are there to help us prepare for Christmas. To prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the unique fully-human / fully-divine…
Reign? What do you mean by that anyway?
We don’t talk about “reigns” very much anymore, other than indulging in Commonwealth angst about what will happen when Elizabeth II dies and Charles ascends the throne (just so you know, nothing will happen really). Most of us have no idea what it might be like to have a hands-on kind of monarch like in the old days, or currently in some other countries. If this is true, and I’m…
Remembrance Sunday
It is that time of the year again, a time to remember. But a time to remember what? Is this a time to remember and glorify war? A time to remember and glorify peace? A time to remember and grieve? A time to remember and celebrate? I have heard all of those and many more besides. I remember at this time of the year because I can’t not remember; but…
What does change look like?
How is that for a completely non-provocative and almost banal question, “What does change look like?” But is it really banal in the sense that it is so drearily commonplace that it isn’t worth consideration? I don’t think that is the case. What I do think is that we have heard so much about change: “be the change”; “the new constant is change”; “change is everywhere . . . and…
What does grace look like?
I am writing this blog post whilst listing to Lou Reed’s music, a peculiar choice to be sure but I heard this afternoon that he died today. He was 71, which I suspect might be considerably older than many predictions might have been. But why bring him up at all when I preached about grace and what it looks like today? I’m not entirely sure but I think it has…