Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:1-13 Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, once said “If somebody said, give me a summary of Christian faith that I can write on the back of an envelope, the best thing to do would be to write out the Lord’s Prayer.” It is perhaps the only piece of Christian liturgy used by […]
Be Perfect
Leviticus 19:13-18 | Matthew 5:38-48 Last week – or maybe it was the week before – I mentioned that there was this pattern of speech that Jesus used in the sermon on the mount, and which was a good indication of the way that the author portrays him as taking part in the cut and […]
Choice and Hope
Sirach 15:15-20 | Matthew 5:21-26 A while back, and I’m not sure exactly how it happened, there was a conversation in our household that turns out to be relevant to our readings today. Somehow we ended up talking about the doctrine of original sin.
The Law and the Prophets
Isaiah 58:1-8 | Matthew 5:13-20 Today, as we continue our exploration of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, the best known block of his teaching about what it means to live as his disciple, as a citizen of his reign, our gospel reading brings us one of those passages where it’s hard to […]
Beatitudes
Micah 6:1-8 | Matthew 5:1-12 Last week I spoke about the importance of the word ‘disciples’ in the life of the follower of Jesus, reflecting on the sense that it carries with it – or ought to carry with it – of a lifelong process of being incrementally trained in the way of Jesus, the […]
Growth Mentality
Matthew 4:12-23 Back before advent – I know that seems a long time ago now, but bear with me – back before advent we looked at a number of passages from the Hebrew prophets, under the theme of “When everything has changed” – reflecting on the promises of God as understood by the people of […]
Full of grace and truth
John 1:6-18 We have seen his glory, full of grace and truth. John, using the imagery of light in the darkness to speak of the arrival of Jesus I must have read or listened to these words dozens and dozens of times – every Christmas of my life, to begin with, and I’m sure plenty […]
Christ the King
Psalm 46 | Colossians 1:11-20 Today we come to the end of the Church year. Next Sunday, is the start of advent, the start of the time of getting ready, as we approach the great mystery of Christmas. This week, the final Sunday of the Church year, we celebrate the festival of Christ the King.
Celebrating connections
Isaiah 65:17-25 We’re drawing close to that time of year when we start to look towards Christmas; to the season of advent, when we will be preparing ourselves once again for our celebration of that most incredible of all miracles and mysteries, the coming of God into God’s world, not through a spectacular act of […]
The days are surely coming
Jeremiah 31:27-34 One more week in the book of Jeremiah. Last week we reflected on Jeremiah’s words to those who had been taken into exile, those for whom everything had changed so dramatically, who were wondering what it meant, how they were supposed to live now that they were in this foreign land, the land […]
Live where you are
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been spending some not inconsiderable amount of time thinking about where we should go next in terms of our sermon series. Since Pentecost, back in June, we’ve explored once again what it means to be followers of Jesus – empowered by the Spirit, following in the freedom we […]
Hope for all creation
Romans 8:18-25 Today we come to the end of our series for the Season of Creation, and we’re deviating from the principle that I set out at the start of the series, when I spoke about the challenge of taking the lectionary readings and trying to hear the voice of creation in texts where we […]
Listen to the voice of creation
Jeremiah 4:22-28 | Luke 15:1-10 There are, I think, three outstanding difficulties that we have when it comes to reading the Bible. The first, and perhaps the greatest of them is resistance. By resistance I mean that often we know exactly what the scriptures are telling us about the will and the ways of God, […]