preaching

Lately I have posted in WordPress. Here is the opening from the latest sermon.

‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory’ – this phrase comes at an opportune time, because the magazine from the Reader Association had an interesting article about “The Son of Man”. Let me pick out the high points which should speak to us today on the Feast of Christ the King. …

Other sermons are available

Since arriving in Slimbridge, I have been saving my sermons and producing them on my website. A number of different ways of presenting them have happened. Here is a listing of the earlier sermons.

Sermons before using WordPress

Some sermons

Here are the openings for some sermons as they are being kept on these pages.

Sunday, All Saints

Who are these elect, that fellowship? I think they are the people who have faith and live out that faith in their ownmost being. They have no doubt that their lives have been knit together in a communion that is impenetrable by the dictates of everyday concerns, a fellowship which cannot be dissolved by “the world, the flesh and the devil” about whom the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church warns us. They have become the mystical body of the subject of our faith, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Christ becomes the head of these saints and the saints become the diverse parts of Christ’s body. They become the localised incarnations of this mystical body. – So began my meditation for these thoughts on All Saints Day, celebrating the Hallows of last evening.

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Feast of St Luke the evangelist

The words from the Collect should guide our thoughts for today, the Feast of St Luke the Evangelist. Haven’t physicians been foremost in our thoughts for the last nine months. Those in that “front line” have been appreciated by the population’s clapping at the very beginning and prayed for by the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church day and night, as they struggle to bring health to those struck down by disease in today’s covid pandemic. Physicians themselves must be praying to St Luke for the gifts he had been given so long ago, to allow them to heal the sick in body and mind. I think we pray for all doctors to become physicians of the soul as well, distributing that holy medicine of hope to all their patients.

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Sunday, Trinity 15

‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

What do you think when the landowner says this to those who are grumbling round about him? I think Jesus is challenging us to change the whole of the world order. He wants us to base the whole of our lives on generosity, an attitude which encourages us to divest ourselves of possessions. Envy does exactly the opposite – envy is grasping. It resents the state of affairs that it does not control. You can look at history as the playing out of the control in life. Sometimes it is a very greedy control, sometimes it is a laissez faire attitude.

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Sunday, Trinity 14

Last week we heard about how we ought to help people who are in a bad way. Jesus said, ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.’ I talked last week about these delegations – today we heard that those delegations of love need to visit seventy-seven times, not just seven times when such an intervention is required. I think these two lessons from Matthew 18 have to be read together. It is a shame the lectionary separates them. I think it shows that Jesus’ approach to the sinner is never-ending just as it should be for us – we are to go to the sinner seventy-seven times. First he tells us that we have to go quietly to the other person and we have to keep going to that person who has claimed our attention because of misdeeds. We start out very simply then get more and more people involved in the process. We are asked to keep approaching the other and encourage change out of love, I would say.

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