Sunday's coming!

Christmas Eve Sermon Adults – we’ve nearly made it. The shops are mostly shut, the food is bought, the presents are wrapped, at least some of us are ready for bed.. Children – you’ve nearly made it. One more sleep, everyone’s arrived, the decorations are magical, at least some of you are ready for bed…   We all just need to wait for Christmas to arrive, to feel ‘Christmassy’, for Christmas to come alive. I wonder what one thing brings Christmas to life for you? Perhaps it’s the moment when you see candlelight on the face of your loved ones When you see a star shining in someone’s window Or an angel atop a Christmas tree When the tinsel or the lights twinkle at you and you feel excitement again When you hear a brass band playing carols Or catch the bray of a donkey, or a bird singing in the near-darkness.   If you haven’t felt it yet, you have about twelve hours until whatever you are feeling, it will be Christmas morning any...

I didn't write this - the "guest Author" is Susan Durber. I will be using it on Christmas day A Christmas story I know a Christmas story that comes in a book with only pictures, and no words, no sounds at all - you have to imagine the words yourself. But this is a Christmas story with no pictures, only sounds. In this story you have to imagine the pictures, and you have to make the sounds.   Once there was a spare room in a house in Bethlehem. This was not a spare room like you might have; with a spare bed and a wardrobe where the Christmas decorations are stored. It was the second room in the house, built on the side, where the animals were kept in Winter. In the summer it was empty and silent, but in the darkest, coldest days of the year it was filled with sounds. And one year, one year in particular, one special year, there were many sounds…   First, there was the usual sound of the cows…   And the usual sound of the donkeys…   ...

Isaiah 2: 1-5   There is a wonderful story, which may or may not be true, that during the approach to Christmas in 1948, a radio station in Washington DC asked ambassadors to the United States, from a number of countries, their preferred Christmas gift. The replies were recorded for a special Christmas broadcast. Most of the answers were what you would expect from a diplomat: Asked ‘what gift do you most want this Christmas?’ the French ambassador said he most wanted 'Peace throughout the world,' the Russian ambassador said he would like to have 'Freedom for all people enslaved by Imperialism,'   Then the request went through to Sir Oliver Franks, the representative of the Government of the United Kingdom, ‘what gift do you most want this Christmas?’ 'Well, it's very kind of you to ask,' he replied. 'I'd quite like a small box of crystallised fruit.'   Whatever you have said you want for Christmas, Advent Sunday helps us re...

  Colossians 1: 11-20; Luke 23: 33-43   Christmas is most certainly coming closer – today we have given out our sheets describing all the opportunities to celebrate and worship in the pastorate this year, through Advent and Christmas. We will soon start singing about shepherds and angels, stables & mangers, donkeys and sheep… and most of all about the baby, Jesus.   You might wonder why today’s Bible readings seem to be focussing on the end of Jesus life – on the cross – but these readings invite us to reflect on just who this baby is – and what it means to say not only that Jesus is born, but that ‘ Jesus Christ is King’. The church has been reflecting on this for centuries, but I hope there’s always something new to say as we see in each generation what the rule of Christ means in our place and our time. We need to look and see, afresh.    Today I’d like to focus on what one of the criminals on the cross sees.   This is a story we al...

  Proper 26    Luke 21: 5-19   I came across an article this week entitled “What is wrong with the world?”. It gave a few suggestions: -        Tribalism – the sort of nationalism which oppresses others -        The lack of a common vision for good -        Inequality of wealth and resources – which leads to envy and hatred -        Lack of love for people who are ‘not like us’.   I know that the same author has written, too, about the importance for the world of forgiveness, faith in God and love for the widest possible definition of family.   He’s also written one of the hymns in our hymnbook – "O God of earth & altar" – it’s GK Chesterton, author of the Father Brown stories, and a convert to Catholicism. His article ‘what is wrong with the world?’ was written in 1910.   It feels as though there is ...

  Reading one: Luke 6: 20-31 Talk 1 You don’t need me to tell you it’s a difficult time of the year – as the evenings get dark ever more quickly, the weather gets more wintry, and as we face news of the death of loved ones, and our diaries seem to fill up with funerals.   In all that gloom, All Saints Day (which was yesterday) and All Soul’s Day (which is today) shine like a beacon of hope.   We might sometimes feel that saints are people we put on a pedestal, to be looked up to and admired. The sort of people – whether official saints or people we admired – who make us say “we could never be like that”. They were blessed, they were a blessing to us, and when we sing the hymn ‘For all the saints” we sing with real feeling the line   “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine..”.   An extraordinary example is of one of the most recent and youngest saints – St Carlo Acutis: an English-born Italian Catholic who died of leukaemia in 2006, at the age of 1...