Sunday's coming!

Well, yes, 28th Sept come and went & no sermon!! a) I've had a really busy week or two - 5 funerals in 2 weeks is a bit much on top of everything else b) Our internship student, Findy, preached on Sunday (very well!) - so I got something of a day off c) I did do an 8am sermon - but since I wrote it by hand (between Strictly Come Dancing & Casualty on Saturday night) - it never got onto the computer Oh yes, & I was on a conference/retreat Mon-Wed Is that enough excuses?? Must do better this week. Sorry anyone who reads this! But don't the cobwebs look great in the garden? Wish I had a digi camera & I could share them with you. Lovely misty, moisty mornings & then (if we're lucky) - some sun! Off to school harvest festival next...

Parable of workers in the vineyard/Jonah It’s just not fair! It seems that one of the earliest and strongest human emotions is a sense of fairness – listen to any children playing in a park and after a while you are likely to hear ‘it’s not fair.. it’s my turn now’ ‘it’s not fair.. your half is bigger than my half’ ‘it’s not fair.. she started it’. It’s an emotion we never grow out of. Published in the Guardian yesterday (Saturday 20/9/08), Gordon Brown has written a column entitled ‘Fairness is still our guide’ – in which he talked about the current economic situation and spoke of the government’s ‘commitment to fair rules, fair chances and a fair say for all.’ Gordon Brown wants to be known as a man who is fair-minded. Perhaps this is a way of securing votes – since we all want life to be fair. You may know that I happen to have been asked to conduct a number of funerals in the area recently – one here, two in Whittlesford, and this coming week I have one at the crematorium and one i...

With this week's two funerals now done I can turn my thoughts to this week's readings! They are Jonah 3: 10 - 4:11 the bit where God has pity on Nineveh & Jonah gets the hump! Philipians 1: 21-30 Matthew 20:1-16 The parable of the workers in the vineyard The clear link to me seems to be a feeling of 'it;s not fair!' - why should God forgive Nineveh - why should the owner pay his workers the same, being generous to the last to come in - why should God love a rascal as much as a God-fearing Christian. Why should God love me just as much when I'm being a twerp as when I'm having a good day? Why? - because he's God, and he loves us. All. Always. Good News!

This week is going to be a busy one, so I sat down yesterday and thought hard about the service. At one church we have 'creative church', where we are focussing on the parable of the unforgiving servant & the issue of Fair Trade. Below is almost the complete sermon for a communion service where the readings will be Matthew 18:21-35 & Romans 14: 1-12 It feels quite strange to be so ahead of myself - but with a funeral this week & two next week it's probably just as well. Thoughts for Sunday 14th September Today we will be praying for Zimbabwe. It is difficult for us to understand the intricacies of what has gone wrong to the hopes of independence in that country, but all the news from there seems bad. Inflation is astronomically high, which means that everyone’s wages are next to useless. There are terrible shortages of food and fuel, and the country seems riddles with corruption, from ordinary police officers confiscating food from people, to armed men threateni...

Following Christ. On the 21st August, Professor A C Grayling reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, wrote an article in the Guardian about David Miliband’s future political hopes and the fact that he is a declared atheist. ‘It would be a great advantage to everyone to have an atheist prime minister’, states Grayling. His arguments are that an atheist will form decisions based on rational argument, not ‘messages from Beyond’; that an atheist PM will not give special treatment of funding to religious groups, but will treat everyone fairly; and that an atheist will be down to earth about lifting up the poor of society, rather than simply offering them a heavenly reward. All this shouldn’t surprise us from the man who in March 2007 took part in a public debate arguing ‘We’d be better off without religion’. Meanwhile, in the States, Sara Palin, the Republican Vice-presidential candidate, is making a lot of her credentials as a creationist, anti-abortion, fundamentalist Christian....

AC Grayling has apparently written that it will be good for the country if David Miliband becomes PM because he is a declared atheist - this will mean he is interested in earthly, not heavenly matters and that he is more rational. Meanwhile in the States the VP candidate for the Republicans, Sara Palin, is making a lot of her fundamentalist, anti-abortion, creationist view-point. All of which leads me to ask, what does it mean to be a Christian in a world where faith has become a dirty word or a political label? There is something in the gospel reading about the role of the church in helping us discern what to do: our faith can never be purely an individual choice, but has a corporate element which helps us help each other walk with Jesus. Now I must choose hymns for our organists & return to thinking about the sermon tomorrow morning.

Readings for this week are: Ezekiel 33: 7-11 Romans 13: 8-14 Matthew 18: 15-20 A funny little collection of readings, with no real stand out 'stars' among them. But just as we heard about turning back to God in last week's Jeremiah reading, so there seems to be a theme of turning back to God here. So far I'm thinking about September as a 'back to normality' time of year - 'here we go again' - but in the midst of all the picking up of the same old reins there is a sense of being called to stop and ask just where we're headed and with whom. I can't get out of my head the last line from a baptism hymn, which speaks of God 'Calling the world to become what it is'. We should never feel we're on the same old track, because all is shot through with the glory of God. More thoughts as they emerge, I hope...